I’m Miguel Centellas. As a political science professor, academic interests are a significant part of my personal life. I post on Bolivian politics, interesting books, pop culture, and daily life in a Baltimore.View my (old) academic pages at Dickinson College.
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Pronto* in July 2007. They are listed from newest to oldest. For a list of other monthly archives, see the right sidebar; you may also look through the archives or search by keywords.
With 6 de agosto fast approaching, tensions are mounting in Bolivia. That date is the national holiday (Bolivia’s Fourth of July), often commemorated w/ military and/or civil parades. When I was a schoolboy, I represented my school (Christo Rey) at one such desfile in Santa Cruz. But these days, the date is becoming controversial. And in places like Santa Cruz, regional holidays are swiftly becoming more important (in Santa Cruz, it’s 24 de septiembre). But the government is also adding to the tensions.
Bolivia’s legislature has agreed to extend the deadline for the Constituent Assembly by four months (until 14 December). This signifies a major commitment on the part of the major parties (MAS & PODEMOS) to continue the work of drafting a new constitution.
Stories like this make me glad I decided to add Frank Foer’s How Soccer Explains the World to the reading list for next semester’s comparative politics course. It’s a story about Iraq’s national soccer team (by Time magazine’s Tony Karon), which plays tomorrow (against Saudi Arabia) in the Asian Cup final. Could a victory help bring an end (even a temporary one) to the violence? The Ivory Coast’s civil war ended in similar circumstances last year. The combination of sports (and other elements of pop culture) & politics is often underappreciated.
No time now (I’m rushing to finish my LASA paper), but MABB has a post on the fast-approaching August 7 deadline to end to Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly. There are still several unresolved issues.
As expected, the debate over whether to move Bolivia’s capital continues. Yesterday, there was a mass demonstration in Sucre in favor of democracy, national unity, and returning the capital to their city. The estimated attendance was 200,000. The demonstration is significant because Chuquisaca (the name of the department) voted in December 2005 for a MAS prefect candidate (David Sánchez, w/ 42.3% of the vote). The department was borderline, but it was still squarely in the MAS camp. Recent events are putting that into doubt; an alliance between the comité cívico movements in the media luna (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija) and Chuquisaca-Sucre is a growing possibility. Has “¡la sede si se mueve!” become the banner to unify the anti-government opposition?
A quick look at the Facebook primaries numbers is merited following the Democratic presidential candidate debates (hosted by CNN & YouTube). I’m not so much interested in number of supporters (every candidate gained supporters), as much as percent change in number of supporters (7/23—7/25) relative to the previous percent change (7/17—7/23). Note that 7/23 recorded figures are pre-debate figures.
One of the things I personally selected for our wedding registry was an ice cream maker. This summer, one of my “personal” (not-work-related) projects was to learn how to make ice cream. So far, I’ve made cinnamon, coffee, and maple walnut ice cream. I’ve been searching to try some more exotic, spice-based flavors. First on my list? Anise. I’m glad to discover I’m not the only one: sour cream anise ice cream.
Eduardo Avila at Global Voices has more on the recent cabildo in El Alto against moving the seat of power (La Paz). The post includes a number of links to Bolivian bloggers from different points of view.
It’s more precise to refer to La Paz as the “seat of power” (sede de gobierno), since it’s not technically the capital (Sucre is still the “constitutional” capital of the republic). Meanwhile, residents of Sucre are mobilizing tomorrow.
The latest installment of my Facebook candidate updates: Not much has changed, though Mike Huckabee (1,820 supporters) has moved up a notch (squeaking past Sam Brownback, 1,802) in the GOP race. Barack Obama still has more supporters than all the other candidates combined (109,847 to 92,752); Rudy Giuliani still has no Facebook profile; Chris Dodd’s (930) profile picture is now a Simpsonesque drawing. There’s also a new “independent” candidate: Ray McKinney (15).
Internet Exploder doesn’t handle layered CSS very well. I’ve fixed the site now so it should work better w/ IE. Let me know if it (still) looks odd. If you’re forced to use Windoze, I recommend Firefox (it’s standards compliant & faster).
For months, Evo Morales has argued that Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly (elected July 2006) is “plenipotentiary.” Now he’s arguing that the Assembly actually does have limitations, areas in which it doesn’t have “competence.” That area is the question of the republic’s capital. This is ironic for two sets of reasons.
Now La Paz can claim its own cabildo (the link takes you to 21 stories from La Razón). Santa Cruz has had several, including a recent one three weeks ago, to demand regional autonomy. Recently, the media luna (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija, and now perhaps Chuquisaca) opposition have also called for moving the capital back from La Paz to Sucre. So the La Paz cabildo was meant to demand that the Constituent Assembly respect “national unity” & remove moving the capital from the agenda.
I went on my first tour of a hospital (Holy Spirit in Mechanicsburg) yesterday. I’ve never been on a “hospital tour” before, though I’ve never been expecting a baby before, either. So this is all new to me. Mostly, we met in a room full of other pregnant women & men to learn about car seats, why babies shouldn’t be shaken, and such. Basically, mostly common sense information & probably meant to protect the hospital from potential lawsuits. But it was nice to see the place where we may have to drive 20 minutes to at 3am some winter day in December. We’re also scheduled to visit the Harrisburg Hospital (the other place we may have to drive 20 minutes to).
Greg Weeks posted a brief comment on the recent proposal (finally formally unveiled) by MAS to allow for presidential re-election in Bolivia. This was seen coming for a while (it was discussed in public discourse for several months). But it came late to the formal agenda of the Constituent Assembly, which has basically thrown a monkey wrench in the works—and this as the Assembly seems unable to make its original August deadline for a draft constitution (which was supposed to go to public referendum on 6 August).
There’s been much talk recently of operationalizing & measuring “happiness” around the world, as a way to look beyond GDP, HDI, and other measures of social well-being. This is the new “happiness economics.” This week’s Economist had another feature on two surveys (one by Gallup, the other by Ipsos) that looked at people’s happiness around the world. But there’s even a Happy Planet Index (HPI) website, which looks at environmental factors (basically, not how happy people are, but how happy the planet is about such people). No surprise, in most of these, Bolivia doesn’t fare well.
The following is a list of some recent journal articles dealing with Bolivian politics. I’ve not yet had a chance to read through many of the most recent (2007) ones; I’ve included a few older (2005-2006) articles that I think are particularly useful. Many of the links won’t work if you’re trying to access them w/o university, college, or similar institution access.
For those interested in political parties & electoral systems around the world, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) recently released its CSES Module 2 (2001-2006) data set to the public (Module 1 includes 1996-2001). Bolivia is not included in the data set, but there are several Latin American cases. You need to register to use the data, but registration is free.
CSES is affiliated w/ the ICPSR (Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research), headquartered at the University of Michigan.
My friend Clare Sammells (an anthropologist doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago) recently organized & launched a group website & blog devoted to Bolivia. It’s called Gringo Tambo, after the apartment in Sopocachi (a La Paz neighborhood) where several Fulbrighters have passed through. When time allows, I’ll post materials there. In the meantime, please check it out. It’s a space for social scientists who think about Bolivia (and those interested in reading what we think).
Last night’s Colbert Report featured a segment on a bill proposal to make English the official language of the United States. The US is one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t have an official language (in large part because of that whole First Amendment thing). The law would require all US government business to be conducted in English (which, I suppose, would mean that translations of court documents or other legal materials would not need to be provided to non-English speakers, which poses problems for that whole “due process” thing). Of course, English is the de facto language of the United State, but it is not the legal language. For the record, English is also not the official language in England, either.
That said, I would support an English-as-the-official-language proposal. But only under the following five conditions:
Facebook has launched a new US Politics application, which makes it much easier to track the “popularity” (measured by number of Facebook supporters) of candidates (including governor, Senate, and House candidates). I’ve also noted (in my spreadsheet) the number of supporters for candidates last week (but didn’t post it).
Last night’s performance by The Decemberists (accompanied by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard. I liked them ever since I heard “The Kingdom of Spain” (a gem I found on a compilation LP from Acuarela Records). Wow. The complex, literate stories in their songs are perfect for string & wind compositions. Just, wow. And the curtain call performance (though they did an encore) of “I Was Meant for the Stage” was brilliant. The lyrics suggest a bit of arrogance, but when you hear it sung (especially w/ all those violins in the background) it had an impressive tone of honest self-assurance, of someone who knows exactly who he is, w/o any need for pretense or fake humility. Wow.
While I haven’t taken the time to post about Santa Cruz and the issue of regional autonomy in a while, MABB has (including providing a direct like to the Estatuto Autonómico put out by the Asamblea Provisional Autonómica). Having been recently back in Santa Cruz, I’m well aware of just how “serious” this issue is.
This week’s Tiempo Político has an interesting article by Humberto Vacaflor (“Una inflación pecaminosa [An obscene inflation]”).1 In it, Vacaflor compares the similarities & differences of the creeping Bolivian inflation—and the Morales government’s handling of it—to the (hyper) inflation of the Siles Zuazo UDP government (1982-1985). In his analysis, the over-cultivation of coca is in large measure to blame. It’s certainly an interesting (if not perfect nor fleshed out) argument.
Summer school is much more time-consuming that I remember (from my student days). I’ve only three students, but I have to prepare daily lectures. I only hope the students are somehow keeping up w/ the 30+ pages of reading per day; we’re trying to cram a semester’s worth of material into four weeks (the fifth week is devoted to them writing their research paper). It’s certainly an experience.
This is the latest installment of the Facebook primaries updates (after a month’s absence). 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; most likely this hides a large share of GOP support headed into the primaries (though one would expect Facebook users to lean Democratic).
We’re still settling back in from our month-long trip. Between the unpacking & Copa América watching, I’ve not found too much time yet to post any updates. I’m barely able to keep an eye on the current Bolivian situation. But it’s not good (though not yet a disaster either). Now they’re fighting over the issue of the capital (whether it should be moved back to Sucre), making it unlikely that the Constituent Assembly will finish by the 6 August deadline. Clearly, this isn’t the same kind of pliable assembly that either Chávez or Fujimori enjoyed.
It’s been a long trip. And it’s good to be back home. But before the unpacking, it’s time to catch up w/ some Copa América action. I just called to activate my sports package subscription (for GolTV), where I just saw USA tie Paraguay 1-1. Here’s hoping for victory.
