All posts tagged Civil Society

Ben Kohl: The Loss of a Scholar-Activist who Taught About Bolivia

By Eric Hershberg

This AULA blog post does not follow our standard format, but it is one that I hope will motivate readers to seek out some singularly insightful analyses of contemporary Bolivia.

Los marchistas del TIPNIS llegan a La Paz (19/10/2011) Photo credit: Szymon Kochanski / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

Los marchistas del TIPNIS llegan a La Paz (19/10/2011) Photo credit: Szymon Kochanski / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

I was terribly distressed to learn that Temple University Professor Ben Kohl, a noted expert on Bolivia, passed away suddenly in late July, at the age of 59. I had the privilege of meeting Ben briefly on two occasions, on both of which he struck me as charming and intellectually lively. But I already knew of Kohl through his writings, which had taught me, and many of my students, a great deal about how and why Bolivian politics and society have evolved in such remarkable ways in recent years.  Faculty, students and non-academic audiences in Washington and beyond would be well served by surveying his writings, in part because of how effectively they make sense of a country with which the U.S. government has often related unproductively.

Most of Kohl’s work was co-authored with his journalist wife, Linda Farthing (he also collaborated with my CLALS colleague Rob Albro on a fine collection of articles on Bolivia that was published by Latin American Perspectives). Among their prolific writings on Bolivia, two books stand out as especially significant. Impasse in Bolivia and From the Mines to the Streets: an Activist’s Life in Bolivia established Kohl and Farthing as pivotal voices in shaping understanding of that Andean country’s politics and society.  Their work is unusual in the effectiveness with which it speaks simultaneously to advanced scholarly readers and to students and people in advocacy and policy circles who are engaged sympathetically with that country’s remarkable social movements and transformations.

What stands out for me about Impasse, aside from its deep and nuanced understanding of the fault lines dividing Bolivian society, is that it successfully blends attention to social dynamics and political mobilization at the micro-level with an appreciation for how those phenomena interact and reflect larger scale, deeply embedded social structures.  Written on the eve of Evo Morales’ rise to the Presidency, in the wake of several years of social and political “impasse,” the study combines ethnographic insight with sophisticated interpretation of macro-level historical and sociological processes.  Impasse in particular highlights how and why Bolivia took a decisively “indigenous turn” in its national politics beginning around 2000, and ably portrays the resistance that this elicited from long dominant elites. The book was an especially novel and eloquent contribution to the literature on Bolivia at a crucial juncture in the country’s history, a juncture that ushered in fundamental changes in the political system.

Mines, like Impasse, was written for more than a strictly scholarly audience, but it is a very different sort of monograph.  The autobiographical story told to Kohl and Farthing by labor activist Félix Muruchi Poma, and very intelligently framed for a foreign audience, brings to life aspects of contemporary Bolivia (and other parts of Latin America) that are rarely presented in such a compelling and readable form.  As noted in the brief bibliographic note at the conclusion of the book, several previous books provide historical accounts of issues and events covered in Muruchi’s story, but none of the English language literature does so in this “testimonial” genre.  That genre is difficult to pull off well, as Kohl acknowledged in an insightful article for the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, but this work is up to the task, and points to the activist side of Kohl and Farthing’s scholarship.  One is reminded, inevitably, of the classic I, Rigoberta Menchu, which focused on the life and politicization of an indigenous Guatemalan woman during a period that overlaps in part with that covered by Muruchi’s chronicle.  The many university faculty who assign the Menchu book for introductory Latin American Studies courses would do well to consider assigning this one alongside of it.

A number of Kohl’s recent articles and book chapters were aimed more strictly at scholarly audiences than were either Impasse or Mines. A 2012 essay published in Political Geography is the most insightful analysis I have encountered of the contradictions between what Kohl and Farthing label “resource nationalist imaginaries,” articulated in practice by strong social movements in Bolivia and more disparate actors in neighboring countries, and the circumstances of economies that remain as dependent as ever on revenues derived from natural resources. The study’s use of the theoretical concepts of “imaginaries” and “framing” strikes me as an especially valuable lens through which to understand the roots of social movement resistance to an economic model that has persisted despite the rise to power of Bolivia’s first indigenous President. Re-reading that piece as I was drafting this blog post, I am reminded of how Kohl’s passing is a great loss to those of us for whom innovative scholarship motivated by concerns about fairness and justice in Latin America is to be treasured, not unlike tin or gas or water for many Bolivians, as a precious commodity.

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by clalsstaff on August 14, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on August 14, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/08/14/ben-kohl-the-loss-of-a-scholar-activist-who-taught-about-bolivia/

Brazil Protests: Amorphous Causes, Unpredictable Consequences

By Matthew M. Taylor

Protestors in Brazil / Photo credit: Izaias Buson / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Protestors in Brazil / Photo credit: Izaias Buson / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians hit the streets of a dozen state capitals this past week.  The initial trigger was a proposed hike in São Paulo bus fares, already among the world’s most expensive, but news media soon reported that the protests reflected anger with the rising cost of living, crime, corruption, impunity, and the high costs of hosting the World Cup. Lackluster public services haven’t helped, and widely televised police violence last week provided another rallying cry.  Polling by Datafolha shows that the protest is a middle class phenomenon, with 77 percent of the marchers in São Paulo claiming a university degree.  This growing demographic group is turning against President Dilma Roussef’s Worker’s Party (PT) but it is also weary of the opposition PSDB, especially in São Paulo state.

So far, the protests have been difficult for political parties to harness for their own ends.  Partisans who showed up at the marches on Monday waving party flags were reportedly forced to pull them down by indignant protestors.  Dilma’s popularity has been falling – she was recently booed at the opening match of the Confederations Cup – but the marchers don’t seem collectively exercised about her policies or those of any single party or politician.  Aecio Neves, Marina Silva and Eduardo Paes, her potential opponents in elections scheduled for late 2014, have yet to capitalize on her vulnerabilities, as the protestors seem to be casting “a pox on all their houses.”  An outside candidacy is a rising possibility, but Brazilians have been wary of supposed political saviors after the rapid rise and fall of Fernando Collor in 1990‑92.  Anger is directed at the political class as a whole because it is incapable of responding to public disgust with Brazil’s unsatisfactory public services.

It is quite possible that the protests may peter out on their own, especially if the renewed violence seen in São Paulo on Tuesday night alienates supporters.  If the protests continue and remain peaceful, they may result in increased social solidarity and a shared sense of patriotism in the face of an unsatisfactory political system.  Something similar happened during other mass protests in the past, especially the Diretas Já marches of 1985.  A renewed consensus in favor of a more robust and effective democracy would be salutary, but the concrete results arising from the protestors’ demands are difficult to predict.  One thing to be sure of: withdrawing the proposed bus fare increase proposal is too little, too late.

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by clalsstaff on June 20, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 20, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/06/20/brazil-protests-amorphous-causes-unpredictable-consequences/

Violence in Mexico: Forging a Civic Compact for Urban Resilience

By Daniel Esser

Ciudad Juarez | Photo by Daniel Esser

Ciudad Juarez | Photo by Daniel Esser

The media’s regular chronicling of human resilience in the aftermath of natural disasters and large-scale violent conflicts cover only part of story.  As inspiring as tales of individual heroism, resistance and resilience can be, they provide little guidance for public policy aiming to strengthen social ties within damaged communities, in which safety nets need to be created to work both preventatively and post-victimization.  Supported by a field research grant from the Social Science Research Council’s Drugs, Security and Democracy Program (DSD) and working jointly with a team of researchers based at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, this writer recently spent four months on the U.S.-Mexico border to answer this question.  Members of 320 randomly sampled households in Ciudad Juárez were interviewed about their knowledge of non-violent collective action during the past five years.  Overall, the findings provide hope that Juárez’s social fabric has not suffered as badly as is widely claimed, but both Mexican and international policy-makers need to understand the nature of collective resilience before they can effectively support it.  Juárez no longer tops the world’s ranking of most violent cities per capita, as it did in 2010 and 2011, although organized violence continues to wreak havoc, exemplified by 30-60 murders per month.  Analysts agree that the downward trend is less the result of concerted government action and more a reflection of a reshuffling – likely temporary – of power structures within the transnational drug business.  Strikingly, most survey respondents argued that neighborly help had not decreased during the violent times.  Roughly a quarter even argued that residents’ willingness to help each other had in fact increased, mainly because people felt more united amid the terror.  Many people reported knowledge of collective street monitoring, peaceful marches, protests and public vigils, with between 5 and 8 percent saying they have actively participated in them.  For those residents, violence was not an abstract phenomenon; more than 30 percent reported personally knowing someone who had been murdered, and just under 20 percent had themselves been victims of violent crimes.  Surprisingly, almost two-thirds said they had not lost trust in local politicians and that they would vote for candidates promising to combat violence.

These findings serve as reminders of the political dimension of resilience in the context of chronic violence, implying that there are important local collective dynamics that can be leveraged through responsive and accountable political representation.  They also suggest that policymakers at all levels need to be mindful of the existence and potential of collective agency under extremely adverse conditions.  The violence in border cities created an opportunity for forging a civic compact between entities of the state on the one hand and neighborhood residents on the other, to mend frail ties between the electorate and its representatives.  This kind of deliberate state-building at the local level is precisely what Mexico needs in the aftermath of former President Calderón’s heavy-handed and, as many have claimed, detrimental strategy emphasizing federal-level and military-led programs and operations.  President Peña Nieto and his cabinet appear likely to embrace a local approach to increasing security as it complements his commitment to improving social services especially in secondary cities.  However, the most critical building block for effectively executing such a civic compact is a politically unbiased, data-driven selection of beneficiary communities and their needs.  Akin to approaches to civic reconstruction in war-torn countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, communities should be in the driver’s seat in both project selection and monitoring.  After all, state-building is as much about procedural inclusion and justice as it is about tangible outcomes.

Dr. Esser teaches international development at American University’s School of International Service.  Click here for more information about this project.

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by clalsstaff on May 31, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on May 31, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/05/31/violence-in-mexico-forging-a-civic-compact-for-urban-resilience/

Political Participation in Latin America Expanding

participatory democracy coverFrom local citizen initiatives to national referenda, mechanisms of direct political participation have been spreading with astonishing vigor throughout Latin America in recent years. Some of these mechanisms are new and unprecedented in the way they involve citizens in politics, such as frequently touted participatory budgeting systems at the municipal level in numerous countries.  Other initiatives, such as the National Policy Conferences that consult the citizenry regarding an array of issues in Brazil, are less widely known. In most Andean countries and to some extent elsewhere, these forms of participation often emerge where established representative institutions, such as party systems, have collapsed, or where legislatures have fallen into disrepute.  Yet they also proliferate alongside strong parties, legislatures, and interest associations, as we see in Brazil and Uruguay.

A recent CLALS-sponsored book* examines these new forms of participation and analyzes when they promote, and when not, the consolidation and deepening of representative institutions. The participatory innovations vary along a number of key dimensions, including how they interact with political parties and established institutions, their focus on collective versus individual rights and, perhaps most importantly, their autonomy from political and economic elites.  These differences and their implications are analyzed in detail in case studies on seven Latin American countries: Bolivia, Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Venezuela.

When new forms of political participation emerge spontaneously and independently – as a natural reaction to an unfulfilled need at a local or national level – their voices are authentic and tend to enhance democratic rule.  Brazil’s National Policy Conferences and Uruguay’s referenda to enhance accountability are examples of the incorporation of new voices in policy formulation – to the benefit of the constituencies driving them and the nation as a whole.  We also find instances where participation has exacerbated and reinforced longstanding patterns of clientelism (including in Mexico and Brazil), and autocratic leaders have sought to create or capture such voices to bypass representative institutions (including in Nicaragua and Venezuela).  A valuable lesson of this research, however, is that, once in place, these spaces may become increasingly autonomous. Venezuela’s community councils are an important case to watch: created to reinforce the Chavista project as defined by the Casa Rosada, they may take on a life of their own when the politicians who sponsored them relinquish their positions of power or pass away.

*  New Institutions of Participatory Democracy: Voice and Consequence, published by Palgrave Macmillan 2012, resulted from a multi-year project co-organized by CLALS and the University of British Columbia’s Andean Democracy Research Network.  More information on the project can be found here .  (The volume has also been published in Spanish by FLACSO-Mexico, Nuevas instituciones de democracia participativa en América Latina: la voz y sus consecuencias)

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by clalsstaff on January 16, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on January 16, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/01/16/political-participation-in-latin-america-expanding/

Indigenous Prospects in Mexico

American University professor Todd Eisenstadt has turned the conventional story about indigenous peoples in Mexico upside-down.  In Politics, Identity and Mexico’s Indigenous Rights Movement,* Eisenstadt presents evidence that Mexico’s indigenous peoples are at present not best characterized exclusively by the pursuit of communitarian ethnic goals and the defense of their collective rights and autonomy.  Rather, he shows that indigenous people are often preoccupied with their socio-economic conditions and struggles over land tenure and ownership, more than with ethnicity, and in ways largely comparable to non-indigenous Mexicans.

For at least a decade after the Zapatista revolt exploded onto the world stage in 1994, indigenous concerns and critiques of the state helped shape national Mexican politics and public debate.  The 1996 San Andrés Accords underscored the Zapatistas’ analysis of the limits of liberal citizenship and of the negative consequences of neoliberal state policies.  Now, in late 2012, indigenous political possibilities in Mexico appear very different.  The government has still not ratified the Accords; Mexico’s center-left has failed to capture the presidency; and the neoliberal policies of the Calderón administration promise to continue with the PRI’s return to power.  Indigenous social mobilization has been fragmented since the early 2000s.  Localized conflicts have flared up over government efforts to privatize land for outside investment and development, but these have not led to larger-scale indigenous mobilization.  The Zapatistas’ “Other Campaign” has had little impact, and they did not participate in the recent presidential elections.  As regular teacher strikes and the attention generated by the spectacle of the “#YoSoy132” anti-electoral fraud student movement have made clear, the national center of gravity of social protest no longer turns on an indigenous axis.

Eisenstadt’s book sounds a skeptical note about the possibilities for ethnically-based indigenous mobilization in Mexico.  His research underscores that Mexico’s development model does not adequately address the needs of ordinary Mexicans – including of indigenous peoples – at a moment when we should expect more of the same from the Peña Nieto (PRI) administration that takes office on 1 December.  He documents the shift away from primordialist accounts of indigenous identity to friction over control of economic resources – a shift from ethnicity to class – that is seen in some other Latin American countries. While countries such as Bolivia have actively incorporated indigenous nationalisms into state policy and law, Mexico appears headed in the other direction.  This divergence illustrates the elusiveness of the ongoing search for the best balance between collective and individual rights in Latin American countries with large indigenous populations.

* Politics, Identity, and Mexico’s Indigenous Rights Movement
by Todd A. Eisenstadt
Cambridge University Press
ISBN-10: 110700120X
ISBN-13: 978-1107001206

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by clalsstaff on October 25, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 25, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/10/25/indigenous-prospects-in-mexico/

Peru: Humala’s Difficult Balancing Act

Photo: Peruvian mine | Mihai (clandestino_20) | Flickr | Creative Commons

Peru’s new cabinet installed in July – President Ollanta Humala’s third since his inauguration a year earlier – faces the daunting task of sustaining national development while increasing social enfranchisement.  The reshuffle came amid loud criticism of a crackdown, which killed five people, on protests against the proposed $5 billion Conga mining project in Cajamarca.  The incident underscored the difficulty for Humala as he endeavors to implement a dual strategy of capitalizing on the growth potential of Peru’s mining industry – primarily gold and copper (60 percent of exports) – while respecting community concerns about the environmental consequences of extraction.  Mining wealth is needed to improve the lives of ordinary people –28 percent of Peruvians live in poverty – but unlike preceding governments this administration has committed itself to consultation with residents of localities that will be affected directly.    The new prime minister has announced suspension of the Conga project until the U.S. mining company involved provides better environmental guarantees.

Humala’s popularity has plummeted.  Despite new laws increasing Peru’s mining revenue, the creation of a new Ministry of Social Inclusion, and a new Prior Consultation Law, indigenous protesters feel betrayed by Humala.  They accuse him of continuing the aggressive extractive policies of his predecessor, Alán García, and insist his administration has not given adequate attention to concerns of local communities on issues such as the integrity of the water supply in zones affected by the mining ventures.  Recent signs of a resurgence in violence by the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas and of setbacks in efforts to curtail the influence of the narcotics trade are also eroding Humala’s support.

Humala narrowly won the presidency as a center-left candidate, committed to creating a framework for the more equitable distribution of the wealth generated by Peru’s natural resources.  Now, some of his political allies say he has courted foreign investment for the mining sector without adequate consultation, and further protests seem likely.  Humala’s challenge is not unlike that of other countries, including Bolivia and Ecuador, trying to balance between these competing interests.  His success or failure will have an impact beyond Peru’s borders, as South American countries dependent on commodity exports struggle to walk the tightrope between satisfying foreign investors and domestic electorates.

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by clalsstaff on September 19, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on September 19, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/09/19/peru-humalas-difficult-balancing-act/

Unanswered Questions about Cuban Dissident’s Activities and Death

Libertad y noviolencia para Cuba

Photo by dumplife (Mihai Romanciuc) via Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/62585343@N00/429146557/

Three weeks after the death of Cuban activist Osvaldo Payá, the questions that remain unanswered are not so much about the circumstances of the car accident that killed him – it appears to have been a tragic accident – but rather about the activities in which he and his European companions were engaged.  His family continues to claim that the vehicle was rammed off the road by state security agents.  According to Cuban authorities, the rental car veered off an unpaved stretch of road, and the driver, Angel Carromero, an activist from Spain’s conservative Partido Popular, has been charged with vehicular manslaughter.  At a Havana press conference, both Carromero and the other survivor, Jens Aron Modig of Sweden, confirmed the official version of the incident and asked the international community not to use the tragedy for political ends.  Since returning to Sweden, Modig, who admitted entering Cuba to deliver funds to Payá’s organization, has not disavowed the official account.  Nonetheless, the deluge of media coverage quick to frame the accident as a sinister government plot has not been corrected.

Though perhaps the most effective dissident to challenge the Cuban government, Payá was among the most tolerated.  His international celebrity – he won the EU Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2002 – his opposition to the U.S. embargo and Helms-Burton regime-change programs, and his commitment to peaceful change on the island made him an unlikely target for a political assassination.

The project that put Payá on the road to Santiago has many of the markings of the secret operations carried out under “democracy promotion” programs run by the U.S. State Department and USAID.  These programs are shrouded in such secrecy that not even the Congressional oversight committees are briefed on them, so ascertaining the truth of who was directing the Carromero-Modig mission and the information campaign accusing the Cuban government of murder after the accident is practically impossible.  But strong circumstantial evidence has emerged.  In video testimony, Modig revealed that he met in Tbilisi with two major USAID grantees involved in such operations – the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) – just before traveling to Cuba.  It is unclear whether Payá – known for eschewing foreign financial aid – was aware that Carromero and Modig’s primary objective on the trip was to hand out money to antigovernment activists.  It is conceivable that he chose not to know the details.  Regardless, his death represents a significant blow to Cuban activists seeking peaceful, democratic change without heavy foreign direction. 

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by clalsstaff on August 13, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on August 13, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/08/13/unanswered-questions-about-cuban-dissidents-activities-and-death/

Chilean Student Protests and Inequality

Photo by Davidlohr Bueso, Santiago, Chile via http://www.flickr.com

Following a year of student demonstrations, Chilean students have renewed their demands for education reform with a massive street protest in Santiago. According to a report from the BBC News, 25,000-50,000 students participated in a march for free education on Wednesday. The protest came despite President Sebastián Piñera’s announcement that a state agency would be created to finance university-level education and that private banks would no longer be permitted to provide loans to university students. Piñera also announced that interest rates on student loans would be reduced from 6 to 2 percent. The student protests are just one of several political issues confronting Piñera, such as the construction of dams in Patagonia and government handling of political protests in the southern region of Aysén. The students’ cause has reverberated throughout Latin America and indicates widespread discontent with high levels of socioeconomic inequality in Chile.

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by clalsstaff on April 30, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on April 30, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/04/30/chilean-student-protests-and-inequality/

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