I’m Miguel Centellas, a political science professor at Mount St. Mary’s University. Because of academic interests, I post frequently on Bolivian politics. I also occasionally discuss interesting books, pop culture, and daily life in Baltimore.
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.
Barr, Robert R. 2005. Bolivia: Another Uncompleted Revolution. Latin American Politics & Society 47 (Fall): 69-90. Looks at how Bolivia’s political institutions failed to address Bolivia’s pluralism, leading to a crisis of representation.
–––––. 2006. Bolivia’s “Evo Phenomenon”: From Identity to What?Journal of Latin American Anthropology 11 (November): 408-428. Looks at how Evo Morales (and MAS) represent fit into existing “indigenous” political models.
Domingo, Pilar. 2005. Democracy and New Social Forces in Bolivia. Social Forces 83 (June): 1727-1743. Discusses the role of new social forces in Bolivia, but also addresses the institutional reforms of the 1990s.
Dunkerley, James. 2007. Evo Morales, the ‘Two Bolivias’ and the Third Bolivian Revolution. Journal of Latin American Studies 39 (February): 133-166. Though somewhat deliberately abstruse, it’s an insightful look at Evo Morales placed in Bolivia’s historical context.
Madrid, Raul L. 2005. Indigenous Parties and Democracy in Latin America. Latin American Politics & Society 47 (Winter): 161-179. A look at the broader phenomenon of “ethnic” parties across the region.
Mainwaring, Scott. 2006. The Crisis of Representation in the Andes. Journal of Democracy 17 (July): 13-27. While not specifically about Bolivia, this article looks at how the various “crises” in the Andes seem to have causes other than a lack of representation (in counterpoint to Barr).
So, how many "revolutions" has Bolivia had, anyway? Just judging from titles and your descriptions, there would seem to be a bit of disagreement there.
Of course, the question is neatly resolved if we just say revolution in Bolivia is "interminable." Gets around all those nasty counting rules.
Yes, there’s clearly some discrepancy in the number of “revolutions” that Bolivia has had. I should’ve said something about that:
Although Bolivians (and others) have often used the term “revolution” for a variety of events, the term usually means the April 1952 MNR-led putsch.
Dunkerley (who wrote Rebellion in the Veins) seems to suggest that the “first” revolution was the Tupac Katari revolt of the late colonial period, making 1952 the “second” revolution, w/ the events leading up to Evo's election as the “third” revolution (Dunkerley is comparing these as “plebian” uprisings).
Barr (and others) have often referred to the 1990s reforms as another “revolution” (René Antonio Mayorga perhaps started the ball rolling w/ a 1997 article in Journal of Democracy titled “Bolivia’s Silent Revolution”); the MNR slogan of the 1990s reforms was “a revolution in democracy.”
So, Barr & Dunkerley are using the tern “revolution” in different ways. Dunkereley is focusing on the popular revolt aspect; Barr (like other institutionalists) is focusing on the changes in institutional structure. Thus, for Dunkerley, the “revolution” happened in October 2003, when popular street protests toppled the government; for Barr, the “revolution” took place during the 1990s, but the reforms weren’t consolidated.
The point? Bolivia is very confusing to study. Which perhaps also makes it more interesting.
Impasse in Bolivia: Neoliberal Hegemony and Popular Resistance, with Linda Farthing, Zed Press, London 2006
Epilogue to Impasse in Bolivia, draft of chapter for Spanish edition, Plural, La Paz, 2007
“Challenges to Neoliberal Hegemony in Bolivia,” Antipode, 38(2), 304-326, 2006
L Farthing, J Arbona and B Kohl (2006) “The Cities that Neoliberalism Built: Exploring Urbanization in La Paz-El Alto,” Harvard International Review, web edition, available at http://hir.harvard.edu/articles/1433/, May 2006
“Conflicting Agendas: the Politics of Development in Drug Producing Areas,” with Linda Farthing, Development Policy Review, March, 183-198, 2005
“Privatization and Regulation: A cautionary tale from Bolivia,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 28(4) 2004
I actually thought that Dunkerley gave more weight to the actual independence of Bolivia as an actual "revolution", more so than the Tupac Katari events. what he did see were a lot of paralells in the siege of La Paz and the 2003 bloqueos, mainly from the behavior of participants and tactics. But he seemed to weigh the independence process more as a genuine "social change" and the time frame includes not only the actual war of indpendence, but also the subsequent conflicts, civil and political with Bolivar, Peru and Chile.
Posted by
Boli-Nica
July 26, 2007 1:04 PM
I think you may be right. But, honestly, Dunkerley is often very difficult to read. And I honestly thought that sometimes he shifted back/forth between which were the revolutions he "counted" or what their time frame were.
