A psychoanalytic interpretation of constitutional instability in Ecuador

Ecuador’s constitutional history reflects this country’s long run of political instability. Constituent Assemblies (CAs), convened by non-democratic and democratic leaders alike, have been mobilized 19 times to rewrite its constitution. This thesis contributes to our understanding of this volatility by offering a psychoanalytic interpretation of constitutional instability in Ecuador. Existing literature on constitutional instability focuses on legal, economic, and institutionalist explanations. However, while important, these accounts do not sufficiently elucidate the way Ecuador’s political elites are affectively invested in such constitutional ‘abolition-replacement events’. Drawing on archives, I conduct a discourse analysis of their ‘ideological grip’, focusing on the 1869 and 2007–2008 CAs, as well as the 2015 reform that abolished presidential term limits, processes influenced by Presidents García Moreno, Alfaro, and Correa. Freud conjectures that the guilt for the killing of the father of the primal horde returns through the fantasy of Messiahs, capable of delivering redemption and the promised land. Drawing on this conjecture alongside Lacanian insights, I argue that Ecuador’s long-lasting history of political instability has fostered a culture prone to supporting messianic leaders, that is, lawgivers whose personages have been invested with the hope and aspiration of perpetual stability, epitomized by the setting up of CAs themselves. The affective pull of ‘messianic leadership’ in the constitutional politics of Ecuador can emerge out of the perceived need for political stability; and yet this messianism can also be understood as something that emerges out of the process of identification itself (with the father figure) and the quest for the lost object (the mother figure). In both cases, my argument foregrounds the psychic dimension underpinning constitutional instability in Ecuador. This thesis relies on a rhetorically informed interpretive methodology to identify this psychic dimension, pointing to the merits of applying psychoanalysis beyond the clinic to better grasp and contextualize it.