All posts tagged Ecuador

The “Invisibility Bargain” Constrains Migrants’ Identities and Rights

By Jeffrey D. Pugh*

Colombian refugees carry groceries

Colombian migrants in Ecuador carry home groceries. / Michelle Snow / USAID / Flickr / Creative Commons

Migrants win tolerance for their presence in host countries by striking an “invisibility bargain” with local citizens – contributing labor but settling for constraints on their identities and political participation – that slows their integration and leaves them vulnerable to discrimination and violence.  Through surveys of Colombians forced into Ecuador by conflict and violence, I have found that migrants feel pressure to conform to host communities’ expectations of their economic contribution and political and social “invisibility.”  (Full text of my recent article in International Migration Review is here.)  Migrants whose visible characteristics and practices violate norms that the host society deems to be unacceptable or who engage in overt political claim-making on the state often risk sparking a nativist backlash.  In response, Colombian migrants have employed a range of survival strategies:

  • Many who seek to integrate into Ecuadorian society sacrifice important elements of their Colombian identity, making a conscious effort to “unlearn” their accent, speak more softly and slowly, and use diminutive forms of speech to fit in better with Ecuadorians. Those who blend in better tend to have an easier time finding a job, getting housing, and building constructive relationships with Ecuadorians.
  • Others, particularly racial minority migrants, often choose to avoid contact with Ecuadorians, but this strategy of self-isolation removes them from potential spaces where they can negotiate access to rights, protection, and resources. Afro-Colombians are less likely than mestizo Colombians, for instance, to live in neighborhoods with mostly Ecuadorian neighbors.  As a result, they are less resilient against attacks or discriminatory behavior because they lack a support network in the host society.
  • Yet others employ a strategy that emphasizes the similarity between the experiences of Ecuadorian emigrants to Europe and Colombian immigrants in Ecuador. They propose a boundary-blurring strategy recognizing migrant rights everywhere and legitimizing migrants’ political participation in countries of both origin and residence.

The rhetoric of “universal citizenship” of former Ecuadorian President Correa (2007-2017) – a concept in which every person has a right to migrate and should therefore have access to basic rights – appeared to offer escape from the invisibility bargain and its consequences.  The 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution prohibited discrimination based on migration status and guaranteed refugees many of the same rights as Ecuadorians.  This “open borders” rhetoric promised a commitment to human security above national security and promoted a reciprocal protection to Ecuador’s large diaspora in Spain and the United States.  Crafted to undergird politically beneficial policies, however, Correa’s approach faced political constraints and was undercut by the populist nature of his government style – and made only limited progress at the level of implementation.  Surveys show that the legal distinction between refugees and other migrants is still lost in practice in Ecuador.  The formal institutions of democratic states fail to provide security for everyone living in their territory in their responses to constituent pressure to scapegoat migrants.

In the absence of concrete progress toward concepts like universal citizenship, migrants will continue to face the trade-off between maintaining their identities and customs and successfully integrating into host communities and gaining political rights and participation.  Although informal mechanisms of political participation pale in comparison to the exercise of full citizen rights, they can be important sources of protection and assistance.  The evidence from Ecuador shows that the frequency and quality of interaction between Ecuadorians and Colombians seem to influence their attitudes toward one another.  Migrants reporting daily interaction with Ecuadorians had nearly double the level of positive perceptions of the native population compared to those who interacted less frequently – and broader acceptance by local communities at least offers a glimmer of hope of liberating other migrants from the pain of the invisibility bargain in the future.

 October 25, 2017

*Jeffrey D. Pugh is an Assistant Professor of conflict resolution at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and executive director of the Center for Mediation, Peace, and Resolution Conflict (CEMPROC).

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by clalsstaff on October 25, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Colombia, Ecuador
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 25, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/10/25/the-invisibility-bargain-constrains-migrants-identities-and-rights/

Ecuador: Moreno’s Victory Probably Not Enough

By John Polga-Hecimovich*

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President-elect Lenín Moreno at a meeting to discuss the presidential transition in April 2017. / Agencia Noticias ANDES / Flickr / Creative Commons

President-elect Lenín Moreno’s narrow victory and modest legislative majority fall short of what he needs to push his costly leftist agenda while simultaneously bridging deep socio-political divisions and struggling with vexing economic challenges.  Moreno, of the ruling Alianza PAIS, narrowly defeated Guillermo Lasso of the CREO movement, 51.16 to 48.84 percent, in Ecuador’s presidential runoff election on April 2.  As a referendum on outgoing president Rafael Correa and his “Citizen’s Revolution,” the election marks a victory for Latin America’s ideological left after setbacks in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru.  The splintered opposition vote largely coalesced behind Lasso’s candidacy – he earned only 28.09 percent in the first round – but an uneven electoral playing field (including support from state-run media and Correa’s deployment of thugs to intimidate Lasso supporters) and his affiliation with the banking crisis of 1999 appear to have hurt him.

  • The incoming government appears committed to continuing Correa’s economic and social policies. Moreno is reassembling many of the further left members of Correa’s team for his own government, including powerful ex-ministers Fander Falconí and María Belén Moncayo.  Although he is more rhetorically moderate than his predecessor, Moreno is an avowed socialist.  As a young man, he was a member of the fringe Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Left Movement, and as president-elect he has already promised an additional US$2 billion on top of the government’s already unsustainable social spending.  At the same time, Moreno has adopted a more conciliatory tone with the United States than Correa and has already made overtures to social movement leaders that had fallen afoul of the outgoing president.

Although Moreno will enjoy a legislative majority, he is taking office under difficult political and economic circumstances that will test his leadership.  The outgoing government’s politicization of public agencies like the National Electoral Council (CNE) has hurt the president-elect’s legitimacy.  The slim difference in the vote spawned protests outside the CNE in Quito by mostly middle-class members of the opposition.  What is more, despite assurances from the Organization of American States (OAS) and the local NGO Participación Ciudadana that the final vote closely aligned to their internal quick counts, a number of opposition voices maintain that there was electoral fraud. There are more challenges:

  • In the National Assembly, Moreno and his party won 54 percent of the seats (74 of 137) with just 39 percent of popular support due to clever districting and a seat allocation formula that favors large parties. Although this provides for unified government in a constitutional environment that can harshly penalize legislative gridlock, it is also disproportional to the popular support for the party.
  • Moreover, Moreno’s majority may also be more illusory than it appears. As many as 24 of Alianza PAIS’s 74 legislators, 32 percent of the movement’s total seats, were elected via electoral alliance between PAIS and a different party: seven from the Ecuadorian Socialist Party and the remainder from a panoply of inchoate provincial-level movements.  These legislators’ support for PAIS is not guaranteed.

Maintaining his heterogeneous alliance in a country with notoriously high levels of party switching will require a great deal of negotiating skill and flexibility of the inexperienced Moreno.  He possesses limited policymaking options to confront an unviable fiscal situation – the deficit doubled in 2016 – and economic slowdown – according to the IMF, the economy contracted by 2.2 percent in 2016 and is expected to decrease by an additional 1.6 percent in 2017 – and an overvalued currency in real terms.  The Moreno administration confronts the unenviable task of continuing and even expanding an economically costly political project in the midst of fiscal constraints, a fragile political majority, and a limited popular mandate among deep social divisions.  Less daunting situations have felled more experienced leaders in Ecuador’s history.

May 8, 2017

*John Polga-Hecimovich is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the US Naval Academy.  The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of or endorsement by the Naval Academy, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the US government.

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by clalsstaff on May 8, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on May 8, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/05/08/ecuador-morenos-victory-probably-not-enough/

A Return to Political Instability for Ecuador?

By John Polga-Hecimovich*

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Presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso (center, blue shirt) in Cuenca, Ecuador during a campaign rally last month. / Samurai Juan / Flickr / Creative Commons

General elections on Sunday could mark the beginning of the end of an impressive period of stability in Ecuador. Ecuadorians will elect a new congress and a replacement for the powerful and populist Rafael Correa, the longest-serving chief executive in the country’s history. Although the president’s handpicked successor, ex-Vice President Lenín Moreno is leading public opinion polls with 32 percent of likely voters in a crowded eight-candidate field, the chances of him winning a first-round victory outright are slim. Public approval of Correa and his ruling Alianza PAIS (AP) has fallen over the past two years as economic growth has slowed, and the administration is embroiled in allegations of corruption, including those against Jorge Glas Espinel, incumbent vice-president and Moreno’s running mate. Given Ecuador’s two-round presidential system, in which candidates must win by 10 percent or gain 40 percent of the vote, Moreno probably will end up in a run-off election on April 2.

  • The other seven candidates are vying for the chance to face Moreno in the second round. Three of them poll between 8 and 21 percent, and the rest appear to have 4 percent or less of the vote. However, rejection of the entire field is high – nearly 12 percent of respondents say they will cast a null vote – and a whopping 35 percent maintain that they are undecided.

Moreno does not appear likely to win the runoff. The Economist Intelligence Unit predicts that voters will coalesce around an opposition candidate – most likely the CREO movement’s Guillermo Lasso, a conservative former economy minister and banker who ran a distant second to Correa in the 2013 presidential race – who would then defeat Moreno.

  • If Moreno and Glas win, they will likely continue Correa’s leftist “Citizens’ Revolution,” especially its improvements to social welfare and emphasis on science and technology, and maintain close ties with China, which has become a key partner in trade and infrastructure investment over the past decade. If the opposition wins, it will try to repeal some of Correa’s onerous taxes, reverse stringent regulation of the media, shrink the size of the state, and seek improved relations with the U.S.

Regardless of who wins, the fragmented support for the candidates and their parties bodes poorly for Ecuador’s political stability, especially in the context of fiscal constraints, a stagnant economy, and burden of recovery from last April’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake. The so-called muerte cruzada (mutual death) in Article 148 of the country’s 2008 Constitution, moreover, will loom larger under a divided government. This clause gives the president a political “nuclear option” to dissolve the National Assembly in the event of gridlock, triggering new legislative and presidential elections – while the incumbent president is allowed to rule by decree on urgent economic matters in the interim. Correa, who enjoyed majority or near-majority government throughout his unprecedented ten-year presidency, never invoked the muerte cruzada, but his successor will feel stronger temptation to dissolve the Assembly in order to govern unilaterally. Ecuadorians should brace for an end to the country’s unprecedented political stability – and for the specter of Correa, much like the possibility of muerte cruzada, to loom large over the new government’s economic and political decisions.

February 17, 2017

* John Polga-Hecimovich is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the U.S. Naval Academy. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of or endorsement by the Naval Academy, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

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by clalsstaff on February 17, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on February 17, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/02/17/a-return-to-political-instability-for-ecuador/

A Post-Correa Ecuador?

By Catherine Conaghan*

Photo Credit: Thierry Ehrmann / Flickr / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Thierry Ehrmann / Flickr / Creative Commons

What seemed like a certainty less than a year ago – Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa as a shoo-in for reelection in 2017 – now has given way to competing scenarios as the country’s economic crisis deepens.  The game-changer has been the collapse in revenues from Ecuador’s principal export: petroleum.  With prices for Ecuadorian crude hovering 50 percent below their 2014 average, Correa has had little choice but to slash the abundant government spending that has been the hallmark of his presidency.  Ecuador’s use of the U.S. dollar greatly handicaps its capacity to adjust.  Further aggravating the recession is the economic downturn of Ecuador’s principal external lender, China.  Over $2 billion have been cut from the 2015 budget, and plans to shrink the size of the public bureaucracy are now under way.  His decision in April to suspend the central government’s obligatory payments to the national social security system stoked anxiety about the fund’s future, and an announcement in June of plans to hike taxes on inheritance and real estate transactions sparked street demonstrations around the country.  Indigenous and labor organizations mobilized in mid-August to protest these and other aspects of Correa’s style of governing.  An estimated crowd of 100,000 people marched in Quito.  Scores of protestors were detained and face charges related to the August mobilizations.

The months ahead will not be easy for a president accustomed to buoyant budgets and strong polls.  As one of Latin America’s left-turn leaders, he pushed a state-centric economic model under which poverty declined and the middle class grew.  His approval ratings since he took office in 2007 consistently scored among the highest of any Latin American president.  (They dipped below 50 percent – as low as 42 percent – for the first time in 2015.)  While Correa waxes and wanes on whether he really will pursue reelection, his party is pushing to amend the Constitution through legislation – without a referendum supported by over 80 percent of the public – to allow him a third term.  The opposition strenuously opposes the move.  The National Assembly appears headed toward a final vote on the matter in December.

From now until December, the reelection maneuvering and two possible outcomes will dominate conversations.  Under one scenario, Correa and Alianza País will push ahead with the amendment, ignoring negative public reaction and repressing protests if necessary, and Correa will decide on his candidacy depending on his view of the economy and the state of the opposition.  In a second and perhaps less likely scenario, Correa and his party may just abandon the reelection plan, concluding that the political costs are just too high.  This would set off power struggles within Alianza País over who would head the ticket.  Among the prospective frontrunners are former Vice President Lenín Moreno, current Vice President Jorge Glas, Production Minister (and former Ambassador to the United States) Nathalie Cely, and former Industry Minister-turned-critic Ramiro González.  In the process, Correa will be looking to anoint someone loyal and capable of governing the country until he can return as a candidate in 2021.  Under both of these scenarios, Ecuador is bracing for a volatile year ahead.  Natural disasters – a possible volcanic eruption of Mount Cotopaxi and El Niño – could also fuel uncertainty, giving Correa a chance to shine and rally, or to fail and deepen doubts about his leadership.  After eight years of relative political stability and economic good times, Ecuadorians are pondering whether a post-Correa era could be at hand and what it would mean.

September 8, 2015

* Catherine Conaghan is the Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Latin American Politics at Canada’s Queen’s University and a former CLALS Research Fellow.

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by clalsstaff on September 8, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on September 8, 2015

https://aulablog.net/2015/09/08/a-post-correa-ecuador/

Ecuador: Stacking the Deck Against Democracy

Enlace Cuidadano

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa during one of his weekly broadcasts Enlace Ciudadano / Mauricio Muñoz / Flickr / Creative Commons

By Catherine M. Conaghan*

Taking a page from Hugo Chávez’s playbook, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is intimidating and steadily increasing controls on his opponents.  He regularly uses his Saturday morning broadcasts to name and shame them.  Actors from all walks of Ecuador’s civil society – journalists, lawyers, activists, academics, bloggers, union and social movement leaders – have been the target of his insults and thinly veiled threats on the weekly program, Enlace Ciudadano.  In February, Correa’s show was skewered by HBO comedian John Oliver – and, to Oliver’s delight, Correa fired back by tweeting insults (click here and here).  Journalists and civil society leaders applauded Oliver for drawing attention to the continuing deterioration of civil liberties in Ecuador.  Correa’s virulent rhetoric and intimidating use of media is part of a larger matrix of policies endangering freedom of expression and association in Ecuador.  Over the last two years, the Correa administration has worked methodically to mount a legal framework allowing for greater government control over the media and civil society organizations.

  • The 2013 Law of Communication and a new oversight agency, the Superintendence of Information and Communication, are intended to ensure that all print and broadcast media provide “truthful information” that is “verified, contrasted, precise, and contextualized.”  Superintendent Carlos Ochoa was selected from a short-list of nominees provided by Correa.  Among alleged violations recently singled out for sanctions are items in the leading newspaper El Universo and its accomplished political cartoonist, Xavier ‘Bonil’ Bonilla.
  • Issued in 2013, Executive Decree 16 also has civil society – from neighborhood associations to think tanks, business chambers, unions, and advocacy groups – under pressure. In addition to elaborate regulations for the legal registration of organizations, the decree stipulates conditions allowing the government to “dissolve” them.  These include group involvement in “partisan activity” and “interfering in public policies.”  To date, only one organization – the Fundación Pachamama involved in environmental activism – has been dissolved, but civic leaders fear that the decree will induce ”self-censorship” and stifle participation.

The new laws amount to a project – unprecedented for Ecuador – of surveillance and regulation.  They provide the government with a tempting arsenal of weapons to use, if necessary, in upcoming battles on other important legal matters, especially on the issue of presidential re-election.  After years of pledging that he would not seek a third term in office, Correa reversed course and has tasked his legislative super-majority with finding a swift route to amending the constitution.  Most public opinion polls show, however, that a majority of Ecuadorians would prefer a referendum to decide whether or not yet another consecutive re-election should be allowed.  The road to re-election may be more difficult than Correa and his advisors imagine, but they enter the fray with the weight of the law on their side.  With powers to control the media and limit the activity of civil society, the Correa administration enjoys the upper hand as 2017 approaches.

March 12, 2015

*Catherine Conaghan is the Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Latin American Politics at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.  She specializes in Andean politics.  She is the author of an article, “Surveil and Sanction: The Return of the State and Societal Regulation in Ecuador,” in the April issue of the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

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by clalsstaff on March 12, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 12, 2015

https://aulablog.net/2015/03/12/ecuador-stacking-the-deck-against-democracy/

The Amazon Basin: Rainforests, Oil, Politics, and the U.N. Climate Negotiations

By Todd A. Eisenstadt and Karleen Jones West

Photo by Caroline Bennett / Rainforest Action Network / Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0

Caroline Bennett / Rainforest Action Network / Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0

Research that we have undertaken with National Science Foundation support indicates that rural, indigenous, and impoverished citizens in Latin America mobilize on environmental issues out of simple self-interest.  In daily testimonials at last week’s meeting in Lima of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCC), activists reaffirmed that they have been mobilizing all across Latin America to protect their land and water.  The conventional argument in the political science scholarly literature is that environmental issues are a post-materialist concern that influence only the relatively affluent populations of advanced democracies, but our research shows that the self-interest of vulnerable populations in developing countries is a powerful motivation for environmental consciousness.

Original data from a national survey we conducted in Ecuador this year point to three interest-driven hypotheses as explaining attitudes towards the environment.  First, similar to literature developing in geography, vulnerability to environmental changes that impact on people’s livelihood greatly enhances interest in environmental issues.  Second, political competition affects individuals’ environmental concerns because politics determine the extent to which citizens will benefit from extraction as a development policy.  Third, we claim – particularly for respondents in the Amazon region subsample – that a respondent’s location on the “extractive frontier” (i.e. whether they live in an area where extraction is under consideration) will affect their level of environmental concern.  Using original survey data from Ecuador, we find that populations threatened by environmental change and who are on extractive frontiers (where mining and oil concessions are being considered) are more likely to express concern over the environment, but that these factors are conditional upon how much citizens trust that the government will use profits from extraction to invest in their communities.

The meetings in Lima and implementation of its results are testing the findings of our research.  The social impact of the 2009 Baguazo – the slaying of some 33 protestors against mining in Peru’s Bagua Province – is still a recent memory to many and is a constant reminder that the “extractive frontier” is long, dynamic, and fraught with social conflict.  For Ecuador, Peru, and the other Amazon Basin nations on the front lines of climate change, our findings imply that in this part of the developing world at least, vulnerability to environmental change has a great impact on public opinion.  Competing political interests and debate over whether to accept mineral or petroleum extraction is also intense because of the trade-offs they entail between environmental conservation and economic growth.  This is not a new debate, but one which is acquiring more precise definition by academics in studies such as ours (click here for full paper) as well as the policymakers who last week pushed the debate onward to Paris in 2015, where a new climate change framework is expected from the UN.

December 16, 2014

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by clalsstaff on December 16, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on December 16, 2014

https://aulablog.net/2014/12/16/the-amazon-basin-rainforests-oil-politics-and-the-u-n-climate-negotiations/

Resource Extraction and Ecuador’s Fragile Ecological Sustainability

By Peter Redvers-Lee

Yasuní National Park /Photo credit: joshbousel / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

Yasuní National Park /Photo credit: joshbousel / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

The world has failed Ecuador again.  That, at least, is the sentiment of Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, explaining his decision to discontinue an innovative environmental plan to save sections of the Yasuní National Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve on the border with Peru.  The 2010 plan was for Ecuador to refrain from granting oil concessions in the park if it could raise $3.6 billion from other countries and international organizations.  To date, only $13 million has been raised.  Correa’s about-face comes a few months after another environmental U-turn.  In June, Ecuador’s legislature passed a new mining law that, while not garnering new friends among large mining companies, rolls back taxes and other regulations to favor smaller and medium-size mining ventures.

Both developments heighten the likelihood of further environmental degradation in Ecuador.  Increased mining and drilling is likely to have an immediate and negative impact on the sustainability of local ecosystems upon which communities depend.  The rivers that make up the Mataje-Cayapas watershed have been an important means of livelihood for the local indigenous and African-descendent communities that dot the river banks from the mangroves on the coast to the foothills of the Andes.  Environmental degradation accelerated in the 1990s, when the first major roads reached the area and mining, logging, shrimp farming and other industries moved in.  Mercury, used in mining, is already present at unacceptable levels in populations of blue crabs in the lower reaches of the watershed, where the crab forms a staple in local diets.  The destruction of the mangrove forests to make way for shrimp ponds has increased.  The roads allowed for more efficient logging, and increasing numbers of internal migrants flooded the area.  Once the Chocó forest was cleared, palm plantations took root, further displacing African-descendent communities that made up the bulk of the local inhabitants.  The African palm, used for biofuels and other purposes, often entails liberal use of toxic chemicals.

The failure of the Yasuní proposal and Ecuador’s new mining laws have ominous implications for Ecuador and, perhaps, beyond.  Toxins in the Mataje-Cayapas watershed have contaminated the water supply on which thousands of mainly African-descendent communities rely for their livelihoods.  The recent setbacks will also accelerate commercial exploitation of the watershed for gold, exposing it to even more toxic chemicals, and the ever-increasing palm plantations will add to the existing brew of fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides sprayed liberally on the crop.  It’s unclear whether the world “failed” Ecuador or that President Correa’s proposal – protecting preserves in return for cash – is not viable.  Skepticism that the $3.6 billion would be put to good use, rather than for politically gratifying short-term programs, is also reasonable.  Either way, the country’s long-running pattern of resource extraction and environmental destruction continues in one of the most diverse ecological spots on earth.  And now Yasuní faces a similar fate.

Peter Redvers-Lee is CLALS Faculty Affiliate and Professorial Lecturer in American University’s School of International Service.  He has worked in the Mataje-Cayapas watershed since 2004.

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by clalsstaff on August 27, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on August 27, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/08/27/resource-extraction-and-ecuadors-fragile-ecological-sustainability/

Correa’s Second Term

By Rob Albro, CLALS Faculty Affiliate

President Rafael Correa, Ecuador | by: "el quinto infierno" | Flickr | Creative Commons

President Rafael Correa, Ecuador | by: “el quinto infierno” | Flickr | Creative Commons

Little drama accompanied results of the February 17 election in Ecuador, where center-left incumbent Rafael Correa retained the presidency by a wide margin. Correa enjoys the highest approval rating – nearly 80% late last year – of any Latin American head of state. He will be the first Ecuadoran president to complete his term since 1996, and his resounding victory at the polls will in principle keep him in office until 2017. Most pre-election polls had projected Correa to win decisively, and he did just that with 56.7% of the popular vote. The opposition is fractured, with seven different candidates running against him. His nearest rival, banker Guillermo Lasso, garnered only 23.3% of the vote. A testament to Correa’s dominance is that the right-leaning Lasso offered a vision little different from the president’s own policies and even adopted key elements of Correa’s discourse. The title of Lasso’s recent book, Another Ecuador is Possible, references the World Social Forum.

Correa’s political base was consolidated during the anti-neoliberal protests of 2005, and his “citizen’s revolution” represents an unorthodox combination of nationalist populism, robust social welfare spending and rhetorical flourishes in defense of Ecuador’s national sovereignty. Correa’s social spending – increasing the health budget, minimum wage, pensions, and access to medical care; offering micro-credit and free school lunches; providing new housing and anti-poverty subsidies –is highly popular, especially with the urban poor. These programs, dependent upon a commodity-led export strategy, have enabled Correa to marginalize once important political actors of the left and right. Organized labor and indigenous movements on the left, like economic and media elites on the right, have picked fights with Correa, objecting to his authoritarian style, attacks on the press, petroleum policies in the Amazon, poor record on crime, and outbursts directed toward foreign investors. But this has made little dent in his popularity.

If Correa is certain to face resistance to his agenda in his new term, the political fragmentation and lack of dramatic choices evident during the campaign suggest that it will not necessarily be effective.  Despite potential fiscal headwinds, redistributive social welfare policies are likely to continue to expand. Questions do remain: regular social investment has been enabled by ramping up an extraction-based economy dependent on oil, which has also generated some social conflict.  But there is mounting evidence that aside from being popular these policies are also measurably successful. Ecuador’s election comes on the heels of Venezuela’s, where opposition candidates also found it necessary to tout redistributive policies. If the economy turns south, a splintered opposition might find common cause. But as in a number of other South American countries, the redistributive politics of an incipient social welfare state will inform the agenda of Correa’s eventual successor. The long-term management of these policies, and whether the President will seek to alter the Constitution to permit indefinite re-election, are matters that could prove vexing during the coming years.

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by clalsstaff on February 18, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on February 18, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/02/18/correas-second-term/

Ecuador Elections: Four More Years for Correa?

Photo by: Rinaldo Wurglitsch “Rinaldo W.” | Flickr | Creative Commons

Like him or not, President Rafael Correa has done what few recent Ecuadorean presidents have done – complete a term in office.  When he announced on November 10 his intent to run for re-election, observers in and outside Ecuador immediately declared him the favorite.  (Correa ran a second time in 2009, without completing his first term, under the rules of a new Constitution.)  Such predictions make it easy to forget how uncertain Correa’s presidency looked when he started it in 2007 – as a 43-year-old, U.S.-educated economist – and how few expected him to succeed.  In the ten years prior, social movements led by workers and indigenous peoples toppled a succession of seven presidents.  Rejection of IMF-led reforms had been both deep and broad in Ecuador, and it was hard for a president to complete a year, let alone a term.

High oil prices have helped Correa succeed by facilitating visible public spending, but that is not the whole story.  By almost all accounts, Correa has been far from perfect – his treatment of the press has particularly troubled rights experts – but he has provided some stability and halted the cycle of mass protests, strikes, and presidential turnover.  With a blend of economic populism and nationalist rhetoric, Correa has turned the same social movements that were once the scourge of Ecuadorean presidents into a base of support.  He has incorporated formerly marginalized people into the “nation” that he claims to defend – what academic Steven Ellner called “a new narrative of nationhood that challenges long-held assumptions.”  He has unified policies such as ending the U.S. lease of the Manta airbase with resource-based economic nationalism.

Though Correa’s reelection next February 17 looks easy, he will face increased tensions in his third term.  Government revenues remain dependent on oil and mining, which are susceptible to price fluctuations.  The expansion of extractive activities in areas inhabited by Correa’s indigenous base could strain his coalition – it has already stirred environmental concerns – and government spending has neglected the need to diversify the economy and reduce its reliance on the extractive industry.  In addition, Correa has benefited from the generosity of Venezuela, but that support could wane as President Hugo Chávez turns inward to deal with domestic challenges.  The opposition, which has continued to present half a dozen candidates for the presidency, will likely begin to unify if it feels threatened by a further concentration of power in the Executive.  To win reelection and govern effectively, Correa will need to maintain the unity of an uneasy coalition, without riding roughshod over the opposition and press freedom. 

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

https://aulablog.net/2012/11/19/ecuador-elections-four-more-years-for-correa/

Ecuador’s Difficult Choice on Assange

Photo: Julian Assange by Ben Bryan (bbwbryant) | Flickr | Creative Commons

Many observers have portrayed President Rafael Correa’s decision to grant asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as an act of defiance – a gratuitous slap at the United States – and, because of Correa’s mixed record of respect for a free press, as a sign of hypocrisy.  How can a President who has prosecuted newspapers for revealing damaging information about his government, according to Correa’s accusers, now stand up as the defender of Assange’s right to publish hundreds of thousands of sensitive U.S. Government documents?

The lack of clarity on British and Swedish intentions made the decision difficult.  American officials have minced no words about their hopes to prosecute Assange, although none has stated what the charges would be.  Even U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has referred to him as a “high-tech terrorist.”  Former Republican presidential nominees Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee have called for his execution.  (A former senior Canadian official said, “I think Assange should be assassinated.”)  The Swedish government, which seeks only to question Assange about allegations of sexual abuses (important offenses in Swedish law), has refused to conduct the interrogations in London or by video, or  to provide reassurances that he will not be extradited to the United States.  British officials at one point even threatened to enter the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, a flagrant violation of well-established principles of international law.

Correa’s ancillary agendas notwithstanding, the asylum decision would have been difficult for almost any country.  There is no evidence that Assange would not get a fair trial in the United States or that he would face the sort of abuse and torture that Bradley Manning – the alleged American source of the Wikileaks documents – has faced.  But the American silence on the charges Assange might face, the rhetoric tarring him as a terrorist and the lack of U.S. accountability for past abuses – the Obama Administration last week announced yet another decision to forego prosecution of U.S. officials involved in alleged torture – makes the absence of a pledge regarding extradition to the United States politically sensitive.  Ironically, the U.S., British and Swedish position risks thrusting them into the same ironic contradiction as Correa finds himself:  claiming to protect human rights, they may open the door to prosecution of a man who published leaked information – and who by any reasonable standard is an indiscriminate whistle blower but hardly an agent of espionage.  If their pursuit of Assange were to result in his exposure to U.S. prosecution related to the Wikileaks matter, these democracies would potentially risk being parties to a serious violation of fundamental principles of free expression.

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by clalsstaff on September 10, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Ecuador
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Posted by clalsstaff on September 10, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/09/10/ecuadors-difficult-choice-on-assange/

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