1

THE EMERGENCE OF A MESTIZO AND INDIGENOUS DEMOCRACY IN BOLIVIA*

by

Herbert S. Klein

Columbia University & Stanford University

Paper prepared for the conference “Roots of the Democratic Tradition in Latin America”

Yale University, December 2-3, 2011, Revised version of Dec 9, 2011

Not for citation without permission of the author.

* I wish to thank Clara López Beltrán, Manuel Contreras, Antonio Mitre and José Alejandro Peres Cajias for help with sources and providing a critical reading of this paper.

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Although Bolivia represents one of the three current Populist Latin American

democracies along with Venezuela and Ecuador, it is unique in they type of government which it

has created. Since 2005 the political leaders who make up the cadre of this government are from

classes and ethnic groups that have never governed before. Bolivia has created a type of

participatory democracy that is unique in the Americas. In what has been called a “plebian

revolution,” 1 the popular class and its members have taken direct control over local, regional

and national governments. It is the mestizos and indigenous people of middle and lower class

origins and often of only primary and secondary level educations, and not their white elite

representatives, who now fill the majority of political offices in the country from the local to the

national levels. Moreover popular protest has become a systematic and constant extra-legal

political development since the 2000 “Water War” and shows little evidence of decline in the

past decade. It is now a permanent part of the political system and has been used even more

intensely against the MAS and the Evo Morales regime than in previous administrations. This

suggests that the effective mobilization and direct participation of indigenous and mestizo groups

is now a basic part of the Bolivian political landscape and may well outlast the current

government and its party.

It is my aim in this essay to attempt an explanation of this rise to power of the popular

classes in Bolivia. This will involve both an analysis of the immediate causes which created this

participatory democratic system, as well as the long term historical and structural causes which

help to explain this quite extraordinary development.

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The immediate causes for the collapse of the traditional party system and the opening of

the government to mestizo and indigenous leaders occurred as a result of a rapid shift of power

from the mid 1990s until 2005. The MNR government decision to move toward a more

federalist system of government led to the massive expansion of self-governing municipalities in

the 1994 Participación Popular and 1995 government decentralization reforms. This severely

weakened the traditional national parties and opened the way for new political movements which

came to the fore in the presidential election of 2002. Then mass mobilizations of protest in what

has been called the water and gas wars of 2000-2002 which once begun, became a constant part

of the political scene at the local and national levels, led to the ever increasing mobilization of

indigenous and urban mestizos. The collapse of the white led traditional parties in the election of

2002, allowed the new indigenous party MAS and its leader Evo Morales to emerge as a major

new political movement as powerful as all the other national parties.2 Finally the constant

protests, strikes and blockades from 2002 to 2005 forced three presidents from office in a short

period of time and left the traditional parties in disarray. Given the power of this movement, the

majority of Bolivian voters accepted MAS and Evo Morales in the presidential election of 2005

as the only possible solution to the crisis and near collapse of civilian government. The new

party which came to power in the election of 2005 not only brought a self identified indigenous

political leader to the presidency, but saw indigenous men and women take over the entire

central government as well as a large share of the elected positions in congress and the senate. In

short it was a massive political revolution which brought the poor, the indigenous and the

mestizo majority population into the national government under its own leaders in what can be

described as the first truly democratic revolution in Bolivian history.

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The origins of this extraordinary “revolution” go back a long ways. Bolivia’s main

indigenous groups have been organized into self governing communal land holding governments

(or ayllus) since before the Spanish conquest. While the native nobility class was destroyed in

the Tupac Amaru rebellion of the 1780s, local communal government survived in most areas

until the present day, led by their elected male elders and their jilakatas, or village

administrators.3 Moreover in their constant rebellions in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries the

Aymara and Quechua Amerindian groups fought against the expansion of the liberal state and its

white leaders who always represented a minority of the population.4 Except for their short lived

participation in the Liberal Revolution of 1899,5 their role was reactive to external pressures and

they remained outside the political sphere. But after the National Revolution of 1952 the

Amerindian population of Bolivia obtained the vote and thus become an active part of the body

politic.6 But as could be expected from a population that was rural and mostly illiterate, their

demands were basic ones for lands, education and health, and as long as these were supplied by

the government, their participation was as passive actors supporting white elite politicians. Even

conservative military regimes after 1952 allied with the peasants and the growing body of urban

mestizos to maintain their power. But as will be seen in the following analysis, the progressive

migration of the rural indigenous populations to the cities, their increasing levels of education

and their greater life expectancies, had begun to create a new educated and urban mestizo class

which had far broader interests than simple defense of rural land rights or basic access to health

and schooling.7

It was in the 1970s with the emergence of the so called Tupac Katari movement that an

autonomous indigenous and mestizo political elite appeared which called for the direct

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participation of mestizos and indigenous peoples in government and demanded a party or

movement which represented its interests. In the late 1980s and early 1990s this was followed

by the growth of CONDEPA (Conciencia de Patria) which many current leaders consider the

first truly indigenous party which went from 12% of the vote when it first contested elections in

1989 to 17% of the vote in 1993.8 Though led by white politicians the party made a direct appeal

to these newly powerful groups and succeeded in electing the first mestizos to political office.9

Finally the symbolic appointment of Víctor Hugo Cárdenas, a leader of the Tupac Katari

movement, as Vice President in the first Sánchez de Losada MNR government, indicated the

growing political power of indigenous figures. But all of these developments only brought a few

leaders to the fore, and national politics remained in the hands of the minority non-indigenous

elite.

The shift of indigenous peoples from a more passive to a more active role occurred with

the progressive takeover of the national unions by indigenous leaders in the 1980s and 1990s.

This signaled the rise of a more pro-active leadership which had demands for greater direct

participation in government. Thus when local government finally expanded in the mid 1990s,

there were now enough urbanized and educated indigenous leaders who could quickly fill these

new positions especially as the national parties proved incapable of organizing at the local level.

Whereas there had only been a few dozen municipalities in existence prior to the law of

Participacion Popular, and these all located in major urban centers, the government now created

311 municipal governments spread throughout the nation – each with its own mayor and town

council, all electoral offices. 10 This meant that there were now as many more rural than urban

municipalities. By this act the government increased the number of local elected officials from

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262 before the law to 2,900 afterward.11 The result of this change was that a very significant

number of indigenous and mestizo leaders entered public life for the first time through these new

municipal offices.12

Not only were indigenous and mestizo leaders emerging in the traditional highland and

eastern Andean valley regions, but new leaders also appeared in the new eastern lowland

agricultural colonies. Above all the Chapare region in the province of Cochabamba, which was

the primer zone of new coca production, became the center of a dynamic group of such political

leaders as a result of their opposition to the United States “War on Drugs” policy. The active

intervention of the United States to prohibit local production led to often violent confrontation

between the government and the local cocaleros and their sindicatos and federations in the 1980s

and 1990s, especially as the La Paz government supported U.S. efforts.13

At the time of the emergence of this new group of indigenous and mestizo political

leaders, there was also an abrupt change in basic government economic policy which had been in

place since 1952. In 1985 during the forth presidential term of Victor Paz Estenssoro there was

an abrupt abandonment of state capitalism and a wholesale adoption of a neo-liberal economic

policy in direct opposition to all that Paz Estenssoro and the MNR had stood for since the

National Revolution. One of the first of the American nations to adopt the neo-liberal program of

the so called Washington Consensus, the government began to dismantle the entire edifice of

state capitalism. Each government from 1985 to 2005 proceeded to expand on this policy even

going to the extreme of adopting the Chilean model of private pension plans. While many of

these privatizations were economically successful and brought Bolivia the greatest amount of

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direct foreign investment in its history in the 1990s,14 these changes were bitterly opposed by the

popular classes who could not see any direct benefit to themselves. Though the second Sánchez

de Lozada government of 2002-2005 tried to appease this growing hostility be using some of the

funds generated from the sale of state companies to pay for an expansion of the pension funds to

the elderly urban poor, this was insufficient to resolve their hostility. Given the high levels both

of poverty and of the small proportion of workers in the legal economy, these gesturers were

insufficient to resolve the growing tension between the government and the popular classes.

This tension occurred just as many of the new peasant and indigenous leaders were taking office

or taking control over national labor organizations. With their own demands for far greater

participation in national politics, the growing hostility over the neo-liberal policies of the

government presented an ideal opportunity to push for their respective agendas. The existence of

this nascent leadership helps explain the surprisingly swift and impressive mobilization against

the more extreme of the neo-liberal policies in the last MNR government of Sánchez de Lozada.

Especially the so-called gas war showed that these popular groups were now willing to fight over

national issues, not just the traditional questions of government deliveries of education, health

and land titles which had been the prime concern of the indigenous masses in previous periods.

It was the post 2000 marches and blockades which finally brought out a coherent and

powerful mobilized group of mestizos and indigenous populations with their own leaders who

were able to maintain constant pressure on the government.15 Although small radical Aymara

groups presented themselves in the elections of the 1990s, especially under the leadership of

Felipe Quispe, who became head of the Peasant federation (CSUTCB) in 1998, and had his own

party, the Movimiento Indio Pachakuti (MIP), they had little impact in national elections.

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National leadership would instead come from the new groups of the eastern lowlands, most

particularly the cocaleros of the Chapare region. Under the leadership of Evo Morales, who had

taken over one of the important regional syndical federations, the FCT (Federación de Cocaleros

del Trópico) in 1988,16 there was first created the Asamblea por la Soberanía de los Pueblos

(ASP) which was the immediate antecedent to the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party.

Using the peasant sindicatos as a base, his new party was able to capture municipal governments

not only in the coca zones but throughout the department of Cochabamba, and Morales himself

was overwhelmingly elected to the National Congress from Chapare in 1997. Four indigenous

leaders were elected to Congress in this year, all from Cochabamba. Although expelled from

Congress in 2002, Morales and his party shocked the traditional political establishment in the

presidential elections of that year by coming in second to the MNR. In the election of 2002 a

third of congressional seats were taken by the two indigenous parties, the MAS of Morales and

the MIP of Felipe Quispe, and the MAS even elected 8 senators.17

These new indigenous and mestizo leaders now presented a series of demands for

economic and social justice for the urban poor and rural masses. They also proposed a change in

the nature of Bolivia’s political economy, with a return to state control over natural resources.

Finally they demanded recognition of their distinct culture and identity as coequal to the western

white elite and they wanted significant representation in all Bolivia’s institutions and

government. This movement not only lead to the development of new parties and pressure

groups at the local and national level, but also to a new era of ever increasing political

mobilization and violent mass protest in the streets and highways of Bolivia. This era began just

before the presidential election with the “Water War” in January 2000 in the Cochabamba valley.

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The government attempt to privatize the region’s public and communal waterworks and sell

them to Bechtel, a northamerican multinational, created a massive and ever increasing popular

protest. After three months of mobilization of local groups which included general strikes and an

important participation of the local Quechuan speaking agriculturalists, the government finally

abandoned its effort to privatize the water system in the valley. Although the government’s

decision to abandon privatization calmed the protests, this was the first of what would be many

popular mobilizations after 2000, which combined both economic demands and challenges to

basic state policies related to social and economic questions.

The opening up of the modern natural gas industry to foreign participation, even though

many of these companies were in fact state enterprises of other nations, was the second issue

around which a popular massive attack on the post 1985 privatization policies was organized.

The second Sánchez de Lozada government had dramatically reduced the role of the YPFB in

gas production and granted extensive rights to exploitation to foreign transnational companies

and it now wished to sell this gas to overseas markets. The decision to create a natural gas

pipeline over the Andes to Chilean ports led to the “Gas War” of 2003 and the mobilization of

the peasant and mestizos against the MNR and its leader. The use of Chilean territory for the

proposed pipeline and the continued privatization of this crucial new natural resource as outlined

in the new Hydrocarbons law of 1996 were the key factors which created both a nationalist and

left movement that made for a powerful frontal attack on government privatization policies

related to natural resource. In September 2003 came urban protests in La Paz and Cochabamba

and then a massacre of peasants in the crucial Aymara center of Warisata on the altiplano. A

blockade from El Alto of communications with La Paz on October 13th by anti-gas protestors led

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Sánchez de Lozada to send troops to the altiplano which resulted in a large number of deaths

among the unarmed protestors. The result was an immediate escalation of road blockages, the

closure of the city of La Paz by the population of the city of El Alto and increasing police and

protestor confrontations and violence. Whatever sympathy the elite classes felt for the MNR

evaporated with the ongoing blockades and daily protests which were bringing the economy of

the capital city to a halt. On October 17, 2002 Sánchez de Lozada resigned the presidency and

left the country. Vice President Carlos Meza, a media personality and historian with no national

party or group who supported him, became the new president of a much changed Bolivia.

But the continued blockades by mestizos and indigenous groups of the major cities

further cemented the leadership of MAS and its credentials as a party of the majority of the

population of Bolivia. By the time of the presidential election of December 2005 most of the

traditional parties had been replaced by a new non-indigenous party known as PODEMOS, while

Morales and his MAS party emerged as the single most important party in the country. In

December 2005, the two indigenous parties the MAS and the MIP together received 1.6 million

votes out of the 2.9 million cast, or 56 percent of the total. Thus in just three short years all the

traditional parties lost their importance and were replaced by new groupings of non-indigenous

movements as well as a multiplicity of indigenous parties, the most important of which was the

MAS, led by Evo Morales, which finally came to power in the 2005 election. For the first time

in republican history a president was elected who defined himself as an indigenous person.

Although the developments as outlined above explain the immediate causes for the

emergence of a new democratic government in Bolivia led by indigenous and mestizo leaders,

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the cause for this sudden rise to power of the poorest elements of Bolivian society require a more

detailed examination of the social changes which have occurred in the past half century which

helps explain this profound transformation. The origins for this historic political change go

back half a century to the National Revolution of 1952. There is little question that this event

had a profound impact in both its intended and unintended consequences. The two most

important acts of this early revolutionary period were land reform which both returned land to

the indigenous populations but even more importantly freed them from all work obligations

which tied them to the land; and the enfranchisement of all adult voters regardless of literacy for

the first time in republican history. The August 1953 land reform decree effectively confiscated

all highlands hacienda lands and granted these ex-hacienda lands to the Indian workers through

their sindicatos and comunidades, with the proviso that such lands could not be individually sold.

The only lands not confiscated by the state were the then lightly populated Santa Cruz region and

such southeastern medium-sized hacienda valley regions as Monteagudo, and the small-holding

vineyard region of the Cinti Valley, which had some modest capital-intensive agriculture and no

resident Indian populations. Everywhere else, the hacienda was abolished, the hacendado class

destroyed, and land now shifted predominately into the hands of the Indian peasants. By 1993

some 831,000 land titles had been issued for 44 million hectares - or some 40 percent of the total

land area of Bolivia – to 626,998 persons.18 To this land reform were added the two periods of

hyperinflation in the mid 1950s and again in the early 1980s which weakened and in many cases

destroyed the traditional rural white elites that had ruled over the small villages and rural

communities.19 These elites were replaced everywhere by a new mestizo class; that is, Indians

who entered the labor market, became bilingual in Spanish, and moved into small towns and

cities throughout the nation. These so-called mestizos now became the middlemen between the

12

rural and metropolitan worlds evolving in Bolivia and soon became the demographically

dominant group within the country.

Equally important as its land provisions, the Agrarian Reform of 1953 also freed all

Indian peasants and rural workers from all personal servitude (pongueaje and colonato) that had

tied them to the land. This act alone led to far greater mobility for the poor than ever before in

republican history. Migration to ever more rapidly expanding urban centers provided new

opportunities for education, employment, and well-being. At the same time, the establishment of

a viable road network and the opening up of rural areas to national markets brought in new

wealth to the countryside. Finally, the government’s support for syndical and communal

organizations – written into all the post 1952 constitutions - guaranteed support for common

projects and an ability to make effective demands for the delivery of better health and

educational services. These syndical organizations were so important in fact that they became the

norm in the new lands being opened up to highland migration in the eastern lowlands districts.

The second major change brought by the 1952 National Revolution was the

enfranchisement of the indigenous population. In one stroke, the Indian peasant masses were

enfranchised, and the voting population jumped from 126,000 in 1951 to 955,000 in 1956 and

reached 1.3 million voters in the election of 1964.20 Though the Indian masses would take

several generations to find their independent political voice, every successive government,

whether military or civilian was required to make some gesture to satisfy their demands for

schools, housing, electricity, sanitation, and general economic support. Though the government

was less than efficient in delivering this support, the change to national life was profound. Every

13

government after 1952 was required to make some appeal to this majority of the population and

satisfy some of their demands.

With a new commitment to the health and welfare of its citizens, the post-1952

governments established or deepened important earlier initiatives in health and education, which

eventually had a major social and demographic impact. There occurred a rapid decline in infant

which led to a significant decline in the crude death rates (see Graph 1 ). In 1950, the average

life expectancy of males was only 38 years at birth and, for women, just 42 years. 21 By the time

of the first post-Revolution census of 1976, average life expectancy had increased by over 10

years for both men and women (reaching 48 years and 52 years, respectively), and the infant

mortality rate had dropped to the 130s deaths per 1000 live births - still an extraordinarily high

rate – but a major improvement compared to the 1950 rates.22 The economic crises and relative

stagnation of the 1980s and early 1990s were not matched by any stagnation in the demographic

indices. Much of this more rapid decline in mortality in recent years was due to a series of acts

and decisions made in the 1990s. The 1994 Popular Participation Law required some 6 percent of

monies devolved to the communities be spent on basic health care, which was supplemented by a

fund devoted to supporting free access to medical care for pregnant women and for births.23 By

2010 infant mortality fell to 42 deaths per 1,000 live births, and maternal mortality declined in

2005 to 180 deaths per thousand live births from a rate of 547 deaths as recently as 1980.24

Although these rates were still high by world and even Latin American standards,25 they

represented a profound and lasting change in Bolivia. Overall, by 2010 life expectancy had

increased for both sexes an extraordinary 26 years on average in the sixty years since the census

of 1950 (see graph 2) . Bolivian males now had a life expectancy of 64 years and women some

14

of 69 years of life,26 both rates which are expected to increase with each quinquenium, arriving at

mid twenty-first century to close to contemporary Latin American rates. Although these

increases are part of a worldwide trend and still leaves Bolivia with one of the lowest life

expectancy rates in the Americas, the gap between rich and poor has decreased. Compared to

Latin America rates as a whole, Bolivian life expectancy rates have progressively closed the gap,

going from an 11-year difference for both sexes in 1950 to just 7 years difference in 2010–15

(see Graph 3).

Graph 1: Infant Mortality and Total Fertility Rate in Bolivia, 1950-55 to 2010-15

6.8 6.8 6.6 6.6 6.5

5.8

5.35.0

4.8

4.34.0

3.5

3.12.8

176170

164158

151

131

109

90

7567

56

4638

33

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

1950-1955

1955-1960

1960-1965

1965-1970

1970-1975

1975-1980

1980-1985

1985-1990

1990-1995

1995-2000

2000-2005

2005-2010

2010-2015

2015-2020

INE, Cuadro N° 2.01.19

Chi

ldre

n pe

r wom

en 1

4-49

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Infa

nt D

eath

s pe

r tho

usan

d liv

e bi

rths

Total Fertility Rate Infant Mortality Rate

15

Graph 2: Estimated Change in Life Expectancy by Sex, Bolivia 1950-55 to 2025-30

38.539.9

41.442.9

44.6

48.0

51.9

55.157.7

59.861.8

63.465.0

66.668.1

69.4

42.544.0

45.647.3

49.0

52.2

55.6

58.661.0

63.266.0

67.769.4

71.072.5

74.0

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

1950-1955

1955-1960

1960-1965

1965-1970

1970-1975

1975-1980

1980-1985

1985-1990

1990-1995

1995-2000

2000-2005

2005-2010

2010-2015

2015-2020

2020-2025

2025-2030

Source: To 2000, UN Demograhic Yearbook, Historical Supplement; post 2000 see I NE, Cuadro 2.01.31 found at http://www.ine.gov.b o/indice/indice.aspx?d1=0307&d2=6

Hombres Mujeres

Graph 3: Average Life Expectancy for both Sexes, Bolivia and Latin America 1950-1955 to 2010-2015

40 42 43 45 4750

5457

6062

64 66 67

5255

5759

6163

6567

6971 72 74 75

30.

35.

40.

45.

50.

55.

60.

65.

70.

75.

80.

1950 -1955

1955 -1960

1960 -1965

1965 -1970

1970 -1975

1975 -1980

1980 -1985

1985 -1990

1990 -1995

1995 -2000

2000 -2005

2005 -2010

2010 -2015

CEPAL, Anuario Estad...2009 , Cuadro 1.1.0

Bolivia Latin America

The decline of child and infant mortality was due to government health programs, both

the expansion of health professionals to all areas of the country, but most especially to the

massive immunization of children in recent decades. As late as 1980, immunization had been

16

given to only 10–15 percent of the children under 3 years of age. By 2008 a very complete set of

modern immunizations was given to between 80% to 95% of all infants. Moreover, the

government immunization program is as effective in poor rural populations as it is in the urban

ones. Thus in 2000 some 92 percent of children under 3 years of age had the polio vaccination in

the urban areas and 86% of rural children had been so treated.27 There has also been a slow but

steady increase in prenatal medical consultations and assistance at births,28 all of which

effectively aided in bringing down infant and maternal mortality. Finally, the increasing

availability of potable water and modern sewerage in Bolivian homes clearly helped decrease the

high rates of intestinal disorders which were the biggest killers of children. Whereas two thirds

of all Bolivian homes in 1976 had no potable water, this rate had declined to just over a third of

the homes by 2003.29 Rates of intestinal disorders and malnutrition among infants and children

have also declined significantly.30

Although there remain important regional, class, and ethnic differences in rates of

mortality and fertility, 31 the declining trends are the same for all regions and among all groups.

The question then arises as to how many of these changes were accounted for by the

governments of the post–National Revolution era and how many can be accounted for by general

hemispheric changes. In some ways, both influences can be seen in comparable regional

demographic statistics. What is impressive is that Bolivia had not changed its rank position –

among the worst in the Americas - in terms of mortality or life expectancy compared to all the

other nations of the Western Hemisphere (see graph 4).

17

Graph 4: Life Expectancy at Birth, Both Sexes, Latin American 2010

797979

7777

7676

7675

75

7474

747373

7372

7167

63

60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80

Costa RicaChileCuba

MéxicoUruguayPanamá

ArgentinaEcuador

VenezuelaNicaragua

PerúColombia

BrasilRep.Dom.HondurasParaguay

El SalvadorGuatemala

BoliviaHaití

Source: CEPAL. AE, 2010, p. 32, table 1.1.10

But whatever the local and regional trends, there is little question that the decline in

Bolivian mortality has been profound. Moreover this decline in mortality was influential in

leading to a decline in fertility as many more children than previously survived childhood, thus

putting new pressure on limited resources. Increasing education and the greater availability of

contraception after 1960 finally led to a dramatic decline in fertility in the late 1970s and early

1980s. In Bolivia, as elsewhere in the developing world, unwanted pregnancies began to decline

at an ever more rapid rate in the last half of the twentieth century, though for Bolivia this decline

occurred fairly late by world standards. The high rate of 6.5 children being born to women in

their fertile years was still the norm as late as the mid-1970s, 32 but then births began to fall

quickly and total fertility rates have dropped to 3.4 children by 2010 and have slowly approached

hemispheric norms.33 It is estimated by Bolivia’s National Statistical Institute (INE) that

18

Bolivian fertility will only fall below replacement levels by the period 2035-2040, some twenty

years after this occurred for Latin America as a whole (see Graph 5).

Graph 5: Total Fertility Rate in Bolivia & all Latin America, 1950-55 to 2045-50

6.8 6.8 6.6 6.6 6.5

5.8 5.3

5.0 4.8 4.3

4.0 3.5

3.1 2.8

2.5 2.3 2.1 2.0 1.9 1.9

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

1950-1955

1955-1960

1960-1965

1965-1970

1970-1975

1975-1980

1980-1985

1985-1990

1990-1995

1995-2000

2000-2005

2005-2010

2010-2015

2015-2020

2020-2025

2025-2030

2030-2035

2035-2040

2040-2045

2045-2050

CEPAL, Anuario Estadística...2009, cuadro 1.1

no.

child

ren

per

wom

en 1

4-49

Bolivia Latin America

Declining mortality and fertility have also had an obvious impact on population growth.

As death rates initially fell significantly before birth rates declined, an explosive growth of

population occurred. Whereas in the early 1980s, population growth was still below 2 percent

per annum, by the 1990s it reached a very high 2.7 per annum and only dropped below 2% in

2009. It is estimated that this rate of growth will continue to decline for the rest of the century.34

But the high growth rate achieved in the 1990s meant that the national population was doubling

every 25.7 years. Since the late 1980s, Bolivian population growth has been consistently higher

than Latin American growth rates in general. The population had doubled from 3 million to 6.4

million between the censuses of 1950 and 1992, and added some two million more by the census

of 2001 and was estimated to have reached 10.4 million in 2010.35 This growth means that

Bolivia contains one of the world’s youngest populations. Nevertheless the declining birth rate

19

has finally begun to have an impact on the age structure of the population, with the median age

of the national population going from a very low 18 years of age in 1992 to 21.9 years of age in

2010.36 A look at the age distributions by sex show significant reshaping of the classic pyramid

shape of 1950 (see Graph 6) to the beginnings of a more jar like structure typical of advanced

industrial societies with lower birth and death rates in 2010 (see Graph 7).

Graph 6: Age Pyramid of Bolivia n Population in 1950 (2.7 million)

10 6 2 2 6 10

0-4

5-9

10-14

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

65-69

70-74

75-79

CEPAL / CELADE - División de Población. Boletín demográfic o No. 66 de jul io de 2000 "Bolivia"

Males Females

20

Graph 7: Age Pyramid of Bolivian Population in 2010 (est. 10.4 million)

8 4 0 4 8

0-45-9

10-1415-1920-24

25-2930-34

35-3940-4445-49

50-5455-59

60-6465-6970-74

75-7980+

Source: INE, cuadro 2.01.01 "BOLIVIA: Población Total Proyectada... 2005 - 2010" accessed March 2010

Males Females

If the fertility and mortality of Bolivians has remained among the regions highest, this is

not the case with literacy. Bolivia has exceeded its past American ranking in terms of literacy

and education to such an extent that it is no longer ranked among the poorest nations of the

hemisphere in these areas. Although it has been suggested that increasing investments in

education and rising student enrollments preceded the National Revolution, there is little

question that the most rapid changes have occurred in the past 50 years are in education and

literacy.37 Although it was among the least-educated populations in the Western Hemisphere in

1950, by 2010 Bolivia had finally achieved a rate close to that of all its South American

neighbors and well above most of the Central American republics and Haiti. In fact, the

evolution of its educational and literacy indices compares favorably with that achieved by

neighboring Brazil during this period.

21

By the end of the century the government was spending more on education than most

countries in the region, or about 8 percent of its GDP.38 In 1950 Bolivia was only educating a

quarter of its children in primary schools, but this net matriculation ratio had risen to 92 percent

by 2008, with no difference between boys and girls.39 Bolivia does less well at the secondary

school level, educating just 61 percent of boys and girls of this age group in 2008. But even these

secondary schooling rates have been rising quickly, having been just 52% gross enrollment in

2000 when there was still a disparity between the sexes. Bolivia in fact has totally eliminated

schooling differences by sex, which had been eliminated in primary and secondary education by

2008. Due to earlier differences, however, there are still important differences in educational

levels achieved by sex among adults, which will slowly disappear in the next few years. 40 With

rapidly expanding school enrollments as Bolivia has experienced these past few decades, there is

of course the problem of quality. The net rates of enrollment show that there are often more

students attending then the age group at risk, which suggests significant levels of retention and

failure. But even these rates have been slowly declining and both the retention rate and the drop

out rate have fallen to under 10 percent in recent years for students at the primary school level,

though they are still very high for secondary school.41 There is also little question that the rural

indigenous population, again due to earlier inequalities, is still far behind the urban populations

of whatever origin in terms of years of schooling and literacy. While the national rate of

illiterates over 15 years of age in 2001 was 13%, rural women were up to 37% as opposed to

rural men only 14% of whome were illiterate. The urban illiteracy rates were just 6% (2% for

men and 10% for women).42 But whatever the current problems with the system, the trend is

toward universal coverage, at least for the primary grades and increasingly for secondary schools

22

with little difference by sex or residence. This has meant that the average number of years of

schooling of Bolivians has been climbing steadily in this same period from 4 years toward 9

years, and the ratio of those who have had no education who are 19 years of age or older has

fallen to 12 percent (7 percent for men and 17 percent for women) in 2006.43 As could be

expected, the more recent generations have a much higher number of years of school completed

than the national average, and given the dominance of the younger persons in the national

population this has had a profound impact on literacy. Even tertiary education has seen a

massive expansion in recent years with the university student population rising from 185,000 in

1996 to 429,000 in 2008.44

Unlike most social and economic indicators that consistently show that the non-

indigenous part of the Bolivian population is richer and healthier than the indigenous sector, in

primary education attendance, there is virtually no difference between the two groups. As of this

century, 93 percent of both indigenous and non-indigenous children 6 to 11 years of age attend

school, with only the rural rates showing a slight difference in favor of the non-indigenous

children; that is, 90 percent versus 87 percent indigenous. As could be expected given the greater

poverty of the indigenous and rural populations the rates shift at the secondary school level,

which show that only 79 percent of the indigenous children 12–16 years old attend school in

contrast to 83 percent for non-indigenous of this age group. Equally in completion rates for

primary school for teens 15–19 years of age, non-indigenous students have an 85 percent rate of

completion compared to 75 percent for the indigenous students. Obviously, education attainment

at the advanced level is not equal between the two groups or even between boys and girls.

Nevertheless the government of Bolivia has gone a long way to providing access to education for

23

the entire population, and secular trends indicate an ever increasing number of students enrolled

in secondary education. 45

All of these developments in education have had a direct impact on literacy rates. Given

Bolivia’s complex language divisions, attaining such high literacy rates has been an

extraordinary achievement. As of 1950 the majority of the population did not even speak Spanish

let alone were literate in the language.46 Only 31 percent of the population over 15 years of age

was considered literate in 1950, but by 1976 the figure had climbed to 67 percent, and by 2003

the figure was 87 percent. In fact, during this period Bolivia had moved from thirteenth place in

terms of literacy to the eighth highest literacy rate in Latin America, and has a higher ratio of

literates than neighboring Brazil.

That Bolivia now educates almost all of its children at the primary level has had a

profound impact on all aspects of society, but especially on the national language spoken.

Spanish finally became the nation’s majority language only by the census of 1976. As of this

date, over 83 percent of the population over the age of 6 years now spoke Spanish, though only

42 percent of the population was monolingual in that language. Equally 62 percent of the total

population declared themselves to be indigenous. This meant that the indigenous population,

through education, has now become primarily bilingual and literate in the national language. In

the census of 2001, some 74 percent of the 3.7 million speakers of Indian languages were

bilingual in Spanish. It is worth noting that the Aymara speakers were considerably more

bilingual than the Quechua speakers, a fact which may help explain their greater political

militancy. Among the 1.3 million speakers of Aymara, some 80 percent were bilingual, whereas

24

among the 2 million Quechua speakers, only 69 percent were bilingual. Various investigators

have noted that there is a continuum among literate speakers of an indigenous language, with a

movement from monolingualism in an indigenous language to bilingualism, which was the norm

until the early 1990s, and in this century the movement is increasingly from bilingualism to

monolingualism in Spanish.47 This explains the origin of monolingual Spanish speakers who

self-identify as indigenous people. Nevertheless, the size of the population that knows and

speaks an indigenous language is still quite impressive. The more rapid population growth

among the indigenous people initially meant that those speaking an indigenous language went

from an estimated 1.8 million persons 1950 to 4 million persons in 1992. But this number

declined to 3.7 million in the census of 2001. Equally despite population growth of these

groups, the number of monolingual Indian speakers continued to decline. Quechua monolinguals

had fallen to 632,000, and Aymara monolingual speakers to 263,000, by 2001. Moreover these

monolinguals in 2001 were essentially all rural dwellers, the majority of whom lived dispersed in

the countryside (only 10 percent and 17 percent, respectively of these two groups lived in towns

or cities over 2,000 population). At the same time, the number of bilinguals has slowly begun to

decline as more indigenous peoples drop their native language despite the introduction of

bilingual education in the 1990s. The majority position achieved by Spanish as of 1976 was

proof of the impact of the schools on the rural areas. Not only had the mestizo population greatly

expanded, as these figures indicate, but even more importantly rural Indian peasants were now

using Spanish on a large scale, along with their traditional indigenous languages.

Despite the loss of native languages, the number of persons who self-identified as

indigenous has remained quite high. Although only 45 percent of the total population in 2001

25

either was monolingual or bilingual speakers of an indigenous language, it was estimated that 5.4

million persons (or two-thirds of the national population) identified themselves as indigenous

people (see graphs 8 & 9). Of this indigenous population who were 15 years or older, 14 percent

did not speak an indigenous language.48 In a national household survey conducted in 2005, it was

reported that 53 percent of the population identified themselves as indigenous, but only 42

percent spoke an indigenous language. While some indigenous people moved into the non-

indigenous category, for the majority of indigenous peoples, indigenous identity remains very

strong despite the decline of both monolingual and bilingual speakers of these native languages.

Moreover, those who identify as being either Quechua or Aymara are in fact largely urban, even

though very few monolingual speakers live in the urban areas.49 Finally, it was estimated in the

national household survey of 2007 that 79 percent of the population who were native indigenous

speakers were literate. In the urban area 87 percent of this group was literate, and in the rural

areas 73 percent of the group was literate.50 The fact that self-identified indigenous peoples are

primarily Spanish speakers and primarily literate even if the speak an indigenous language, both

in the urban and rural areas, suggests an indigenous population highly integrated into the national

society and polity despite their high levels of poverty.

26

Spanish

60.8%

Quechua

21.2%

Aymara

14.6%

Foreign2.4%

Guarani0.6%

Other Native0.4%

Source: INE, Cuadro Nº 2.01.14

GRAPH 8: DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 6 & OVER BY LANGUAGE SPOKEN, CENSUS 2001

27

Quechua

30.7%

Aymara25.2%

Guaraní1.5%

Chiquitano2.2%

Mojeño0.9%

Other Native1.5%

Non-Indigenous

38.0%

Source: INE, Cuadro Nº 2.01.13

Graph 9: DISTRIBUTION OF ADULT POPULATI ON BY (SELF-IDENTIFIED) ETHNICITY,CENSUS 2001

The increasing urbanization of society also has had a profound effect on the changes in

language and literacy that occurred, as well as the health and demographic outcomes of the

Bolivian population. From being a primarily rural society as late as 1950, the nation moved

toward a predominantly urban one in the past 60 years. In 1950, only 20 percent of the

population lived in towns over 20,000 whereas by the census of 2001 more than half the

population lived in such urban centers.51 The city of Santa Cruz which in 1950 had a population

of just 364,000 persons now has over 2 million persons. The three largest urban centers in 2010,

Santa Cruz, the twin cities of La Paz–El Alto which contained just under 2 million, and the city

of Cochabamba with its 1 million urban dwellers, contained 5.3 million residents, or just over

half of the estimated 10.4 million Bolivians.52 This urbanization of the national population also

brought with it increasing standard of living. Every index of health, welfare, and education

28

consistently showed that there were better conditions for the urban populations than for the rural

ones.

That said rates of poverty, however defined, have declined very slowly in the past few

decades in Bolivia, especially in the urban areas. Although poverty levels have fallen rather

sharply within the rural population through income transfers and other government measures,

urban poverty has remained fairly constant. Thus extreme poverty between 1999 and 2007

dropped from 59 percent to 48 percent in the rural areas, but it remained at the same 21–22

percent level in the urban zones.53 Moreover in this period overall national poverty levels

(extreme and normal poor) remained at roughly 60 percent for the entire period. As late as 2005,

it was estimated that two out of every three Bolivians were poor and one out of every four was

indigent. Although urban conditions were better than rural ones, poverty was still the norm for

the majority of Bolivians. In the same year of 2005 when Bolivia had 31% of the population

listed as being in extreme poverty (usually defined as not having sufficient food intake), only

Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay had the same or greater levels of indigence.54 By the

definition of the government itself, some 60 percent of Bolivian homes in 2007 could not meet

the minimum standards of housing, food, access to water, and sanitation. In the rural area this

number reached 77 percent, and even in the urban area it was over half of the homes. 55

Much of this poverty is due to the lack of economic development in the country.

Although the rural population has declined dramatically as a share of the total population,

Bolivian agriculture, except in new areas of cultivation, has remained economically backward.

As late as 2007, agriculture still absorbed 34 percent of the male workforce. Yet farming only

29

accounted for 13 percent of the GDP in the same year.56 Most of that agriculture, especially in

the highlands and eastern valleys, has remained traditional low-productivity foodstuff farming.

In fact Bolivia imports an ever increasing share of its food. There was, however, a radical

transformation in lowland Bolivia in the past half century. In the past few decades, industrial

crops have become a new industry in the Santa Cruz region. In 1980 industrial crops (above all,

cotton, sugar, soybeans, and sunflower seeds) accounted for 12 percent of the land devoted to

agriculture. By 2008 that ratio had risen to 47 percent of the total land use and was roughly equal

to that of all grains and root crops being farmed in Bolivia.57 Such commercial crops as soybeans

and sunflower seeds are produced in the Santa Cruz lowlands at output levels close to world

standards. But highland food crops were less productive than similar crops produced in the

neighboring Peruvian highlands.58 Much of this low productivity has to do with the fact that

Bolivia spends less money on agricultural research and extension programs than any other

country in Latin America.59 Traditional agriculture, which still absorbs the majority of the rural

population, has remained undercapitalized and inefficient. Despite all of the recent agricultural

transformations in Santa Cruz and some of the nearby valley regions, Bolivia is still one of the

most backward agricultural nations in the Americas.

The picture of Bolivia that emerges from this analysis of over a half century of social and

economic development is one of major social change, combined with persistent poverty and

relative economic backwardness. Education and health have seen the most dramatic progress.

But this persistent poverty and partial increase in living standards common to all the Americas

has occurred within the context of a radically changing social system. If the slow growth of the

economy has not promoted much social mobility, urban migration and the rise of rural peasant

30

and urban mestizo political power have made a profound difference in the response of all

Bolivian governments to demands for improved social conditions. What can only be called the

mestizaje of Bolivian society has become an important phenomenon after a half century of social

revolution and two periods of hyperinflation, which have destroyed a great deal of the traditional

white economic power. The increasing life expectancy and the increasing years of education of

the Bolivian popular classes helps explain their ability to significantly participate as autonomous

actors on the national political scene.

The new century clearly marked a significant change in the relative balance of political,

social, and even to some extent of economic power among the ethnic groups in the country. In

the last decade, the political power of the mestizo population has found expression not only in

traditional and radical parties but also in government positions and takeovers, not only of most of

the small municipalities, but also of Bolivia’s second largest city. El Alto. This quintessential

mestizo urban center, was still in 1988 a working-class suburb located on the outskirts of La Paz.

In that year it was finally incorporated as an independent city and its administration was taken

over by the new mestizo elite. This high-altitude town, which then held some 307,000 persons,

was half the size of La Paz, but already was overwhelmingly bilingual, and very closely

associated with the surrounding Aymara rural communities. It was the fourth largest city when it

was created, but by the census of 2001 it had become Bolivia’s third largest city, with 695,000

people, of whom 86 percent were counted as indigenous.60 By 2005 it contained some 872,000

residents and had finally replaced La Paz as the second largest city in the country.61 Though El

Alto had higher poverty rates and worse living conditions than La Paz, its population still had a

higher standard of living than the rural altiplano hinterland from which the migrants came, and

31

thus has proved to be an extraordinarily important factor in increasing the social mobility of the

mestizo class.62 El Alto is also a center for intense interactions between indigenous and non-

indigenous peoples where Spanish has become the language of contact even for the dominant

Aymara population. 63

At the same time, the integration of the regional economies with the central cities and the

elimination of the old Spanish rural elites have created a more powerful mestizo regional elite. It

is from this elite and the upwardly mobile urban mestizo population that has emerged a whole

new generation of mestizo secondary school and university-trained professionals. While some

mestizos had obviously attended the university from the earliest times, they were a distinct

minority and were forced to abandon their language, culture, and origins and adapt to the norms

of “white” culture. The new breed of educated mestizos – far more numerous than ever before –

now seem to have the option of retaining their ethnic ties, self-identifying as indigenous, and

sometimes even speaking their original Indian languages along with Spanish. These urban

mestizos proclaim their identity as both mestizo and Aymara, Quechua, or another indigenous

people, and thus refuse to adopt a “white” identity. This has had profound social and political

consequences for Bolivia and is a relatively unique development by Latin American standards. It

also means that even as monolingual speakers of indigenous languages decline with ever higher

levels of education, indigenous identity remains a powerful and mobilizing force in national

politics.

The sudden eruption of a mass party of the mestizos and indigenous peoples is, as we

have already noted, a phenomenon of the past ten years. In recognition of the power of this new

32

mobilization, Carlos Mesa who replaced Sánchez de Lozada was sworn into the presidential

office in the mestizo town of El Alto instead of the traditional presidential palace in downtown

La Paz. Though Mesa tried to appease the new political movements, the blockades continued

sporadically for the next two years. Although most of the pre-2005 election surveys gave Evo

Morales a plurality of the potential votes for the presidency, there was a generalized belief that

any return to post-election congressional negotiations (which defined Bolivian presidential

elections from 1985 to 2002) would lead to the return of massive popular indigenous protests. At

this point, most of the elite decided that it was preferable to give Evo Morales a total victory, and

he was able to double his pre-election estimates and win the election with 56 percent of the vote,

becoming the first president to receive more than 50 percent of the vote in the post-military era.

Of the 2.9 million valid votes that were cast in the 2005 presidential election, Morales obtained

1.5 million and the MIP received 62,000. The MAS also won 12 senate out of the 27 senate

seats, and 72 out of the 130 deputy positions.

While the Morales government has advanced income transfers, rejected the previous neo-

liberal policies and renationalized many basic industries and communication companies and

totally realigned Bolivia’s international position, its most profound changes in terms of

democratic organization was the reorganization of the national and local governments through a

new constitution. The 2009 constitution greatly expanded both the concepts of a plurinational

state and a decentralized one –major themes of his party and supporters well before 2005. Since

the constitutional convention delegates were voted upon in a separate election, this was both a far

more radical and representative body than the national congress. Almost half of the delegates

were under 40, some 34 percent were women, and a significant 56 percent identified themselves

33

as pertaining to an indigenous group.64 Given this representation, it was evident that the charter

produced by this assembly would express most of the ideas favored by indigenous radical leaders

for decades. In a bitterly fought debate, the new constitution was written in 2008, and approved

by referendum in 2009. It then went into full effect in 2010, when for the first time in Bolivian

history the departments elected their own governors and legislatures.

The Constitution of 2009 not only guaranteed all the traditional rights of the indigenous

community governments but also re-enforced decentralization through departmental, regional,

communal, and municipal autonomies. But above all the charter was a faithful expression of the

demands that the mestizo and indigenous leaders had been making for the previous 40 years for

basic recognition by the state and the elite white society of their needs and desires. Above all it

called for the recognition of their dignity and worth as full citizens, especially for those who

traced their origins to preconquest times. Respect, dignity, and the recognition of individual and

traditional community rights and beliefs were declared a fundamental aspect of state policy. Not

only were the usual highland indigenous groups recognized and their importance stressed, but so

too are the lowland Indian people and even the Afro-Bolivian community were singled out for

support from the state.

The Constitution of 2009 also declared that Bolivia was a unitary state based on

communal plurinational law that was democratic, decentralized and with autonomous regions

(which in a very broad manner included self-governing departments, municipalities, regions,

ethnic groups, and communities). Article 5 declared that the official state languages were

Spanish and the 37 other indigenous languages spoken in Bolivia, and that the national and local

34

governments were required to use two languages, one being Spanish and the other an indigenous

one that would depend on local conditions. The constitution speaks of “interculturality” as

fundamental to the maintenance of a unified state (Article 98), and throughout the charter there is

a constant repetition of the theme of respect for individuals and communities, from their dress to

their belief systems. In fact, after this constitution Bolivia would be officially called the Estado

Plurinacional de Bolivia.

The civil rights of citizens granted in Article 21 went well beyond the usual items to

include such things as “privacy, intimacy, honor, self-image and dignity” as well as cultural self

identification. The new charter also prohibited any discrimination of citizens on the basis of their

language, race, color, gender, religion or any other human characteristics. It also outlined the

specifics of a very ambitions social welfare state, guaranteeing that the state would provide

water, food, free health care, pensions, housing, and education to all of its citizens. It even

proposed that the state should guarantee a healthy environment for all. In fact, the constitution

had many articles providing for the protection of the environment, for guaranteeing biodiversity,

and a host of other issues related to these modern concerns. In addition to providing all of the

usual pro-family declarations, the constitution also specifically recognized stable free unions as

having the same rights as legally married couples in terms of patrimony and personal relations

(Article 63, II).

The communal land rights of the traditional indigenous communities were to be

guaranteed by the state (Article 30), but also their traditional cosmology, medicine, rituals,

symbols, and dress were to be respected and even promoted (Article 30, IX), and they were to be

35

allowed to exercise their own unique political, judicial, and economic systems as defined by their

own cosmology (Articles 30, 190–192). There was even an entire section of the constitution

dedicated to the protection of traditional cultures as national patrimony (Articles 98–101). The

state was also to guarantee intra- and inter-cultural and plurilingual education (Article 30). In a

really unusual expansion of autonomy, the state would also allow indigenous communities of

originarios to declare themselves self-governing entities independent of municipal or

departmental governments with self-governing rights that were equal to those granted by these

institutions. All indigenous peoples or communities that were being threatened with extinction,

as well as the isolated and uncontacted indigenous groups, were to be protected, and the latter

were even allowed to remain isolated if they wished.

This was clearly a “social constitution” as earlier defined by the Mexican Constitution of

1917 and by the Bolivian Constitution of 1938.65 The right of private property (individual and

communal) was limited by its necessity to fulfill a social function, and could not prejudice the

collective interest of the society (Article 56). Also, it specifically sanctioned the right of the state

to directly participate in the economy to produce goods and services (Article 316). The

constitution gave priority to national over foreign capital, and stated that all foreign investments

be completely subject to Bolivian law without exception (Article 320). In addition to reasserting

traditional subsoil rights to all minerals, the constitution had an entire chapter on hydrocarbons,

which were to be under the exclusive control of the state and its representative YPFB (Articles

359–368). Finally, in a response to the placement of U.S. military groups in the country as part

of anti-coca campaigns, it also specifically prohibited the establishment of foreign military bases

on national soil (Article 10).

36

Along with obligatory voting of all adults 18 years of age and over, and the significant

right of overseas Bolivians to vote in presidential elections,66 the constitution also permitted the

indigenous communities to use their traditional norms for electing leaders, with the state only

intervening if the vote was not “equal, universal, direct, secret, free and obligatory” (Article 26).

The rights to strike and collectively bargain were also guaranteed. Finally, the decentralized

political organization of the Bolivian state, which had begun in 1995, was finalized with the

election of departmental governors and legislatures (Articles 277–279). The constitution also

allowed for autonomous regions and even autonomous indigenous communities of originarios to

be established, though their limits and powers seemed to have been left for post-constitutional

enactment (Articles 289–296).

These constitutional changes are at the heart of the democratization movement begun in

national politics. But there have been some serious difficulties created as these various aims

came into conflict with each other. The increase of rural lynchings by indigenous communal

governments of supposed criminals and others who challenge traditional communal norms has

drawn a sharp contrast between the civil rights of all citizens and the judicial powers of the local

communities. Equally despite all promises of environmentalism and support for local indigenous

decision making, the central government has often pushed for traditional development projects

despite local rejection as the recent case of the violent repression of the TIPNIS march has

shown. Moreover the relentless and often undemocratic attack on elected opposition leaders and

past presidents has created a more negative political environment than had existed before in

national democratic politics.

37

But whatever the inherent conflicts which of necessity will occur because of all the

overlapping jurisdictions and interests, and because of the government’s economic policies, there

is little question that the government has moved in profoundly new directions to articulate the

voice of the popular classes. From the appointment of mestizo ministers to the proposed election

of judges by popular vote, the MAS regimes have opened up the government as never before to

active and direct participation of the poor at the local, regional and national levels.

There has also been a serious expansion of social welfare in Bolivia which has had an

impact on reducing poverty. The Morales regime greatly expanded earlier welfare programs and

especially stressed income transfers based on the funds generated by the nationalizations. This

was a crucial alternative to worker participation in various pension and health programs given

the high ratio of workers in the informal economy who were not taxed for these services. The

government has made a major effort to expand the conditional income transfer programs that

began under the second government of Sánchez de Losada. The BONOSOL pension program of

the 1990s was expanded into the Renta Dignidad, which provided minimum pensions to all

Bolivians older than 65 years, regardless of whether they had contributed or not to the retirement

plan. This plan converted Bolivia from one of the American countries with the lowest rate of old

age pension coverage (under 20% in the 1990s) to among the highest – with some 76% of the

population being covered currently.67 Another program, which was becoming common in Latin

America, consisted of conditional cash payments given for school attendance called the bono

Juancito Pinto (given to families that maintained their children in school). Finally, came a

program called the bono Juana Azurduy, which provided funding for pregnant women to receive

38

quarterly medical exams and postpartum support, which was aimed at reducing the high

incidence of infant mortality and maternal deaths. While the former programs were generated

out of government funds, the Arzurduy program was supported by major funding from the Inter-

American Development Bank. In all the government increased social spending from 13.9% of

GNP in 1996 to 18.4% in 2008.68 That these programs are significant can be seen both in terms

of their coverage. In 2010-2011 it was estimated that 29% of the total population were receiving

benefits form these plans. In 2010, the Renta Dignidad had an estimated 877,000 pensioners (or

8.3% of the national population), the bono Juancito Pinto covers 1.6 million students in the

primary grades (15.6% of the national population), and the bono Juana Azurduy accounted for

cash payments to 571,000 expectant mothers (or 5.5% of the population).69 But instead of the

state providing funds out of the privatization programs which was the norm under Sánchez de

Lozada, these funds now derive directly from the increased government royalties and revenues

from the nationalized companies. In the period from 1996 to 2009 births attended by a

professional went from 33% of all births to 67% of them, and adequate prenatal care (a major

theme of the bono Azurduy) went from 26% of all pregnancies to 53%.70 Along with the income

transfers made to retired urban and rural workers who had never participated in a pension plan,

all these conditional income transfers had a major impact on reducing poverty as can be seen in

the declines of the proportion of persons in extreme poverty from 41% of the total population in

1996 to 26% in 2009, an historical decline for Bolivia.71

But even with what might be called a “Peoples Government” there are inherent problems

related to the expulsion, abandonment, demotion or isolation of a technical bureaucracy which

Bolivia had developed over the past several generations and its replacement with less educated

39

mestizos and indigenous administrators. The regime has been plagued by scandals from simple

corruption and mismanagement to the more sophisticated corruption related to the international

drug traffic. This has led to the decline in administrative efficiency and the increasing cost of

government. It has also led to increasing imports as nationalized companies have been unable to

expand or even maintain the production levels of the previous private enterprises from which

they came.72 Iron ore and lithium, two potential new export products of great importance, have

not been developed and there is little expectation that the government can develop them from its

own resources. Given the inefficiencies of the various state bureaucracies and their waste of

resources, leading Bolivian economists have even suggested that all state rents should simply be

given as income transfers to all citizens, and argued that this would have more direct economic

benefit in the short and long term than all the state created industries combined.73 Moreover,

given the possibility of declining world prices for its exports, the increasing reliance of the

population for imports of even basic necessities, and the failure to invest in continued gas

explorations, Bolivia’s primary export, long term economic trends look increasingly bleak.74

Whether MAS survives as a political party is an open question, but there is little doubt

that the democratizing of Bolivia’s politics and government will not change whichever political

party emerges in the future. The fact that even opposition parties have been forced to adopt

indigenous candidates in order to compete with MAS clearly shows this to be the case.

Moreover the continuation of marches and blockades throughout the second Morales

administration over everything from gas prices and inflation, to the attempts to construct a trans-

Amazonian road in the lowland Indian territory, suggests that the political commitment and

mobilization of the mestizo and indigenous populations remains very high, 75 and that new

40

political alliances could easily replace MAS with a new popular political movement should that

party falter and fail. In short the democratic revolution is now independent of its first leader and

its first successful mass party, and only violent military repression could return Bolivia to its

traditional representative democracy led by a minority white elite.

41

NOTES

1 I mean by this the direct participation in government by members of the popular classes. This is what Dunkerely has called Bolivia’s “Third Revolution” which he defines as “the plebian condition and ideology of the government leaders.” See James Dunkerley, “Evo Morales, the ‘Two Bolivias ’and the Third Bolivian Revolution,” Journal of Latin American Studies 39 (2007), pp. 133–166. 2 The 2002 election brought to an end the system of political party rule since 1985. In that period Bolivia’s presidential system had been significantly modified by the emergence of an ever more powerful parliament. Since no candidate won a majority of the vote, all elections were then determined by votes and negotiations in congress. In turn, the bicameral legislature had been reorganized to make it more sensitive to direct voting by the population. Between the effective strengthening and extension of municipal government, and the increasing power of the Senate and Congress, Bolivia slowly have moved away from its traditional centralist and presidential system of government. An excellent discussion of the all the relevant laws and election outcomes with all the relevant statistics is found in Carlos Hugo Cordero Carraffa, Historia electoral de Bolivia 1952-2007, La Paz: Unidad de Análisis e Investigación del Área de Educación Ciudadana de la CNE, 2007. 3 Sinclair Thomson , We alone will rule: native Andean politics in the age of insurgency (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), also see Sergio Serulnikov, Subverting Colonial Authority. Challenges to Spanish Rule in Eighteenth-Century Southern Andes (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003). 4 An important study of one of these revolts, that of Jesus de Machaca near lake Titicaca, is found in Roberto Choque and Esteban Ticona, La sublevación y masacre de 1921 (La Paz: CIPCA, 1996) 5 See the classic study of Ramiro Condarco Morales, Zarate "El Temible" Wilke. Historia de la rebelíon indígena de 1899 (2nd rev.ed.; La Paz, 1982). 6 On the origins and evolution of the National Revolution of 1952 see Herbert S. Klein, Parties and Political Change in Bolivia, 1880-1952. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969; and A Concise History of Bolivia. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 7 Between 1950 and 2001, the seven largest urban centers of Bolivia were growing at the rate of 4% per annum. These cities also had far better delivery of services than most of the rural municipios of the country. See Lykke E. Andersen, “Migración Rural-Urbana en Bolivia: Ventajas y Desventajas” (Documento de Trabajo no. 12/02; La Paz: Instituto de Investigaciones Socio-Económicas, Universidad Católica Boliviana, 2002), cuadros 1 & 2, pp. 4, 6. Moreover, as Andersen has argued in this essay, this migration had a major impact on improving economic and social conditions of the migrants, despite the usual socio-economic problems associated with dense urban populations.

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8 Corte Nacional Electoral, Boletin Estadístico no.3 (Septiembre de 2005), p. 1 9 A good survey of the indigenous movements in this period is found in the most recent essay of Xavier Albó, ‘25 años de democracia, participación campesino – indígena y cambios reales en la sociedad’, in Xavier Albó (ed.), 25 años construyendo Democracia (La Paz: Vicepresidencia de la Republica, 2008), pp. 39-58. For these new viewpoints and organizations among the mestizo and indigenous Aymara-origin groups and leaders, also see Esteban Ticona Alejo, Organización y liderazgo aymara, La experiencia indígena en la politica boliviana 1979-1996 (La Paz: AGRUCO y Universidad de la Cordillera, 2000); Rafael Archondo, ‘Comunidad y divergencia de miradas en el Kararismo’, Revista Umbrales (La Paz: CIDES-UMSA) 7 (July 2000), pp. 120-147; and George Grey Molina, ‘Ethnic Politics in Bolivia: “Harmony of Inequalities”, 1900-2000’, found at http://hdr.undp.org/docs/events/global_forum/2005/papers/George_Gray_Molina.pdf. 10 There is a large literature on these reforms. See for example: Merlee S. Grindle, Audacious Reforms: Institutional Invention and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), chap. 5; the several studies of George Gray Molina ‘The Offspring of 1952: Poverty, Exclusion and the Promise of Popular Participation’, in Merlee Grindle and Pilar Domingo (eds.), Proclaiming Revolution: Bolivia in Comparative Perspective (Boston: ILAS & DRCLAS, Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 345-363, and his ‘Popular Participation, Social Service Delivery and Poverty Reduction 1994-2000’, presented at the conference on Citizen Participation in the Context of Fiscal Decentralization: Best Practices in Municipal Administration, Tokyo and Kobe, Japan, 2-6 September 2002; as well as Miriam Seemann, ‘The Bolivian Decentralization Process and the Role of Municipal Associations’, Discussion Paper no. 271, Hamburgisches Welt-Wirtschafts-Archiv (HWWA), Hamburg Institute of International Economics, 2004; and Carmen Medeiros, ‘Civilizing the Popular? The Law of Popular Participation and the Design of a New Civil Society in 1990s Bolivia’, Critique of Anthropology 21:4 (2001), pp. 401–425, among others. 11 There is a large literature on these reforms. See for example: Merilee S. Grindle, Audacious Reforms: Institutional Invention and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), chap. 5; the several studies of George Gray Molina ‘The Offspring of 1952: Poverty, Exclusion and the Promise of Popular Participation’, in Merlee Grindle and Pilar Domingo (eds.), Proclaiming Revolution: Bolivia in Comparative Perspective (Boston: ILAS & DRCLAS, Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 345-363, and his ‘Popular Participation, Social Service Delivery and Poverty Reduction 1994-2000’, presented at the conference on Citizen Participation in the Context of Fiscal Decentralization: Best Practices in Municipal Administration, Tokyo and Kobe, Japan, 2-6 September 2002; as well as Miriam Seemann, ‘The Bolivian Decentralization Process and the Role of Municipal Associations’, Discussion Paper no. 271, Hamburgisches Welt-Wirtschafts-Archiv (HWWA), Hamburg Institute of International Economics, 2004; and Carmen Medeiros, ‘Civilizing the Popular? The Law of Popular Participation and the Design of a New Civil Society in 1990s Bolivia’, Critique of Anthropology 21:4 (2001), pp. 401–425, among others

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12 Xavier Albó and Victor Quispe, Quiénes son indígenas en los gobiernos municipales (La Paz: CIPCA & Plural, 2004), cuadro 8.1 and chapter 9 13 For the very high level of rural and urban popular mobilization and participation in what is called ‘organizaciones territoriales’, that is, ‘Sindicatos Campesinos’and ‘Juntas de Vecinos’ and their demand for services, see the important study by Godofredo Sandóval et.al., Organizaciones de Base y Desarrollo Local en Bolivia: Estudio de los municipios de Tiahuanaco, Mizque, Villa Serrano y Charagua (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Local Level Institutions, Working Paper No. 4, 1998). In an interesting essay, Fernando Calderón calls attention to the very important process of ‘recampesinización’ (‘repeasantization’) in the new colonization zones such as Chapare (Cochabamba) and Yapacaní (Santa Cruz) – the former being the home base of Evo Morales. Fernando Calderón G., ‘Oportunidad histórica: cambio politico y Nuevo orden sociocultural’ Nueva Sociedad 209 (Mayo-Junio 2007), pp. 35-36. 14 On the success of these schemes, see Katherina Capra, Alberto Chong, Mauricio Garrón, Florencia López-de-Silanes and Carlos Machicado, “Privatization and Firm Performance in Bolivia, in Alberto Chong and Florencia López-de-Silanes, Privatization in Latin Amereica: Myths and Reality (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 117-145 15 This of course was not the first such massive demonstration, though there was really only one previous one of such magnitude. This occurred when altioplano Aymara peasants blocked the roads of access to La Paz and El Alto was over currency devaluation and the resulting inflation in 1979. See Roberto Fernández Erquicia, “Una de las mayores revueltas del siglo XX: Los bloqueos aymaras de diciembre de 1979,” Pukara (La Paz, 15 de noviembre - 14 de diciembre de 2009), p. 3 16 In the 1960s the first local sindicatos were established in the region and by the 1980s there were 160 of them organized into 30 sub-federations (or centrals) and 5 federations. Kevin Healy, ‘Political Ascent of Bolivia's Peasant Coca Leaf Producers’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 33:1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 88-89; also see Deborah J. Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 185. 17 On the election results of 2002 see Corte Nacional Electoral, Boletín Estadístico 3:7 (Nov. 2007), p. 7. MAS gained eight senate seats and 27 deputy positions, with the Aymara party the MIP gaining six. On the increasing fragmentation of the Bolivian party system in indigenous areas see the discussion and data in Raúl L. Madrid, ‘Indigenous voters and party system fragmentation in Latin America’, Electoral Studies 24 (2005), pp. 689-707. 18 Ministerio de Desarrollo Económico, Secretaría Nacional de Agricultura y Ganadería, El Agro Boliviano: Estadísticas agropecuarios 1990-1995 (La Paz: 1996), pp. 262-63. On the latest revisions of the agrarian reform law and the attempt to rationalize and legitimate land titles in Santa Cruz and the Beni, see Jorge A. Muñoz and Isabel Lavadenz, ‘Reforming the Agrarian

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Reform in Bolivia,’ (Development Discussion Paper no. 589 ;Cambridge: MA. HIID, Harvard University. June 1997). 19 For a fascinating analysis of the decline of a traditional small-town white elite in the post-revolutionary period see Libbet Crandon-Malamud, From the Fat of our Souls: Social Change, Political Process, and Medical Pluralism in Bolivia (Berkeley: 1991). 20 Rossana Barragán, ‘Ciudadanía y elecciones, convenciones y debates’, in Rossana Barragán and José Luis Rica, Regiones y poder constituyente en Bolivia (La Paz: PNUD, 2005), cuadro 2, pp. 299-300 21 In 1953 infant mortality was estimated to be 176 deaths per thousand live births. United Nations, Demographic Yearbook, Historical supplement [1948/1997] (New York: 2000), table 9, available (March 2010) at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/dyb/dybhist.htm. For data on average life expectancy by sex for 1950 see Instuto Nacional de Estadística de Bolivia [INE] & El Centro Latinoamericano y Caribeño de Demografía [CELADE], Bolivia. Estimaciones y proyecciones de la población 1950-2050 (La Paz: 1995), cuadro 2, p. 5. 22 INE & CELADE, Bolivia. Estimaciones y proyecciones de la población 1950-2050 (La Paz: 1995), cuadro 10, pp. 24-25. 23 Marjorie A. Koblinsky (ed.), Reducing Maternal Mortality: Learning from Bolivia, China, Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Jamaica, and Zimbabwe (Washington: World Bank, 2003), p. 84. 24 Margaret C. Hogan, Kyle J. Foreman, Mohsen Naghavi, Stephanie Y. Ahn, Mengru Wang, Susanna M. Makela, Alan D. Lopez, Rafael Lozano, and Christopher J. L. Murray, ‘Maternal mortality for 181 countries, 1980–2008: a systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal’, The Lancet April 12, 2010, p. 8, and for infant mortality see INE, INE, Cuadro no. 2.01.22 “Bolivia: indicadores demográficos, por años calendario, 2005 - 2010 accessed 7 October 2011 at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC2030501.HTM 25 For comparative world rates on infant and maternal mortality in 2005, see Marian F. MacDorman and T. J. Mathews, Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the United States Compares with Europe (Hyattsville, MD: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics, DATA Brief, no. 23, November 2009); and WHO, Maternal mortality in 2005: estimates developed by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, and the World Bank (Paris: World Health Organization, 2007). Both the infant mortality and maternal death rates in the advanced industrial world today are below 10 deaths per 1,000 births 26 INE, Anuario estadística 2008, cuadro 2.01.22, p. 171; and [Rosso], Bolivia: Estimaciones y Proyecciones 1950-2050, p. 25, cuadro 10; and INE, INE, Cuadro no. 2.01.22 “Bolivia: indicadores demográficos, por años calendario, 2005 - 2010 accessed 7 October 2011 at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC2030501.HTM.

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27 WHO / UNICEF, Review of National Immunization Coverage 1980-2008, Bolivia (July, 2009), accessed at http://www.who.int/immunization_monitoring/data/bol.pdf. 28 INE, Encuesta Nacional de Demografía y Salud 2003, cuadro 3.01.23, found at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC30123.HTM. 29 INE, Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 1992, Resultados Finales (La Paz: 1993), p. 69; INE Anuario estadístico, 2000, cuadro 3.02.04, p. 133; and INE, ‘Resumen de Indicadores por mes publicados anteriormente – Indicadores Sociales’ accessed March 2010 at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/indicadores.aspx. 30 Ministerio de Salud y Previsión Social, ‘Salud del Niño...1995’. Malnutrition in 2003 was estimated to be affecting 7.5% of children under 5 years of age. INE, ‘Resumen de Indicadores por Mes publicados anteriormente – Indicadores Sociales – Marzo 2010’, accessed at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/indicadores.aspx 31 CELADE, Fondo Indigena, Sistema de Indicadores Sociodemográficos de Poblaciones y Pueblos Indígenas, currently (March 2010) estimates that the Indigenous ratio of Infant mortality is 74 deaths per thousand live births, and 54 deaths for the non-indigenous population. The same is the case for child mortality (less than 5 years of age) which is 96 deaths for the indigenous population and 67 for the non-indigenous. Moreover the urban rates for both groups are consistently lower than for the rural ones; see http://celade.cepal.org/redatam/PRYESP/SISPPI/. 32 The 1976 census thus captured the beginnings of the fertility decline, with the Total Fertility rate dropping one full child to 5.8 children per women in their fertile years: INE, Bolivia. Estimaciones y poyecciones 1950-2050, p. 25, cuadro 10.

33 The rate was estimated at 6.7 children for women in the age group 14-49 in 1953 (UN, Demographic Yearbook, Historical supplement, table 4); and declined to 3.3 children per women in 2010. INE, Cuadro no. 2.01.22 “Bolivia: indicadores demográficos, por años calendario, 2005 - 2010 accessed 7 October 2011 at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC2030501.HTM 34 CEPAL / CELADE – División de Población, ‘Bolivia: Estimaciones y proyecciones de la población de ambos sexos...1950-2050’, Boletín demográfico no. 66 (July 2000). Using their current population projections, I calculated that the Bolivian population grew at 2.13% in the decade of the 1950s, a figure that rose to 2.43% per annum by the 1970s. 35 INE, Cuadro Nº 2.01.01”Bolivia: población total proyectada, por años calendario y sexo, según edades simples, 2005 – 2010,” accessed at October 7, 2011 at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC20410.HTM 36 The median age in 1950 was 19 years. UN, Demographic Yearbook, Historical supplement, table 3; and INE-CELADE, Bolivia. Estimaciones y proyecciones, cuadro 10, p. 24. For all other median ages see For median ages see INE Cuadro 2.01.18, ‘Bolivia: Indicadores Demográficos

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por Sexo según Quinquenios, 1950-2050’, accessed March 2010 at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC20118.HTM. 37 See Manuel Contreras, ‘Reformas y desafiós de la Educación’, in Fernando Campero Prudencio (ed.), Bolivia en el siglo XX. La formación de la Bolivia Contemporánea (La Paz: 1999); and his essay, ‘Comparative perspective of education reforms in Bolivia: 1950-2000’ in Merilee Grindle and Pilar Domingo, eds., Proclaiming Revolution: Bolivia in Comparative Perspective.(London & Cambridge, MA, 2003), pp.259-286 38 UN, CEPAL, Statistical Yearbook, 2001 (Santiago de Chile: 2002), table 41, p. 49 39 Manuel Contreras, ‘Reformas y desafiós de la Educación’, in Fernando Campero Prudencio (ed.), Bolivia en el siglo XX. La formación de la Bolivia Contemporánea (La Paz: 1999), p. 484; and for 2008 data see, INE, “Cuadro 3020206: Bolivia: cobertura bruta de matriculación en la educación pública, por sexo, según nivel de educación y departamento,” accessed on October 11, 2011 and found at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/EstadisticaSocial.aspx?codigo=30202 Though this extraordinary high rate of enrollment has been challenged, all recent studies suggest that these statistics are correct; see Miguel Urquiola, ‘Educación primaria universal’, in Remontando la pobreza. Ocho cimas a la vez (La Paz: EDOBOL, 2000). 40 INE, “Cuadro 30202: Bolivia: cobertura bruta de matriculación en la educación pública, por sexo, según nivel de educación y departamento,” accessed October 11, 2011 and found at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/EstadisticaSocial.aspx?codigo=30202. Although all years of schooling rates have risen for all groups, rural rates and those for women among adults 19 years and older were still quite pronounced as late as 2001. There still was a five year difference in average years of schooling between urban and rural in 2001 and 1.6 years between the sexes, with rural women having 3.1 years and urban men 9.2 years. INE cuadro 3.02.01.01.02 “Bolivia: años promedio de estudio de la población de 19 años y más de edad, por sexo, según área geográfica y departamento, censos de 1992 y 2001,” accessed October 11, 2011, and found at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/EstadisticaSocial.aspx?codigo=30201 41 The dropout rate for primary school was 4% and for secondary schools 7% in 2007. The repeating of grades was 7% and 8% respectively. Ministerio de la Presidencia, Unidad de Análisis de Políticas Sociales y Económicas [UDAPE], cuadro 7.3.1, ‘Indicadores de educación por nivel según departamento: 1996-2008’, accessed October 11, 2011 and found at http://www.udape.gob.bo/portales_html/dossierweb2010/htms/doss0703.htm. In 2008 net enrollment rates were 82% for primary school and 42% for secondary school enrollments. INE: Cuadro 3020207: “Bolivia: cobertura neta de matriculación en la educación pública, por sexo, según nivel de educación y departamento,” ,” accessed on October 11, 2011 and found at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/EstadisticaSocial.aspx?codigo=30202 42 INE, cuadro 3.02.01.01 “Bolivia: tasa de analfabetismo en la población de 15 años y más de edad, por sexo, según área geográfica y departamento, censos de 1992 Y 2001 accessed Nov. 18, 2011 at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/EstadisticaSocial.aspx?codigo=30201

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43 INE, cuadro 3.02.01.04, ‘Bolivia: Nivel de instrucción alcanzado por la población de 19 años y más de edad, por sexo, según área geográfica, 2002-2006’, accessed March 2010 at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC3020104.HTM. 44 UDAPE, cuadro 7.3.5, “Información estadística del sistema universitario 1996 – 2010,” accessed October 11, 2011 at http://www.udape.gob.bo/portales_html/dossierweb2010/htms/doss0703.htm 45 Surprisingly, both indigenous and non-indigenous have the same 18% attending terciary institutions of learning. These data were generated from CELADE, Fondo Indígena, Sistema de Indicadores Sociodemográficos de Poblaciones y Pueblos Indígenas (March 2010) at http://celade.cepal.org/redatam/PRYESP/SISPPI/. 46 DGEC, Censo demográfico 1950, cuadro 34 p. 103. In 1900 only 13% of the population were primarily speakers of Spanish; fully 51% were listed as speaking an Indian language. Oficina Nacional de Inmigración y Propaganda Geográfica, Censo general de la Población de la República de Bolivia...1900 2nd ed, 2 vols. (Cochabamba: 1973), vol. 2, p. 41 Although the level of literacy and the number of children attending school had steadily increased in the first half of the twentieth century, literates in the period from 1900 to 1950 rose from only 13% of the population to just 31% of the population: DGEC, Censo demográfico 1950, cuadro 37, p. 112; Oficina Nacional de Inmigración y Propaganda Geográfica, Censo general...1900, vol. 2, p. 43. 47 All these data are taken from Ramiro Molina B. and Xavier Albó C. (eds.), Gama étnica y lingüística de la población boliviana (La Paz: PNUD, 2006), see cuadros 2.3 & 2.4, p. 40; cuadros 5.2 & 5.5, pp. 106, 115. 48 See Milenka B. Figueroa Cárdenas, ‘¿Son sensibles los retornos a la educación según la clasificación étnico lingüística de la población que se utilice?’, UDAPE, Revista de Análisis Económico, 22 (2007), see cuadros 2 & 3. 49 INE, cuadro no. 2.01.13, ‘Bolivia: autoidentificación con pueblos originarios o indígenas de la población de 15 años o más de edad según sexo, área geográfica y grupo de edad, Censo 2001’, at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC20112.HTM; and INE cuadro no. 2.01.14, ‘Bolivia: población de 6 años o más de edad por idioma o lengua que habla según sexo, área geográfica y grupo de edad, Censo 2001’, found at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC20114.HTM (both accessed March 2010). 50 INE, Anuario Estadistico 2008, cuadro no. 3.08.03, ‘Bolivia: Tasa de alfabetismo de la población de 15 años y más, por idioma materno, según área y sexo Encuesta de Hogares 2007’, p. 378. 51 Dirección General de Estadística y Censos [DGEC], Censo demográfico 1950, cuadro 5, pp. 12-45. The very broad definition of urban still only included 26% of the population. Instituto Nacional de Estadística de Bolivia [INE], Cuadro 2.01.11, ‘Bolivia: población por censos según departamento, área geográfica y sexo, censos de 1950-1976-1992-2001’, accessed March 2010,

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at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC20111.HTM. INE cuadro numbering on their current website does not match the numbers and tables which appear in the latest statistical annual (2008) published by INE. Thus the source of all the latest tables (whether on line or in the Anuario Estadístico) is clearly delineated in the following notes. 52 INE, Anuario estadistico 2008, cuadro 2.01.12, ‘Bolivia: Población total proyectada, por año calendario, según ciudades de 10.000 habitantes y más, 2005-2010’, p. 160. INE estimated that all urban centers in 2010 absorbed 66% of the population. Interestingly the sex ratio of the urban centers was heavily biased toward women (95 men per 100 women) with men predominating in the rural areas which had a sex ratio of 110 men per 100 women. INE, Cuadro Nº 2.01.03 “Bolivia: población total proyectada, por área y sexo, según años terminados en 0 y 5, 2000-2030,” accessed on Oct 7, 2011 at http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC20412.HTM 53 INE, cuadro 3.06.01.01, ‘Bolivia: Indicadores de pobreza moderada, según área geográfica, 1999 – 2007’, accessed March 2010 at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/indice.aspx?d1=0406&d2=6. 54 CEPAL, Panorama Social de America Latina en 2009 (Santiago de Chile: 2009), Anexo Cuadro 4 ‘Magnitud de la pobreza y la indigencia, 1990 – 2008’ 55 INE, cuadro 3.06.01.01, ‘Bolivia: Indicadores de pobreza moderada’, loc cit 56 INE, cuadro no. 4.02.01.03, ‘Bolivia: producto interno bruto a precios corrientes, según actividad económica’, accessed March 2010 at http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/indice.aspx?d1=0101&d2=6 57 UDAPE, cuadro 1.5.2, ‘Superficie cosechada de productos agrícolas: 1980-2009 (Estructura Porcentual)’, accessed April 3 2010 at http://www.udape.gov.bo/. 58 Data on land sown to crops is found in INE, Anuario estadístico 2000, cuadro 4.01.04.01, p. 362. The comparative Latin American, USA and Bolivian yield per hectare data was accessed March 29 2010 and taken from FAOSTAT, http://faostat.fao.org/site/567/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=567#ancor. Even by Bolivian standards, the average output of potato production from La Paz was half a kilo per hectare below the national average in the period 1987-1995: Grupo DRU, Bolivia: Anuario Estadístico del Sector Rural 1995-1996 (La Paz, 1996), cuadro 10, p. 48. 59 Ricardo Godoy, Mario de Franco, and Ruben G. Echeverria, ‘A Brief History of Agricultural Research in Bolivia: Potatoes, Maize, Soybeans, and Wheat Compared’, Development Discussion Paper no. 460 (Cambridge, MA: HIID, July 1993), pp. 6-7. 60 Despite the overwhelming self-identification of the city population as indigenous, it is worth noting that even then the city was primarily a Spanish speaking city, with 518,000 persons over six years of age speaking Spanish as against just 218,000 speakers of Aymara and another

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30,000 speakers of Quechua: UDAPE, cuadro 7.9.4, ‘Distribución de población por idioma que habla, declaración de auto-pertenencia a algún pueblo indígena, idioma en el que aprendió a hablar y condición étnico lingüística, según municipio’, accessed March 2010 at http://www.udape.gov.bo/. 61 Xavier Albó, ‘El Alto, La Vorágine de Una Ciudad Única’, Journal of Latin American Anthropology, 11:2 (2006), pp. 329–350; and Juan M. Arbona and Benjamin Kohl, ‘City profile: La Paz–El Alto’, Cities 21:3 (2004), pp. 255–265. 62 In 2001, for example, infant mortality in La Paz was 54 deaths per thousand live births, and 64 in El Alto – but the El Alto rate was still a good 10 deaths less than the national average and of most of the rural areas as well. The illiteracy in El Alto in that same year among persons 15-44 years of age (3.1%) was double the rate of the city of La Paz – but again below the national rate and well below the general rural rate of the zone. The same occurred with the incidence of extreme poverty in these two cities in this year – at 17% in La Paz and 40% in El Alto, but again with the former rate below the national average and much below the local rural zones. UDAPE, cuadros 7.9.1a & 7.9.1b, ‘Indicadores alineados a las metas del milenio, 201-2008’, accessed March 2010 at http://www.udape.gov.bo/. 63 Xavier Albó C. and Franz X. Barrios Suvelza, Por un Bolivia plurinacional e intercultural con autonomías (La Paz: PNUD, 2006), p. 85. 64 Xavier Albó, “Datos de una encuesta: El perfil de los constituyentes,”Tinkazos 11 nos.23-24 (La Paz marzo, 2008), pp.1-15. 65 Seee Herbert S. Klein. "Social Constitutionalism in Latin America: The Bolivian Experience of 1938," The Americas, XXII, no. 3 (January, 1966), 258-276. 66 Given the poverty, the recent decades of economic turmoil, and the rising levels of education, it is not surprising that significant out-migration has been occurring in Bolivia in the past two decades. First, many workers went to Argentina over many decades, then in the 1980s and 1990s there was a steady migration to the United States, which was followed by a massive hemorrhage of emigrants to Spain after 2000. There are now some 207,000 Bolivians residing in Spain (INE [España], Padrón Municipal 2010, cuadro 1.7 generated at http://www.ine.es/jaxi/menu.do?type=pcaxis&path=/t20/e245/&file=inebase), approximately 346,000 residing in Argentina (census of 2010; INDEC, Cuadro P6. found at http://www.censo2010.indec.gov.ar/definitivostotalxpais.asp) and in another 72,000 resided in the United States (US Census Bureau, ACS 5 year sample 2005-2009 generated at http://sda.usa.ipums.org/cgi-bin/sdaweb/hsda3) and 15,000 in Brazil (census of 2000 IBGE, http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/presidencia/noticias/20122002censo.shtm). The other neighboring Latin American countries probably contained approximately 10,000 Bolivians in addition to the large number of seasonal migrants who worked in Argentina, and to a lesser extent, Chile and Brazil. The World Bank estimates that there are 685,000 Bolivians residing abroad, or some 7% of the national population. These overseas Bolivians have remitted a constant stream of savings to Bolivia in the past decade. This volume peaked in 2007 at a figure representing 7.9 percent of

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the GDP and accounted for the second most important source of Bolivian income after natural gas exports. But with the recent world recession, these remittances have steadily fallen to just 5.8 percent of GDP in the most recent estimates. See Luis Carlos Jemio, Roberto Laserna, Mario Napoleón Pacheco and Saúl Roberto Quispe A., “Globalización, migración y remesas,” Coloquios Económicos No. 21 (La Paz: Fundación Milenio, Diciembre de 2010), pp. 12, 20-21. 67 It is estimated that as of 2005 some 58% of the elderly were covered by the non-contributory funds and only 18% were receiving money from state and private pension plans to which they have contributed. Rafael Rofman, Leonardo Lucchetti and Guzmán Ourens, Pension Systems in Latin America: Concepts and Measurements of Coverage (Washington DC: World Bank, revised edition, October 2008), p. 17, and table A2.1, p.32. Moreover as of 2011 the Bolivian government, following the example of Argentina, nationalized the private pensions program and now all contributory and non-contributory pensions are under state control. Angel Lorenzo G., “Ley de pensiones y ley de educación en Bolivia. Una mirada hacia la frontera,” Revista Andina de Estudios Politicos 1, no. 1 (December 2010), p. 5. 68 UDAPE, Dossier de Estadisticas Sociales y Economicas , vol. 20 ( La Paz Bolivia, Diciembre 2010), cuadro 7.7.1, “Gasto Publico Social 1996-2008” 69 Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas Publicas, Grafico “Bolivia: Población beneficiada con las transferencias directas condicionadas, a Agosto 2011,” accessed October 7, 2011 at http://www.economiayfinanzas.gob.bo/index.php?opcion=com_indicadores&ver=indicadores&idc=573 70 UDAPE, Dossier de Estadisticas Sociales y Economicas , vol. 20 ( La Paz Bolivia, Diciembre 2010), cuadro 7.4.1, “Indicadores de Salud, 1996-2009” 71 UDAPE, Sexto informe de progreso de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio en Bolivia, La Paz, diciembre de 2010, p. 25 “Cuadro resumen de situación de los indicadores ODM en Bolivia” 72 A recent report suggested that only one out of 14 large state enterprises (together containing some 58 smaller companies grouped into these large units) were profitable, and this was in the area of lowland nut production and exports. So far the government has invested some US$ 50 billion in these companies (equivalent to 15 years of expenditure of previous governments), which in turn accounted for 51% of the national budget annually. Yet not only were thirteen of these large enterprises not profitable, and most not even functioning, but for all the expenditures they had created a total so far of only 280 new jobs. Finally there has been a total lack of transparency in the finances and functioning of these state companies. See the important work on this by Iván Arias Durán, El estado de las empresas del estado (La Paz: Fundación Milenio, 2011) 73 See Roberto Laserna, “Falling into the Rentier Trap,” Revista (Cambridge MA., Fall 2011). Equally pessimistic is the essay in the same issue by José Antonio Morales, “Post-Neo Liberal Policies and the Populist Tradition” . A recent report on the current economy of Bolivia by the

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respected Fundación Milenio reported that “No obstante, esta bonanza de precios [for its exports] no se ha traducido en mayores inversiones, que hubiesen incrementado la capacidad productiva de la economía, la que ha permanecido prácticamente estancada. La capacidad de producción de hidrocarburos apenas se ha incrementado los últimos años…. la producción en el sector minero ha tendido a caer. En el sector agrícola la superficie cultivada ha tendido a estancarse e incluso a reducirse. Esto pone a la economía boliviana en extrema vulnerabilidad, ante una eventual caída en los precios de as exportaciones.” Informe de Milenio sobre la Economía, Primer Semestre 2011, Nº 31 (28 de octubre de 2011). 74 For an interesting prediction of how this would develop see Juan Antonio Morales,. La economía política del populismo boliviano del siglo 21,” Revista Latinoamericana de Desarrollo Económico, 7, no.12 (La Paz, oct. 2009), pp.103-142. Also see the critique of a policy of state enterprises that does not also carry out basic structural changes in the economy in George Gray Molina, “El reto posneoliberal de Bolivia,” Nueva Sociedad No. 209 (mayo-junio de 2007), pp. 118-129. Despite nationalization of national gas, foreign transnacional companies have actually increased their share of production to 80% of the total natural gas output and given government policies they have little incentive to increase exploration and production. At the same time Bolivia has become a net importer of gas and petroleum products in everything from bottled propane gas to diesel oil. Carlos Arze Vargas, Juan Luis Espada, Juan Carlos Guzmán and Pablo Poveda Gasolinazo: subvención popular al Estado y a las petroleras Análisis de la política económica, fiscal y petrolera (La Paz: CEDLA, agosto de 2011), p.60, cuadro 11, p. 67. There is little question that from the late 1990s until 2008 the economy grew at an extraordinary rate due to the rise of world mineral prices and the increasing export of natural gas which also increased government revenues from new royalties and taxes after nationalization. Thus the first and part of the second Morales administration has been a period of extraordinary prosperity. But as exports rose so did imports, and by 2011 the balance of trade was declining severely and turning negative. It should also be stressed that while income transfers have reduced poverty levels, Bolivia still had among the region’s highest level of poverty – with some 50% of the urban population and 77% of the rural population living at the level of poverty. Moreover, some 38% of households in a 2010 survey were considered extremely poor as they consumed less than 70% of what was considered a basic diet. Martin Cicowiez and Carlos Gustavo Machicado, “Effects of the Global Financial and Economic Crisis on the Bolivian Economy: A CGE Approach,” (Working Paper Series No. 10/2010; La Paz: Institute for Advanced Development Studies [INESAD], Universidad Católica Boliviana, August 2010), p. 7 and table 2.1, p. 12; Hernán Zeballos H., Vanessa Riveros Gámez and José Baldivia Urdininea, Seguridad alimentaria en Bolivia (La Paz: Fundación Milenio, Julio 2011), p. 10. Moreover the failure to increase capital investment – foreign and domestic - has not created enough jobs to change the labor market. A survey of the economy reported that Foreign Direct Investment from 2006-2010 averaged 13.8% of GNP. It has been estimated that a minimum of 18% is needed to simply supply the number of jobs for all new entrants into the labor market. Also this number was far below the 20% rate achieved in the period 1997-2000. José Luís Evia, Rolando Jordán, Mauricio Medinaceli and Mario Napoleón Pacheco, Informe de Milenio sobre la Economía, Gestión 2010 (La Paz: Fundación Milenio, Abril 2011), p.20; and Luis Carlos Jemio, “El Problema del Empleo en Bolivia,” La Paz, INESAD, Monday Morning Development Newsletter, 13 de julio 2009 from

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http://www.inesad.edu.bo/mmblog/mm_20090713.htm. This meant that the informal labor market, estimated to be the largest in the Americas (UDAPE, Informe Especial, La informalidad en el mercado laboral urbano, 1996-2006 (Documento de Trabajo 7/01, 2011), p.6) has declined only moderately despite the unusual booming economy of this first decade if the twenty-first century. Despite a real doubling of the GDP between 1990 and 2010 [see “UDAPE, cuadro 1.1.1 “Producto interno bruto por actividad económica: 1980-2009,” accessed Oct. 9, 2011 at http://www.udape.gob.bo/portales_html/dossierweb2010/htms/doss0101.htm] the number of informal workers went from 74% in 1996 to 70% of the economically active population in 2007. Beatriz Muriel & Luis Carlos Jemio, “Mercado laboral y reformas en Bolivia,” (Working Paper 7/2010; La Paz: INSEAD, Universidad Catolica de Bolivia, Octubre 2008), cuadro 3.8, p. 43; and for more retail of the urban labor market see C. F. Landa and P. Yañez P. “Informe Especial: La Informalidad en el Mercado Laboral Urbano 1996-2006” (Texto de Discusión 07/01, La Paz: UDAPSE, Unidad de Análisis de Políticas Sociales y Económicas, 2007 75 Just in the first term of Morales the government faced 3,213 serious protests and conflicts which in fact is the most experienced by any government between 1970 and 2005. Angel Lorenzo G., ¿Los conflictos importan? Una mirada al Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia,”. Revista Andina de Estudios Politicos 1, no. 5 (Abril 2011), cuadro 1 and note 4. For a deatiled breakdown of the origin and character of some of these conflicts see Roberto Laserna and Miguel Villarroel, Enero de 1970 - Enero de 2008: 38 años de conflictos sociales en Bolivia, Descripción general y por periodos Gubernamentales. Cochabamaba: CERES, 2009, cuadro 9, p. 84.