Turning the Tide: Revolutionary Potential and the Limits of Bolivia's 'Process of Change'

2021

Historical Materialism, 2008

Th is article presents a broad analysis of the political economy and dynamics of social change during the first year ( January 2006–January 2007) of the Evo Morales government in Bolivia. It situates this analysis in the wider historical context of left-indigenous insurrection between 2000 and 2005, the changing character of contemporary capitalist imperialism, and the resurgence of anti-neoliberalism and anti-imperialism elsewhere in Latin America. It considers at a general level the overarching dilemmas of revolution and reform. Part II of this three-part essay addresses four major themes. First, it reviews the literature on revolution in contemporary Bolivia. Second, it explains why the 2000 to 2005 period is best conceived as a revolutionary epoch in which left-indigenous social forces were engaged in a combined liberation struggle against racial oppression and class exploitation. However, it argues that this revolutionary epoch has not led to social revolution. Third it examines in detail the electoral rise of Evo Morales and his Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Towards Socialism, MAS) party in the December 2005 elections. Fourth, it explores the historical trajectory of the MAS in terms of its hanging class composition, ideology, and political strategies since the party’s inception in the late 1990s.

Rethinking Latin American Social Movements Radical Action from Below , 2014

Changing the world through the state? The question of how to deal with the state has been central for social movements and political philosophers preoccupied with bringing about (or blocking) social change. Theorists and revolutionaries ever since the times of the October Revolution have tried to provide different responses to it. For Lenin and Trotsky (Lenin 1917; Trotsky 1930), during what they call “revolutionary epochs” we often notice the rise of an antagonist to state power (a kind of “constituent power”), “a power directly based on revolutionary seizure, on the direct initiative of the people from below, and not on a law enacted by a centralised state power.” (Lenin 1917) This condition is defined as dual power1 (or dual sovereignty -dvoevlasty) and for Lenin and Trotsky it is temporary; ultimately, the rising people’s power is expected to take over the state apparatus, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat through a vanguard Communist Party, and after an indefinite period of time dissolve the state in order to create the classless, stateless society that Karl Marx is describing as the ultimate goal of communism. According to anarchist thought, the problem of dual power has to be resolved the other way round, with the withering away of the state and its replacement by the autonomous, self-governing structures that will have been developed in the meantime by the people from below without the intervening ‘dictatorship of the proletariat” phase. The dictatorship of the proletariat is viewed as reproducing the same unequal power relations differing only in regard to the fact that it is a vanguard Communist party in power this time. The Marxist-Leninist view predominated amongst revolutionary movements of the past, especially in Latin America, which -inspired by the Cuban revolution and the electoral success of Allende- tried to change the world by seizing the apparatuses of the state either through revolution or through elections. More recently, with the coming (or return) to power of “left-wing” political parties in Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brasil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Nicaragua) as well as with the wide resonance of movements that do not target state power (with the Zapatistas being the most prominent example) the question of the state is again generating a great deal of heated debate amongst activists and academics. Based on the aforementioned experiences, John Holloway (2010b), Raquel Gutiérrez (2008), and Raúl Zibechi (2012; 2010) maintain that the state is not the tool for emancipatory social change, precisely because by its nature it simply reproduces the vertical power-relations of the past. For James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer on the other hand, controlling and restructuring the state apparatus in a revolutionary manner is the only way of bringing about social change; but it should not be done through electoral means because they sustain electoral politics is a game designed in such a way to be a “trap for social movements” (2009) leading to their bureaucratization and institutionalization. George Ciccariello-Maher, in a recent book on the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela (2013), argues in favor of a dual power that exists in a tense and antagonistic relation with the state, which in its own turn enters a process of gradually self-dissolving itself from above and with its own initiative until it becomes a “nonstate”. Venezuelan activist Roland Denis maintains however that the Bolivarian revolution, contrary to its radical rhetoric, has become a “sustained petite-bourgeoisie in a massive popular mobilisation supporting the revolution, but totally contrary to the demand for power de-concentration, transparency and the people’s movement’s direct participation in public power” (Denis 2014) and has reinforced rather than dissolved state power. When it comes to the contemporary Bolivian case, it seems that what the country’s Vice president Álvaro García Linera at least is advocating for, is a kind of dual power of a less temporary character under which the state appartus is subordinated to the movements that brought the MAS to power (Rockefeller 2007, 174) and socialism is deferred for the distant future, perhaps in 50 or 100 years (García Linera 2014). In the meantime, the “dual power situation” in which Bolivia has found itself has to reach its “bifurcation point that consolidates a new political system or re-establishes the old one (a combination of parliamentary forces, alliances, and changing government procedures) and reconstitutes the symbolic order of state power (the ideas that guide social life)” (García Linera 2010,36). Additionally, García Linera argues in a Gramscian logic that it is the “indigenous-popular pole” that “should consolidate its hegemony, providing intellectual and moral leadership of the country’s social majorities (García Linera 2006).” This chapter will contribute to this discussion. Examining the relationship of Bolivia’s MAS with the movements that brought it to state power, as well as the participation of people with a social movement background in Evo Morales’ different cabinets, we argue that –at least in the Bolivian case- in this peculiar dual power situation it is actually the movements that are being subordinated to the state and not the other way round as the country’s Vicepresident is claiming. In addition, during the cycle of protest of 2000-2005 that eventually brought the MAS to power, the protagonists of the mobilizations, the “multitude” as Álvaro García Linera refers to it, using Hardt and Negri’s term, had practically rejected both representative democracy as a governing system, and the ‘party’ as a form of organization. And it did so both in rhetoric and in practice, through the horizontal, assemblyist, direct democracy and communitarian organizational practices it adopted during the Water and Gas Wars of Cochabamba and El Alto. Even the cocaleros of Chapare who had a more trade union type of organization, with a centralized predominantly male leadership (Farthing and Kohl 2010, 199), used to self-govern themselves through a form of radical democracy “in which all members of the community meet to debate, decide, and enact their laws.” (Grisaffi 2013, 3) All those radical democratic experiences seem to have been replaced by the vertical and at times authoritarian structures and processes of the government, while the ‘party’ has returned as the main agent of change in Bolivia, replacing the movements and the peoples, as it has also happened in other ‘pink tide’ experiences as Zibechi (2012) has analyzed.

Ethnohistory

Historical Materialism, 2008

Th is article, which will appear in three parts over three issues of Historical Materialism, presents a broad analysis of the political economy and dynamics of social change during the first year(January 2006–January 2007) of the Evo Morales government in Bolivia. It situates this analysis in the wider historical context of left-indigenous insurrection between 2000 and 2005, the class structure of the country, the changing character of contemporary capitalist imperialism, and the resurgence of anti-neoliberalism and anti-imperialism elsewhere in Latin America. It considers, at a general level, the overarching dilemmas of revolution and reform. These considerations are then grounded in analyses of the 2000–5 revolutionary epoch, the 18 December 2005 elections, the social origins and trajectory of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) as a party, the complexities of the relationship between indigenous liberation and socialist emancipation, the process of the Constituent Assembly, the political economy of natural gas and oil, the rise of an autonomist right-wing movement, US imperialism, and Bolivia’s relations with Venezuela and Cuba. The central argument is that the economic policies of the new government exhibit important continuities with the inherited neoliberal model and that advancing the project of indigenous liberation and socialist emancipation will require renewed self-activity, self-organisation and strategic mobilisation of popular left-indigenous forces autonomous from the MAS government.

Social Movements and Development in Bolivia, 2013

Providing us with a historicisation and contextualization of Bolivia’s development of an alternative development model to neoliberalism, this paper engages with the rise in prominence of the country’s social movements and the concurrent rise of Evo Morales’ MAS party to power during the period of 2000-2005. This approach, the author argues, reflects a neostructuralist take on development, governance and political economy. The relationship between the State and Bolivia’s social movements is established and analysed, with the centrality of the latter receiving special attention. Overall, this work provides both an important grounding and analysis in the forces that have shaped the Bolivian national agenda under the MAS.

2013

Providing us with a historicisation and contextualization of Bolivia’s development of an alternative development model to neoliberalism, this paper engages with the rise in prominence of the country’s social movements and the concurrent rise of Evo Morales’ MAS party to power during the period of 2000-2005. This approach, the author argues, reflects a neostructuralist take on development, governance and political economy. The relationship between the State and Bolivia’s social movements is established and analysed, with the centrality of the latter receiving special attention. Overall, this work provides both an important grounding and analysis in the forces that have shaped the Bolivian national agenda under the MAS.

Historical Materialism, 2008

Th is article presents a broad analysis of the political economy and dynamics of social change during the fi rst year (January 2006–January 2007) of the Evo Morales government in Bolivia. It situates this analysis in the wider historical context of left-indigenous insurrection between 2000 and 2005, the changing character of contemporary capitalism imperialism, and the resurgence of anti-neoliberalism and anti-imperialism elsewhere in Latin America. It considers at a general level the overarching dilemmas of revolution and reform. Part III examines the complexities of the politics of indigenous liberation and the political economy of the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Towards Socialism, MAS) government between January 2006 and January 2007. It pays special attention to the limits of reform in the hydrocarbons (natural gas and oil) sector. Also explained in Part III is the formation of an autonomist right-wing movement in the eastern lowlands, and how the new Right has intervened in the process of the Constituent Assembly. The article shows how the actual Constituent Assembly set into motion by the Morales administration in 2006 differs in fundamental terms from the revolutionary assembly envisioned by leading left-indigenous forces during the cycle of revolt in the first five years of this century.

Dialectical Anthropology, 2011

In Bolivia, there is a growing conflict between indigenous peoples and multinational corporations, particularly those in extractive industries. Evo Morales's government is in the middle of the conflict and that makes the ongoing political situation very confusing. The ambiguity derives from the fact that the popular mobilizations did not go far enough; they were not sufficient to reconstitute a stable, alternative form of political rule.

Latin American Perspectives, 2013

""Bolivia is living a moment of transition that has raised expectations of a profound transformation of the state–civil-society relationship and of conflict dynamics. The Movimiento al Socialismo has promoted the direct participation of previously excluded sectors in public affairs and the integration of the traditional practices of indigenous groups into formal institutional structures. The heterogeneity of its ruling coalition has posed serious challenges with regard to the management of potential tensions among diverse social sectors. A key role in the promotion of a hegemonic project is played by discourse. Conflict is structured in terms of a strong, self-reinforcing set of narratives about crucial aspects of social life, among them the identification of external enemies and the generation of new merging categories that invent new collective subjects. This rhetorical strategy has not, however, been able to eliminate the oppositional politics of Bolivian social movements. Bolivia vive un momento de transición que ha aumentado las expectativas de una profunda transformación de la relación Estado–sociedad-civil y de la dinámica del conflicto. El Movimiento al Socialismo ha promovido la participación directa de sectores antes excluidos de los asuntos públicos, así como la integración de prácticas tradicionales de grupos indígenas en las estructuras institucionales formales. La heterogeneidad de su coalición gobernante plantea desafíos serios con respecto al manejo de tensiones potenciales entre diversos sectores sociales. Un papel clave en la promoción de un proyecto hegemónico lo juega el discurso. El conflicto se estructura por medio de fuertes narrativas auto-reforzadas acerca de aspectos cruciales de la vida social, entre ellas la identificación de los enemigos externos y la generación de nuevas categorías emergentes que inventan nuevos sujetos colectivos. Esta estrategia retórica, sin embargo, no ha podido eliminar la política opositora de los movimientos sociales bolivianos.""