More than a hundred familial clans control 25 million hectares in Bolivia, five times the territory in the hands of the peasants. This figure translates to a hegemonic standoff, in which the political forces of today (historically low status majority groups) and the economic forces (dominant ethnic minority) do not converge, preventing each group from leading the country as it would like to. In this article I lay out the responsibility of Evo Morales, who will have to ensure a consensus in order to achieve the drafting of a constitution that is accepted by all sectors and guarantees national unity and the principle of authority.

(From Buenos Aires) THE NOTABLE ARGENTINEAN Juan Carlos Portantiero (1934-2007) defined a hegemonic standoff as that political situation in which each of the groups has sufficient energy to veto the projects developed by the others, but none manages to gather together the forces that are necessary to lead the country as desired. In short, a standoff could be summed up as the stage in which there is no correspondence between economic domination and political hegemony.

“The constitution that the ruling party passed without the presence of the opposition defines the country as a multinational, communitarian, democratic and intercultural State” The hegemonic standoff, according to Portantiero (incidentally, the most renowned Argentinean interpreter of Antonio Gramsci’s work), takes place in contexts of organic crisis, meaning situations in which the conflict is chronically maintained that are neither resolved as a new hegemony by the predominant capitalist faction nor as a revolutionary crisis for those classes subjected to the rulers.

Since the practice of categorical extrapolation is not always the simplest (especially within dissimilar historical contexts), it appears that the Bolivian case is quite precisely approaching the scene in the situation described by Portantiero.

BOLIVIA TODAY

The constitution in Bolivia, which the ruling party passed without the presence of the opposition, and which defines the country as a multinational, communitarian, democratic and intercultural State, will be discussed shortly. The new constitution grants, among other innovative ideas, several means of collective ownership together with private ownership and self-government for the autonomous indigenous regions.

“Cases such as Bolivia’s, in which the economy finds itself in the hands of a thriving ethnic minority, tend to give rise to political crises of unanticipated dimensions” With the objective of thwarting this project (which is accused of being statesmanlike, indigenous and authoritarian), the prefects and civic leaders in Santa Cruz, Riaja, Beni and Pando gave the green light to the decision to pass their respective autonomous statutes in popular referendums. The government criticizes the secessionist character of the project of these departments, which, together with Cochabamba, represent 70 percent of the territory and 80 percent of the Bolivian Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The main topics being discussed by Evo Morales and the governors are: the unitary or multinational nature of the State; the character of the indigenous villages’ participation in the political and economic systems; the territorial order, the indigenous and/or regional autonomy, and the scope of decentralization; the new institutional organization, including the presidential reelection and the political representation of the ethnic groups in Congress; the relationship between the armed forces and the National Police; and the redistribution of the revenue generated by hydrocarbons, the country’s principal source of wealth.

Furthermore, what process is behind the hegemonic crisis in the Andean country? Or, in other words, do we have the analytical tools that will allow us to explain the hegemonic standoff that dominates the Bolivian political scene? The prestigious academic Amy Chua, Professor of Law at Yale University, offers us an interesting answer by approaching the historical interaction between dominant minorities in the economy and low status majority groups that, at a certain point in time, gain access to political power.

INEQUALITY AS A STARTING POINT

According to a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report, more than 100 powerful familial clans own approximately 25 million hectares in Bolivia. This figure represents five times the quantity of land that is in the possession of two million impoverished peasants and indigenous Bolivians.

The growing inequality in the Andean country points us in the direction of Amy Chua’s analysis in World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (Doubleday, 2003). Chua (the daughter of a married couple belonging to the dominant Chinese minority in the Philippine economy) aims to explain why the combination of a free market and electoral democracy is not necessarily conducive to political stability. Cases such as Bolivia’s (in which the economy finds itself in the hands of a thriving ethnic minority) tend to give rise to political crises of unanticipated dimensions.

POSSIBLE CRISIS SCENARIOS

The conflict leaves its mark when the dominant ethnic minority in the economy loses the reins of national politics (either because it is electorally defeated or, in those cases in which it does not directly control the political power, because its alliance with groups in the government vanishes), which then pass to the hands of the historically low status majority groups. The result is political instability, with three possible scenarios:

“So that the hegemonic standoff does not end in one of the scenarios described by Chua, we must use shrewd sense, and abandon any greed in the process of political construction” 1) confiscation or nationalization of the dominant minority’s property;

2) authoritarian reactions by the minority groups (e.g., support to or financing of coups d’état in order to halt the advance of the indigenous majority groups); or

3) violence (sometimes as extreme as ethnic cleansing) by the low status majority groups against the minorities.

A fourth element, capable of cutting across any of the three prior scenarios, is the territorial secession of the country.

History, according to Chua, provides us with an enormous number of cases in which ethnic minority groups control the economic system, while other groups pull the strings of political power, with an always latent possibility of a crisis in the form of one of the four scenarios mentioned. The situation of the Chinese minority groups in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia or Thailand, of the Indians in Kenya, Tanzania or Uganda, of the Whites in southern Africa (Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia) and in Latin America (Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala), of the Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, or the Jews in the former Soviet Union, are interesting examples that the author cites.

THE IMMEDIATE CHALLENGE

Bolivia will have to achieve, rather soon, the drafting a constitution that is accepted by all sectors and guarantees national unity and the principle of authority. Not only will President Morales’ revolutionary project depend on the ability to reach a consensus, which his government demonstrates, but so too will the containment of an ethno-nationalism of unpredictable consequences.

In short, so that the hegemonic standoff does not end in one of the scenarios described by Chua, we must use shrewd sense, and abandon any greed in the process of political construction.