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AbstractThe goal of this article is to examine the process of institutionalization of the Bolivian indigenous organization National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu from its birth until 2019, and its consequences on the dynamics of organization. This organization, as one of the key indigenous representatives in Bolivia, went through its internal crisis under the second Movement for Socialism government led by the president of indigenous origin Evo Morales Ayma. The division and demobilization of the organization in this crisis seems paradoxical considering Morales' indigenous origin and the anticolonial programmatic agenda that resulted in increasing numbers of indigenous people in state power structures. This paradox of organization crisis in times of indigenous rule and increasing indigenous political representation will be explored by means of process tracing method, to explain the relationship between institutionalization of the organization and its dynamics. For that purpose, the differentiation between institutionalization (substantive representation) and co‐optation (descriptive representation) will be made to reveal if the demobilization of the National Council organization stems from the perceived effectiveness of institutional ways of representation in the sense of satisfying the organization's demands or was caused by state actors' strategies to mitigate its challengers through co‐optation and patronage.

This article explores the relationship among the institutionalization of Bolivian indigenous movement and its dynamics in the sense of the employment of extrainstitutional strategies and internal cohesion in the period 1997–2014, to capture possible changes in institutionalization with the arrival to power of Evo Morales in 2006. It concludes that the indigenous movement went through institutionalization under Morales's government, which is reflected in the growing number of indigenous representatives and participation of main indigenous organizations in state structures. However, institutionalization was a selective process that preferred campesino organizations to indigenous sector ones, which instead experienced co-optation. That selectiveness had different implications on mobilization. The favorable politics and access to the state structure moderated the campesino sector, while indigenous organizations faced governmental strategies of division. ResumenEl artículo examina la relación entre institucionalización del movimiento indígena boliviano y su dinámica en el sentido de su actividad de protesta y su cohesión interna durante el período 1997–2014, para capturar el posible cambio en la institucionalización del movimiento con la llegada de Evo Morales al poder en 2006. En base al estudio hemerográfico de la prensa boliviana, el análisis concluye que el movimiento indígena pasó por la institucionalización bajo el gobierno de Morales, el hecho que está reflejado en la creciente representación indígena en las estructuras del poder estatal. Sin embargo, la institucionalización era un proceso selectivo y prefirió organizaciones campesinas antes que el sector indígena originario, que al contrario experimentó más bien cooptación que institucionalización. La selectividad del proceso produjo diferentes efectos en la movilización de las organizaciones individuales. La política favorable y el acceso a la estructura estatal moderó al sector campesino, mientras las organizaciones indígenas originarias afrontaron las estrategias gubernamentales de división.

One of the specific characteristics of the contemporary world is the frequent occurrence of competitive authoritarianism, a new kind of political regime in which democratic institutions formally exist, but abuse by power holders skews the playing field against opponents. Recently, researchers have often been highlighting the difficulty to discern competitive authoritarianism from liberal democracy, which leads to intellectually unsustainable concept-stretching that weakens our ability to understand political processes. Also, a no less important flaw of past studies on this topic is the insufficient analysis of civil-military relations, due to which a different kind of hybrid regime, namely the tutelary regime, is often marked as competitive authoritarianism. In the present study, this problem is demonstrated with analysis of the political regime of Nicolás Maduro's Venezuela. The results of the analysis clearly show that researchers should pay more attention to the nature of civil-military relations when classifying political regimes in the grey zone.

Formation of Indigenous First Peoples and Peasant Autonomies in Bolivia: A Precarious Process The goal of the article is to explore the obstacles to the process of the creation of Indigenous First Peoples and Peasant Autonomies (AIOC – autonomías indígenas originarias campesi-nas) in Bolivia. In the specific case of the municipality San Pedro de Totora Marka we will verify the relevance of the Dickovick's and Eaton's theories of recentralization and institutional layering that emphasize the political factors as the principal obstacles to the decentralization process. The actors' perception (primarily political and indigenous authorities) of AIOC and its main obstacles are more important than the normative-institutional context (such as laws, orders). The discourses of the main protagonists are examined for the purpose of capturing the main obstacles to the process. The data comes from semi-structured interviews carried out in Bolivia in the period between July and October 2015.ResumenEl objetivo de este artículo es explorar las mayores trabas en el proceso de la formación de las autonomías indígenas originarias campesinas (AIOC) en Bolivia. En el caso concreto del municipio San Pedro de Totora Marka verificamos la relevancia de las teorías de recentralización y estratificación institucional de Dickovick y Eaton quienes consideran los factores políticos como principales obstáculos del proceso descentralizador. En este sentido, más importante que el contexto normativo-institucional (leyes, reglas etc.), es la percepción de las AIOC y sus frenos potenciales por parte de los mismos protagonistas del proceso (sobre todo las autoridades políticas y originarias). Con el fin de descubrir los obstáculos principales son examinados los discursos de los protagonistas del proceso utilizando ante todo los datos de las entrevistas semiestructuradas realizadas en Bolivia en el período desde julio hasta octubre 2015.