-Written by AJ Reibel, MIR program, New Zealand
HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE AND ITS LASTING ISSUES
The Latin American region covers a huge geographic area, from the north of Mexico to the southern tip of Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego, and encompasses Spanish-speaking Central and South America and Portuguese-speaking Brazil.[1] As a result of its Iberian medieval colonial history and ingrained Catholic traditional power structure, which resulted in a divisive class structure, many Latin American nations have produced grassroots civil society (CS) movements that have affected the region’s political makeup.
When the first Spaniards landed on the northern shores of Latin America in 1492, they beheld a vast expanse that they exploited in the name of their king and Saviour. In 1542, Bishop Bartolomé de Las Casas compiled an account of the violence and abuse unleashed by the conquistadores on the indigenous communities initially in the Caribbean, and later Central and South America. De Las Casas described how the conquistadores killed off approximately 500,000 indigenous people in the areas of present-day Nicaragua and Costa Rica.[2] De Las Casas recounted to his king how privateers hired by the Spanish governors kidnapped and enslaved an additional 500,000 indigenous inhabitants.[3]
The traumatic Spanish colonisation and exploitation of Central America was mirrored in the Spanish advance into the South American interior. With colonisation followed an entrenchment of European ascendency over the indigenous inhabitants. Throughout Latin America the stage was set for the future exploitation and marginalisation of the indigenous inhabitants.
The Spanish colonial masters and their mixed-race offspring – mestizos – formed an early oligarchic class throughout many of the colonies of Latin America. This oligarchic societal structure survived over 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, the independence struggle led by Simon Bolivar, the induction of the newly independent Latin American states into the international community, the industrial revolution, and into the modern era. Oligarch families still wield considerable power in many Latin American states – Ecuador’s Familias de la Patria[4] serve as a modern example.
In addition to the stratification of Latin American social classes, pitting oligarchs against the masses[5], the colonial experience interwove the power of the Catholic Church into the social fabric and governing structure. The Church, in the case of Latin America, has been closely tied to governance. For this reason, the Church has served a contradictory role both within Latin American CS and the structure of governance.
Taking Latin America’s historical experience and the ensuing social stratification into account, the region’s CS faces tremendous and on-going challenges. Encouragingly, components of Latin American CS have started to meet various challenges. Civil society organisations (CSOs) have reacted to challenges in the following areas: human rights, land redistribution, equal political representation, economic development, the role of the Catholic Church, irresponsible corporate practices leading to environmental degradation, and good governance.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Latin American CS faces the daunting task of addressing numerous human rights abuses. The prevalence of dictatorial regimes throughout Latin America, especially during the last century, has frequently resulted in repressive action by government forces against a broad spectrum of protest.
Prominent cases over the first half of the 20th Century included brutality and long prison terms for peasants that resisted the United Fruit Company’s exploitative corporate practices and Fulgencio Batista’s repression of Cuban political dissent. Kiyoteru Tsutsui and Christine Min Wotipka agree that often “…governmental actors [were] not… concerned with human rights and… even [worked] to actively undermine international progress in human rights as was witnessed by some military governments in Latin America.”[6]
Violent Latin American revolutionary movements have gained popular support as a result of unpopular and repressive dictators. Batista’s government fell to the revolutionary forces led by Fidel and Raúl Castro, and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Similarly, Somoza’s brutal rule in Nicaragua ended with the assumption of power of Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista Revolution. Despite examples of violent popular leftist revolutions, many dictatorial regimes faced growing discontent and resistance at the grassroots level.
To quell mass resistance to conservative, oligarch-supported governmental authoritarianism and to stem the threat of revolution, many Latin American states orchestrated “dirty wars” against their populaces. Repressive action created resistance which, in turn, led to more repression. Argentina’s military junta was accused of kidnapping over 30,000 dissenters[7]; Pinochet’s regime in Chile jailed, tortured and killed thousands of intellectuals, labour organisers and supposed leftists[8]; and, under the Fujimori government in Perú, military death squads violently neutralised support for the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla movement[9].
As people in Southern and Eastern Europe had “...rejected the cruelty and corruption of their governments,” Latin American workers, intellectuals, poor women, urban poor and young people formed the bases for mass anti-authoritarian movements.[10] An example of an effective anti-authoritarian movement was that of Argentina’s Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo who called for information regarding the plight of family members abducted by the military junta in the 1970s.[11]
DISTRIBUTION OF LAND
Land reform is another issue that faces CSOs throughout Latin America. The issue has attracted international media attention, with impressive grassroots mobilisations demanding that land ownership be reformed to redress the historic marginalisation and seizure of land from the indigenous and peasant classes.
Many Central American and Andean states have in common a disenfranchised landless indigenous class. Bolivia serves as an example of a state that experienced a mini land reform – granted by its government and directed by community-based Chapare sindicatos[12] – that took place in the 1980s under the direction of a Centre-Left government led by the Unidad Democratica Popular (UDP).[13]
[Along] with the assistance of the government's National Institute of Colonisation, the Chapare sindicatos carried out a mini-land reform in their area. Local sindicatos organized, in a rapid, ad hoc manner, the invasion of land owned by professionals, government employees, military officials, and commercial groups. Dozens of properties, generally ranging from 100-1,000 hectares, were carved up, either in toto or in part, by the peasant reformers.[14]
Guatemala’s historically disenfranchised indigenous peoples did not organise as quickly and, as a result, the Guatemalan military was able to conduct a campaign of violence and intimidation against the rural poor. Rigoberta Menchú, a poor and uneducated Guatemalan Indian who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, described how before her community became involved in the Comité de Unidad Campesina[15] (CUC), they frequently faced land invasions, paramilitary attacks, and systematic subjugation by Guatemalan government functionaries and security services (under the direction of the state’s wealthy oligarchic landowners).[16]
POLITICAL VOICE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
In addition to confronting authoritarian regimes and agitating for land redistribution, Latin American CS faces the difficult task of extending a political voice to its disadvantaged classes while also facilitating sustainable economic development to address their poverty. Although the gap between rich and poor is striking throughout the region, states have achieved different levels of political and economic development over the past decades.
The recent election of President Evo Morales in Bolivia has confirmed the power of mass mobilisation and the role of Bolivian CS in redressing economic and political inequalities. Morales, an Aymara Indian, who, like the majority of his supporters, migrated from the Bolivian altiplano with the closure[17] of “...the state-owned Corporación Minera Boliviana mines...”, resulting in the loss of 23,000 jobs.[18] Like many others that migrated to the Chapare lowlands to seek work, he set about clearing unoccupied land to cultivate coca. Morales joined a sindicato and gradually became recognised as an Aymara union leader. In 1989 he became “...president of the seven federations of coca growers,” otherwise known as the Cocaleros.[19]
Morales continued to work as the leader of the Cocaleros[20] while helping to organise “...resistance to the [on-going coca] eradication program, [and] reaching out to other national unions and to international human rights organizations...” in order to focus international attention on the heavy-handed[21] Bolivian government eradication tactics.[22] With massive support from the Cocaleros, Morales was elected president as the Movimiento al Socialismo (MÁS) candidate.[23] This is an example of mass political influence wielded by a previously disenfranchised segment of the population. CS mass mobilisation linked to a political movement – common in Latin America – has directly influenced Bolivia’s recent political direction.
The historically disenfranchised poor in Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Brazil have secured greater political influence through the formation of social movements. It is therefore understandable that Srilatha Batliwala highlights an emergence of militant peasant movements in Latin America as illustrative of the growth of grassroots movements that are “…critically questioning the right and need to have their issues and concerns represented by others.”[24] The elections of Ecuador’s Rafael Correa[25], Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Brazil’s Luis Ignacio da Silva have focused much-needed attention on the plight of the masses.
In fact, “…[the] World Bank produced a major study of inequality and human capital formation in the region in 1996, which highlighted the fact that income inequality in Latin America has been the highest in the world in the postwar decades…”[26] It is hoped that partnerships between governments, CS, and the market will “…encourage dialogue to address [the] problems [of economic underdevelopment and]… replace the street protests, political mobilisation, and contentious politics that had characterized the region’s recent past.”[27]
Political enfranchisement is not enough, as representation alone won’t alleviate the problems facing the poor that have brought Latin American populist leaders to power. Economic development is desperately needed to raise the standard of living of the rural and urban poor, who account for the majority of the region’s population. Inequity poses a serious ongoing challenge to domestic and regional CS, and governments alike.
How might the current economic underdevelopment of certain segments of Latin America actually hinder democratisation despite promising mass political association and activism? Is mass political participation conducive to democratization in Latin America? John A. Booth and Patricia Bayer Richards explain that mass political participation does not automatically promote democratisation. Booth and Richard’s data on the relationships between education, standard of living, campaigning, and democratic norms in Latin America suggest that communalism taps into the “…urban activism most widespread among the poor and less educated…” – segments of the population that tend to favour short-term economic improvement over longer-term democratisation.[28]
Often, manipulation of the marginalised allows for the rise of authoritarian governments. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez fits the profile of a populist leftist leader whose political agenda hinders democratisation. Juan Perón, who drew massive support from the Argentine urban poor, exemplified Booth and Richard’s observations of the inconsistency between populist leadership and the continuance of non-democratic practices.
To break the linkage between marginalisation and authoritarian rule, it is imperative that CS, governments, and markets form the partnership for dialogue that Howell and Pearce believe will lead to clear and widespread regional economic development.
THE DILEMMA OF THE CURIA
The Catholic Church was one of the first institutions of power transferred from Spain and Portugal to the New World. Unlike religious organisations in today’s CS, the traditional Catholic hierarchy was closely tied to Spain’s monarchy –the Spanish kings were known as Los Reyes Católicos[29]. What, then, has been the role of the Catholic Church in Latin America? Can it be fully included under the category of civil society? And finally, has the Church been a proponent of human rights, equality, and political enfranchisement or a bastion of conservatism throughout Latin America?
The answers to the above-mentioned questions are not straightforward. The role of the Church has been diverse in different Latin American states. In Mexico, it saw its power drastically curtailed during the civil wars in the early 20th Century. In Chile, the Catholic Church squared-off against a popular socialist movement that drew strength from the country’s urban centres. Beginning in the 1930s, the Chilean Catholic Church began ‘...speaking out against Marxism and developing structures through which [it] could deal with the [changes in society’s aspirations].”[30] The Catholic bishops in Chile “...feared that a leftist government would persecute the Church.”[31]
The experience of the Church in Brazil largely mirrored its early experiences in Chile. Brazilian bishops feared a Marxist-Socialist government in Brazil, and were, therefore, relieved when a military coup seized power in 1964.[32] Despite early support by Brazilian bishops, priests and other Catholic functionaries faced increasing persecution under the military junta.
Countless priests, seminarians, and lay church workers were arrested, tortured, or expelled from the country. Five priests were assassinated, and nine bishops were arrested or detained... Meanwhile, the bishops were also becoming aware of the increasing economic hardships being suffered by the majority of the people as a result of the government’s new economic policies. By the late 1960s they began to speak out against the military regime.[33]
Elsewhere in Latin America, the division between the aims of the leadership of the Catholic Curia and the political ideology of priests and other lower-level Church functionaries widened as the latter increasingly identified with the poor and marginalised. Liberation theologians and Base Christian communities gained popular support as they often served to give a voice to the disadvantaged.
During the Cold War, Nicaragua served as an example of the dichotomy of the Curia’s policies. Gramsci explains that an institution can have contradictory aims as different segments within the institution may ascribe to differing ideologies and pursue divergent policies.[34] The Church hierarchy supported the oligarchic political dominance of the Somoza regime, while priests who espoused liberation theology - most prominently Ernesto Cardenal - promoted the rise to power of the Sandinista revolution as a means to empower the marginalised poor.
Villela suggested that “[the] Catholic Church in Nicaragua cannot be treated as if it constituted one monolithic whole; it is better conceptualized as an ‘interclass social space’ in which competing social classes seek religious legitimation for their respective political projects.”[35] This statement could be extended to include the role of the Catholic Church throughout Latin America. As a result, the Church is both a component of CS and the government. Much like other components of CS, it serves as what Jan Aart Scholte suggests is a political space that “...speaks of people coming together to determine the direction of their society.”[36]
FOREIGN COMPANIES, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND ECONOMIC ADJUSTMENTS
Transnational corporations (TNCs) and foreign Neoliberal institutions – typically referred to as the Washington Consensus – have had a significant effect on the broad spectrum of CS in Latin America. TNCs have pursued profits while ignoring or suppressing the demands of the masses in their areas of operation. Foreign-owned conglomerates have faced increasing resistance from grassroots movements protesting everything from environmental degradation to the stifling of traditional livelihoods. Foreign oil companies in Ecuador[37], Western-owned gas companies in Bolivia, privatised municipal services in Bolivia[38], and foreign-held oil companies in Venezuela[39] have seen tremendous civil pressure and mass protests sweep reforms through parliaments that have stripped them of their “goldmine” investments[40].
Gramascian theory helped shape the precedence of Latin American mass movements by suggesting “…that civil society was an autonomous arena between economy and state, where the hegemonic ideology of capitalism could be challenged as well as reproduced.”[41] Furthermore, Gramascian theory maintained that social movements have a place in “…resisting cultural and social as well as economic forms of domination and repression…”[42] As a result, the theory draws parallels between CS and “the protagonism of social movements.”[43]
In addition to resisting TNCs, massive austerity protests have rocked Latin American countries and led governments to change policies regarding the damage and excesses caused by TNCs. The protests have largely responded to worsening economic conditions blamed on IMF structural adjustments and the resultant domestic fiscal policies. Some fiscal policy reforms did away with subsidised government services or subsidies paid outright to segments of the population. Generally, the poor were most affected by the policies. As a result, most of the initial “…participants [of austerity protests] were mainly drawn from the urban poor, who were hardest hit by the removal of subsidies…”[44] Nonetheless, “...when their bank deposits were frozen, middle-class consumers, shopkeepers, students, and public employees were ready to join the poor in the streets.”[45]
Austerity protests have been a sign of the growth of a new sector within Latin American CS. Between 1983 and 1985 alone, there were “…14 major protests in Peru, 13 in Bolivia, 11 in Argentina and Brazil, and 7 in Chile and Venezuela…”[46] Having been thrust to the forefront of CS discussions, with an impressive number of major protests over the last two decades, mass mobilisation continues to demonstrate the strength of “…newer forms of grassroots organizations…” and their NGO supporters that Salamon and Anheier describe in The Emerging Sector Revisited.[47]
The previously mentioned “…2000 Cochabamba Water War against the World Bank-driven privatization of the [municipal water company]…” [48] is an example of a successful and significant austerity protest that has set a precedent for future major protests throughout the region.
GOOD GOVERNANCE AND ERADICATING CORRUPTION
Now that some light has been shed on the power of the mobilisation of mass protests, it might seem natural that the grassroots movements, discussed by Salamon and Anheier, serve to reinforce good governance in different Latin American states. Unfortunately, with a history of stratified classism and oligarchic rule, many Latin American countries have not yet benefited from equality and transparency – qualities that so impressed Alexis de Tocqueville in the early 19th Century on his trip to the nascent American democracy.[49]
Latin America has long lacked the same equality and transparency characteristic of the United States’ democratic process. The majority of Latin American states are still overcoming long-standing democratic deficits created by centuries of colonialism – originally external and later internal[50]. Democratic deficits and economic power in the hands of a few families breeds corruption, which further inhibits the process of democratisation and the cultivation of good governance.
Despite their democratic deficits and desire for good governance, Latin American states have managed to enact economic reforms that mirrored free-market reforms in North America and Europe. How did Latin American countries achieve similar reforms that have served to expand the economic base of North American and European democratic states? Latin American dictators and their supportive oligarchies pushed through fiscal reforms meant to benefit a select few. In many cases, “…teams of technocrats who operated alongside and above preexisting bureaucracies… [were employed in order to] bypass [the same] bureaucracies, operating under largely democratic governments with elements of civil societies…”[51]
Such opaque and anti-democratic methods, employed by authoritarian leaders to enact reforms in benefit of a margin of society, have resulted in neither full egalitarian political representation nor good governance. William Ratliff states that until “…honest governance, shared growth, and basic education and health…” are pursued by their governments, Latin American populations will not benefit from economic reforms.[52] There is still much room for improvement by the two major non-profit sectors of CS – one “…composed of…traditional charitable organization[s] and other agencies linked to the social and economic elite and the other associated with the relatively newer forms of grassroots organization[s] and…[NGOs] that support them.”[53]
LEAVING UNFINISHED BUSINESS TO TIME
When discussing CS and its responses to challenges, it becomes difficult to fully describe the plethora of forms in which CS organisations appear. Some Latin American CSOs are simply social organisations, while others are social action community groups, and still others represent outraged citizens that straddle the line between social movements and insurrection.
Despite trying to shed more light on many different CS approaches to diverse problems, there are many unanswered questions about the definition of Latin American CS. For example, “…[how] can NGOs and grassroots organizations take advantage of the spaces donors encourage them to occupy, while retaining their own agenda, and…legitimacy with the…populations they speak for?”[54] How can grassroots movements and social mobilisations – which elevate issues to the attention of government and propel leaders to power – remain in the politically active, yet non-party affiliated, “arena between economy and state” that Gramsci referred to? How can Latin American mass movements (that follow a Gramascian notion of preserving an “anti-capitalist resistance” [55]) remain within CS when their movement becomes a political party?
It is difficult to fully separate Latin American CS from the political sphere. For this reason, Jan Aart Scholte’s explanation – that CS’s use of political space should exclude political parties and, instead, refer to “…people coming together to determine the direction of their society”[56] –explains the role of mass movements in Latin American CS. The cooperation that Scholte refers to is the best hope to resolve issues that have caused tension between different sectors in Latin American countries. At the root of it, Latin Americans face continuing “...problems of poverty, exclusion, and social violence [that remain]...serious concerns for bilateral and multilateral donors...”[57] Latin American social movements, grassroots organisations, NGOs, charitable foundations, Church groups, school groups, and other sectors of CS have their work cut out for them.
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[1] Generally, Guyana (a former British colony), Suriname (a former Dutch colony) and French Guyana are considered part of South America yet, not included in Latin America. Guyana identifies more with former British colonies in the Caribbean than with its Spanish and Portuguese-speaking neighbours.
[2] Bartolomé De Las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias 1552 (Madrid: Íntegra Cofrás S.A., 2001), 47.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ecuador’s Familias de la Patria is the name given to the major Ecuadorian families that have collectively held the reins of economic and political power since the end of Spanish colonialism.
[5] The general term “the masses” refers to large poor indigenous populations in Honduras, Guatemala, México, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Chile. In nations such as Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Costa Rica, “the masses” encompasses both the urban and rural poor with less separation along racial lines.
[6] Kiyoteru Tsutsui and Christine Min Wotipka, “Global Civil Society and the International Human Rights Movement: Citizen Participation in Human Rights International Nongovernmental Organizations,” Social Forces, Vol. 83, No. 2 (Dec., 2004): 590.
[7] “Historia de las Madres: Las Madres en Primera Persona,” Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, http://www.madres.org/asociacion/historia/historia.asp [viewed 21/04/2008].
[8] James Reynolds, “Finding Chile’s Disappeared,” BBC News, January 10, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1109861.stm [viewed 21/04/2008].
[9] “Death Squad Shares Secrets in Fujimori Trial: Colina members testify they were following orders during slayings,” MSNBC, February 6, 2008, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23034232/ [viewed 21/04/2008].
[10] Jude Howell and Jenny Pearce, Civil Society and Development: A Critical Exploration (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), 15.
[11] “Historia de las Madres: Las Madres en Primera Persona,” Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo.
[12] The Chapare sindicatos are a grouping of local unions that were created by indigenous Bolivians in the department of Cochabamba to address community development concerns and to “…block attempts of the state to both reduce coca production and control coca-leaf marketing…” Taken from: Kevin Healy, “Political Ascent of Bolivia’s Peasant Coca Leaf Producers,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Spring, 1991): 87.
[13] Healy, “Political Ascent of Bolivia’s Peasant Coca Leaf Producers,” 91.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Comité de Unidad Campesina (CUC) translated into English means Committee for Rural Unity.
[16] Elizabeth Burgos, ed., Me Llamo Rigoberta Menchú Y Así Me Nació La Conciencia (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1992), 130.
[17] The closure of the mines was a result of Paz Estenssoro’s government plan to “…privatize the economy and dismantle the model of state capitalism which had been put in place as part of the 1952 social revolution.” Taken from: Healy, “Political Ascent of Bolivia’s Peasant Coca Leaf Producers,” 102.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Roger Burbach, “Evo Morales and the Roots of Revolution,” The Native Press, April 15, 2007, www.thenativepress.com/news/bolivia.html [viewed 20/04/08].
[20] The Cocaleros make up a network of coca-growers in the Chapare region that historically grew from the sindicatos, or unions, of rural Aymara. The raison d’être of the sindicatos was to protect the rural farmers from the Bolivian government’s policy of coca eradication (heavily supported by the US State Department) and to preserve Aymara livelihoods and traditions.
[21] The homes of coca farmers were routinely invaded and ransacked, “…[subsistence] crops along with coca plants… were trampled and destroyed…” and Aymara and Quechua Indians were beaten and arrested. Taken from: Burbach, “Evo Morales and the Roots of Revolution.”
[22] Ibid.
[23] Jeffery R. Webber, “From Rebellion to Reform: Bolivia’s Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo,” International Studies Association (Chicago, 2007) [Draft Article], 4.
[24] Srilatha Batliwala, “Grassroots Movements as Transnational Actors: Implications for Global Civil Society,” in Creating a Better World: Interpreting Global Civil Society, ed. Rupert Taylor (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2004), 71.
[25] Rafael Correa’s campaign was supported by the forajidos. Forajidos means the disenfranchised or poor landless class.
[26] Howell and Pearce, Civil Society and Development: A Critical Exploration, 204.
[27] Ibid.
[28] John A. Booth and Patricia Bayer Richard, “Civil Society, Political Capital, and Democratization in Central America,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 60, No. 3 (August, 1998): 790.
[29] Los Reyes Católicos means ‘Catholic Kings’ in Spanish.
[30] Madeleine Adriance, “The Paradox of Institutionalization: The Roman Catholic Church in Chile and Brazil,” Sociological Analysis, Vol. 53, Special Presidential Issue Conversion, Charisma, and Institutionalization (1992): S53.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid., S56.
[33] Adriance, “The Paradox of Institutionalization: The Roman Catholic Church in Chile and Brazil,” S56.
[34] Dana Sawchuk, “The Catholic Church in the Nicaraguan Revolution: A Gramascian Analysis,” Sociology of Religion, Vol. 58, No.1 (Spring, 1997): 40. Taken from: A. Gramsci, Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, translated and edited by Q. Hoare and G. N. Smith, New York: International Publishers, 1971.
[35] Ibid. Taken from: H. Villela, “The Church and the process of democratization in Latin America,” Social Compass, 26 (1979): 267.
[36] Ray Goldstein, INTP 445 class lecture, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 2 April, 2008.
[37] Oil companies such as American Occidental Petroleum, Brazil’s Petrobas, France’s Perenco, Spain’s Repsol YPF, and China’s Andes Petroleum have all faced intense pressure from Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa, to sign new service provider contracts with the government’s national oil company, Petroecuador. The effect of the new agreement will be to drastically reduce oil profits going to foreign companies. Instead, Petroecuador will pay the foreign companies a yearly fee in return for technical services rendered. Taken from: “Ecuador Oil: More Trouble Ahead,” Latin Business Chronicle, 16 October, 2007. Found at http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html [viewed 18/4/2008].
[38] Between 1999 and 2000, large-scale popular protests erupted in Cochabamba. The protestors demanded that Bechtel return the municipal water supply to Bolivian control. The crippling protests succeeded in driving Bechtel out. Taken from: Roger Burbach, “Evo Morales and the Roots of Revolution,” The Native Press.
[39] Rafael Correa is following the example set by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez in stripping contracts from foreign oil companies and forcing them to sign service provider contracts with the state-owned oil producer.
[40] Rafael Correa talks of wresting control of Ecuador’s Amazonian oil reserves from foreign companies in order to safeguard the Amazon’s biodiversity and the livelihood of indigenous groups, such as the Waorani. Indigenous communities have formed community action groups, such as La Associación de Mujeres Waorani de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana, AMWAE, and have coordinated their efforts with both Global CSOs (such as OilWatch) and local CSOs (such as Acción Ecológica). Taken from: Agneta Enstrom, “Ecuador: Swedish Construction versus Indigenous Survival in the Amazon,” Upside Down World , 9 October, 2007 [Enstrom is editor of Yelah]. Found on http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html [viewed 18/4/2008].
[41] Jenny Pearce, “Collective Action or Public Participation?: Civil society and the public sphere in post-transition Latin America,” in Exploring Civil Society: Political and Cultural Contexts, ed. Marlies Glasius, David Lewis and Hakan Seckinelgin (New York: Routledge, 2005), 63.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 65.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] Pearce, “Collective Action or Public Participation?: Civil society and the public sphere in post-transition Latin America,” in Exploring Civil Society: Political and Cultural Contexts, 63. Taken from: L. Salamon and H. Anheier, The Emerging Sector Revisited: A Summary (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 17.
[48] Jeffery R. Webber, “From Rebellion to Reform: Bolivia’s Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo,” International Studies Association (Chicago, 2007) [Draft Article], 2.
[49] De Tocqueville marvelled at the voluntary associations that held a democracy together. Taken from: Bhikhu Parekh, “Putting Civil Society in its Place,” in Exploring Civil Society: Political and Cultural Contexts, 19.
[50] By ‘internal colonialism,’ I refer to the monopoly of production, capital, military, and political power held by the oligarchic families of many Latin American states. The indigenous and landless poor have been servile to the oligarchic families, just as they were to the Spanish conquistadores.
[51] William Ratliff, “Development of Civil Society in Latin America and Asia,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 565, Civil Society and Democratization (Sept., 1999): 91.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Pearce, “Collective Action or Public Participation?: Civil society and the public sphere in post-transition Latin America,” in Exploring Civil Society: Political and Cultural Contexts, 63. Taken from: L. Salamon and H. Anheier, The Emerging Sector Revisited: A Summary, 17.
[54] Howell and Pearce, Civil Society and Development: A Critical Exploration, 221.
[55] Ibid., 15.
[56] Ibid.
[57] Ibid.
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