Political Report # 1413 It's not just Brazil's Amazon rainforest that's ablaze - Bolivian fires are threatening people and wildlife

by Claire F.R. Wordley,  The Conversation

Up to 800,000 hectares of the unique Chiquitano forest were burned to the ground in Bolivia between August 18 and August 23. That's more forest than is usually destroyed across the country in two years. Experts say that it will take at least two centuries to repair the ecological damage done by the fires, while at least 500 species are said to be at risk from the flames. The Chiquitano dry forest in Bolivia was the largest healthy tropical dry forest in the world. It's now unclear whether it will retain that status. The forest is home to Indigenous peoples as well as iconic wildlife such as jaguars, giant armadillos, and tapirs. Some species in the Chiquitano are found nowhere else on Earth. Distressing photographs and videos from the area show many animals have burned to death in the recent fires.

Abstract, Extraction, Revolution, Plurinationalism: Rethinking Extractivism from Bolivia

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Extraction, Revolution, Plurinationalism: Rethinking Extractivism from Bolivia

by Andrea Marston and Amy Kennemore

With the ratification of its new constitution in 2009, Bolivia was transformed into a “plurinational state” associated with ecologically oriented values, yet resource extraction has expanded ever since. Fieldwork conducted in communities in highland Bolivia shows how resource extraction sustains and is sustained by “revolutionary narratives” in which the state—led by President Evo Morales—is configured as the protagonist of the plurinational era. Examination of the challenges presented by Bolivia’s indigenous communities and mining cooperatives to this revolutionary narrative during the 2014 adoption of new mining legislation suggests that shifting critical focus away from revolutionary change toward what David Scott calls the “politics of the present” might be a more fruitful way to think about the relationship between resource extraction and Bolivia’s plurinationalism.

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Abstract, The Frustrated Nationalization of Hydrocarbons and the Plunder of Bolivia

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The Frustrated Nationalization of Hydrocarbons and the Plunder of Bolivia

by Jeppe Krommes-Ravnsmed

Evo Morales came to power in Bolivia after the gas war and a subsequent rebellion that overthrew two presidents in 2003 and 2005. However, the promised nationalization of hydrocarbons remained on paper, and a new extractivist offensive was launched that deepened processes of accumulation by dispossession. Plunder, environmental devastation, and recolonization of indigenous territories have increased because of different factors that are dialectically interrelated: (1) the 2006 oil contracts, which allowed transnationals to retain a dominant position in the sector; (2) the challenge of finding new gas reserves to maintain the current export volume; (3) the country’s substantial dependence on hydrocarbon revenues to maintain public expenditure levels, given that the productive matrix remains unchanged; and (4) the political degeneration of the Movimiento al Socialismo. However, there is no political and discursive coherence: the government conceals its policy behind a revolutionary discourse.

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Abstract, Walking the Tightrope of Socialist Governance: A Strategic-Relational Analysis of Twenty-first-Century Socialism

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Walking the Tightrope of Socialist Governance: A Strategic-Relational Analysis of Twenty-first-Century Socialism
by Marcel Nelson




The process of socialist transformation in a democratic context presents many quandaries including walking a tightrope between pursuing substantive transformation that challenges existing social relations and remaining in power in view of political opposition stemming from such a challenge. The experiences of twenty-first-century socialism in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela provide different examples of ways of balancing the two imperatives. Nicos Poulantzas’s writings on the state shed light on the importance of deepening democracy as part of any process of socialist transformation and on the limits of such a strategy.

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Abstract, Constructing Indigenous Autonomy in Plurinational Bolivia: Possibilities and Ambiguities

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Constructing Indigenous Autonomy in Plurinational Bolivia: Possibilities and Ambiguities 
by Aaron Augsburger and Paul Haber 


The municipality of Charagua recently became the first autonomía indígena originaria campesina (autonomous indigenous peasant community) in Bolivia under the 2009 plurinational constitution. A coalition of indigenous leaders backed by a majority of voters embraced the change as a vehicle for bolstering local control over key decisions, thereby advancing local preferences for indigenous forms of governance, values, and control over the development model with special attention to natural resources. The possibility remains, however, that it may operate to incorporate the indigenous community into the governing apparatus, thus making it more legible to the state and open to new forms of regulation, management, and control. Examining the state as a historically contingent and socially determined relationship helps make sense of this situation.

Book review, Subsoil Politics: Extraction, Nationalism, and Protest in Bolivia and Peru

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Subsoil Politics: Extraction, Nationalism, and Protest in Bolivia and Peru
by Andrea Marston


Blood of the Earth: Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia.
Kevin A. Young Blood of the Earth: Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia.Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017.

Resource Extraction and Protest in Peru
Moisés Arce Resource Extraction and Protest in Peru. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014

Abstract, Indigenous Peoples and the New Extraction: From Territorial Rights to Hydrocarbon Citizenship in the Bolivian Chaco

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Indigenous Peoples and the New Extraction: From Territorial Rights to Hydrocarbon Citizenship in the Bolivian Chaco
by Penelope Anthias 


A growing body of literature examines how the rise of “neo-extractivist” states in Latin America is reconfiguring the relationship between resources, nation, territory, and citizenship. However, the implications for indigenous territorial projects remain underexplored. Ethnographic research in the Bolivian Chaco reveals the ways in which indigenous territorial projects are becoming implicated in and being reimagined amidst the spatializing struggles of a hydrocarbon state. The tension between indigenous peoples’ desire for inclusion in a hydrocarbon-based national development project and their experiences of dispossession by an expanding hydrocarbon frontier has given rise to competing modes of “hydrocarbon citizenship” in the Guaraní territory Itika Guasu, where a vision of corporate-sponsored indigenous autonomy is pitted against new forms of state-funded development patronage. These dynamics challenge resistance narratives and resource-curse theories, revealing how resources act as conduits for deeper postcolonial struggles over territory, sovereignty, and citizenship.

Abstract, Foreign Direct Investment Policy and Development in Bolivia under Morales

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Foreign Direct Investment Policy and Development in Bolivia under Morales
by María J. Paz and Juan M. Ramírez-Cendrero


Since 2006, Bolivia has made major changes to its economic policy and development strategy, especially with regard to the treatment of foreign capital. Analysis of the change in foreign direct investment policy as applied to the oil and gas industry reveals that it has produced greater state involvement in and control of oil revenues but no great strides in gas investment, production, or industrialization. This result contributes to the current debate on whether foreign direct investment policy is the best means of development for resource-rich countries.

Political Report # 1345 How US Civil Law Is Being Used to Bring Human-Rights Abuses to Court

By Linda Farthing, The Nation Linda is also a LAP editor

Two weeks after the verdict in a landmark human-rights case in Fort Lauderdale, Thomas Becker was still excited. “This is a historic victory,” the attorney said. “This case shows that you can be a poor person and stand up for human rights, justice and social change. And you can win.” Becker was talking about the early April jury decision in a civil trial that has significantly boosted the reach of US human-rights law against foreign government officials.  The events in the case took place 15 years ago and thousands of miles away from the US district federal courtroom in downtown Fort Lauderdale where the trial played out. For three weeks in March, the families of people killed by the Bolivian military during a 2003 country-wide uprising testified against former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his minister of defense Carlos Sánchez Berzaín. The verdict finally came back on April 3: The case marks the first time that an ex-head of state was forced to face his accusers in a US court for human-rights abuses. The tragedy began with a government proposal to construct a pipeline: The plan was to increase exports of the landlocked country’s immense natural gas reserves-at the time the second largest in South America-by piping the gas through Bolivia on to Chile, the country’s long-time adversary. Across the country, large swathes of the population saw the proposal as one more instance of a long and painful history of foreigners stealing the country’s natural resources and territory. Protests were most intense in the highlands, where the largely indigenous city of El Alto blocked food and fuel destined for the city of La Paz, which sits in a basin below. The coalition government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, popularly known as Goni, who had won his second term with the help of US Democratic Party election consultants, declared a state of siege and militarized El Alto and surrounding areas. Once the dust settled, around 60 people had been killed and over 400 wounded, almost every one of them working class people of Aymara indigenous heritage. All of the case’s plaintiffs lost family in the uprising; many of them lost elderly parents or young children. “Even though it took 15 years, we never gave up hope that we would get our day in court,” said Teófilo Baltazar, one of the nine plaintiffs. His wife who was five months pregnant was shot to death through the wall of their home. Felicidad Rosa Huanca Quispe, from a small community south of La Paz where protestors were blocking roads, was preparing lunch for her five children on October 13, 2003, when her 69-year-old father Raúl Ramon headed to a nearby corner shop to buy a soft drink. On the stand in the Fort Lauderdale courtroom, dressed in the wide skirts that characterize Aymara women, she began to sob uncontrollably as she told the court, “the military shot him in two places and killed him.”

Political Report # 1339 How US Civil Law is Being Used to Bring Human Rights Abuses to Court

by Linda Farthing, The Nation

Two weeks after the verdict in a landmark human-rights case in Fort Lauderdale, Thomas Becker was still excited. "This is a historic victory," the attorney said. "This case shows that you can be a poor person and stand up for human rights, justice and social change. And you can win." Becker was talking about the early April jury decision in a civil trial that has significantly boosted the reach of US human-rights law against foreign government officials. The events in the case took place 15 years ago and thousands of miles away from the US district federal courtroom in downtown Fort Lauderdale where the trial played out. For three weeks in March, the families of people killed by the Bolivian military during a 2003 country-wide uprising testified against former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his minister of defense Carlos Sánchez Berzaín. The verdict finally came back on April 3: The case marks the first time that an ex-head of state was forced to face his accusers in a US court for human-rights abuses. The tragedy began with a government proposal to construct a pipeline: The plan was to increase exports of the landlocked country's immense natural gas reserves-at the time the second largest in South America-by piping the gas through Bolivia on to Chile, the country's long-time adversary. Across the country, large swathes of the population saw the proposal as one more instance of a long and painful history of foreigners stealing the country's natural resources and territory. Protests were most intense in the highlands, where the largely indigenous city of El Alto blocked food and fuel destined for the city of La Paz, which sits in a basin below. The coalition government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, popularly known as Goni, who had won his second term with the help of US Democratic Party election consultants, declared a state of siege and militarized El Alto and surrounding areas.

Abstract, Between Public and Private Media: Toward a Definition of “Community Media”

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Between Public and Private Media: Toward a Definition of “Community Media”
By Mauro Cerbino and Francesca Belotti


Constitutional reforms in Ecuador and Bolivia and the subsequent laws on communications have opened up the media space to new social and political actors: public and community media. While the former tend to be associated with the state in form and with governments in substance, the latter are not clearly defined and occupy a place in the midst of the hegemonic struggle between the public and private sectors to enable citizens to actively intervene in the competition for shaping public opinion. It is therefore necessary to lay the groundwork for a definition of “community media” that includes both its legal and sociopolitical dimensions. Indeed, operationalizing such a definition might allow community media to recognize themselves in it and to take the measures required to fully project themselves as subjects of the law.

Abstract, Bolivia and Its Transformations in the Light of “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America”

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Bolivia and Its Transformations in the Light of “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America”
by Gabriela Canedo Vásquez


Bolivia has become a plurinational state, and as such it seeks to dismantle the deeply ingrained internal colonialism that runs through the state and the society. Thus it recognizes self-determination by indigenous people, autonomous territories, plural economy and justice, communal democracy, and suma qamaña (living well) and identifies the indigenous as the main actors in the transformation process, sidelining both the working and the middle classes. Some of the contradictions at its core include views of development that range from extractivism to environmentalism and living well. The government claims to be oriented toward communitarian socialism, but developmentalism will entail the destruction of indigenous modes of survival that are considered culturally rich but backward from a Western perspective. The central indigenous actor of current government discourse has been pushed aside. The Bolivian process presents a way of building a more equal state and a society that offers greater opportunities provided that these structural contradictions are resolved.

Political Report # 1274 Why is Evo Morales Reviving Bolivia’s Controversial TIPNIS Road?

By Emily Achtenberg. NACLA

On August 13, President Evo Morales promulgated a new law ending the special "untouchable" status of the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS) in the Bolivian Amazon, and allowing construction of a controversial highway through the reserve. Almost six years earlier to the day (on August 15, 2011), some 1,000 indigenous TIPNIS residents and their supporters began a 360-mile trek from the Amazon lowlands to La Paz to protest Morales's inauguration of the proposed 182-mile road, whose central segment would bisect the 4,630 square mile reserve. The TIPNIS, doubly "protected" as an indigenous territory and a national park since 1990, is the ancestral homeland of the Chimáne, Yuracaré, and Moxeño- Trinitario peoples, who collectively own most of its land. Some 8,000-12,500 native indigenous subsist on fishing, hunting, and foraging activities throughout the park, which is among the most biodiverse regions in the world. In a spectacle that shocked the nation, the march was brutally repressed by police at Chaparina, leaving at least 70 wounded. In the wake of the tragedy, Morales agreed to cancel the road. In October 2011, he signed a law banning its construction and protecting the reserve as an "untouchable" zone. This effectively put the road on hold-even after a bitterly-contested government-sponsored consulta concluded that 80% of the TIPNIS communities polled supported it. The TIPNIS conflict, which pitted pro-road campesino and cocalero (coca grower) sectors against dissident lowland indigenous groups, is widely viewed as a turning point in Bolivia's "process of change." It profoundly altered the country's political and social landscape by rupturing the Unity Pact, the insurgent alliance of social movements that brought Morales to power in 2005. It exposed the contradictions of Morales's global championship of indigenous and environmental rights while promoting destructive projects at home. It also sparked a new grassroots resistance to the extractivist development model which has increasingly challenged Morales and the ruling MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) party.

Book Review, Changing Dynamics in Bolivia

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Changing Dynamics in Bolivia
by Linda Farthing

Unresolved Tensions: Bolivia, Past and Present

Crabtree John & Whitehead Laurence (eds.). Unresolved Tensions: Bolivia, Past and Present. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.

The Bolivian Revolution and the United States, 1952 to the Present

Siekmeier James F. The Bolivian Revolution and the United States, 1952 to the Present. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.

Along the Bolivian Highway: Social Mobility and Political Culture in a New Middle Class

Shakow Miriam Along the Bolivian Highway: Social Mobility and Political Culture in a New Middle Class. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

Mobilizing Bolivia’s Displaced: Indigenous Politics and the Struggle over Land

Fabricant Nicole Mobilizing Bolivia’s Displaced: Indigenous Politics and the Struggle over Land. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia

Webber Jeffrey Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia. Chicago: Haymarket, 2011.

Bolivia’s recent trajectory toward greater inclusion of its indigenous majority has brought more scholarly attention to the Andean country than in any previous era. The five books reviewed here, published between 2008 and 2014, reflect this international interest in what Evo Morales’s government calls the “process of change.” Three of the books address political economy broadly speaking, and the other two are anthropological studies of two groups—the emerging middle class in the provincial town of Sacaba, outside Cochabamba, and the landless workers in the eastern lowlands in Santa Cruz. Taken together they consider Bolivia from the national political and economic scale to the specificity of daily life.

Political Report # 1263 The State of the Left in Latin America: Ecuador and Bolivia After the Pink Tide

By Linda Farthing and Thea N. Riofrancos,  NACLA

Bolivian President Evo Morales (left) and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa (right) meet in Cochabamba in 2013. (flickr / Fernanda LeMarie) As rightwing governments take power in Argentina, Brazil, and elsewhere across the region, Ecuador's leftwing Alianza País (Country Alliance, AP) and Bolivia's Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Towards Socialism, MAS) and Bolivia have managed to hold onto power. Despite early gains in poverty reduction and social mobility, the left wing in both countries has faltered in recent years, since the end of the commodity boom and an economic downturn has led to a decrease in social spending and services among popular classes. Meanwhile, an ongoing reliance on extractive industries has driven wedges between social and indigenous movements and their governments who rely on transnational capital and megaprojects to finance their state vision - a vision that these movements see as increasingly disconnected from their own. In Ecuador, President Lenín Moreno, once Rafael Correa's Vice President, scraped an electoral victory this Spring, as his party faces contradictions and clashes with social movements that Correa's government increasingly repressed. In Bolivia, the once-wildly popular Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous president, has also embraced extractivism, losing the support of the social bases that brought him to power. In this panel discussion, Thea Riofrancos, Professor of Political Science at Providence College and Linda Farthing, an independent researcher based in Bolivia, discuss the current state of the left in these two Andean countries. Thea Riofrancos on Ecuador: Althougth Lenin Moreno managed to win his election campaign, his Left party and the party of former president Rafael Correa, Alianza Pais (AP), no longer enjoys a legislative supermajority and has lost several important elections at the municipal and provincial levels.

Political Report # 1260 Dying and Drying: The Case of Bolivia's Lake Poopó

By Clayton Whitt | NACLA

I have never seen Lake Poopó from up close. The last time I tried to reach the lakeshore, I could not find it. I made my last attempt in June 2014 while carrying out anthropological field research in the municipality of El Choro, in Bolivia's Altiplano region, the high plain of the central Andes. Lake Poopó, the principal body of water in the region, is the terminus of the Desaguadero River, which drains Lake Titicaca and much of the northern high plain. El Choro's municipal territory is located between the Desaguadero's two main channels and stretches down to the northern shores of the shallow, salty lake. After 15 kilometers on improvised cross-country tracks, I was surrounded by an almost otherworldly parched and plantless landscape.So I thought it was simple: just head south on my bicycle from the capital village of El Choro until reaching the lakeshore. After 15 kilometers on improvised cross-country tracks, I was surrounded by an almost otherworldly parched and plantless landscape. Five kilometers later, there was still no water in sight. Disheartened by the sight of dusty whirlwinds yet ahead, I turned back. The presence - and lack thereof- of this disappeared lake loomed over my research. In meetings and casual conversations, people in El Choro expressed great concern over the health of the lake and the impact of pollution and falling water levels on the local fishing industry. But it was not until just after I left, in November 2014, that the lake made headlines with two pieces of startling news. First, Lake Poopó suffered a massive fauna die-off in November 2014. Then, a year later, it was reported to be completely dry. The lake had suffered a potentially fatal one-two punch. Why did this happen? Will Lake Poopó ever come back? The Lake Dies, Then Dries What happened to Lake Poopó in 2014 and 2015 was probably not a surprise to anyone who had been attentive to its deteriorating condition. As the La Paz-based newspaper Página Siete wrote in an editorial following the December 2015 drying event, "Although it has caused great impact and alarm, the disappearance of Lake Poopó...was not unexpected news." I heard warning after warning in 2014 from people in El Choro that the lake and its watershed were in bad condition, mostly due to discharges from upstream mines.

Book Review, The Topsy-Turvy Path to Twenty-first-Century Socialism. The Limitations of the New Left in Latin America

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The Topsy-Turvy Path to Twenty-first-Century Socialism. The Limitations of the New Left in Latin America 
by Nicole Fabricant

Book Review:
Latin America’s Turbulent Transitions: The Future of Twenty-first-Century Socialism.
by Roger Burbach, Michael Fox, Federico Fuentes
London and New York: Zed Books, 2013.

Book, Evo's Bolivia: Continuity and Change

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Evo's Bolivia: Continuity and Change
by Linda C. Farthing and Benjamin H. Kohl

In this compelling and comprehensive look at the rise of Evo Morales and Bolivia's Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), Linda Farthing and Benjamin Kohl offer a thoughtful evaluation of the transformations ushered in by the western hemisphere's first contemporary indigenous president. Accessible to all readers, Evo's Bolivia not only charts Evo's rise to power but also offers a history of and context for the MAS revolution's place in the rising "pink tide" of the political left. Farthing and Kohl examine the many social movements whose agendas have set the political climate in Bolivia and describe the difficult conditions the administration inherited. They evaluate the results of Evo's policies by examining a variety of measures, including poverty; health care and education reform; natural resources and development; and women's, indigenous, and minority rights. Weighing the positive with the negative, the authors offer a balanced assessment of the results and shortcomings of the first six years of the Morales administration.

At the heart of this book are the voices of Bolivians themselves. Farthing and Kohl interviewed women and men in government, in social movements, and on the streets throughout the country, and their diverse backgrounds and experiences offer a multidimensional view of the administration and its progress so far. Ultimately the "process of change" Evo promised is exactly that: an ongoing and complicated process, yet an important example of development in a globalized world.

Book Review, Today's Left in Power: Promises and Problems

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Today's Left in Power: Promises and Problems
by Hobart A. Spalding



Book Review for Latin America’s Radical Left: Challenges and Complexities of Political Power in the Twenty-first Century.
by Steve Ellner (ed.)
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014.