Introduction : vivir bien as a post-neoliberal alternative in the global world : Bolivia's indigenous alternative to universalist development models -- Towards decolonial government : policy-making, state formation, and power -- Indigenous resistance struggles, coloniality of the state and the capitalist world-system : a historical view -- Contested meanings of vivir bien -- Colonialism strikes back : vivir bien as bureaucratic practice and technical expertise -- Bureaucracy as a disciplinary power -- In the name of vivir bien : legitimizing extractive conflicts? -- Concluding remarks.
This article investigates how multiple and nuanced micropractices of power work through everyday bureaucratic actions in the course of major state transformations. It argues that it is not solely the grand ideological battles or global asymmetries of power that impede the implementation of revolutionary political alternatives. More attention should be paid to the internal functioning of state governance and its micropractices of power in processes of change. Empirically, it examines the process of decolonizing the state in Bolivia, where the notion of Vivir Bien (Living Well) has been introduced into policy-making processes since 2006. Initially, it was portrayed as a democratizing, decolonizing, and ecological policy alternative deriving - to an extent - from indigenous cultural heritage that provides locally grounded solutions to societal problems. While many of the outcomes of the shift in public policy have been critically assessed, there is still a lack of showing how difficulties in implementation emerge. By discussing the contested nature of everyday bureaucratic practices in Evo Morales' Bolivia, this article tries to fulfill the gap. It is demonstrated that multiple everyday techniques, procedures, and routines of the state continue to create and reproduce various forms of coloniality. The ethnographic evidence of the continuation of neoliberal rationalities suggests that it is these exact - and assumingly insignificant - bureaucratic routines that derogate Vivir Bien transformation agenda internally. Consequently, together with opposition and outright racism by public servants, it is shown that deep ruptures have emerged between political rhetoric of decolonization and concrete everyday actions amidst state bureaucracy. ; Peer reviewed
The notion of vivir bien – a complex set of ideas, worldviews, and knowledge deriving from indigenous movements, activist groups, and scholars of indigeneity – has become an overarching principle for policy-making and state transformation processes in Andean countries. This article analyses the contradiction between the principle of vivir bien as an egalitarian utopian category and its bureaucratic application in Bolivia to state formation processes and power dynamics involving social movements. It argues that while discursively grounded on such egalitarian principles as reciprocity and rotating authority, its implementation entails bureaucratic propensities to centralise power and authority. Instead of decolonising the state, it is used to discipline the masses. ; Peer reviewed
