Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The referendum has divided waters between those who defend it as an instrument for empowerment of citizenship and those who reject it as a weapon for the concentration of power in the hands of leaders. Given this dilemma, we sustain that when there exist democratic safeguards for its exercise, the referendum is a powerful mechanism of counter-power. Mandatory referendums and those initiated by the people are most appropriate to fulfil this function, provided that they comply with the rules of the game and that the existence of spaces for the expression of different arguments and deliberation are guarantee. This article analyzes these issues in connection with the popular consultation that took place in Bolivia on February 21, 2016, which resulted in the rejection of the proposal to reform the Constitution to permit a new reelection of president Evo Morales and his vice president Álvaro García Linera. 

This article explains the causes and effects of institutional change in political contexts where there is no guarantee of strict compliance with the rules. Analyzing the political reform of 2005 that made it possible for prefects or governors to be elected for the first time in Bolivia by popular vote, evidence was found that when there is a crisis of legitimacy, declining coalitions push for inclussive changes that reduce future electoral losses and cannot be reversed by the rising coalitions that come to power. These coalitions, nonetheless, attempt to limit the degree of inclusion of rules through lowerlevel policy changes that reduce political competition.

Book Review / Reseña

The current Bolivian President, Evo Morales, has managed to govern longer than all of his predecessors thanks to his three successful attempts to relax his term limits. In this article I argue that the high risk-taking personality of Morales, especially his social risk-taking, helps to explain why he has consistently tried to extend his time in office. To address this proposition I follow a twofold strategy. First, I show the results of a survey conducted among experts in presidents of the Americas. This survey measured different personality traits of the leaders that governed between 1945 and 2012, including their risk-taking. Second, I examine some of the most important decisions that Morales has made throughout his adult life. Both the survey and the analysis of Morales’ trajectory suggest that his attempts to cling to power are rooted in his risk-taking. 

Starting from the idea that “nation building” always begins with the destruction of the original nation, and that the stage of reconstruction does not take place, it is postulated that today this process is limited to the destruction of nations. This destruction is done with military intervention, as in the case of Irak, or without it, as in a large part of the world. Focusing on the pre-1952 Bolivian case, the author of this article offers a chronicle of that undercovered operation conceptualized as “destruction of nations.” He builds his chronicle with declassified documents from the United States Department of State, many of which were originally secret and remained so for a long time.

This paper analyzes the successes, failures, and lessons learned from the innovative experiments in decolonization that are currently underway in Bolivia and Nunavut, Canada. Bolivia and Nunavut are the first large-scale tests of Indigenous governance in the Americas. In both cases, Indigenous peoples are a marginalized majority who have recently assumed power by way of democratic mechanisms. In Bolivia, the inclusion of direct, participatory, and communitarian elements into the democratic system, has dramatically improved representation for Indigenous peoples. In Nunavut, the Inuit have also opted to pursue self-determination through a public government system rather than through an Inuit-specific self-government arrangement. The Nunavut government seeks to incorporate Inuit values, beliefs, and worldviews into a Canadian system of government. In both cases, the conditions for success are far from ideal. Significant social, economic, and institutional problems continue to plague the new governments of Bolivia and Nunavut. Based on original research in Bolivia and Nunavut, the paper finds that important democratic gains have been made. I argue that the emergence of new mechanisms for Indigenous and popular participation has the potential to strengthen democracy by enhancing or stretching liberal democratic conceptions and expectations.

IX Congreso de la Asociación de Estudios Bolivianos

[This is a literary homage and therefore has no abstract]

Dossier

Revista Mariposa Mundial