PART I CHAPTER 1
Boliviaâs political history
Crisis of representation in Bolivia
What do we need to know about Boliviaâs history in order to understand the rise of Evo Morales and the MAS? The most obvious answer is: everything! Only a holistic exploration into the depths of politics, economics, culture and foreign relations will give us the full picture. However, we do not have the time for such an academic exercise and so this section will concentrate on what is most relevant, namely the failure of political parties to represent more than just the interests of a tiny elite.
What are the functions political parties are assumed to fulfil? Put simply, they recruit political leaders, propose (alternative) policies, structure political competition and simplify electoral choices for voters (Dix, 1992). By looking at the functions parties perform, political scientists such as Dalton and Wattenberg (2000) classify them into three broad categories: first, âparties in the electorateâ reduce information costs, make complex political decisions easier, educate citizens by providing political information and mobilize them, at least for electoral purposes. Second, âparties as organizationsâ recruit and train political leadership, and provide structured access to positions of government for elected representatives. By aggregating, articulating, and mediating the interests of the population, parties make the political spectrum more stable and predictable. Third, âparties in governmentâ create parliamentary majorities, implement policies and frame alternatives, organize the government as well as opposition to it, ensure that responsibility is taken for government actions, control government administration, and enhance stability in government.
However, this emphasis on functions has been criticized for rationalizing the patterns of behaviour of Western parties, and for using this generalization as a yardstick. Indeed, Bolivian political parties, aside from contesting elections and forming coalitions in Congress to elect the president, have historically fulfilled few of the functions theoretically attributed to them. The failure of most parties to develop stable roots in society (exceptions are the Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario, or MNR, and MAS) has meant that they have failed to structure political preferences over time, leading to somewhat erratic voting behaviour.
The disconnectedness of parties from society means that we have to look at their relation to the state in order to understand them. This observation, derived from advanced industrialized countries, helps us to see that parties are also a part of the state bureaucracy. Parties have their own interest in surviving and they use the state as a reliable structure of support. This does not necessarily mean that they are corrupt and misuse state resources. The relation can be harmless inasmuch as they support policies that are in their interest, and they would under normal conditions avoid anything that could threaten their existence (Katz and Mair, 1997). Indeed, it is useful to keep in mind that the main rationale for the existence of most political parties in Bolivia is not to represent certain interests but to obtain state resources in the form of public-sector jobs.
Despite some important advances, the return to democracy did not resolve this long-standing problem of the political elite treating the state as their private property while maintaining structural barriers, including more recently âglass ceilingsâ, to exclude especially the indigenous population. This resulted in citizens no longer believing that they were well represented by the existing political parties. In political science terms, there was a âcrisis of representationâ (Mainwaring et al., 2006). The main political parties were perceived as not acting in the interests of those they purported to represent, or for the common good, but rather for the exclusive benefit of a privileged few. This crisis manifested itself in the rise of political outsiders attacking the establishment, electoral volatility, declining confidence in political parties, and the inability of two democratically elected presidents to finish their terms. In Bolivia the failure of the main parties to fulfil their representative functions was one of the reasons for the crisis of representation and the waves of popular protest since 2000.
From revolution to dictatorship to transition: 1952â78
In Bolivian history political parties play a paradoxical role. On the one hand, they are integral to a well-functioning democracy, an essential element of which is the provision of structured means for political participation through interest aggregation and representation. On the other hand, parties have not fulfilled their potential and have sometimes even obstructed moves towards a more democratic political system. Since the beginning of Boliviaâs history of party politics in the 1880s, political parties have functioned according to a âpatrimonial dynamicâ. They have not represented a particular ideology or political project, but rather existed as vehicles to distribute patronage for the middle class. Another good characterization, originally coined for African countries, is politique du ventre (Bayart, 1999), where control over the government meant principally the ability to distribute resources to followers. Not surprisingly, corruption has been singled out by many authors as the main problem in Bolivia.1 This was probably the major cause of popular disenchantment prior to 2005 and has been the only constant in the many different forms of government in Bolivia.
The 1952 revolution was one of the most important events in Bolivian history. It fundamentally altered how Bolivians saw the power relations in their country: that is, those whom they regarded as able to achieve political power and as suitable to hold high office. The reason for this was that under the bourgeois leadership of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, an armed proletariat defeated the oligarchic state of the Rosca (clique) of the Barones de Estaño (tin barons). This was not so different to what happened in 2005, where in the popular imagination complete outsiders, previously depicted as unfit to govern, displaced the establishment. After the revolution, the MNR devised a cogobierno (co-government) with the national workersâ union (Central Obrera Boliviana, COB), intending to mobilize and control the popular masses through corporatism. The 1952 revolution brought universal rights, and freed peasants from social bondage. To this end, the indigenous population of indios were rebaptized campesinos in the official discourse.2 Although the significance of introducing political participation to the indigenous population through universal suffrage should not be underestimated, the revolution meant there would no longer be political competition. An electoral system based on party lists served quite effectively to control candidate selection and political participation, subordinating all candidates to the clientelistic logic of the MNR. This system remained until the 1990s a convenient means for all political parties to control entry to the official political arena. Another key factor was the Agrarian Reform (1953), which gave small plots to peasants in a relatively egalitarian fashion in the highlands. In the sparsely populated tropical zone in the East, the reform favoured landed elites, who did little more than simply rename their haciendas empresas agropecuarias (commercial farms). There was no plan to encourage development of indigenous communities, thereby prolonging the existing stark economic inequalities and limiting the participation of the poor. The 1952 revolution merely replaced outright discrimination against and exclusion of the indigenous and peasant population by more subtle forms.
The MNR was marked by internal contradictions. With its aim of forming an alliance of different classes and constructing a Bolivian nation-state, the MNR was able to attract a range of different, and at times incompatible, interests. Yet Boliviaâs indigenous population has never identified itself with a particular âclassâ and the idea of a class alliance remained more of a theory, while in practice the MNR had a bourgeois leadership. Furthermore, the MNR closed its eyes and ears to the Weltanschauung of its indigenous allies and was highly paternalistic with its goal of assimilating the indios into a Bolivian nation in order to liberate them and remove them as an obstacle to Bolivian development. The MNR nationalized the mines on the demand of the COB, but did not eliminate the influence of foreign capital; and indeed it arranged indemnification for larger companies (Mayorga and Gorman, 1978: 97â9). The MNRâs state capitalist model3 used state intervention in such a manner that the elites benefited disproportionately (Healy, 2001: 43). The clientelism that determined the selection of candidates increased conflict within the party and with the COB, which resisted the economic reforms and was subsequently excluded from power by the MNR. As a consequence of the open opposition of the workers to the government, policymaking became ineffectual and could be overcome only by the use of presidential decrees. Clientelistic, top-down practices let to increased factionalism within the MNR, which in turn hindered consistent voting behaviour in Congress and further contributed to decision-making by presidential decree.
The USA successfully adopted a policy of subtle influence and of exploiting the internal contradictions within the MNR. This steered the MNR to an increasingly orthodox, supply-oriented economic policy with austerity measures, which ultimately ended the fragile class alliance with the COB (Zunes, 2001). Boliviaâs dependence on US aid came at the price of the 1956 stabilization and economic liberalization plan. The open opposition of the workers and internal party factionalism meant that effective policymaking was possible only through the use of presidential decrees. This in turn contributed to clientelistic, top-down practices and obstructed approval of government proposals in Congress. Hence we find that some problems of the contemporary style of politics emerged with the first post-1952 governments. This is hardly surprising given that revolutionary nationalism had been the dominant influence within Bolivian politics over the past fifty years.
Bolivian nationalism: a brief history
In order to understand contemporary politics, but especially everything that refers to the Bolivian nation or âplurinationalismâ of MAS, we have to examine first the nationalist ideas of the MNR (the so-called modelo asimilacionalista). The MNR was part of Latin Americaâs ânational-popularâ wave of the 1940s and 1950s, when populist movements raised the issues of social transformation and economic development in terms of the relationship between class dynamics and the nation. The articulation by the MNR of a ânational popularâ political imaginary is a useful instance of the relationship between populism and nationalism, because it shows how a nationalist discourse can be articulated according to a populist logic.
Origins of Bolivian nationalism
The Chaco War with Paraguay (1932â35) created for the first time a sort of national consciousness with revolutionary characteristics. It destroyed the old feudal order, because it showed the âpoor organization of the country and the irresponsibility of its leaders, in a time when it was possible for Bolivians of different classes and regions to meet as brothersâ (RolĂłn Anaya, 1999: 196). Unsettling as it was, the loss of the war provided the basis for the creation of a sense of a shared nationhood since it âgalvanized a process of rethinking and recreating new political projects concerned with nation-buildingâ (Domingo, 2003: 368). It was articulated as an âimagined communityâ (Anderson, 1983) of all ex-combatants and their relatives who had come into contact with others from similar rural-indigenous origins through the mobilization of the war. Furthermore, the war created a shared sense of despair, defeat and humiliation among the population.
This was the starting point for a collective recognition of being equal with a shared frustration at socio-economic marginalization and political subjugation. At the time, nationalism was the discourse of the leftist opposition, of mainly middle-class intellectuals, to what they described as the âoligarchicâ state of the La Rosca (clique) of Barones del Estaño (tin barons). However, the first nationalist governments of David Torro (1936â37) and German Busch (an ex-Chaco War combatant, 1937â39), who nationalized the Standard Oil Company, were rather short-lived.
The 1952 revolution and nacionalismo revolucionario4
The high tide of Bolivian nationalism was the period of the MNR governments between 1952 and 1964, although its legacy is still felt today. The MNR (founded in 1942) put into practice its nacionalismo revolucionario with the 1952 revolution, which was defined as the ânational, anti-feudal and anti-colonialâ vehicle to transform national society. As Whitehead (2003: 41â2) argues, the 1952 revolution was a social âdialectical processâ that âreordered Boliviaâs collective understandings of relations of powerâ and âexpressed a clash of ideas about fundamental issue of national identityâ. It developed a hold on the popular imagination, and elements of its discourse remain in evidence still. These include the construction of a basic antagonism between ânationalism and colonialismâ (Montenegro, 1990), also articulated as nationalists versus imperialists.
The title of the first manifesto of the MNR was unequivocal in its construction of an antagonism: Nosotros frente a los traidores, âUs against the traitorsâ (in Arze Cuadros, 2002: Annex 3). Similarly, MNR co-founder Augusto CĂ©spedes (1956) stated: there are âtwo sides of the barricadesâ â the oligarchy and latifundistas (La Rosca) on one side, and the oppressed, popular classes on the other. The MNR wanted to liberate the âoppressed majorityâ from âslaveryâ that was sustained by a system of âinternalâ and âexternal colonialismâ (Bases y Principios del MNR, 1942; in Arze Cuadros, 2002: 604â43). For MNRâs founders such as Montenegro, CĂ©spedes and Paz Estenssorro, the MNR tried to unite many different interests in a ânational front of oppressed classesâ against the âcommon enemyâ of the âanti-nationalâ, âmining and latifundista oligarchyâ (CĂ©spedes, 1956) by constructing a âmulti-class allianceâ (Paz Estenssorro, 1955).
Remarkably, the MNR articulated its aim as recuperar la naciĂłn (ârefound the nationâ), which is now a centrepiece of MASâs rhetoric, albeit directed against the nation constructed by the MNR. The parallels do not end here: both discourses endeavour to refound the nation in order to end a system of âinternalâ and âexternalâ colonialism. Agents of internal colonialism are in either âthe oligarchyâ or the âoligarchic traditional partiesâ (Bases y Principios del MNR, 1942; in Arze Cuadros, 2002: 629) and both parties present themselves as broad movements of victims of internal colonialism. With respect to external actors, both discourses attack âimperialismâ and âinternal financial consortiums/instituti...