State, Social Movements, and Democracy in the Andean Countries

Abstract

This article discusses the transformations in terms of participation brought about by the change of tides in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The key focus will be an analysis of the interaction between states undergoing reformulation and the social movements in these countries. To this end, the article first presents some theoretical and analytical frameworks. In what follows, it refers to the experiments of participative and direct democracy in these societies carried out amidst the above-mentioned process of refoundation, with a particular emphasis on state–society relations.

Key Words:

• Participatory democracy
• Venezuela
• Bolivia
• Ecuador
• public policy
• social movements

Notes

1 The translations from the Spanish and the Portuguese are all responsibility of the author.

2 For studies which see these processes in a more hegemonic view, see, for example, Petkoff (2005), Castañeda (2006), Roberts (2008), Alcántara (2008), Mires (2008), Weyland (2009) and Pachano (2012).

3 This became particularly evident in the episode known as Caracazo in Venezuela, a spontaneous popular revolt in February 1989, triggered by an increase of fuel prices and consequently public transportation tariffs. The uprising was violently repressed and cost the lives of hundreds.

4 It is important to mention that the state also exhibits a high degree of heterogeneity and historicity, in the Gramscian sense of an ‘amplified state’.

5 The cases studied also introduced transformation directly into the mechanisms of representation, extending it by increasing gender- and ethnicity-based representation, as well as by introducing representation in spaces where it was previously absent—such as in the judiciary branch. These aspects were not included in this analysis, however. I also do not deal with localized forms of expansion of participation and decentralization, such as the establishment of autonomous indigenous regions, or participatory and deliberative devices and bodies created by subnational governments.

6 For a presentation of these mechanisms, I refer to Flores, Cunha, and Coelho (2010) and Welp (2009).

7 In these three countries, any constitutional modification must be ratified. The same rule applies to decisions related to the ceding of national sovereignty in favour of international bodies.

8 The Function of Control and Defense of the Society and State (Función de Control y Defensa de la Sociedad y Defensa del Estado) in Bolivia, the Function of Transparency and Social Control (Función de Transparencia y Control Social) in Ecuador, and the Citizen Power (Poder Ciudadano) in Venezuela.

9 Since then, the regime has defended a ‘revolutionary and socialist democracy’, which encompasses ‘participative and protagonistic democracy’ as established by the Constitution of 1999.

10 For example, an analysis that can overcome this bias can be found in Goldfrank (2011), who argues that the CC is not a threat to representative democracy. Instead, it may even serve as containment of political polarization and deepening democracy—despite its design and operating problems such as lack of transparency and clear rules of funding, duplication of functions by the municipal government and pre-existing social organizations, concentration of power in the national executive, and dependence on voluntary work and constant participation.

11 Slums.

12 The rural unions lost in part their previous link to the peasant identity, combining it with a renewed and modernized original identity (Soares, 2009), in which the territory assumes a more central role. These unions formed a national network in Bolivia called the Unified Syndical Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia (Central Sindical Única de los Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, CSUTCB), based on the foundation of the MAS. For a detailed study of the social movements of Bolivia, see García Linera, León, and Monje (2008).

13 Communitarian indigenous structures with territorial and extended family elements—permanencies and reinterpretations of pre-Columbian social structures (primarily Aimara, Quechua, and Uru). These organizations now serve for identification and delineation of ethnic movements, such as the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of the Qullasuyu (Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu).

14 Associations of local residents who have participated in demonstrations against the privatization of water and gas in the years prior to the arrival of the MAS to power; Manifested primarily in the city of El Alto (near La Paz).

15 Semi-spontaneous protest movements are mostly composed by youth and the middle strata of society that make intense use of new communication technologies to rally protesters. Participants in these demonstrations were called foragidos [fugitives, vagrants] by the president, and eventually embraced this nickname.

16 Coca growers from the Tropic of Chapare (in Cochabamba), who rallied to defend their activities from the policies of eradication carried out by various neoliberal governments since the democratization of the country. They formed six union federations that led in 1992 to the Coordination of the Federations of the Tropic of Chapare, and had great importance subsequently in the organization of the CSUTCB and the MAS.

17 In the previous period, these countries saw the institution, in varying intensities, of a relationship involving the state and organized sectors of the working class and of the peasantry that swung back and forth between two poles: co-optation of these sectors, which rendered them subaltern political actors, or plain and simple repression.

18 The ‘Water War’ of 2000 whose aim was to thwart neo-liberal projects of water distribution privatization; the ‘Gas War’ of 2003, which called for the nationalization of natural gas exports and for the interruption of exports to the USA via a gas pipeline through Chile (which landlocked Bolivia as a result of the War of the Pacific in the nineteenth century), causing the downfall of President Sánchez de Lozada; and the ousting of President Carlos Mesa in 2005, as a result of his reluctance to go ahead with the process of nationalization of gas resources.

19 The indigenous movement was at one point the country's main leftist force before Correa came to power (and also one of those defeated by his ascent): the Pachakutik Movement of Plurinational Unity (Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik – Nuevo País, MUPP-NP). Among the obstacles faced by the MUPP-NP was the fact it had supported the coup against President Jamil Mahuad in 2000, which put into question the party's democratic credentials. In addition, perhaps playing a role in its decline was its subaltern support to the candidacy of Lucio Gutiérrez in 2002 and its support during the first months of his government, which took a neo-liberal turn that contradicted his campaign proposals. The party soon distanced itself from the government. However, MUPP-NP's image as an outsider (an important factor in the emergence of the left in countries experiencing the collapse of its political institutions and party system) was certainly tarnished.

20 It is difficult to know yet how (or even if) this role can be transferred to Maduro, especially in this time of crisis.