Uncertain Citizenship. Megan Ryburn
unrest and turbulence after the 1932–1935 Chaco War with Paraguay, which was a disaster for Bolivia. Huge swathes of Bolivian territory were captured, and the human cost was staggering.21 By the end of the war many of the men who had fought were disgusted with the corruption, racism, and classism of the military elite, and more broadly with the Bolivian oligarchy and social inequalities in the country. This sentiment hardened into political resolve, spawning various movements and parties. The one that ultimately came to the fore in 1952 was the Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Movement), led by a coalition of members of the urban middle class and workers. A coup d’état was staged, which overthrew the established order.
From these beginnings the revolution burgeoned in the coming years into an attempt at fairly sweeping social and economic change as increasing numbers of more radical miners and peasants joined the movement. One of the consequences of the revolution was agrarian reform, and large haciendas in the western altiplano were seized and redistributed to the indigenous population. Another key consequence was the expansion of health care and provision of education. Civil and political rights were also expanded, most notably through the enfranchisement of indigenous people and women. Nevertheless, the eventual outcomes of the revolution were mixed, and the degree to which it produced a lasting social change has been debated.22 In particular, serious violations of indigenous peoples’ civil rights very much persisted, and politics continued to be highly volatile in Bolivia.
The Chilean context was somewhat different, and until 1973 Chile had one of the strongest democratic traditions in Latin America. There was a well-developed party system and high levels of political participation among large sectors of the population, particularly from the 1930s onward as enfranchisement gradually expanded; universal suffrage was achieved in 1947 when women won the right to vote. During this period there was marked investment in health, education, and social services, which did bear some fruit, although much of the population still lived in poverty.23 Throughout the 1960s, during the presidencies of the right-wing independent Jorge Alessandri (1958–1964) and particularly that of the centrist Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei (1964–1970), political awareness and discontent with the status quo, especially the serious social inequalities within the country, increased dramatically. The Frei government did bring about some not insignificant changes, including the expansion of state ownership of the copper mines and a program of agrarian reform. However, there was a sense of frustration that change had not been deep enough nor sufficiently far-reaching.24 During the late 1960s, many who were disillusioned found in the Unidad Popular (UP, Popular Unity)—a coalition of left-wing parties led by Salvador Allende—a party that expressed these frustrations and offered a solution: the “Chilean road to socialism.”
Elected by a narrow margin in 1970, Allende and the UP initially fostered a heady sense of optimism among their supporters. This rapidly deteriorated, however, as the country became riven by division and anger. The coup d’état of September 11, 1973, irrevocably changed the course of Chile’s history and the fabric of its society.25 As is well-known, the subsequent seventeen years of dictatorship under General Pinochet saw massive human rights abuses, including the murder or disappearance of more than 2,200 people by government agents and the torture of nearly 30,000.26 It also resulted in the exile of approximately 200,000 people, 2 percent of Chile’s 1973 population.27 Civil and political rights were effectively entirely repressed. In addition, Chile became the first testing ground for neoliberal ideology and was thus subject to particularly extreme versions of policies of privatization, deregulation, and cuts to social spending. This stalled Chile’s progress in terms of social welfare and had a deleterious impact on equality in the country.28
Similar regimes took over throughout the Southern Cone in this period. Nor was Bolivia unaffected. Indeed, the 1970s and early 1980s was an especially chaotic and brutal epoch in Bolivian politics. From 1971 to 1978 the country was under the dictatorship of General Hugo Banzer. Then, over just four years, from 1978 to 1982, there were three different regimes: a transitional military regime following the Banzer dictatorship, a brief period of civilian rule, and then the forceful installation of a military junta initially headed by General Luis Garcia Meza. A period of extreme violence and repression, it left the economy devastated due to corruption and mismanagement by both the state and private sectors. Democratic, civilian government returned in 1982 under the presidency of Hernán Siles Zuazo, swiftly followed by Víctor Paz Estenssoro in 1985, who assumed the presidency for the third time. In his first year back in power, Paz Estenssoro—infamously—implemented Decreto Supremo no. 21060. In keeping with what was at that time common economic policy in the region and globally, it incorporated a series of tough, orthodox measures intended to bring the economy under control, thus ushering in an era of neoliberalism in Bolivia as well.29
Roberts contends that throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with this movement toward neoliberal economic policies throughout most of the region, the emphasis in terms of citizenship rights shifted to the civil and political. This was in part because, as indicated, the rollout of neoliberal policies entailed cuts to social service provisions; subsequently, “by throwing more of the responsibility for social and economic welfare onto the populace, states, both directly and indirectly, promote[d] the independent organization of citizens.”30 Moreover, in the dictatorships of the Southern Cone during these decades, groups began to organize—often putting themselves in great danger—to defend their civil and political rights. They played a key role in the eventual return to democracy in Chile in 1990 and in the rest of the Southern Cone.31
The legacy of dictatorship has been long-lasting, however. One respect in which this has made itself felt in the Chilean context (and others) is that, as Patricia Richards argues, “the imposition of neoliberal reform represented a transformation of the content of citizenship.”32 The key elements of this transformation, she continues, are that it has reduced “the role of citizens … to voting, consuming, and participating in community projects to make up for the loss of state services, rather than making demands on the state.”33 Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, this change has gone hand in hand with a shift toward “multiculturalism” in many Latin American countries, resulting in what has been critically referred to as “neoliberal multiculturalism.”34 Under the policies of such a framework there may be official recognition of cultural differences, for example, through celebration of the more “folkloric” elements of indigenous culture. This is not, however, accompanied by serious attempts to redress the severe social, political, and economic disadvantages faced by indigenous peoples and other historically oppressed groups. While falling within the paradigm of “neoliberal multiculturalism,” as Richards argues, Chile has been a “particularly reticent” case with respect to enacting both policies of cultural recognition and policies that would have substantive impacts on indigenous populations.35 Around 9 percent of the Chilean population self-identifies as belonging to one of Chile’s nine officially recognized indigenous peoples, 84 percent of whom self-identify as Mapuche.36 They continue to suffer serious discrimination.37
Until the election of Evo Morales in 2005, Bolivia was also considered a clear, if different, example of neoliberal multiculturalism.38 This changed, however, following Morales’s extraordinary victory after several years of turmoil and unrest. Protests had centered on indigenous rights and access to natural resources, and they reached a crisis point in conflicts that came to be known as the Guerra del Agua (Water War) in Cochabamba in 2000 and the Guerra del Gas (Gas War) in El Alto in 2003. Morales’s rise to power during this period was greeted with jubilation by those on the left in Bolivia, and globally, and was hailed as opening up new “postmulticultural” possibilities for citizenship.39 The reality has been somewhat different. As Nancy Postero outlines, there have been significant changes under the Morales government.40 In Bolivia, 40 to 60 percent of the population self-identifies as belonging to one of thirty-six indigenous peoples—Quechua, Aymara, Chiquitano, and Guaraní are the largest groups—and indigenous peoples have suffered centuries of oppression.41 The symbolic importance of having an indigenous president has therefore been huge, as has that of the 2009 constitution, which proclaims Bolivia to be a plurinational, communitarian state and establishes particular rights for indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, as Postero indicates, “the