Democracy and Party Organization in Contemporary Bolivia

• In Event: Dominant Parties and Democracy: the Role of Party Organization

Abstract

Democracy in Latin America is in crisis. Its crisis is also under debate. Using the case of Bolivia under Evo Morales (2006-present) as a democracy with strong deficiencies, and placing the case in historical context, this paper provides a contribution to this debate. Some scholars have placed Bolivia in the category of non-democracies due to the country’s sharp deterioration of institutionalized checks and balances, the growing personalization of its leadership, and the sharp concentration of power in the hands of the president. Others, however, have suggested that Bolivia today has a strong claim to classification as a democracy due to its major advances in terms of social inclusion of previously marginalized groups and greater regime responsiveness to organized mass constituencies. This paper seeks to adjudicate this debate by examining the extent to which the organizational structure of Bolivia’s governing party, the MAS (Movement Toward Socialism), constraints concentrated, charismatic executive authority. The MAS is a party spawned by social movements; it was formed as an opposition party by social movement activists. Since its origins in the mid 1990s and its rise to power in 2006 the MAS did not invest in building a strong bureaucratic organization but rather privileged a more fluid and loose structure. The lack of strong bureaucratic structures have strengthened the political clout of sponsoring and allied social movement in party decision-making, and movements have continued to influence, constrain, and hold the party leadership accountable even as the party became a dominant party. Weak bureaucratic structures, in short, encouraged the development of strong social accountability structures that act as a check on presidential authority. The system is far from perfect however. It depends heavily on the continued capacity of autonomous social mobilization from groups in civil society – a capacity that is hard to sustain to the extent that the MAS remains a dominant party.

Authors

• Santiago Anria, Dickinson College

• Jennifer Marie Cyr, University of Arizona