Populism, Emancipation, and Environmental Governance: Insights from Bolivia

Abstract

The rise of the populist right and the concomitant crisis of progressive neoliberalism have reactivated debates about the possibility and desirability of a left populism. Through an engagement with the work of Ernesto Laclau, and drawing insights from contentions around resource governance in Evo Morales’s Bolivia, this article addresses the question of whether and how populism can be a valid strategy to achieve emancipatory transformations in environmental governance. In Bolivia, the construction of a collective identity out of indigenous–popular mobilizations facilitated a counterhegemonic articulation capable of subverting the neoliberal order and achieving progressive changes in the governance of natural resources. Yet, following the electoral victory of Morales in 2005, this counterhegemonic project turned into a passive revolution that frustrated its most genuinely transformative political aspirations. Reflecting on the Bolivian experience, I make three interrelated claims. First, the main strength of populism lies in enabling socioenvironmental movements to transcend their particularistic struggles and, through the (re)definition of a collective identity, build a broader counterhegemonic bloc capable of subverting the dominant institutional order. Second, for populism to be conducive of emancipatory transformation, the process of articulation should emerge out of subaltern socioenvironmental struggles and revendications and have radical, egalitarian-democratic ambitions transcending the horizon of the state. Third, short of a full social reordering, counterhegemonic projects are likely to be reabsorbed within the dominant institutional configuration and yet they remain necessary to challenge the socioenvironmentally regressive tendencies of capitalist domination and enable progressive transformations in environmental governance. Key Words: Bolivia, counterhegemony, environmental governance, political ecology, populism.

右翼民粹主义的兴起，以及同时发生的激进新自由主义之危机，重新燃起了有关左翼民粹主义的可能性与可欲性之辩论。通过涉入．拉克劳的理论，并运用玻利维亚的埃沃．莫拉莱斯政权下的资源治理争议之洞见，本文应对民粹主义是否能够作为在环境治理中取得解放性转变的有效策略。在玻利维亚，从本土大众动员中建构而成的集体身份认同，促进能够颠覆新自由主义秩序并在自然资源治理中取得激进变迁的反霸权接合。但在 2005 年莫拉莱斯选举胜利之后，此一反霸权计画转变成为消极革命，并使真正的转型政治期待落空。我将做出三大相关宣称来反应玻利维亚的经验。首先，民粹主义的主要长处在于让社会环境运动能够超越其特定的斗争，并且通过（重新）定义共同的身份认同，建构能够颠覆宰制的制度次序之更为广泛的反霸权集团。再者，为使民粹主义得以贡献解放性的转型，接合的过程应从从属的社会环境斗争和收復失地的要求中浮现，并具有超越国家水平的激进、自主的民主抱负。第三，由于缺乏完整的社会再次序化，反霸权计画很可能被重新吸纳进支配的制度构造，但它们仍然是挑战资本主义支配下社会环境的倒退倾向、并促发环境治理激进转型的必要条件。关键词：玻利维亚，反霸权，环境治理，政治生态学，民粹主义。

El ascenso de la derecha populista y la crisis concomitante del neoliberalismo progresista ha reactivado los debates acerca de la posibilidad y el atractivo de un populismo de izquierda. A través de un compromiso con el trabajo de Ernesto Laclau, y derivando perspicacias de las disputas sobre la gobernanza de los recursos en la Bolivia de Evo Morales, este artículo aborda la cuestión de si el populismo puede ser una estrategia válida para lograr transformaciones emancipadoras en gobernanza ambiental, y cómo puede serlo. En Bolivia, la construcción de una identidad colectiva a partir de movilizaciones indígeno-populares facilitó una articulación contra-hegemónica capaz de subvertir el orden neoliberal y alcanzar cambios progresivos en la gobernanza de los recursos naturales. No obstante, después de la victoria electoral de Morales en 2005, este proyecto contra-hegemónico se convirtió en una revolución pasiva que frustró sus aspiraciones políticas más genuinamente transformadoras. Reflexionando sobre la experiencia boliviana, formulo tres reclamaciones interrelacionadas. Primera, la principal fuerza del populismo descansa en capacitar los movimientos socioambientales para trascender sus luchas particularistas y, a través de la (re)definición de una identidad colectiva, construir un bloque contra-hegemónico más amplio capaz de subvertir el orden institucional dominante. Segunda, para que el populismo sea propicio a la transformación emancipadora, el proceso de articulación debe surgir de las luchas socioambientales y reivindicaciones subalternas y tener ambiciones radicales e igualitario-democráticas que trasciendan el horizonte del estado. Tercera, cortos de un reordenamiento social pleno, los proyectos contra-hegemónicos quedan propensos a ser reabsorbidos dentro de la configuración institucional dominante y aun así siguen siendo necesarios para retar tendencias socioambientalmente reaccionarias de la dominación capitalista y activan transformaciones progresivas en gobernanza ambiental. Palabras clave: Bolivia, contra-hegemonía, ecología política, gobernanza ambiental, populismo.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to those who participated in and supported my research in Bolivia and to Melissa García Lamarca, Irmak Ertör, the Special Issue Editor James McCarthy, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on previous versions of this article. All mistakes remain my own.

Notes

1 This article is part of a broader research project, for which I carried out twelve months of fieldwork in Bolivia in 2013 and 2014, conducting eighty-one semistructured interviews with members of communities affected by mineral and hydrocarbon extraction, indigenous and environmentalist organizations, state and extractive industry representatives, and political analysts and commentators. Specifically, the arguments presented in this article are based on a subset of fourteen expert interviews with activists and intellectuals in Bolivian political, social, and environmental organizations.

2 I am aware that Gramscian scholars, including political ecologists, are strongly critical of some of Laclau’s positions (e.g., Loftus 2014). Most notable, perhaps, they take issue with the discursive turn taken by Laclau since the 1980s in his interpretation of hegemony, whereby class (and the materiality of socionatural relations more generally) is displaced from the center analysis. Although I agree with this critique, following Hart (2013), I propose to read Laclau’s more recent contributions in light of his earlier work, which develops a theory of populism within a materialist framework, explicitly framed as a way of articulating class politics with ideological strategy.

3 All translations from the Spanish are my own.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this article benefited from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme, under REA agreement No. 289374, “ENTITLE.”

Notes on contributors

Diego Andreucci

DIEGO ANDREUCCI is a Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political and Social Science at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include political ecologies of development and of natural resource governance in Latin America.