Bolivia is a multicultural country located in the heart of South America. Neighbouring countries include Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile. It is a large nation, with an area of nearly 1 100 000 km(2), although most of its territory was lost in wars. A particularly damaging loss was the sea coast, which was lost to Chile in the late 1800s. According to the constitution, Sucre is the capital city but La Paz is the seat of government and is often referred to as the capital.
In 2005, Bolivians elected their first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Ushering in a new "democratic cultural revolution," Morales promised to overturn neoliberalism and inaugurate a new decolonized society. In this perceptive new book, Nancy Postero examines the successes and failures that have followed in the ten years since Morales's election. While the Morales government has made many changes that have benefited Bolivia's majority indigenous population, it has also consolidated power and reinforced extractivist development models. In the process, indigeneity has been transformed from a site of emancipatory politics to a site of liberal nationstate building. By carefully tracing the political origins and practices of decolonization among activists, government administrators, and ordinary citizens, Postero makes an important contribution to our understanding of the meaning and impact of Bolivia's indigenous state.
In 2005, Bolivians elected their first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Ushering in a new "democratic cultural revolution," Morales promised to overturn neoliberalism and inaugurate a new decolonized society. In this perceptive new book, Nancy Postero examines the successes and failures that have followed in the ten years since Morales's election. While the Morales government has made many changes that have benefited Bolivia's majority indigenous population, it has also consolidated power and reinforced extractivist development models. In the process, indigeneity has been transformed from a site of emancipatory politics to a site of liberal nationstate building. By carefully tracing the political origins and practices of decolonization among activists, government administrators, and ordinary citizens, Postero makes an important contribution to our understanding of the meaning and impact of Bolivia's indigenous state.
In 2005, Bolivians elected their first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Ushering in a new "democratic cultural revolution," Morales promised to overturn neoliberalism and inaugurate a new decolonized society. In this perceptive new book, Nancy Postero examines the successes and failures that have followed in the ten years since Morales's election. While the Morales government has made many changes that have benefited Bolivia's majority indigenous population, it has also consolidated power and reinforced extractivist development models. In the process, indigeneity has been transformed from a site of emancipatory politics to a site of liberal nationstate building. By carefully tracing the political origins and practices of decolonization among activists, government administrators, and ordinary citizens, Postero makes an important contribution to our understanding of the meaning and impact of Bolivia's indigenous state.
As the result of past investments in gas and mining sectors and high world commodity prices, the Bolivian economy grew considerably during the last seven years. Prudent macroeconomic policies and high taxes on hydrocarbon revenues led to a significant accumulation of fiscal surplus and external reserves. Under a state-led development model, the government led by President Morales pursued redistributive policies and invested heavily in road construction. However, it has retained far more of the conservative fiscal and macroeconomic policies than would have been predicted. Sustained growth has translated into significant poverty reduction and improved equity as unskilled labor, including from indigenous groups, benefited from booming non-tradable sector activities. The availability of hydrocarbon revenues, however, created little incentive for the government to address the structural issues in the economy. The Plurinational State of Bolivia is more resource dependent, institutions are weak, decision making is increasingly discretionary, productivity remains low both inside and outside the agriculture sector and environmental degradation is worsening. Going forward, the Bank Group should develop a long-term partnership with the government as well as groups outside of the government. The Bank should scale up the good practice programs in agriculture and help the government develop a strategy for improving agricultural productivity and rural development more broadly. In transport, the Bank should continue to focus on road maintenance to complement the construction programs of the government and other partners.
The Vice Presidency of the State, with the help of the GeoBolivia project, is building the Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (IDEEPB by its Spanish initials). The first phase of the project has already been completed. It consisted in implementing an infrastructure and a geoportal that nowadays gives access to the reference geographic information of Bolivia, through WMS, WFS, WCS and CSW services. The project is currently in its second phase dedicated to decentralizing the structure of IDE-EPB and promoting its use throughout the Bolivian State. The whole platform uses free software and open standards. As a complement, an on-line training module was developed to undertake the transfer of the knowledge the project generated. The main software components used in the SDI are: gvSIG, QGis, uDig as GIS desktop clients; Post-GreSQL and PostGIS as geographic database management system; geOrchestra as a framework containing the GeoServer map server, the GeoNetwork catalog server and the OpenLayers and Mapfish GIS webclient; MapServer as a map server for generating OpenStreetMap tiles; Debian as operating system; Apache and Tomcat as web servers.
The municipality of Charagua recently became the first autonomía indígena originaria campesina (autonomous indigenous peasant community) in Bolivia under the 2009 plurinational constitution. A coalition of indigenous leaders backed by a majority of voters embraced the change as a vehicle for bolstering local control over key decisions, thereby advancing local preferences for indigenous forms of governance, values, and control over the development model with special attention to natural resources. The possibility remains, however, that it may operate to incorporate the indigenous community into the governing apparatus, thus making it more legible to the state and open to new forms of regulation, management, and control. Examining the state as a historically contingent and socially determined relationship helps make sense of this situation. La municipalidad de Charagua se convirtió recientemente en la primera autonomía indígena originaria campesina en Bolivia bajo la constitución plurinacional de 2009. Una coalición de líderes indígenas respaldada por la mayoría de los votantes abrazó al cambio como un vehículo para reforzar el control local sobre las decisiones clave, así promoviendo las preferencias locales por las formas indígenas de gobernanza, valores y control sobre el modelo de desarrollo con especial atención a los recursos naturales. Sin embargo, queda la posibilidad de que pueda operar para incorporar a la comunidad indígena en el aparato de gobierno, haciéndola más legible para el estado y abierta a nuevas formas de regulación, gestión y control. Examinar el estado como una relación históricamente contingente y determinada socialmente ayuda a comprender a esta situación.
