State-led extractivism and the frustration of indigenous self-determined development: lessons from Bolivia

Abstract

This article discusses the incorporation of human rights dedicated to indigenous peoples and the problems associated with their genuine implementation in Bolivia in the context of state-led extractivism. Through this case study I will analyse the role of state and other related internal factors impacting the viability of indigenous rights related to self-determination and self-determined development. I concentrate on the problem of the character of state that can be seen as the most fundamental obstacle in implementing rights favourable to indigenous peoples’ self-determined development, especially in terms of political culture, as well as historically developed state–society relations. The question of asymmetries of power and inequalities is strictly related to the ‘state problem’.

Keywords:

• indigenous peoples
• Bolivia
• human rights
• extractivism
• state
• development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Radosław Powęska is a Latin Americanist working in the fields of politics and political sociology and anthropology. He received a PhD from the University of Liverpool. He is professionally associated with the Centre for Latin American Studies (CESLA). His Latin American research interests include ethnopolitics, social movements, indigenous rights and state–indigenous relations; political cultures and political innovations. He is the author of the book Indigenous Movements and Building the Plurinational State in Bolivia. Organisation and Identity in the Trajectory of the CSUTCB and CONAMAQ (2013).

Notes

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7. Lennox, ‘Natural Resource Development’, 10–21, 11, 16–20.

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21. Ibid., 376–7.

22. Ibid., 378.

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26. Ibid., 36–7, note 18.

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50. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Constitución Polítical del Estado.

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52. Elaboration by the author on the base of: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, http://www.ine.gob.bo

53. Ibid.

54. Georgina Jiménez, Territorios indígenas y areas protegidas en la mira. La ampliación de la frontera de industrias extractivistas (La Paz: Petropress, 2012), 7, 15, 17.

55. Gaceta Oficial de Bolivia, Decreto Supremo No. 0676 (2010).

56. Gaceta Oficial de Bolivia, Decreto Supremo No. 2366 (2015).

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62. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Ley de Minería y Metalurgia (2014).

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69. Ibid.

70. Anthony Bebbington, ‘The New Extraction: Rewriting the Political Ecology in the Andes', NACLA Report on the Americas, September/October (2009): 12–40; Anthony Bebbington, An Andean Avatar: Post-neoliberal and Neoliberal Strategies for Promoting Extractive Industries, Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper 117 (2010); Radosław Powęska, Indigenous Movements and Building the Plurinational State in Bolivia. Identity and Organisation in the Trajectory of the CSUTCB and CONAMAQ (Warsaw: CESLA, 2013), 275, 278–9.

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73. CONAMAQ, Propuesta: Constitución Política del Estado Plurinacional Qullasuyu-Bolivia (Uru Uru Marka, 2007), 12, 24–5.

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85. See James O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (St Martins Press: New York, 1973).

86. Gudynas, ‘Estado compensador’, 137–8.

87. Salman, ‘El estado, los movimientos sociales’; Mayorga, ‘Bolivia: segundo gobierno’; Powęska, Indigenous Movements, 231–3; For the analysis of neo-developmentalism in Latin America, see: Antonio Araníbar and Benjamín Rodríguez, América Latina, ¿del neoliberalismo al neodesarrollismo? (Buenos Aires: PAPEP/PNUD, Siglo XXI Editores, 2013).

88. Powęska, Indigenous Movements, 131–281; see also Salman, ‘El estado, los movimientos sociales’; Mayorga, ‘Bolivia: segundo gobierno’, 28.

89. Roberto Laserna, José M. Gordillo, and Jorge Komadina, La trampa del rentismo … y como salir de ella (Fundación Milenio: La Paz, 2011), 39, 105–8.

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