September 2007 Archives

I don’t have time to post much today, but (since K8 reminded me): today is “Santa Cruz Day.” Today’s also the Oriente Petrolero vs. Blooming cross-town “clasico” match. Here’s hoping Oriente wins!

I briefly mentioned the recent Belgian crisis in class today, while discussing the different historical paths towards democracy in 19th & 20th century Europe. The potential (though unlikely) disintegration of Belgium (as a state) is a stark reminder that states are not permanent, anywhere in the world. Something Bolivians should pay careful attention to. Because a “velvet divorce” is one thing, a bloody one is another thing altogether.

Looks like Fujimori is finally going to be extradited back to Peru to face charges related to the abuse of power during his 1992-2000 semi-authoritarian regime. He had been living in Japan for several years; he was recently aprehended, while in Chile.

I covered Fujimori as one of my four cases (the others were Perón, Várgas, and Chávez) of populist Latin American leaders in my “Heroes & Villains: Populism in Latin America” course last semester. These are the materials we used:

More at my Pronto* Peru bookstore.

A recent study by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) shows that most American college students can’t pass a test on political institutions & history. I know standardized tests aren’t de rigueur. But they do seem to say something. Like how a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. So I took the ISI civics quiz. Some of the questions were trickier than I thought, but I’m happy to report that I passed (though only w/ a 93.3%). Care to try your luck?

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PS. It turns out the above claim about American’s geographic ignorance isn't true. Here’s a 2006 National Geographic report.

Today’s La Razón reports another potential modification to Bolivia’s presidential electoral system: lowering the minimum threshold for the presidential winner (from 50%+1 to 40%+1). There’s nothing inherently un-democratic about this move—since all thresholds are arbitrary conventions. Still, the opposition (the article cites a PODEMOS spokesperson) clearly sees this as an attempt to ensure Evo’s reelection (MAS is also seeking indefinite reelection of incumbent presidents) in light of his declining popular support in opinion polls.

The 40%+1 rule would only kick in if no candidate wins an absolute majority (50%+1) of the valid popular vote and the second runner up is behind by at least 10% of the vote. Thus, this rule is essentially little different than the set of provisions used in Nicaragua. In the even that the first place winner doesn’t win 50%+1 and the second runner up is behind by less than 10% the president would be elected by a second round runoff election.

My objection to this system is that this solution may not work well in a highly fragmented party system. Currently, Bolivian politics appears polarized between MAS & PODEMOS, but that’s only superficial. There are a number of smaller parties (both w/in & w/out the MAS & PODEMOS “big tents”) that suggest that a more “parliametnarized” style of politics may be more beneficial. Regardless of the runoff or a 40%+1 provisional threshold, Bolivia desperately needs an electoral system that encourages moderated multi-party politics & coalition building.

I recently ordered two books from Escaparate, an online Bolivian book distributor. They just arrived in the mail. I’m pretty impressed; it took a little more than two weeks. And the shipping wasn’t too pricy ($11.40 for two small books shipped overseas). Since Bolivian books are often quite cheap, it balances itself out. If you’re looking for Bolivian books (in any discipline), check them out.

Bolivia is dancing on a razor’s edge. But it’s been doing that for months, now. So are we merely witnessing the “institutionalization of instability”? In the past few days: Chuquisaca’s ex-prefect has resumed his post, the government & opposition are back to dialoguing, and things are slowly cooling down in some areas (they’re heating up in others).

I’m on the CEDIB (Centro de Documentación e Información Bolivia) email list. They just sent out a notice on a new book (by Nelson Antequera Durán), co-published w/ Plural Editores & the European Commission:

Territorios Urbanos. Diversidad cultural, dinámica socio económica y procesos de crecimiento urbano en la zona sur de Cochabamba
[Urban Territories: Cultural Diversity, Socioeconomic Dynamics, and Urban Growth Processes in Cochabamba’s Zona Sur]

If you’re in Cochabamba on 20 September, stop by for a free discussion of the book in the CEDIB auditorium (Calle Calama #255) at 7pm. Discussants will include a member of the Cochabamba municipal council & faculty from UMSS (Universidad Mayor de San Simón).

Inflation has been creeping up in Bolivia for some time now. Today, La Razón ran a series of articles on economic indicators for the first semester of 2007. Things don’t look good. The economy is facing sluggish growth, w/ marked declines in agriculture (-2.26), hydrocarbons (-2.40%), and mining (-7.57%)—the only significant bright spot is commerce & construction (+4.38%). Meanwhile, there’s been no investment in mining since 1997. Despite rising prices, it looks like the mining industry has fallen an estimated 127% compared to last year. Additionally, hydrocarbon production won’t increase until next year. Government spokespeople, however, say everything’s fine.

I’ve added three books to the “Pronto* Recommends” section of my Amazon bookstore. They’re some paperbacks by Samuel P. Huntington, Amartya Sen, and Mark Juergensmeyer on the issue of states, nations, and “civilizations” (from this previous post).

My friend Clare Sammells, an anthropologist (University of Chicago) who studies tourism in Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca region, sites recent figures that show US tourists spend about $112 million per year in Bolivia (I severely underestimated US tourism expenditures). She also is certain that the strict visa requirements for US visitors to Bolivia will have disproportional affect on tourism to the Andean regions of Bolivia.

That said, it’s starting to look like many “exceptions” will be made in enforcing the visa requirements. It’s looking more & more like a political stunt. And if it’s put in place, it’s starting to look like haphazard enforcement will transform this less into policy than into rationale for corruption among border enforcement personnel.

I’m constantly glad I’ve signed up for the Teaching Comparative Politics blog newsletter. Today it linked to a story in the New York Times about Iran’s attempts at “Molding the Ideal Islamic Citizen.” They suggest using it to make comparisons w/ similar efforts to create “new” citizens in the Soviet Union & China. But I have other ideas.

The article will fit perfectly w/ today’s discussion. Students were assigned three articles to read from Essential Readings in Comparative Politics:

Samuel Huntington (1993), “The Clash of Civilizations”—which argues that the world is now divided into “civilizations” (Western-Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc.) as the fault lines of political conflict.

Amartya Sen (2002), “Civilizational Imprisonments: How to Misunderstand Everybody in the World”—which argues that Huntington is reductionist: civilizations are more complex than many realize & individuals can hold multiple identities.

Mark Juergensmeyer (1995), “The New Religious State”—which argues that “theocratic” states (in particular Islamic ones, but he mentions others) are similar to “secular” nation-states (if we accept that nationalism is a “secular religion”).

Last week they read about states & the historical-institutional development of modern states. This week they’ve been reading about nations, society, and political culture. Today was set aside for “in class discussion”—particularly as Huntington & Sen clearly hold conflicting views. The Times piece will (I hope) make the Juergensmeyer article more salient.

I was officially notified that I’ve been awarded a Dickinson Dana Research Assistantship grant, which allows me to hire a student research assistant for the academic year. This will make my Bolivian political parties database project—which I need for my April MPSA paper—much more manageable. Whew!

Bolivia has approved a measure to require visas for US tourists into Bolivia. The measure is in response to longstanding US travel visa requirements for Bolivian citizens. The move, of course, has symbolic resonance, which makes it a “winner” in populist terms. But what would the effects be?

According to Bolivia’s tourism minister, 40,000 US citizens visit Bolivia every year (which accounts for 9.7% of all tourists), making it second in visitors to Bolivia only to Peru (which accounts for 17.6% of tourists). That’s a sizeable contingent of tourists. If we assume that the “average” US tourist spends $1,000 per visit (adding up hotels, food, souvenirs, and other goods & services). That adds up to $40 million. If only half of those tourists no longer arrive, Bolivia is looking at a potential loss of $20 million per year. (I’d be curious to see the actual figures.)

Am I exaggerating? I don’t think so. The new requirements would include not only a $134 fee for entering the country (on top of the current $40-50 “airport tax” fee for leaving the country), but also a number of requirements not common to the average American traveler (such as proof of no criminal record and evidence of hotel reservations for the duration of the entire stay). The requirements won’t hinder visitors w/ long-standing plans, of course. But it will mean that backpackers in Argentina, Peru, or Chile won’t think to hop over the border for a few days.

In other words the most affected group will be young backpackers. Exactly the kind of tourist who spends more time off the beaten path, putting more money directly into local economies (as opposed to hotel chains in large cities). Which also means that the sector of the Bolivian economy most affected will include the small tourism industry, such as in rural, off-the-beaten-path areas.

The new measure is set to go into effect December of 2007.

It’s perhaps fitting that today—on the anniversary of “9/11”—my Democracy & Democratization class is reading the first chapter of Samuel Huntington’s The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (1991). It’s fitting because “9/11” is both the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 2001 and of the US-supported (if not directly “backed”) Chilean military coup of 1973.

While Huntington’s work has been controversial, he’s made some important insights that aren’t easily dismissed—and shouldn’t be overlooked. One of them is this snippet on pages 29-30:

“… the future of democracy in the world is of special importance to Americans. The United States is the premier democratic country in the modern world, and its identity as a nation is inseparable from its commitment to liberal and democratic values. Other nations may fundamentally change their political systems and continue their existence as nations. The United States does not have that option.”

Most of the class discussion will focus on the Huntington’s introduction to the idea of “waves” of democratization, which they’re reading alongside Dankward Rustow’s 1970 classic article, “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model.” But I hope we have a chance to parse out this Huntington nugget (which closely follows an argument that increased democratization throughout the world may bring more peace & less violence). Because what Huntington notes in this passage is that US political identity is wrapped up in our belief in liberal, democratic values. The US isn’t only the premier democracy (for all its faults), but the world’s premier case of “civic” (as opposed to organic, ethnic, or cultural) nationalism.

The US wasn’t founded on the belief that “the American people” should govern themselves (in the way that, say, the Serbian nation-state is explicitly Serbian and not for others in Serbian territory—this example could be applied to a host of “ethnic” nation-states), but on the belief that people should. Re-read the first line of the Declaration of Independence; it clearly implies a universal scope. And it suggests that the US has a founding mission to promote the spread of democracy.

Perhaps if we paid more attention to the struggle for freedom & democracy around the world, we wouldn’t be so surprised in international relations. And we may need to constantly remind ourselves that our first priority—or “prime directive”—as a state is to act in ways that promote democratic values around the world. Perhaps the last question made before any policy decision should be this: “Will this policy hinder or advance the cause of freedom in the world?”

While Pronto* is only a few months old, September is my five year blogging anniversary, w/ Ciao!

The conference was physically draining. Perhaps it was driving nearly 10 hours both ways, but I’m just completely drained. But there were some quality panels, which I enjoyed. And Montréal—in terms of local food & beer—is fantastic (K8 & I both agreed that the food in Montréal was better than in Paris).

I’m at LASA, in Montréal. It was a long (but not tedious) drive. And now I’m enjoying free WiFi in the hotel lobby, catching up on emails. The panels are interesting, of course (though we missed Alvaro García Linera’s presentation). And I’m hoping not to completely burn out before my Saturday panel (and I’ll need energy for the drive back!).

Catching up w/ Bolivian news is disturbing, but not unexpected. Street violence in Sucre, w/ promises of more to come. Both sides are to blame of course. And inflation has hit double digits (sparking fears of hyperinflation).

I’ll be attending the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) conference in Montreal. And we’re driving there & back. So I probably won’t be blogging until Monday. If you’re looking for English-language Bolivia updates, be sure you check the Global Voices Bolivia page. Ciao!

YouTube recently launched a University Channel, and Dickinson is participating in the project. Our first video is a 40-minute panel discussion preceding a screening of The Situation, a film about contemporary Iraq. I attended the event, which took place a few months ago. I found both the discussion & the film thought-provoking (even if the film, as a film, wasn’t all that good).

I’m using more YouTube snippets in the classroom. I have these “smart” classrooms, so why not take advantage of them? Or I simply point my students to them, as extra “reading” assignments. Today’s discussion (in my comparative politics course), for example, will make use of FP’s Failed States Index & a series of short (4-10 minute) interviews w/ diplomats from “failed” states (as rated by FP).

Just a quick note: I’ve been following the use of Facebook in the 2007-08 presidential primary races. Here’s a paper on about the Facebook & the 2006 mid-term elections. This is the kind of thing I plan to use in my Spring 2008 research methods course.

I doubt it’s a coincidence (coming on the heels of the government’s attack on Bolivian social scientists), but a new book on MAS was publicly presented Saturday. The book is MAS y la democracia by Fernado Molina Monasterios (La Paz, Bolivia: Eureka!, 2007).

You may be able to find it soon from Escaparate Cultural, which distributes Bolivian publications. Molina has been around for a while (he also worked on the 1994 Ley de Participación Popular). I have his Bajo el signo del cambio (2006), Evo Morales y el retorno de la izquierda nacionalista (2006), Crítica de las ideas políticas de la nueva izquierda boliviana (2003), and a number of older works no longer available.

I enjoy having students write comparative papers, rather than merely sing-country case studies for their papers. I think it forces them to think harder about what their research question. I usually also insist that the two “cases” come from different “areas” (geographic/cultural regions)—unless, of course, it’s a course on a specific region (e.g. Latin American politics).

The Bloguivianos blogging conference is underway in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Three El Alto bloggers, sponsored by the Rising Voices grant gave presented the Voces Bolivianas project. Looks exciting. There will even be Aymara & English subdomains, which I hadn’t yet realized.

An editorial in La Razón by Juan Cristóbal Soruco throws the gauntlet back at Juan Ramón Quintana, the presidency minister who two days ago attacked a number of Bolivian social scientists (see earlier post)—labeling them as “anti-national”—for having at one time worked for USAID or some NGOs linked, in different ways, to USAID and/or for having at some time worked for the Bolivian government prior to 2006.

It looks like October 2003 all over again. The repression has begun: La Razón reports 29 injured in Sucre while Correo del Sur reports 20-38 injured as police clash w/ protesters. The army has militarized the oil wells across the Chaco. The government criticizes the anti-government opposition of “political” machinations—as if the government’s moves weren’t also political. Meanwhile, thousands of cocaleros are still set to march on Sucre, intent to “give their lives” (and, I assume, take those of others) in the name of revolutionary change.

I’ve started adding sub-categories to my Amazon bookstore, building country-specific pages under the Latin America category. So far I’ve only added a few books on three countries: Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. If you have other (academic) titles you specifically recommend, please let me know. Even so, the sidebar to the right will give you other, related recommendations.