A RESOURCE-­‐BASED REVOLUTION? The Impact of Indigenous Movements on Natural Resource Policy in Ecuador and Bolivia Katherine Blansett March 15, 2013 INTRODUCTION
In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, indigenous peasants in Bolivia and Ecuador took to
the streets, organizing marches and building road blockages that paralyzed their national
economies and ousted presidents. The 2003 strikes in Bolivia’s La Paz and Cochabamba, dubbed
the “Gas Wars”, opposed the construction of a natural gas pipeline to Chile, which many
believed would diminish Bolivia’s share in its own gas profits (Silva 2010:138). In response to
these protests, military responders killed sixty protestors over the ensuing weeks, creating a
political fallout so grave that President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada resigned and the Bolivian
party system collapsed. Ecuador’s 2005 uprising in Yasuní National Park, in which local
residents invaded oilrigs in indigenous areas of the Amazon, opposed foreign oil extraction in the
area. As a result, oil production in the area was halted for almost a week.
These protests fit into a larger regional pattern of indigenous mobilization in the Andean
region against neoliberal1 natural resource policies that promote transnational ownership of
natural resources but fail to distribute the vast wealth of extractive industries to the economically
disadvantaged indigenous population (Fabricant 2012:42; Weyland, Madrid and Hunter 2010:34). In the cases of CONAIE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador;
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) and MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo;
Movement towards Socialism), in Ecuador and Bolivia respectively, these anti-establishment
demands carried a markedly indigenous character as social movements reframed indigenous
rights to intervene in natural resource policy to reflect cultural norms linked to decentralized
ayllu democracy2 and modern environmental protection (Fabricant 2012:44; Erazo 2013:168).3
1 The term “neoliberal” refers to pro-­‐market reforms, such as privatization and currency devaluation, characteristic of Latin American governments in the 1990’s. For more, see Silva (2010). 2 Ayllu: a traditional form of Inca community that are recognized by their self-­‐sufficiency, community-­‐held territory, and relations based on reciprocity (Lewellen 2003:39) 1 These demands were eventually channeled into a call for the implementation and
institutionalization of consulta prévia (prior consultation), requiring the government to seek the
consultation and approval of affected communities before beginning or deepening natural
resource exploitation. Consulta prévia encourages local communities to impose additional
environmental regulations and demand direct financial compensation for the local community.
In the wake of the nationwide protests and the political vacuums created by the erosion of
established parties, CONAIE and MAS each formed their own political parties that, directly or as
part of a coalition, ran candidates on pro-indigenous and anti-neoliberal platforms. Following the
departure of unpopular presidents responsible for market-friendly rather than indigenous-friendly
extraction policy, current Presidents Evo Morales and Rafael Correa (of Bolivia and Ecuador,
respectively) were both publicly endorsed by CONAIE and MAS and campaigned on platforms
favoring the demands of indigenous groups described above. Despite similarities shared by these
two cases, Evo Morales’s regime has enacted significantly more indigenous-friendly natural
resource policies than Rafael Correa. Morales has consistently respected indigenous rights in his
natural resource policy decisions and he quickly reverses most policies that spark indigenous
protest. By contrast, Correa actively excludes indigenous activists from his administration and
even accelerates oil extraction in the Amazon against the opposition of local indigenous
communities.
An analytical puzzle emerges from these differences in policy outcomes: why was one
indigenous social movement able to successfully translate the momentum from protests not only
into electoral turnout, but tangible changes in natural resource policy, while the other was not?
This puzzle reflects a larger theme in the evaluation of democratic participation: does increased
3 MAS and CONAIE represent the largest indigenous organizations in Bolivia and Ecuador, respectively, and are also the only movements affiliated with parties who have garnered more than 10 percent of the popular vote in national elections (LAPOP). 2 political participation by a marginal group in a democracy assure concrete policy change beyond
elections?
Indigenous Logics At Odds With Rentier State Theory
The scholarship on Latin America’s political economy, specifically on natural resources,
centers on the recent commodity boom and its enormous influence on the New Left’s4 economic
policy (Blanco and Grier 2013; Hogenboom and Fernández Jiberto 2009; Stallings and Peres
2011). While many scholars have compared the mobilization and organizational contrasts of
MAS and CONAIE, there is very little work comparing the natural resource policy of Bolivia
and Ecuador. In fact, Bolivia’s and Ecuador’s current administrations are often grouped with
other commodity-based economies and participatory democracies in Latin America, particularly
Venezuela (Flores-Macías 2010, pg. 414-5). The literature on resource policy as it pertains to
Bolivia and Ecuador can be easily summarized by Kurt Weyland’s repurposement of rentier
state theory, predicting that Ecuador’ and Bolivia’s governments will enact redistributive social
programs benefiting the poor, but also favor centralization of authority and rents from natural
resources (Weyland 2009). This argument suggests that Bolivia’s and Ecuador’s economies earn
high rents that provide incentives for presidents to enact social programs supporting their
constituencies in order to bring about the economic inclusion of previously marginalized sectors
such as indigenous populations, while simultaneously denying this population’s demand for prior
consult. Therefore, rentier state theory predicts that executives will favor the centralization of
natural resource rents to facilitate nationwide redistribution programs and eschew decentralizing
authority over extraction policy to affected indigenous communities.
4 The phrase “the New Left” refers to the recent turn of many Latin American governments toward the left after the pro-­‐market reforms of the 1990’s. For more information, see Domínguez and Shifter (2008), Weyland, Madrid, and Hunter (2010), and Silva (2010). 3 A related argument predicts that the mere existence of a commodity-based economy
automatically provides incentives for states to concentrate authority over these commodities on
the national level because resource revenue creates growth without the necessity of improved
taxation policies or neoliberal strategies to attract foreign investment and encourage exports
diversification (Hershberg 2010:242). Without previously enacted political constraints, such as
the binomial electoral system in Chile5 that all but guarantees conservative representation in the
national legislature, states will choose to make risky spending decisions on social and
infrastructure projects (Weyland 2009:151-2; Hershberg 2010). Overall, the scholarship on
natural resources in Latin America considers Bolivia and Ecuador to have comparable oil policy
that centralizes authority on the national level in the executive branch. This approach fails to
account for successful indigenous mobilization over more than a decade demanding a decrease
in the centralization of this authority. Moreover, it under-analyzes the distinct levels of success
these episodes of contentious politics have experienced between the cases.
Examination of international, cross-regional natural resource policy-making implies that
a democratic electorate is capable of reversing policy direction through elections or revolution,
thereby constraining politicians by the electorate’s demands. Unless the state employs dictatorial
repression, leaders must further natural resource policy that meets these demands or risk being
removed from office or starting a revolution (Cabrales and Hauk 2010:61). The state’s need to
address these demands will sometimes triumph over incentives to erode democratic institutions
to co-opt resource rents, even in resource rich states, which are usually attributed with
authoritarian tendencies. Since successful indigenous movements oppose unfettered resource
extraction and instead favor decentralization to ensure that affected communities have greater
5 This system elects two legislators per district and often overrepresents the minority party. For more, see Posner (1999). 4 control over extraction in indigenous territory and mobilize protests and electoral turnout around
this interest, it stands to reason that executives in Bolivia and Ecuador may be constrained by
indigenous demands that are contrary to the results predicted by rentier state theory.
Participatory Democracy?: Indigenous Social Movements and the New Left State
Many scholars have written extensively on the character and tactics of mobilization in
Latin American movements in recent decades. These analyses discuss themes including
structural explanation for the emergence of indigenous movements, the formation of ethnic
parties from these movements, and accounts of the electoral strategy of these same ethnic parties,
(Silva 2010; Madrid 2010; Van Cott 2005). However, this literature shares a common failing of
social movement scholarship overall: a failure to focus on outcomes. Those that do often discuss
broader political results such as the extent to which these ethnic forces divide and incorporate
different parts of civil society or the implications of increasingly participatory rather than
representative democracy for democratic governance (Mueller 2013; Motta 2009). Only recently
has focus shifted to include the impact of these movements on policy change under New Left
governments that were elected on pro-indigenous platforms in Bolivia and Ecuador.
There are several competing explanations for the successes and failures of indigenous
social movements in the region. Roberta Rice’s study of indigenous party consolidation in
Bolivia and Ecuador between 1996 and 2004 proves that MAS captured votes based on voters’
indigeneity, poverty level, and the left’s previous vote share, while the only consistent predictor
of votes for Pachakutik, the political party endorsed by CONAIE, was a voter’s selfidentification of indigeneity (Rice 2011). This presumably reflects the broader appeal of the
MAS party in Bolivia than of Pachakutik in Ecuador in comparison with other political parties.
5 Indigeneity determines the amount of electoral support these parties wield and the amount of
influence they have in policy-making decisions of politicians that they support.
Katherine Kuhn’s dissertation on the employment of identity-based appeals on the part of
MAS and CONAIE asserts that indigenous social movements shifted their tactics during
Morales’s and Correa’s presidencies by directly appealing to the public to criticize the
presidents’ failure to follow through on campaign promises (Kuhn 2013:iii). This argument
attributes differences in the extent of indigenous-friendly policy to the ability of MAS to directly
shame Morales with identity-based attacks, because Morales himself is indigenous, while Correa
neither is indigenous nor directly participates in CONAIE (Kuhn 2013:136, 207). While this
explanation addresses the link between social movement tactics and policy, it primarily concerns
itself with the tactical choices of the movement confronted with officials that fail to deliver on
campaign promises. It does not directly address the policy changes that came about as a result of
these appeals, much less the specific connection between indigenous social movement agendas
and natural resource policy.
However, none of these arguments thoroughly examine the alliances formed by
indigenous social movements and other actors in politics and civil society. Ruth Berins Collier’
and Samuel Handlin’s explanation of differences in social movement effectiveness is partysociety linkages for community organizations and New Left states. Specifically, Collier and
Handlin examine psychological, direct-contact, and organizational linkages between established
leftist parties and organized labor or, in the case of Venezuela, between new political movements
and civil society organizations (Handlin and Collier 2011). Such linkages offer the best
alternative in current literature to explain not only differences in indigenous movement tactics,
organization, and electoral results, but also to evaluate differences in policy outcomes. Linkages
6 can ensure continued influence on political establishment outside of elections. Therefore, I argue
for an extension of party-society linkage analysis to indigenous social movements in Bolivia and
Ecuador to better understand differences in natural resource policy.
Each of these arguments underscores different levels of success in effecting policy
change enjoyed by MAS and CONAIE and offers a partial explanation for the link between
social movements and policy change. However, few of the studies on movement politics in Latin
America place sufficient emphasis on the causal effect of these movements on policy
developments after indigenous or indigenous-friendly governments are elected to office. Those
that do comparatively evaluate the effect of movements on policy offer potential explanations for
differences between cases but do not establish direct relationships between successful indigenous
movements and the implementation of indigenous-friendly policy.
Bolivia’ and Ecuador’s current administrations are often grouped with other commoditybased economies and participatory democracies in Latin America, including Venezuela,
Argentina, and Nicaragua. However, Bolivia and Ecuador are unique in their historical and
contemporary experiences with indigenous social movements, which have added a distinctly
ethnic tone to their progressive political discourse around natural resources. While natural
resource policy and indigenous political participation are often considered independently of one
another, I discover a disagreement in the outcomes predicted by each of these perspectives.
Natural resource policy analysis links Bolivia and Ecuador with Venezuela, claiming that the
political economy of these states is sufficiently similar that indigenous politics unique to Bolivia
and Ecuador do not affect executives’ decision-making.6 Meanwhile, scholars of indigenous
6 To simplify my argument, I will look most closely at executive decisions rather than legislative action, because both Ecuador and Bolivia have power concentrated in the executive branch (Domínguez and Shifter 2008) and neither MAS nor Pachakutik has a supermajority in the legislature to force new laws through (Dangl 2007:143; Becker 2011, pg 246). 7 social movements and ethnic politics rarely concern themselves with the impact of indigenous
identity on politics beyond electoral results. This gap implies that there is a lack of examination
of the relationship between these two themes. The extent of indigenous organization and
participation is vital to explain the direction of natural resource policy under the New Left.
The Main Argument
In this paper, I look to establish a causal relation based on Bolivian and Ecuadorean
indigenous social movements’ organizational linkages to explain whether the implementation of
natural resource policy aligns with indigenous demands during and after their anti-neoliberal
mobilizations in the 1990’s and 2000’s. I argue that Morales’s policy addressed indigenous
demands better than Rafael Correa’s because MAS organized more successfully than CONAIE
on the local and national level among indigenous and non-indigenous voters. MAS created a
powerful electoral constituency that held Morales accountable to his campaign promises. By
contrast, CONAIE did not create a movement that is strong enough to enforce its policy demands
under Correa. The divergence of Morales’s and Correa’s responses to indigenous movement
demands suggests that differences in political and mobilization strategy determine the past,
current, and future influence of indigenous movements in Bolivia and Ecuador and their ability
to create lasting social and political change.
Upon first glance, the context and nature of indigenous mobilization in Bolivia and
Ecuador seem very similar. Both occurred in the same geographical region (Latin America),
during the same time period (1990s-present), and in similar demographic, political, and
economic conditions (significant indigenous populations above 30 percent, neoliberal
governments, and commodity based economies). Additionally, protests against these political
conditions were strongly tied to groups including MAS and CONAIE, advocating specifically for
8 indigenous rights rather than class-based ones against practices that specifically harmed
indigenous communities, particularly natural resource extraction of energy-related products
(Silva 2010). The democratic regimes supported by these indigenous movements in the most
recent elections both fall neatly into the radical end of New Left democracies, particularly
because of the increasingly ethnic tone and participatory form of these elections.7
These similarities aside, there are clear differences between indigenous movements in
these countries. The differences between indigenous social movements in Bolivia and Ecuador
explain not only the extent of their electoral influence, but also their influence on the policy
choices of executives. Specifically, I argue that differences in movement-society linkages and
resulting electoral consolidation of these movements, along with the continued mobilization of
the movements after the election of pro-indigenous candidates, determine the degree to which
these pro-indigenous executives introduced concrete changes to natural resource policy
protecting indigenous autonomy over affected ancestral lands and the environment in general.
I evaluate these variables with specific indicators to determine the comparative strength
of indigenous movements in Bolivia and Ecuador, as well as the comparative level of
incorporation of indigenous interests into natural resource policy. My explanatory variables
measure the comparative strength of indigenous movements in each case. This is mostly based
on (a) a qualitative evaluation of linkages formed by these movements with other political and
social actors, (b) a qualitative study of indigenous party formation and a quantitative statistical
analysis of the extent to which those parties captured indigenous and non-indigenous voters. In
terms of organizational linkages, I compare the alliances that each movement forged with
political actors outside of the movement, primarily through coalitions, since these alliances
7 Ecuador and Bolivia share sub-­‐classification within the New Left as participatory and ethnic political environments. For more, see Levitsky and Roberts (2011) and Madrid (2012). 9 undermine their position as anti-establishment and revolutionary organizations. I also evaluate
indigenous movements’ linkages to civil society, including their incorporation and antagonism to
other indigenous groups or social movements made up of primarily indigenous participants. This
reveals how devoted these movements were to actually effecting change for indigenous peoples,
or conversely, how intent they were to monopolize indigenous support at the expense of
fulfilling their objectives around natural resource policy. I continue by measuring what I call the
electoral capacity of these movements; namely, the extent to which they built electoral forces
strong enough to affect the results of a presidential election. To determine relative electoral
power, I observe the process of party formation and measure the results of these political
branches of the movements through the electoral consolidation of indigenous parties to identify
whether indigeneity along with other demographic factors predict voting for an indigenous party.
Finally, I evaluate the success of social movements in organizing protests after the election of
pro-indigenous candidates by observing their turnout and the state’s response – accommodation
or dismissal of indigenous demands.
The dependent variable, natural resource policy, is crucial to understanding the overall
success of these movements because the location of natural resource extraction occurred largely,
although not exclusively, on indigenous territory, causing one of the most economically
disenfranchised populations in these countries to bear a significant cultural and environmental
burden (de la Cadena 2010). Natural resource politics are fundamental to explain the rise of
indigenous protest and subsequent political activism, because extraction policy in the 1990’s not
only perpetuated inequality and threatened their land, but also posed a threat to their personal
ethnic identities. Natural resource policy reform that favored indigenous interests would imply
that these movements have become established participants in national politics rather than
10 marginal special interest. To evaluate the success of these movements in changing natural
resource policy for their interests, I observe three indicators: institutionalization and enforcement
of consulta prévia, state intervention in natural resource extraction following contentious
episodes, and the legislative or constitutional guarantee of environmental protection and
autonomy of indigenous territory. Consulta prévia assures that indigenous peoples will have a
greater voice in the process of extraction of natural resources on their own lands, while increased
state intervention in resources assures that (a) foreign companies cannot supersede consulta
prévia, and (b) more profits can be directed to indigenous communities affected by extraction.
The protection of the environment and indigenous territorial rights reinforces the basic principles
of consulta prévia and assures that, legally, the executive is obligated to decentralize a certain
amount of authority.
Organizational Differences
Indigenous movements in Ecuador and Bolivia emerged on the national stage within ten
years of one another, and both with strong initial links to civil society. According to Sidney
Tarrow’s description of a political opportunity structure, this is due to several structural factors.
First, political decentralization and legal protection of popular participation in both countries
facilitated participation on the municipal level (Tarrow 1998:32). Additionally, these
organizations were able to effectively frame a credible threat, the second component of Tarrow’s
political opportunity structure, by criticizing market-oriented natural resource policy as the
source of economic and environmental insecurity that fell disproportionately on indigenous
populations (Tarrow 1998:32; Silva 2010:26; Van Cott 2010:25). However, this approach only
explains why indigenous movements appeared during the 1990’s. It does not predict how these
movements will develop. From the outset of the formation of national-level indigenous social
11 movements, clear differences emerged in Bolivian and Ecuadorean mobilization along ethnic
lines. The most telling of these differences took shape in the tactical decisions that CONAIE and
MAS made in their selection of organizations with which to link in the political arena and in civil
society.
Although CONAIE eventually emerged as the dominant political vehicle for advancing
indigenous political causes in the 1990’s, it was not the sole organization responsible for
mobilizing indigenous populations in Ecuador. CONAIE represented the unification of several
localized indigenous movements. It faced significant competition from two other national
indigenous organizations and it actively impeded the development of other indigenous
organizations instead of encouraging local collaboration and forming alliances with them (Van
Cott 2010:109-110). In the short run, the exclusion of other indigenous organizations allowed
CONAIE to have sole access to negotiations with the state, and also decreased the considerable
divisions that already existed within the organization (Madrid 2012:84-5). This sowed the seeds
of division within the Ecuadorean indigenous movement that would eventually undermine
CONAIE’s attempts to unite the indigenous vote and consolidate its electoral strength. CONAIE
was, however, responsible for the most successful national protest mobilizations that occurred: a
1990 levantamiento (uprising) pushing for bilingual education, a 1992 caminata (protest walk)
for natural resource autonomy in the Amazon, and a 1994 “Movilización Por La Vida”
(Mobilization for Life) against government proposals to auction communally held land in
indigenous communities. All of these moments “gained Ecuador the reputation as home to the
strongest Indigenous movements and one of the best-organized social movements in the
Americas” (Becker 2011:37). This was true despite the fact that “activists had made very little
headway in concretely altering government policies” through just mobilization (Becker
12 2011:37). Even in its role in civil society of organizing protest, CONAIE faced problems from
the outset of translating its power through mobilization into a unified national indigenous
movement. Additionally, CONAIE’s focus on national protest impeded the formation of
grassroots organizations that may have solidified its support on the local level (Rice 2011:175).
MAS placed greater emphasis on the incorporation of other social movements within
civil society and employed a bottom-up structure that the coca growers’ unions and lowland
organizations took advantage of by lowering the barriers to entry. MAS also made use of the
growing national discontent with the ineffectiveness of political parties to insert indigenous
interests within an anti-establishment platform that appealed to a broad electorate, both
indigenous and non-indigenous (Van Cott 2010:67-71). Most of the protests that MAS organized
were centered on localized natural resource-based concerns, including the El Alto Gas Wars and
the Cochabamba Water Wars. These became springboards for national discussions about
neoliberal policies. These orientations reveal that MAS’s general tendency was to collaborate
rather than to obstruct the success of other movements. Its grassroots structure encouraged local
participation and it sought to foster a strong cultural as well as political allegiance to MAS
among indigenous and ethnically mixed (mestizo) populations alike (Albro 2007).
Both CONAIE and MAS had roots in anti-establishment philosophies that promised to
revolutionize the national political system. Their rhetoric suggests that neither organization
would be prone to collaborate with political actors outside of the movements themselves even
though they did share common policy goals with established leftist movements. MAS’s decision
to eschew cooperation with any group affiliated with the political establishment appealed to
voters fed up with the corruption and ineffectiveness of Bolivian party politics. MAS did not
13 support any political party besides its own in its entire history, making its organization internally
inclusive but externally exclusive.
On the other hand, CONAIE focused most of its organizing efforts after the success of
protests in the 1990’s on the formation of Pachakutik, its political wing. Pachakutik proceeded to
form ill-fated alliances with non-indigenous movements and established, but struggling, leftist
parties. In the 2002 presidential election, Pachakutik rallied behind Lucio Gutiérrez in the second
round, a colonel heading a loosely aligned leftist coalition, hoping to unite indigenous and nonindigenous voters but ultimately splintering the indigenous vote (Becker 2011:106). Backing
Gutiérrez proved catastrophic not only because it failed to consolidate indigenous electoral
power, but also because Gutiérrez reneged on his entire platform once in office (Sawyer
2004:187). Gutiérrez adopted a strongly neoliberal regime and abandoned his promises to
CONAIE to form an institutionally plurinational state. After such close affiliation with disloyal,
non-indigenous interests, CONAIE found it difficult to maintain its legitimacy as an antiestablishment movement. CONAIE’s subsequent radicalization, an effort to regain authenticity
with its base, alienated its newfound non-indigenous allies after 2002 (Van Cott 2010:112). In
the 2000’s, CONAIE found that its haste to sabotage competition from other indigenous
movements and form alliances with non-indigenous actors eventually limited its strategic
options.
There are clear lessons to be learned from the contrasting organizational strategies of
MAS and CONAIE even before the elections of Evo Morales and Rafael Correa. From the
outset, MAS employed internally inclusive appeals and chose to unify its indigenous base before
forming a political party. This allowed them to successfully mount an independent, outsider
campaign and elect one of their own, Evo Morales to the presidency. Morales’s experience as a
14 leader of the coca growers’ movement and fervent MAS activist contributed to his successful
personalistic campaign strategy, further illustrating the importance of cultivating leadership
within social movements (Webber 2011:58). CONAIE, however, directed the energy from its
successful protests towards forming a political party and forging non-indigenous alliances before
unifying its indigenous base, causing fragmentation of the indigenous vote at the beginning of
the 2000’s (LAPOP, Bolivia 2004). In sum, MAS’s strategy of internal inclusivity and external
exclusivity brought it more influence than CONAIE’s strategy of internal exclusivity and
external inclusivity.
Party Formation, the Role of Indigenous Candidates, and the Indigeneity of the Vote
As mentioned above, Pachakutik was more prone to forming leftist coalitions than
running successful campaigns for executives. The second round of the 2009 presidential election
was no different. Pachakutik and CONAIE backed Rafael Correa in the second round of the
presidential election, an outsider populist candidate whose political strategy focused on broad
claims of Ecuadorean socialism, but lacked concrete policy prescriptions. Correa appealed to
indigenous groups by speaking in Quechua at rallies and donning indigenous clothing, rather
than by proposing action that would appeal to indigenous interests (Silva 2010:191). During the
race, Correa declared that the political consolidation and entrenchment of the Ecuadorean elite
was due to the mismanagement of oil revenues. He vowed to remedy this situation (Burbach,
Fuentes and Fox 2013:102). Based on these promises, CONAIE endorsed Correa’s candidacy
because his economic platform seemed to align with their interests better than any other
candidate. They also no longer possessed the electoral strength to run their ideal candidate, Lucas
Maca. Pachakutik’s support of a non-indigenous candidate from outside of the movement
divided the indigenous vote, proving that neither Pachakutik nor the larger CONAIE social
15 movement could successfully unite the indigenous population in Ecuador to elect a presidential
candidate behind a markedly indigenous platform (Becker 2011, pg 216).
MAS’s candidate Evo Morales was thoroughly rooted in the structure of MAS and the
coca growers’ unions. Since he himself was indigenous and had led several MAS protests,
Morales focused on extending indigenous demands to non-indigenous communities with leftist
sympathies (Webber 2011:18). Therefore, in Morales, MAS found not only a charismatic and
capable indigenous candidate, but also one able to link indigenous demands for political
transformation to nationwide sentiments. In fact, since the rise of the indigenous movement in
Bolivia, an increasing share of the population (higher than the rate of population growth) began
to self-identify as indigenous, suggesting that individuals were accepting their indigeneity as
more political outlets for indigenous representation emerged (LAPOP Bolivia 2004, LAPOP
Bolivia 2012). However, the key difference between Rafael Correa and Evo Morales goes
beyond simply the party or movement they represented; it extends to the very core of ethnic
politics. Since Morales is indigenous, he was most likely to respond to indigenous movements’
use of identity-based appeals (Kuhn 2013). Correa, on the other hand, only superficially allied
with indigenous cultures and would not be as accountable to the indigenous community.
Empirical evidence supports the association between indigenous identification and votes
for candidates promising resource policy reform, indicating the existence of a link between
electoral demands by indigenous voters and reform outcomes. Roberta Rice’s 2011 study on
MAS’s political consolidation found that indigenous parties’ vote shares were positively
correlated with not only voter indigenous identification but also with poverty overall. My own
regressions found that these same variables were correlated with indigenous peoples’ parties vote
share, specifically in departments that are rich in natural gas (Chuquisaca, Cochabamba, Santa
16 Cruz, and Tarija), which I studied because particularly affected by reform of natural resource
policy (Table 1). High illiteracy rates and lack of electricity, both variables indicating poverty,
and indigenous self-identification are both positively and significantly correlated with voting for
MAS in these departments. This correlation indicates that support for Morales and MAS
extended beyond indigenous communities to the lower class regardless of ethnicity.
Additionally, indigenous peoples’ parties vote shares grew substantially in these same
departments between 1999 and 2004 the period of MAS’s contentious protest and electoral
campaigning. Indigenous vote shares increased from 2.4 percent to 22.99 percent in Chuquisaca,
5.76 percent to 22.91 percent in Cochabamba, 3 percent to 16.54 percent in Santa Cruz, and 2.28
percent to 6.34 percent in Tarija (Figure 1). Clearly, MAS successfully incorporated both
indigenous and poor voters nationwide as well as in resource-rich areas, demonstrating its
successful tactic of combining resource policy protest with electoral alternatives to the status quo
that it railed against.
Pachakutik functioned as a separate entity from CONAIE and emphasized the importance
of connecting indigenous rights movements to broader discontent among the electorate with
establishment parties, but still enjoyed considerable support and support from CONAIE. In the
1996 elections, Pachakutik mustered an impressive 20.3 percent of the popular vote in the first
round, despite the fact that it was founded a mere five months prior (Van Cott 2010:123).
However, Pachakutik’s political influence soon eroded after the 2002 elections, during which
Pachakutik representatives in the legislature either resigned or were expelled by Gutierrez for
insubordination shortly after as well (Van Cott 2010:137). This loss severely undermined
Pachakutik’s political legitimacy in and out of indigenous communities, which was particularly
devastating as other leftist politicians and organizations were simultaneously gaining traction
17 among the broader electorate. The only significant variable correlated with voting for Pachakutik
over the course of its development overall and in oil-rich provinces is self-identification as
indigenous (Table 2, Rice 2011:179). This evidence suggests that Pachakutik was unable to
consolidate electoral support outside of indigenous communities in spite of its collaboration with
non-indigenous politicians. Pachakutik’s vote share dropped from a high of 28 percent in oil-rich
Amazonian indigenous communities, such as Sucumbíos and Napo, to as low as 20 percent,
demonstrating the precipitous drop in popular support for an indigenous political party over the
course of ten years (Figure 2). Pachakutik’s initial political efforts did lead to increases in its
vote shares across all oil-rich provinces between 1996 and 2000—from 20 percent to 31 percent
in Morona Santiago, 14 percent to 28 percent in Napo, 19 percent to 26 percent in Pastaza, 10
percent to 27 percent in Sucumbíos, and 0 percent to 5 percent in Zamora Chinchipe. However,
this trend did continue in subsequent elections. Pachakutik’s share increased from 31 percent to
33 percent in Morona Santiago and 5 percent to 9 percent in Zamora Chinchipe, but decreased
from 28 percent to 21 percent in Napo, 26 percent to 19 percent in Pastaza, and 27 percent to 24
percent in Sucumbíos. These inconsistent electoral results indicate that Pachakutik also failed to
improve its vote shares in oil-rich provinces, which had been epicenters of indigenous protest
and of support for CONAIE. Evidently, Pachakutik did not maintain its initial electoral success
throughout the 2000’s, because it did not solidify an electoral base outside of indigenous
communities.
Changes in Natural Resource Policy Since the Elections of Rafael Correa and Evo Morales
As is evident in the previous sections, CONAIE and MAS were in notably different
positions respective to the administrations of Correa and Morales based on their organizational
linkages and electoral strength. The most important indicator of the accommodation of
18 indigenous interests in these administrations—consulta prévia—appears in both executive
natural resource policy and constitutional and legislative action during this time. However, from
the outset, it is important to note that consulta prévia was significantly more institutionalized and
enforced in Bolivia than in Ecuador.
Only a year passed following his election before Correa reneged on the majority of
campaign promises that he offered CONAIE. He adopted pro-market policies rather than
implementing radical socialism as he had promised in his campaign (Becker 2011:203). This
reversal of intentions is evident in Correa’s minimal adjustments to national oil policy and
centralization of authority over oil extraction in the executive branch, since both actions ran
directly against indigenous demands (Erazo 2013:190). Correa did not nationalize the oil
industry in Ecuador. In fact, he threatened to privatize the national oil company unless they
generated more revenue with fewer expenditures. Correa actively courted foreign oil companies
to enter Ecuador against indigenous interests (Burbach, Fox and Fuentes 2013:108). These
policies were largely byproducts of Correa’s national redistribution project. Although, Correa did
redistribute oil rents through poverty reduction programs, these rents came from an increased tax
on private oil companies that continued to dominate the sector (Becker 2011:179). Additionally,
these programs contained no component specifically intended to empower indigenous
communities. Correa discouraged the designation of funds to rural areas, where indigenous
communities were most concentrated (Becker 2011:183). His program did not, however, enjoy
substantial success in poverty alleviation. Some accuse Correa of abandoning indigenous
interests for clientelistic purposes rather than wide-scale poverty alleviation (Burbach, Fox and
Fuentes 2013:103). Therefore, Correa’s political and economic policies did little to address
indigenous demands in Ecuador.
19 In Bolivia, Morales visited El Alto upon taking office to declare the nationalization of
natural gas resources, diminishing the role of the private sector in production and transferring
ownership to the state-owned Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB). Morales
continuously deepened the nationalization process by expropriating several foreign-owned gas
companies as well as pipeline and storage companies (Flores-Macías 2012:39). Morales also
nationalized hydroelectric production, the telecommunications industry, and the pension system
over the course of his presidency (Flores-Macias 2012:39-41). He maintained a consistent
rhetoric favoring nationalization, reaffirming his commitment to MAS’s objectives of a state-led
economy and his opposition to predatory transnational corporations into the Bolivian economy
(Kuhn 2013:202). Morales also began a very successful poverty reduction plan that focused on
the redistribution of natural resource rents to attack longstanding inequality. His programs
included Renta Dignidad, a cash transfer for all elderly citizens regardless of income and
Juacinto Pinto, a cash transfer for families with children enrolled in school. Both of these
programs contributed to significant poverty reduction during his administration (Flores-Macías
2012:40). Indigenous logic surrounding natural resources has evidently permeated the Morales
natural resource policy. The nationalization of various sectors including natural resources and the
implementation of a successful poverty reduction program deprive Morales of a certain level of
control of such policy that runs counter to rational choice theory that rentier state theory
assumes. This shows that indigenous political mobilization played a significant role in diverting
natural resource policy away from the rentier model.
20 Constitutional and Legislative Reforms: Expanding the State’s Presence in the Environment and
Contracting it in Indigenous Territory
The victories for Ecuadorean indigenous groups were mixed in the drafting and
ratification of the 2009 Ecuadorean constitution. Although it does endow the environment with
unalienable rights that are to be protected by the states, the new constitution does not further
indigenous rights past what had been established under the previous constitution in any concrete
ways. It does declare that Ecuador is a plurinational state, but it does not explicitly extend rights
to indigenous people beyond those of any Ecuadorean citizen (Constitution of Ecuador, Article
6). Although the 2009 Constitution guarantees the right of indigenous and other affected
communities to be consulted before beginning extractive processes, it leaves the final decision to
the state (Constitution of Ecuador, Articles 57.7 and 398). This outcome is not surprising,
because CONAIE and other indigenous actors were excluded from the drafting process,
indicating their lack of political voice within the Correa administration. They were left with the
decision to either support the new constitution despite its lack of explicit promises, or to oppose
it and further fragment the Ecuadorean left, thereby strengthening conservatives (Becker
2011:159). The failure of the 2009 constitution to deepen indigenous political rights to autonomy
or to guarantee consulta prévia and CONAIE’s decision to sill support its ratification shows the
extent to which indigenous interests were discounted from Correa’s policy plan.
Meanwhile, the constituent assembly convened by Morales in 2007 and the subsequent
constitution ratified by the Bolivian population in 2009, established legal protection for many of
the indigenous communities’ demands. MAS served as a representative vehicle for a multitude,
all of whom were heavily involved in the drafting of the constitution despite the Bolivian
Congress’s requirement that all members of the 2006-2007 Constituent Assembly belong to a
21 registered political party (Silva 2010:144). The representation of indigenous groups in this
Constituent Assembly ensured that indigenous Bolivians would have an active role in the
drafting of a new constitution and, therefore, would be able to directly reform the legal system
that MAS attributed with the perpetual inequality of the Bolivian indigenous.
Politically, the new constitution enshrined indigenous rights to localized political
autonomy, culture, and recognition by the state. Indigenous peoples may determine political
processes of representation within their own communities without being subject to national or
subnational regulation or standards (Constitution of Bolivia, Article 202.8). Consulta prévia is
recognized as an integral component of Bolivian law, and another article explicitly states that
indigenous communities have a right to deny or to directly benefit from resource extraction in
their ancestral territory, without interference by third parties (Constitution of Bolivia, Articles
11.I.1 and 30.II.15). The 2009 constitution also established a multi-level national system of
autonomy for all indigenous communities that institutionalized indigenous regional political
autonomy outside of the executive branch (Constitution of Bolivia, Article 289). In response to
indigenous demand, the constitution declared that Bolivia is a plurinational state and it explicitly
guarantees that state entities are required to communicate in both Spanish and at least one
indigenous language (Constitution of Bolivia, Article 5.II). This provision allows indigenous
citizens without a grasp of Spanish to still communicate in their indigenous language and it
encourages the use of these languages in an official capacity, which could protect them from
extinction. However, the Constitution failed to fully address the issue of property rights for the
indigenous, which still remains a source of conflict between Morales and MAS (Fabricant
2012:174).
22 Finally, in 2012, the Bolivian legislature passed a law declaring that it is the obligation of
the state to protect Madre Tierra (Mother Earth) from exploitation, an abstract but nonetheless
explicit statement that the government has an obligation to protect the environment (Achtenberg
2012). This legislation, combined with the new constitution, permanently enshrined legal
protection of indigenous autonomy, consulta prévia and environmental regulations, the central
indigenous political demands intended to increase local control over resource extraction.
Results of Continued Indigenous Protest Around Natural Resource Policy CONAIE’s diminishing mobilization capacity is most evident in its attempts to mobilize
protest against Correa’s regime. In light of Correa’s increasingly centralized state oil policy and
disinclination to institutionalize indigenous rights, CONAIE realized that the president was not
only impeding their agenda, in spite of the electoral support that they lent him, but also actively
undermining their mobilization. In November 2007, local indigenous groups took control of oil
wells in Dayuma demanding better enforcement of consulta prévia, but Correa deployed the
military to break up the protest and charged several participants with terrorism (Burbach, Fox,
and Fuentes 2013:110). Three years later, in July 2010, CONAIE staged a protest of Correa’s
failure to reform land and water policies. Correa mobilized 10,000 of his own civilian supporters
in a stronger counter-protest and accused CONAIE of attempting to destabilize his regime,
thereby de-legitimizing CONAIE’s cause yet again (Hispano.com, “Marchas a favor y en contra
de Correa”). Correa even went so far as charging four CONAIE leaders with terrorism,
permanently undermining the internal organization of the movement itself (Burbach, Fox, and
Fuentes 2013:111). Correa’s extreme reaction to the threat he perceives from CONAIE proves
that Correa has not protected indigenous interests in regards to natural resources, preferring to
actively squash continued mobilization attempts by CONAIE.
23 By contrast, MAS has continued to effectively mobilize during the Morales era, ensuring
that indigenous interests retain a pivotal role in natural resource politics. The clearest instance of
recent anti-government protest occurred in 2010 when Morales implemented a tax on natural gas
consumption in hopes of earning income to improve rural infrastructure (CNN, “Bolivian
president asks for forgiveness”). MAS believed that this tax would greatly increase the prices of
basic necessities, thereby negatively affecting the poor and indigenous who spend the majority of
their income on such necessities. Nationwide protests and road blockades, organized by MAS,
convinced Morales to roll back the tax and ask the indigenous community for forgiveness (CNN,
“Bolivian president asks for forgiveness”). In the same year, MAS again mobilized against the
construction of a highway through the largely indigenous Isiboro-Secure National Park and
Indigenous Territory (Territorio indígena y parque nacional isiboro secure, TIPNIS), fearing
environmental consequences from its construction as well as the pollution that increased traffic
would bring (Burbach, Fox and Fuentes 2013:93). Again, Morales halted plans to build the
highway, demonstrating Morales’s desire to internally resolve conflict between MAS and his
own administration rather than defy their demands. MAS continues to wield effective collective
action power that bodes well for the continuation of indigenous political mobilization even after
Morales’s election, assuring that elected officials will be held accountable for their policies
regardless of their movement affiliation.
Conclusions I find that successful indigenous mobilization in Latin America can successfully
circumvent the outcomes predicted by rentier state theory concerning natural resource policy.
MAS’s successful indigenous organization proved an electoral force to be reckoned with,
succeeding in the election of a candidate from their own organization who reformed natural
24 resource policy to better reflect their interests. Even when Morales diverged from these interests,
MAS again mobilized and forced him to reverse his actions. Meanwhile, CONAIE emerged from
a competitive indigenous camp with fractured interests, and formed several unfortunate alliances
with anti-neoliberal candidates who proved unwilling to cooperate once elected. Results for
redefining natural resource policy according to indigenous rights have been dismal, to say the
least, in Ecuador. The strategic mobilization tactics of indigenous movements is vital to bring
about concrete change in natural resource policy from the neoliberal era.
Indigenous movements in Bolivia, encompassed by the MAS organization, effectively
furthered their own agenda through the election of Evo Morales, drafting the 2009 constitution,
and protest against policies that went against their demands for indigenous political autonomy,
consulta prévia, or natural resource nationalization. These successful mobilization strategies
allowed the Bolivian indigenous community to leave behind their previous political
insignificance and become a powerful electoral force. This change in status ensured that
indigenous citizenship would be deepened by the Morales presidency. MAS demonstrated that
its organizational capacity to mobilize protestors and elect presidents warranted the loyalty of
elected officials and thereby assured that indigenous issues would continue to be a focus of
administrations in Bolivia.
By contrast, the fractured indigenous movement in Ecuador best represented by CONAIE
did not managed to translate its early collective action capacity and political popularity into
natural resource policy reform. Since CONAIE and Pachakutik were not able to elect a president
out of their own mobilization efforts, they were forced to form ill-fated electoral coalitions, first
with Gutiérrez and then with Correa. Neither president fulfilled their promises to revolutionize
the oil sector and both continued or deepened neoliberal policies that disadvantage indigenous
25 groups. Even though CONAIE has broken with Correa and staged protests against his
government, these efforts have not translated into influence. Indigenous mobilization in this case
failed to provide enough of an incentive for Correa to capitulate, and could not break the rational
choice outcome predicted by rentier state theory.
As I mentioned in my introduction, this is an area of the literature that could be explored
further. Although I analyze subnational electoral data, another interesting method to analyze the
impact of indigenous movements on natural resource policy would be to examine subnational
growth of indigenous areas with large natural resource endowments. Is nationalization in the best
interest of these countries in terms of growth? Or, more specifically, does capitulating to
indigenous demands actually signify a loss in growth, not just in the state’s spending power? The
issue of indigeneity lends an interesting angle to the analysis of contemporary economic policy
in Latin America, and deserves significantly more attention from academia.
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29 TABLE 1: LINEAR REGRESSION OF BOLIVIA INDIGENOUS PARTY VOTE SHARE IN
GAS-RICH DEPARTMENTS
Variable
Coefficient
Standard
T
Significance
Error
Constant
101.3
12.3
8.22
9.39 x 10-15***
-4
-4
Total
-2.16 x 10
1.76 x 10
-1.50
0.13
Population
Indigenous
2.69 x 10-2
3.38 x 10-2
7.97
4.61 x 10-14 ***
Population
Percent of
-5.67 x 10-2
5.56 x 10-2
-1.02
0.308
Population in
Rural Areas
Percentage of
11.11
0.122
-9.14
< 2 x 10-16***
Population that
is Illiterate
No Electricity
1.70 x 10-1
5.69 x 10-2
-3.00
0.003**
2
Decentralization 5.97 x 10
3.40 x 102
1.78
0.080
Score
R-Square
Adjusted R-Square N
0.4173
0.4019
273
* p<0.001
** p<0.01
Data: Courtesy of Roberta Rice
TABLE 2: LINEAR REGRESSION OF ECUADOR INDIGENOUS PARTY VOTE SHARE
IN OIL-RICH PROVINCES
Variable
Coefficient
Standard
T
Significance
Error
Constant
4.35
25.42
0.171
0.864
Total
-1.51 x 10-4
1.87 x 10-4
-0.806
0.423
Population
Indigenous
0.417
7.14 x 10-2
5.843
7.87 x 10-18 ***
Population
Percent of
-3.53 x 10-2
1.95 x 10-2
-0.18
0.857
Population in
Rural Areas
Percentage of
-0.1313
0.6049
-0.217
0.829
Population that
is Illiterate
No Electricity
8.08 x 10-2
0.147
0.550
0.584
Decentralization 1.77 x 102
1.39 x 102
1.267
0.208
Score
R-Square
Adjusted R-Square N
0.3372
0.2862
99
* p<0.001
** p<0.01
Data: Courtesy of Roberta Rice
30 FIGURE 1: INDIGENOUS VOTE SHARE IN NATURAL GAS-RICH BOLIVIAN
DEPARTMENTS, 1999 AND 2004
25 20 15 10 1999 INDIGENOUS VOTE SHARE 5 2004 INDIGENOUS VOTE SHARE 0 FIGURE 2: INDIGENOUS VOTE SHARE IN OIL-RICH ECUADOREAN PROVINCES,
1999 AND 2004
40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1996 INDIGENOUS VOTE SHARE 2000 INDIGENOUS VOTE SHARE 2004 INDIGENOUS VOTE SHARE 31