I just changed the archive path URLs for this blog. My apologies, but it was a necessary evil (better now than much later). Please not that all previous links no long work, unless modified to fit this format:

http://www.mcentellas.com/archives/...

Basically, just insert .../archives/... into the URL. I have set up an automatic re-direct that should work for all pages; so this is just in case.

I’m traveling to Bolivia in a few days. In some ways, this is nothing new. Though my family moved to Michigan in 1985, we frequently went back to visit relatives & friends, especially in Santa Cruz & La Paz. It’s also nothing new to K8; we met there (we were both Fulbright fellows). But this time, we must consciously plan our visit around potential bloqueos & street protests.

I don’t usually use my blog for “advocacy” links. But I’ve decided to post a “Free RCTV” logo on the main page. There are numerous other causes I could be supporting, but I’ve chosen this one. In part, because I worry about the future of democracy in Latin America. Venezuela’s “partidocracia” (party-ocracy) of the 1970s-1990s was problematic, to be sure; like many, I was hopeful when Chávez was elected in 1998. The 1980s “lost decade” were very difficult on Venezuela’s poor, and it was clear that the existing parties were no longer capable of solving the political, economic, and social crisis. Many were pleased to see Chávez abandon golpismo (coup-making) in favor of electoralism; we hoped he had become a democrat. Since then, he has slowly concentrated powers in his hands—and I mean his personal hands, not his party or movement.

The news from Bolivia is not so good. It’s sad that June is now just recognized as the start of “bloqueo season” in the country (K8 & I will be traveling just then; will we be able to reach La Paz?). But things are getting dicey again.

This weekend was my first Memorial Day weekend since moving to Pennsylvania (does PA count as “East Coast”? I’m never sure). I spent most of Friday driving to & back from Pittsburgh. Then I spent Sunday & Monday in Philadelphia & Wilmington (Delaware). That meant I became rather intimately familiar w/ I-76 (aka the Pennsylvania Turnpike).

I should comment on this weekend’s events in Venezuela, after Hugo Chávez closed down an opposition television station (RCTV) by not reinstating its license. There were, of course, significant protests in Venezuela (broken up by government security forces). Greg Weeks has a short, but excellent post on the subject—followed by some interesting comments [Ed. here’s another good thread from Boz].

This is the latest installment of the Facebook primaries updates. I’ve been keeping track of primary presidential candidates’ Facebook profiles, taking a periodic tracking of their number of “supporters” (i.e. “friends”). Note that Rudy Giuliani still has no profile.

Today is Mother’s Day in Bolivia. I’ve always liked this holiday; though perhaps that’s partly due to heavy “patriotic” government indoctrination I received in Bolivian elementary schools. In contrast to the US holiday, it (in part) honors one of the country’s “founders” (a founding mother?): Juana Azurduy de Padilla.

I never understood why many jumped to the conclusion that Evo Morales was an “indigenous” political leader in Bolivia. Yes, he’s primarily of indigenous origin. But does that make him an “indigenous” leader? Especially in Bolivia, which has a long tradition of indigenous political movements—the kataristas—who were mostly concentrated in the Andean Altiplano. During the 1980s, the most important of these was MRTKL (Movimiento Revolucionario Tupaj Katari de Revolución); in the 1990s, it was MIP (Movimiento Indígena Pachakuti). These weren’t the only such movements. And it’s important to note that Evo was never a member of any of these. He belongs to a different trajectory.

A short column I wrote for Tiempo Político¹ came out today. I won’t have time to translate it, but the column (“Ingeniería electoral: el sistema de voto alternativo [Electoral engineering: the alternative vote system]”) is based on this this earlier post. And w/ that I’m off on the road to Pittsburgh.

Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the birth of the Star Wars universe. A colleague in the French department is hosting a Star Wars theme two-day party (or “conference”). Sadly, I’ll have to miss out on the second day (when they’ll watch/discuss episodes IV, V, VI) because I’m driving to Pitt to visit some friends & browse their library’s Eduardo Lozano Collection (probably the largest Bolivia-specific collection in the US). But I’m trying to scramble to put together an appropriately themed snack and/or drink to bring to the festivities (for some reason I thought this would be on Saturday). I will make one small contribution: my favorite Star Wars fan film is Troops (1997). Enjoy!

The conflict between Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, and the judicial system continues (previous post). Yesterday, the head of the supreme court resigned. The other court ministers have stated that they’ll resist the executive branch. But a MAS spokesperson threatened to topple the court through social pressure. This is the same kind of threat made January against Cochabamba’s prefect; clashes there left three dead & several injured in January.

I’ve just added a link to the “Basics” sidebar that allows you to subscribe to this blog by email.

As Bolivia’s constituent assembly starts gearing up to write draft constitutions, a confrontation between the executive & judicial branches is brewing. But this isn’t directly connected to any of the legalities of the constituent assembly itself. Instead, this is merely the typical kind of confrontation common to “delegative” democracies.

Today, an investigative report by the Grupo de Diarios América (GDA) was published in a number of newspapers, including several in Bolivia. The report addresses the influence of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez across Latin America (from La Razón). The report is meant to draw together the various kinds of “cooperative assistance” the Venezuelan leader is engaged in, showing his vast influence. Of course, there’s nothing really shocking there. All states try to influence their neighbors through economic (and other) assistance programs. Chávez is currently swimming in petrodollars—and if he wants to make a play for regional hegemon, he certainly has the ability. But there is one troubling underside: Bolivia’s security policy.

Although I taught a number of courses at Western before coming to Dickinson, it’s fair to consider this my “rookie” year. After all, I taught a larger number of courses, was a full member of the faculty, and had more responsibilities integrating my work into the broader department & college-wide curriculum. So it’s fair to say that I’ve learned a number of things from my first year at a private liberal arts college. Here are my top seven lessons learned:

There’s still a small number of people left to contact. But we’re already making it public knowledge: We’re having a baby, due sometime in late December.

Matt Shugart (UCSD) posts about an interesting story from Romania, which he describes as a “Linzian nightmare.” The story is simple: in April, the Romanian parliament voted to impeach President Traian Băsescu by a ratio of 3-to-1; yesterday, a public referendum (w/ only 34% turnout) voted to reject the impeachement by a similar ratio (read the story on RFE/RL or Wikipedia).

This is the latest installment of the Facebook primaries updates. I’ve been keeping track of primary presidential candidates’ Facebook profiles, taking a periodic tracking of their number of “supporters” (i.e. “friends”). Note that Rudy Giuliani no longer has a profile (suggesting the numbers from last week weren’t “official”).

K8’s back in town—and this is commencement week at Dickinson—so blogging will be light until Sunday. And Saturday I finally get to watch Spiderman 3; but only after watching Man U beat Chelsea for the FA Cup.

Also, my dissertation (Democracy on Stilts: Bolivia’s Democracy from Stability to Crisis) is finally available for download through Western’s electronic thesis & dissertation database. It’s three PDF files.

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PS. The Man U-Chelsea game is on pay-per-view. So I guess we won’t be watching it.

I’ve just posted my course syllabi for next Fall; you can download them from my department website. I’ve revamped the comparative politics course (POSC 150). The democracy & democratization course (POSC 257) is completely new—and I’ve built the reader from scratch.

Fellow Bolivian blogger, Eddie Avila, has been working on a great program: the Bolivian-American Project. I hope to work on the Emerging Leaders program in the future. There’s currently a program in Washington, DC (where there’s a large Bolivian immigrant population); Eddie’s going to Cochabamba, Bolivia, to start a program there, soon. Check out both programs. You can also join the Bolivian-American Project Facebook page (if you’re on Facebook).

Today’s La Razón has a brief story on a newly-unveiled proposal for reform of the Bolivian judiciary. The proposal would combine “ordinary” (Western) and “originary” (indigenous) legal traditions, in a parallel system. I saw a similar proposal in April 2004 at an ILDIS-sponsored conference on decentralization. I’ll have to admit that (like others) I wasn’t convinced of its practicability; but it’s certainly an intriguing possibility—especially if it’s not framed as two systems in parallel (as it was then) but as two systems subsumed under a broader constitutional framework (as it is now).

Over the last few days, an online discussion at the The Democracy Center (a place I respected) blog completely disintegrated. An anonymous poster known only as “El Grindio” decided to suggest that my “weak intellect” was a product on my “genetic code” (eugenics, anyone?). There was more (oh, much more!) in that racist vein. Which is a shame, because it has—at least for now—completely shattered what should be an interesting forum for the exchange of views on contemporary Bolivian politics.

This is from two weeks ago, but since I’m taking breaks from grading, I thought I’d plug it: John Crabtree (Oxford) frequently writes about the Andes for openDemocracy, an online peer-review journal of world politics; his latest article (“Latin American democracy: time to experiment”) discusses recent developments in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. It’s worth a look. The advantage of online journals, of course, is that they’re more accessible and link to other relevant websites.

This picture was taken in Bolivia, about 31 years ago. I’d like to send my mom (& my dad) best wishes today, back in Santa Cruz. Funny how life comes full circle.

I’ve been keeping track of primary presidential candidates’ Facebook profiles, taking a periodic tracking of their number of “supporters” (i.e. “friends”). This is similar to the “MySpace primaries” project at the Web Candidate 2.0 blog. Beyond periodic updates, I’m also noting their numbers in an Excel spreadsheet. There are some problems: Some candidates still don’t have Facebook profiles. Some have made their profiles private (meaning, I can’t view how many friends they have w/o “supporting” them first). Still, the results are interesting:

I’ve just added a linkroll that updates the 10 most recent posts to my del.icio.us social bookmarks. For visualization, here’s my tag cloud; it lists all the tags I’ve used, weighted by frequency:

I was getting set to send something off to Tiempo Político¹ after the weekend on this very topic. But Mario Requena’s “¿Y si tuviéramos un gobierno parlamentario? [And if we had a parliamentary government?]” is excellent. In it, he argues that Bolivia should consider a parliamentary system, rather than continue as a presidential system.

It’s nice when you can say that your little brother is (frequently) an inspiration. He recently posted a link to this letter from the president of U of Delaware. There was an incident during a Cinco de Mayo party at U of Delaware, basically involving a fraternity & Hispanic/Latino stereotypes (ironically, it was a co-ed honors fraternity). Andy worked w/ the Campus Alliance de La Raza, which organized a town hall meeting to deal w/ the issue directly. Nice.

We’re having a bit of a Bolivian blog convention here in Carlisle. MABB, who’s in the US visiting family, drove up w/ his wife. I was surprised at how comfortable it was to just start interacting in person (we never met in person, though we’ve commented on each other’s blogs & emailed since 2003).

One of my favorite things about life at Dickinson has been the collegial atmosphere. It’s really quite remarkable. And last night I had yet another opportunity to engage in “cross-disciplinary” activities.

According to a La Razón report (“La Asamblea propone un Congreso 100% uninominal”), Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly is considering radical changes to the composition of the legislature in the new constitution. The first is to move from a bicameral to a unicameral legislature. The second is to transform all legislators into “uninominal” representatives elected in single-member districts (SMDs).

There’s been much discussion in Bolivia recently (it’s become part of the “regionalism” discourse in the Constituent Assembly process) about moving the Bolivian capital back to Sucre. Officially, Bolivia has two capital cities: La Paz (where the president and legislature reside) & Sucre (home to the supreme court).

Two new policy reports on Bolivia have recently come out. One is by the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The other is by the Democracy Center (DC), a small NGO advocacy group based in San Francisco & Cochabamba (Bolivia). The CFR report, written by Eduardo Gamarra (director of FIU’s Latin American & Caribbean Center), is titled Bolivia on the Brink and describes many of the problems facing Bolivia today. The DC report is titled Interpreting Bolivia’s Political Transformation. I’d like to share some brief thoughts.

One of the perks of academic life is free books. Often, these are unsolicited new offerings from the big textbook presses. But sometimes I get a nice set of books that I’ve actually requested (though not always free) that are more personally intriguing—and/or useful to my own research interests. Today I received a hefty (and much-anticipated) package from Cambridge University Press.

The blog site redesign is finished, terminado, finito. So now the category & month archives look like they’re supposed to. I’ve also retro-posted an FAQ (frequently asked questions) page.

I’ve also added an Amazon bookstore, where I’ll (as time allows) add recommended/interesting books in political science, Latin American politics, and related subjects. I think I get a penny everytime someone buys a book.

One of the greatest challenges facing Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly—and one that wasn’t faced by other such recent assemblies in Peru (1992) or Venezuela (1999), though the upcoming Ecuadorian case might—is the issue of deep regional cleavages & demands for regional autonomy. Despite all the international attention on other issues or potential reforms (macroeconomic reforms, nationalization of strategic industries, indigenous ethnic/cultural issues, etc.), the one that stands at the center stage of Bolivian politics today is the issue of regional autonomy. The four lowland (and petroleum-rich) departments—Tarija, Santa Cruz, Beni, and Pando—are adamantly demanding political autonomy, whether in a form of federalism or federacy or something else. It’s important to note, of course, that these are also the regions where the opposition (led by PODEMOS & the MNR) are strongest (and where Evo’s MAS is weakest).

I’m not the only one tracking candidate Facebook profiles. The Hotline, a political blog by National Journal, has been keeping stats, too. Check out this post from April 20 (which also has links to all the candidates’ Facebook profiles).

It’s on the back burner—sort of (is anything ever really “on the back burner”?)—but I just got two potential textbooks sent to me by Sage. Both are potential texts for my Spring 2008 semester methods course; both are written by John W. Cresswell (U of Nebraska).

K8 just sent me this from the Chicago Tribune. Apparently, a Dickinson Law School graduate was selling human remains over the internet. His client base: “anthropologists, medical professionals, and interested people.” The story also includes a drag queen named Jojo Baby, eBay, an anthropologist, China, and a store in Berkeley called the Bone Room. And, of course, all this happened in Chicago’s Shakespeare District.

FYI: The Dickinson School of Law is connected to Penn State; it has nothing to do w/ Dickinson College. I’d like to think my students aren’t that creepy.

This is more confessional than informational. But making these things public makes it more likely to happen. So w/ the semester quickly crashing to an end—and the mountain of grading that comes w/ it—I need to make a list of all the items that must get done before June: