Evo Morales has labelled his government the 'government of social movements', and much has been written on state-social movement relations in Bolivia since the turn of the century. However, the Central Obrera Boliviana (Bolivian Workers' Central, the COB) has remained largely absent from discussions in much of the literature. This article seeks to analyse the position of the COB under Morales, and to explore the nature and consequences of its relationships with the government over the past twelve years. I develop the concepts of labour bureaucracy and labour officaldom as analytical lenses that shed light on the position of the COB today. I argue that during neoliberalism the need to look after the COB bureaucratized the union structures as personal needs of the leadership were placed above those of the Bolivian working-classes. This then allowed Morales' government to easily co-opt sections of the labour movements' leadership to form a labour officialdom, leaving the COB unable to challenge the continuation of the neoliberal structure of the economy and represent the majority of the countries working-classes.
Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Black October: Crisis, Catharsis, and Social Movement Insurgency -- 2. Building the Government of Social Movements: Transformism under the MAS -- 3. The Autonomy Movement, Two Bolivias, and the Spatiality of Passive Revolution -- 4. The Indigenous Apostle: Caesarism, State Formation, and the Figure of Evo Morales -- 5. Extractivism, Infrastructure, and the Spatiotemporal Dimensions of Passive Revolution -- 6. Contradictions, Crisis, and the End of Evo Morales -- Conclusion: Theoretical and Political Reflections on Passive Revolution -- Notes -- List of Interviews -- References -- Index.
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This article uses the Bolivian city of El Alto as a lens through which to evaluate the place of urban indigeneity and the popular economy within Latin American modernity. Whilst some express worries over the erosion of indigenous ways of life and others see urban indigenous practices as defying capitalist modernity, I argue that these emergent forms of indigeneity need to be understood as part of the complex, particular historical articulation of modernity in Latin America. Here, colonialism and uneven capitalist development have imbued modernity with a baroque character, containing multiple temporalities and contradictory societal forms, including that of urban indigeneity.
By drawing on the theoretical framework of the second incorporation of heterogeneous social organizations by progressive governments through informal contestation and/or technocratic implementation of their demands in Latin America, this article argues that the first presidential term of Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006–2009) was marked by the incorporation of combative social movements through both a multidimensional co-optation of movements and the technocratic competition of the central movement demands for the nationalization of gas and the rewriting of the constitution through a constituent assembly. However, by 2010, this incorporation had stripped social movements of their ability to mobilize for change and the political conjuncture had shifted, making the government less dependent on its social bases to maintain political stability. This simultaneously transformed movements into defensive movements protecting the gains from the previous period and state–social-movement relations into informal contestatory regimes in which movements could only struggle against proposed political agendas.En base a un marco teórico que abarca la segunda incorporación de organizaciones sociales heterogéneas por parte de gobiernos progresistas a través de la contestación informal y/o la implementación tecnocrática de sus demandas en América Latina, un análisis del proyecto político de Evo Morales en Bolivia sostiene que su primer mandato presidencial se vio caracterizado por la incorporación de movimientos sociales combativos a través de una cooptación multidimensional de dichos movimientos y la competencia tecnocrática de las demandas del movimiento central en torno a la nacionalización del gas y la modificación de la constitución por una asamblea constituyente. Sin embargo, para 2010, esta incorporación había despojado a los movimientos sociales de su capacidad de movilizarse a favor del cambio y la coyuntura política había cambiado, haciendo que el gobierno dependiera menos de sus bases sociales para mantener la estabilidad política. Esto transformó a los movimientos en entidades defensivas dedicadas a proteger las ganancias del período anterior y las relaciones entre el estado y los movimientos sociales en regímenes informales de impugnación dentro de los cuales los movimientos mismos sólo podían luchar contra las agendas políticas propuestas.
