https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7348-7206
![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Since President Morales took office in Bolivia in early 2006, the country has undergone a complex political transformation. This profound process of change is, however, hardly reflected in established democracy indices, which by and large paint a picture of institutional continuity. Taking this puzzling observation as a starting point, the article compares qualitative and quantitative assessments of Bolivia’s contemporary political regime and argues that existing measures of democracy largely miss one key dimension that is crucial when it comes to analysing (changes in) the quality of democracy: the issue of political incorporation. Specifically, the case of Bolivia shows that democracy indices mostly ignore important changes in terms of descriptive representation, party incorporation, and non-electoral participation. Privileging an individualist conception of liberal democracy, democracy measures downplay the relevance of collective forms of political representation and participation and, hence, the extent to which different social groups are or are not incorporated into the political system. As a result, these measures of democracy mostly do not “count” the recent progress in the political incorporation of important parts of the Bolivian population, which had been largely absent from the country’s political institutions despite two decades of continuous democratic rule.
Acknowledgements
The article draws on a paper that was presented at the 2017 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) in Lima, Peru. The author would like to thank Linda Farthing, Hans-Jürgen Puhle, Eduardo Silva, Moira Zuazo and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments as well as Katharina Prott for research assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The key book introducing the concept is Collier and Collier, Shaping the Political Arena. Recently, it has been taken up by scholars in order to make sense of the so-called leftist turn in Latin America. See Luna and Filgueira, “The Left Turns”; Roberts, “The Mobilization of Opposition”; Silva and Rossi, Reshaping the Political Arena.
2 The following draws on Wolff, “Towards Post-Liberal Democracy,” 40–1. For overviews, see also Anria, “More Inclusion, Less Liberalism”; Farthing and Kohl, Evo’s Bolivia; F. Mayorga, Incertidumbres tácticas; Postero, “The Struggle”; Zegada et al., La democracia.
3 See Wolff, “Towards Post-Liberal Democracy.”
4 Anria, “More Inclusion, Less Liberalism,” 102.
5 Zegada et al., La democracia, 124.
6 Levitsky and Loxton, “Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism.” See also Sanchez-Sibony, “Democratic Breakdowns”; Weyland, “Latin America’s Authoritarian Drift.”
7 Levitsky and Loxton, “Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism,” 117–8.
8 Ibid., 107. See also Weyland, “Latin America’s Authoritarian Drift,” 19, 24. It should be noted that the description of political developments under Morales as offered by Levitsky and Loxton also includes factual statements that are empirically wrong (if by omission). Most notably, the authors write that the MAS “pushed through its own draft [constitution]” in the Constituent Assembly and, then, continue: “The new constitution was approved via referendum in 2009 […]” (118). What is missing in between is the crucial negotiations with the opposition that led to a far-reaching revision of the draft constitution and a two-thirds majority in Congress. This misrepresentation, however, does not affect their overall assessment, which is based on a particular and certainly contestable reading of political events in Bolivia, but which is generally consistent with their normative (liberal) premises and their usage of the term “competitive authoritarianism.”
9 Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán, “Cross-Currents in Latin America,” 116.
10 R. Mayorga, “Populismo autoritario,” 60–6.
11 Ibid., 66.
12 Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 6–7.
13 R. Mayorga, “Populismo autoritario,” 64.
14 Ibid., 47.
15 Anria, “More Inclusion, Less Liberalism,” 100.
16 Cameron, “The Myth of Competitive Authoritarianism,” 11.
17 Ibid., 11.
18 See Anria, “Social Movements,” 100.
19 See F. Mayorga and Rodríguez, Urnas y democracia directa.
20 Anria, “More Inclusion, Less Liberalism,” 100. As mentioned above, the MAS later decided to turn to an alternative strategy and, against the popular will as expressed in the 2016 referendum, asked the Constitutional Court to change the constitution anyway (La Razón, September 29, 2017). But notwithstanding the impact that such a possible constitutional change might have on the quality of Bolivia’s political regime, it would not (somehow retroactively) undermine the observation that electoral competition in the context of the 2016 referendum respected democratic standards.
21 Barrios, “Qué tipo de régimen politico,” 92 (emphasis in the original).
22 See Barrios, “Qué tipo de régimen politico,” 86–92. Coherent as Barrios’ reasoning may be, the result appears somewhat problematic. Counterfactually assuming that Morales in 2013 would have been successfully authorized to run for another presidential term by way of an undisputedly constitutional procedure (including a constitutional referendum), Bolivia’s political regime today would probably not look very different from what it actually looks like. Still, then, Barrios would classify it as a democracy.
23 See Cameron, “The Myth of Competitive Authoritarianism,” 15–17.
24 Levitsky and Loxton, “Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism,” 117.
25 Anria, “More Inclusion, Less Liberalism,” 100. Cameron, likewise, argues that Bolivia under Morales can be considered an example of “delegative democracy,” which is, at the same time, “a more participatory and inclusive democracy.” Cameron, “The Myth of Competitive Authoritarianism,” 10.
26 See Anria, “Social Movements,” 101; Anria, “More Inclusion, Less Liberalism,” 104, 106; Barrios, “Qué tipo de régimen politico,” 84–5; Cameron, “The Myth of Competitive Authoritarianism,” 13–14; De la Torre, “In the Name of the People,” 28, 44.
27 Zegada and Komadina, El espejo de la sociedad.
28 F. Mayorga and Zuazo, “Democracia intercultural,” 370–7. See also Exeni, “Elusive Demodiversity”; F. Mayorga, Incertidumbres tácticas.
29 Lissidini, “Paradojas de la participación,” 94.
30 See Anria, “Social Movements”; Do Alto and Stefanoni, “El MAS”; Silva, “Social Movements”; Zegada et al., La democracia.
31 Collier and Collier, Shaping the Political Arena.
32 Silva, “Reorganizing Popular Sector Incorporation,” 95.
33 See Anria, “Social Movements”; Anria, “More Inclusion, Less Liberalism,” Silva, “Reorganizing Popular Sector Incorporation”; Silva, “Social Movements.”
34 Most recent data are from the 2017 Freedom in the World index, which evaluates the situation in 2016 (see www.freedomhouse.org).
35 I, here, mention only sub-categories with changes of more than 1 point (on scales that range from 0 to 12 or 0 to16).
36 Most recent data are for 2016 and have Bolivia still at the +7 level (see www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html).
37 Full disclosure: This author is one of the external reviewers that participate in the Bolivia assessment of the BTI.
38 Another significant improvement is reported in the sub-category “effective power to govern.”
39 The “democracy status,” which is measured on a scale from 1 to 10, was at 6.1 before Morales took over (BTI 2006, reflecting events until January 2005), slightly decreased in the following years (5.8 in the BTI 2008 and 6.0 in the BTI 2010), but has then risen to around 6.5 (BTI 2014, 2016, see www.bti-project.org).
40 Between 2005 and 2016 (and on scales between 0 and 1), Bolivia’s electoral democracy index changes from 0.77 to 0.61, the liberal component index from 0.67 to 0.60, the deliberative component index from 0.86 to 0.73, the participatory component index from 0.55 to 0.57, and the egalitarian component index from 0.52 to 0.64 (2015) (see www.v-dem.net).
41 On IDD-Lat’s overall scale (from 0 to 10), Bolivia was rated 3.528 in 2005, 2.733 in 2012 and 5.218 in 2016. See www.idd-lat.org.
42 The overall ranking also includes two indices (“social” and “economic democracy”) that go way beyond usual measures of democracy (and analyse the governmental performance with a view to human and economic development, respectively).
43 The score for “citizens’ democracy” has almost continuously increased from 3.861 (2005) to 5.959 (2016). The rating for “institutional democracy” was at 4.734 in 2005, temporarily fell to around 3.000 in 2006–2010, but afterwards rose again to reach 4.765 in 2016.
44 See Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, Chapter 4.
45 Zegada and Komadina, El espejo de la sociedad.
46 Espinoza, Bolivia, 130–56; Zegada et al., La democracia, 243–9.
47 F. Mayorga, Incertidumbres tácticas, 44–6. It is important to note that the significant increase in indigenous and female judges at the highest level of the judicial branch is the direct result of the 2009 constitution which introduced the direct election of the members of the national courts.
48 Soruco, Franco, and Durán, Composición social del estado plurinacional.
49 See Pitkin, The Concept of Representation.
50 Zegada and Komadina, El espejo de la sociedad, 15–22.
51 V-Dem Institute, V-Dem Codebook, 259–60. In addition, V-Dem’s “equal protection index” measures whether “the state grants and protects rights and freedoms evenly across social groups.” Ibid., 65.
52 On this and the following, see Anria, “Social Movements”; Anria, “More Inclusion, Less Liberalism”; Do Alto and Stefanoni, “El MAS”; Silva, “Reorganizing Popular Sector Incorporation”; Silva, “Social Movements.”
53 On these limitations, see also Wolff, “Business Power and the Politics of Postneoliberalism.”
54 Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI 2016: Codebook, 23.
55 Most notably, the “Party institutionalization index” includes an indicator “Party linkages,” which however measures merely the “form of linkage” (e.g. “clientelistic,” “local collective,” “policy/programmatic”), V-Dem Institute, V-Dem Codebook, 133.
56 F. Mayorga and Zuazo, “Democracia intercultural,” 347–54.
57 Anria, “Social Movements,” Chapter 4; Silva, “Reorganizing Popular Sector Incorporation,” 100–3. See also F. Mayorga and Zuazo, “Democracia intercultural,” 349–53; Lissidini, “Paradojas de la participación,” 94; Wolff, “Towards Post-Liberal Democracy,” 45–6.
58 See, F. Mayorga and Zuazo, “Democracia intercultural”; Thede, “Democratic Agency.”
59 V-Dem Institute, V-Dem Codebook, 247.
60 Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI 2016: Codebook, 23. The BTI also includes a question on “Civil society participation,” but this criterion is not included in the democracy index but part of the index that assesses the management performance of an individual government. Ibid., 42.
61 Silva, “Reorganizing Popular Sector Incorporation,” 95.
62 See Macpherson, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy; Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory.
63 See, for instance, Altmann, “Bringing Direct Democracy Back In”; Cameron, Hershberg, and Sharpe, New Institutions; Geissel and Newton, Evaluating Democratic Innovations; Munck, “What is Democracy?”
64 As seen, even V-Dem, a set of indices that explicitly acknowledges the variety of democracy, is quite weak when it comes to such collective and class- or status-related dynamics.
65 See, for instance, Cameron, Hershberg, and Sharpe, New Institutions, Minnaert and Endara, Democracia participativa.
66 Merkel, “Is There a Crisis of Democracy,” 23.
67 Geissel, Kneuer, and Lauth, “Measuring the Quality of Democracy,” 575. This is reflected, for instance, in the Democracy Barometer which attempts to more seriously consider the quality of representation and participation. See Merkel, “Is There a Crisis of Democracy,” 18–19.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jonas Wolff
Jonas Wolff is executive board member and head of the research department “Intrastate Conflict” at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). He teaches at Kassel University and Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on the transformation of political orders, contentious politics, international democracy promotion, and Latin American politics. Recent publications include “Negotiating Interference: US Democracy Promotion, Bolivia, and the Tale of a Failed Agreement” (Third World Quarterly, 2017) and “Business Power and the Politics of Postneoliberalism: Relations Between Governments and Economic Elites in Bolivia and Ecuador” (Latin American Politics and Society, 2016).