From Subaltern to President: Evo Morales, New Social Movements, and Regional Autonomies in Bolivia

This dissertation examines the processes of social, cultural, and political
change that have taken place in Bolivia since the decade of the 1970s and how they
have paved the way for the rise to power of indigenous people and the election of Evo
Morales to the Presidency. It also addresses a growing trend toward more radical
reforms to State structures after Morales' inauguration, which has created serious
institutional chaos and a polarization of civil society. The reforms proposed by the
Morales administration and its political party (Movimiento al Socialismo) include a
new constitution which aims to re-found Bolivia favoring its Andean ethnic groups,
and an indefinite re-election of president Morales. At the same time, his party now in
control ofthe muddled Constituent Assembly charged with writing the new
constitution, intends to diminish the constitutional mandate of a 2006 referendum,
whose results favored autonomias (an administrative and political descentralized
State model, similar to Spain's or Peru's) in four provinces, which would allow a more efficient administration of the different geographical, cultural, and productive
regions of Bolivia while preserving national unity.
This dissertation investigates and recognizes the achievements of Bolivian
indigenous movements (not only Andean, but also those from the Eastern lowlands,
which in fact were the pioneers in the struggle to regain their rights and identity) and
the need to reform a State that should accommodate their rights, values, and traditions
along with those of the rest of Bolivians, the mestizos (mixed blood) and the nonindigenous,
on the basis of consensus and national solidarity. To reach that goal it
defends the necessity to preserve the guidelines of Western participative democracy
and freedom in combination with the modalities of indigenous communitarian
democracy. This basic concept, if applied, would lead the members of the current
Constituent Assembly to write an all-inclusive constitution based on consensus and
reciprocal solidarity, while opening the necessary space for national dialogue and
development, even in the indigenous communities.
This dissertation also proposes the promulgation of autonomias
departamentales in accordance with the results of the 2006 referendum. Its thesis
underlines that autonomias are the most coherent and viable way to descentralize the
administration of the diverse regions of Bolivia in a near future. Autonomies
represent a creative system that is capable of untying the asphyxiating knot imposed
on the regions (departamentos) by a centrist and vertical State, founded in 1825,
which pretended to extend its political and economic control over different historical
realities, geographical contexts, and diverse cultural backgrounds whose
representatives are today demanding fresh air. Methodologically, the panoramic review and analysis of different texts
throughout this dissertation identifies the main causes of the actual social fracture in
Bolivia, as well as proposes a set of possible solutions. Each chapter contains the
analysis of a primary text, along with the discourse of indigenous leaders,
constitutionalists, Bolivian public intellectuals, and my own voice. Among them are
Marcial Fabricano, Alejo Veliz, Felix Patzi, Juan Carlos Urenda Diaz, Ana Maria
Romero de Campero, Alvaro Garcia Linera and Victor Hugo Cardenas, whose
ideological positions, theoretical contributions, and proposals are essential for my
construction of a concise analysis and possible solutions to the perplexing challenges
facing Bolivia today.
This dissertation is based on the recognition that Bolivia is a culturally and
geographically heterogeneous country, where coexistence between its diverse ethnic
groups and regions -aggravated by profound ideological differences, a proverbial
impossibility to govern the country, and the poverty of the majority of its
inhabitants- has reached perilous levels of polarization and social unrest. A real
change and a real de-colonizing revolution (which inspires president Eve Morales and
vicepresident Alvaro Garcia Linera's ideological program) cannot be produced and be
real without the implementation of regional autonomies (autonomias
departamenta/es) and the strengthening of autonomic indigenous municipalities and
territories, already legislated by the actual constitution.
NOTE
A Spanish version of this dissertation (which includes a Collocutio and three more
chapters) follows the present text. Chapters V and VI are focused on the analysis of eastern Bolivia (where a parallel and no less controversial identity, facing the
Andean, has emerged: e/ ser crucefzo) and autonomic proposals more in detail.
Chapter VII presents the voices of Bolivian public intellectuals (indigenous and non
indigenous) who, and for the reasons they explain, are not members of the present
Constituent Assembly.