SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, PARTIES, AND THE LEFT IN LATIN AMERICA: THE

BOLIVIAN MAS (MOVEMENT TOWARD SOCIALISM) IN COMPARATIVE

PERSPECTIVE

Santiago Anria

A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department
of Political Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Chapel Hill
2015

Approved by:

Evelyne Huber

Graeme Robertson

Lars Schoultz

John D. Stephens

Milada Anna Vachudova

 © 2015
Santiago Anria
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ii
 ABSTRACT

Santiago Anria: Social Movements, Parties, and the Left in Latin America: The Bolivian MAS
(Movement Toward Socialism) in Comparative Perspective
(Under the Direction of Evelyne Huber)

There have been several important cases of movement-based parties that rose rapidly in

popularity and were able to attain national power in new democracies. Existing theories predict

these parties will become increasingly top-down organizations designed to preserve and enhance

the power of party elites, a trend that is usually aggravated when parties govern nationally. The

Bolivian MAS deviates from this conventional wisdom, as it has followed a remarkably different

organizational trajectory that has facilitated grassroots impact and constrained elite control.

Through a within-case comparative examination of the MAS, this study identifies necessary

conditions and explains mechanisms facilitating this outcome in the crucial areas of candidate

selection and national policy-making. The study finds that a set of historical legacies traceable to

a party’s origins and structural elements associated with the density of civil society heavily affect

power distributions within governing movement-based parties. Both elements can facilitate the

emergence of opposition among allied groups that can check power from within and keep open

channels for agenda setting from below. The realization of this potential, as this study argues,

depends heavily on the organizational strength, unity, and mobilization capacity of allied groups

in civil society. The analysis reveals that movement-based parties are remarkably flexible

organizations whose boundaries with allied groups in civil society tend to be fluid and

empirically blurred. The empirical basis for this argument derives, first, from a wealth of

iii
qualitative data collected in Bolivia, where I conducted twelve months of fieldwork in different

regions of the country. During that time, I conducted over 170 in-depth interviews with party

elites at the national, state, and municipal levels, as well as with a wide variety of civil society

actors, including union leaders, activists, opposition politicians, and others. Second, cross-

national comparisons with the experiences of the Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT) and the

Uruguayan Broad Front (FA) improve the overall evidentiary base of this study. They also help

to further support the theoretical claims about the importance of historical and structural factors

for shaping the degree of power concentration in movement-based parties.

iv
To Anne

v
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In researching and writing this dissertation, I have been fortunate to receive help from

many individuals and institutions. My research has benefited greatly from the generous advice of

the extraordinary members of my committee, as well as other informal advisors. I am above all

grateful to my mentor and dissertation advisor, Evelyne Huber, who has been a continual source

of support, encouragement, and calm. Evelyne, who shares my concern for the organization of

left parties and the empowerment of popular sectors, has not only been a key influence for this

research, but her guidance has been fundamental. Her willingness to read critically and comment

on every piece of my work has contributed immeasurably to improvements in my theoretical

development, my ability to think about the “big picture,” and to frame my research effectively

for readers with little knowledge of my area of interest. Although she has set the bar very high, I

hope that one day I can be the type of mentor to others that Evelyne has been for me.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to the rest of my committee members. Graeme Robertson

has closely watched my research evolve over the past six years and has provided extensive

advice throughout that time. Milada Vachudova has been a sage reader and, like Graeme, has

helped me to think about the broader comparative implications of my research. By often asking

the “why should I care” question, both have helped me present the findings of this research in a

way that is more accessible to a non-Latin Americanist audience. If I have not achieved that, it is

by no means their fault (they tried!). Lars Schoultz has not only made this dissertation more

readable in English, but his insights largely improved my own conclusions; he has also been

extremely generous with his time and genuinely concerned about my general wellbeing. John

vi
Stephens offered constructive criticism and important advice at key moments of the writing

process, and I appreciate his willingness to ask the difficult questions. I learned a great deal—

and possibly lost some hair too—in trying to answer those questions. Other professors at UNC

helped with the development of this dissertation in important ways. In particular, Cecilia

Martínez-Gallardo and Jonathan Hartlyn offered tough criticism and pushed me to develop

sharper arguments in specific chapters, and just talking with them about my research has been

profoundly stimulating.

I also owe a great deal to informal advisors outside of UNC. Eric Hershberg, at American

University, deserves a special mention. His advice, support, and friendship over the course of

almost nine years have been invaluable. Most importantly, this dissertation would not exist

without a suggestion he made in a graduate seminar, back in Simon Fraser University in 2007, to

pay close attention to dynamics of social and political change in the Andes, particularly in

Bolivia. Since then, Eric has remained a great friend and critical reader of my work. His insights

can be found throughout the dissertation. In addition, the time I spent at the Center for Latin

American and Latino Studies, which Eric directs at American University, was especially

productive during the writing stage, and I am thankful to him and to the wonderful staff there for

welcoming me and providing an ideal working environment in the summer of 2014. I am also

grateful to Judy Rein for her friendship and the valuable feedback and editorial suggestions she

has offered over the course of many years. Max Cameron, at the University of British Columbia,

has also offered constant encouragement, intellectual support, and advice on specific chapters.

His enthusiastic teaching, patient mentoring, and practical wisdom have had an enormous impact

on my intellectual development.

vii
 My years at UNC have been particularly stimulating due to my graduate student friends

and colleagues. During my first year I was fortunate to meet Russell Bither-Terry, Juan

Bogliaccini, Lucía Genta, Sara Niedzwiecki, and Jeff Erbig, who have become amongst my

dearest and closest friends. They have provided a much-needed emotional cushion during this

long adventure and have served as major sources of inspiration over the course of many years. I

am also thankful to other graduate student colleagues who have provided challenging criticism,

support, and generous comments over the course of several years, and with whom I have had

stimulating conversations about comparative politics: Kiran Auerbach, Kevin Brondum, Amanda

Cook, Federico Fuchs, Claire Greenstein, Cole Harvey, Nick Howard, Hanna Kleider, John

Lovett, Tamar Malloy Elizabeth Menninga, Paula Mukherjee, Bilyana Petrova, Zoila Ponce de

León, Casey Stegman, and Ali Stoyan. I am especially grateful to Russell for the time he took to

provide editorial assistance and to help me develop the maps in chapters 2 and 3. I am also

particularly thankful to Claire and Casey, who generously read, provided feedback, and edited

several of the longest chapters; as I leave UNC, I am very happy to see them flourishing. The

staff in the Department of Political Science at UNC has also made this project possible. In

particular, I would like to thank Shannon Eubanks, Susan Heske, Carol Nichols, Chris Reynolds,

Dana Sadek, and Cynthia Tang.

I am particularly grateful to former UNC students for reading major portions of this

dissertation, as well as for their advice since my early days in graduate school: Merike Blofield,

Agustina Giraudy, Jenny Pribble, and Juan Pablo Luna. All of them have been major sources of

inspiration while I developed this project from the very beginning, and they have helped me in

many ways—from reading chapters to helping me prepare funding applications, and much more.

Among the larger community of scholars, Rob Albro, Jennifer Cyr, Tulia Falleti, Herbert

viii
Kitschelt, Al Montero, Ken Roberts, María Paula Saffón, David Samuels, Eduardo Silva, Jason

Tockman, and Alberto Vergara offered valuable comments, feedback, and other kinds of

assistance. I am especially grateful to Jason for his help over the years, for his assistance during

my field research, and for his continuous friendship. He provided countless contacts in La Paz

and Cochabamba, as well as enthusiastic support since we were classmates at Simon Fraser

University. Most important, his academic work has motivated me to study the MAS. Jennifer, a

friend and co-author, also deserves special credit; she has read major parts of this dissertation

and has given me extremely detailed, and often very challenging, feedback on several chapters.

In Bolivia, I was fortunate to receive a warm welcome from academics, politicians, and

friends. I would first like to thank Judith Hoffmann and Sebastián Michel for providing a home

away from home. I will never forget the Saturday lunches and heated discussions at their house,

as well as how much we enjoyed watching The Strongest soccer games. In La Paz, I especially

appreciate the support of Moira Zuazo at the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Foundation,

Fernando García Yapur at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Ricardo Aguilar

at La Razón, and Fernando Molina at the Fundación Vicente Pazos Kanki—all of whom

provided crucial guidance at early stages of my fieldwork. Manuel Canelas, Nelson Carvajal,

Walter Chávez, Adolfo Mendoza, Manuel Mercado, Rebeca Peralta, Patricia Rocha, and Juan

Carlos Pinto helped me ensure my fieldwork was a successful experience. I am thankful for their

friendship. In Cochabamba, I greatly appreciate the support of Fernando Mayorga at the

Universidad Mayor de San Simón’s Centro de Estudios Superiores Universitarios (CESU), Jorge

Komadina, José de la Fuente, and María Teresa Zegada. I also thank René Recacochea and his

family for their kindness and friendship, and for helping ensure that my time in Cochabamba was

a success. In Santa Cruz, I am especially grateful to Gabriela Montaño, Hugo Siles, and Henry

ix
Zeballos, who assisted with my research in several ways, and provided crucial insight into Santa

Cruz politics.

The number of Bolivian scholars, journalists, and politicians who assisted with my

research is so large that it is impossible to mention all of them without the risk of forgetting

some. And since I would rather not run that risk, I will thank them collectively. Every person

who participated in this study, or with whom I discussed my dissertation, profoundly influenced

my understanding of the MAS. For that I am profoundly and forever grateful. Although most of

them will not read this dissertation, this research would not have been possible without their

valuable input. Thank you.

The field research was also only possible thanks to the generous funding I received,

including a Mellon Endowment Dissertation Fellowship through UNC’s Institute for the Study of

the Americas, and an Off-Campus Dissertation Research Fellowship granted by the Graduate

School at UNC. While these two funding sources allowed me to cover expenses and travel costs

to Bolivia, a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the Graduate School at UNC made it

possible to focus exclusively on dissertation writing during the 2013-2014 academic year.

I am of course forever grateful to my family and friends. My family in Argentina has

offered continuous understanding and support. They have always encouraged me to pursue my

goals and they have always been there in the good and in the difficult times. This project could

not have been completed without them. My youngest sister, Clara Anria, deserves special credit

as she provided crucial help with several chapters; she took on the very time consuming task of

preparing the list of abbreviations and she also compiled the data with which the electoral maps

were created. I am also thankful to my friends Ignacio Jardón and Matías Puente who, despite the

distance and my long periods of poor communication, have remained my closest allies. One day

x
we will go back together to El Chaltén, I promise. My family in the US has been equally

supportive, and both George and Susanna DeCecco have read and kindly edited parts of this

dissertation. Most important, however, they have seen this project develop since its very

inception, and they have been supportive in countless ways.

More than anybody else, Anne DeCecco, my wife, made the research and the writing of

this project possible. Pursuing my academic goals meant living in several countries, adapting to

new places, and sometimes living far apart. Her commitment to this project and her unwavering

belief in me have helped keep this project afloat much more than she knows. Anne was always

there for me, and, together with our steadfast chihuahua Pancho, accompanied me through my—

admittedly many—ups and downs. My gratitude to her is immense. With much love, I dedicate

this work to her.

xi
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................xv

LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... xvi

LIST OF MAPS .................................................................................................................... xvii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................................. xviii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................1

Substantive Relevance .......................................................................................................... 4

Theoretical Relevance ........................................................................................................... 6

Movement-Based Parties ...................................................................................................... 7

Existing Literature: Contributions and Limitations .............................................................. 9

Studying Power Concentration ........................................................................................... 13

Historical and Structural Explanations ............................................................................... 17

Methodological Approach .................................................................................................. 30

Contributions....................................................................................................................... 37

Plan of the Study ................................................................................................................. 45

CHAPTER 2: ORIGINS AND ASCENDANCE TO POWER ...............................................49

Factors Contributing to the Formation and Ascendance to Power of the MAS ................. 64

The MAS in Two Cities: La Paz and El Alto ..................................................................... 72

Social Organizations and the Party ..................................................................................... 80

Morales’s MAS in Power (2006-Present) ........................................................................... 92

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 101

xii
CHAPTER 3: CANDIDATE SELECTION WITHIN THE MAS ........................................103

Why Candidate Selection Matters .................................................................................... 104

Explaining Within-Party Variation in Candidate Selection .............................................. 107

Research Design................................................................................................................ 112

Empirical Setting .............................................................................................................. 120

Uninominal Candidates ..................................................................................................... 121

Plurinominal Candidates ................................................................................................... 128

Additional Evidence: Local Authorities ........................................................................... 135

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 143

CHAPTER 4: NATIONAL POLICY-MAKING ..................................................................146

Why and How We Should Study Policy-Making ............................................................. 147

The Case of the MAS ........................................................................................................ 153

Agenda Setting .................................................................................................................. 159

The Importance of Different Constellations of Power ...................................................... 178

Negative Capacities and Veto Coalitions ......................................................................... 181

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 192

CHAPTER 5: THE MAS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE .........................................195

The MAS in Comparative Perspective ............................................................................. 197

The Workers’ Party ........................................................................................................... 198

The Broad Front ................................................................................................................ 214

Comparing the Cases ........................................................................................................ 227

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 239

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................241

Generalizability of the Findings........................................................................................ 244

xiii
 Significance of the Findings ............................................................................................. 248

Issues for Further Research ............................................................................................... 253

APPENDIX A: LIST OF CITED INTERVIEWS .................................................................263

REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................270

xiv
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. Population of La Paz and El Alto ................................................................................ 73

Table 2.2. Voting in La Paz and El Alto, General Elections, 1989–2009 (percent) ..................... 75

Table 2.3. Voting in La Paz and El Alto, Municipal Elections, 1989–2010 (percent) ................. 76

Table 3.1. Number of Interviews with MAS Deputies and Senators in 2010-2015
Congress, by Department ................................................................................................ 117

Table 3.2. Subnational Comparative Cases ................................................................................ 136

Table 5.1 Dimensions for Comparison Across Cases ................................................................. 231

Table 5.2. Importance of unions among left partisans (percent of left partisans participating
in meetings of unions) ..................................................................................................... 236

Table 5.3. Importance of community-based organizations among left partisans (percent

of left partisans participating) ......................................................................................... 237
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1. Summary of Main Argument...................................................................................... 18

Figure 3.1. Basic Organizational Structure of Bolivia’s Peasant Unions ................................... 124

Figure 4.1. Likely Decision-making Scenarios........................................................................... 184

xvi
 LIST OF MAPS

Map 2.1. 1997 Presidential Election IU Vote (Rural and Urban) ................................................. 53

Map 2.2. 2002 Presidential Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban) ............................................ 54

Map 2.3. 2005 Presidential Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban) ............................................ 55

Map 2.4. 2009 Presidential Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban) ............................................ 56

Map 2.5. 1995 Municipal Election IU Vote (Rural and Urban) ................................................... 57

Map 2.6. 1999 Municipal Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban) ............................................... 58

Map 2.7. 2004 Municipal Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban) ............................................... 59

Map 2.8. 2010 Municipal Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban) ............................................... 60

Map 3.1. Fieldwork Sites for Legislative Candidate Selection .................................................. 118

Map 3.2. Fieldwork Sites for Local Level Candidate Selection ................................................. 136

xvii
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AD Democratic Action (Acción Democrática – Venezuela)

ADN Nationalist Democratic Action (Acción Democrática Nacionalista)

ANC African National Congress – South Africa

ASIP Popular and Solidarity Alliance (Alianza Popular Solidaria)

AU Uruguay Assembly (Asamblea Uruguay)

BCB Bolivian Central Bank (Banco Central Boliviano)

CEDIB Bolivia’s Center for Documentation and Information (Centro de

Documentación e Información Bolivia)

CEJIS Center for Juridical, Institutional and Social Studies (Centro de Estudios
Jurídicos e Investigación Social)

CIDOB Confederation of Bolivian Indigenous Peoples (Confederación de Pueblos

Indígenas de Bolivia)

CIPCA Center for Research and Promotion of the Peasantry (Centro de

Investigación y Promoción del Campesinado)

CNMCIOB-BS “Bartolina Sisa” National Confederation of Campesino, Indigenous, and

Native Women of Bolivia (Confederación Nacional de Mujeres
Campesinas Indígenas Originarias de Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa”)

COB Bolivian Workers’ Central (Central Obrera Boliviana)

CON Regular National Congress (Congreso Nacional Ordinario)

CONALCAM National Coordinator for Change (Coordinadora Nacional para el Cambio)

CONAMAQ National Council of Ayllus and Marcas of Qullasuyu (Consejo Nacional

de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu)

CONDEPA Conscience of the Fatherland (Conciencia de Patria)

COR Regional Labor Federation (Central Obrera Regional)

CSCIB Syndicalist Confederation of Intercultural Communities of Bolivia

(Confederación Sindical de Comunidades Interculturales de Bolivia)

xviii
CSUTCB Unique Confederation of Rural Laborers of Bolivia (Confederación
Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia)

CUT Unified Workers’ Central (Central Única dos Trabalhadores)

EP Progressive Encounter (Encuentro Progresista – Uruguay)

FA Broad Front (Frente Amplio – Uruguay)

FEJUVE Federation of Neighborhood Boards (Federación de Juntas Vecinales)

FENCOMIN National Federation of Mining Cooperatives (Federación Nacional de

Cooperativas Mineras de Bolivia)

FESUCARUSO Unique Federation of Peasant Communities in the Urban and Semi-Urban

Radius of El Alto (Federación Única de Comunidades Campesinas del
Radio Urbano y Sub Urbano de El Alto)

FETCT Special Federation of Peasant Workers of the Tropics of Cochabamba

(Federación Especial de Trabajadores Campesinos del Trópico de
Cochabamba)

FEYCH Special Federation of the Yungas of the Chapare (Federación Especial

Yungas del Chapare)

FMLN Salvadorian Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo

Martí para la Liberación Nacional)

FSNL Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de

Liberación Nacional)

FSTMB Union Federation of Bolivian Mineworkers (Federación Sindical de

Trabajadores Mineros de Bolivia)

IPSP Political Instrument of the Sovereignty of the Peoples (Instrumento Poítico

por la Soberanía de los Pueblos)

ISI Import Substitution Industrialization

IU United Left (Izquierda Unida)

LAPOP Latin American Public Opinion Project

LCR Radical Cause (La Causa R – Venezuela)

LPP Law of Popular Participation (Ley de Participación Popular)

xix
M-19 19th of April Movement (Movimiento 19 de Abril – Colombia)

MAS Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo)

MIP Pachakuti Indigenous Movement (Movimiento Indígena Pachakuti)

MIR Revolutionary Left Movement (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria)

MMP Mixed-member Proportional Electoral Systems

MNR Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista

Revolucionario)

MPP Popular Participation Movement (Movimiento por la Participación

Popular)

MPS Movement for Sovereignty (Movimiento por la Soberanía)

MRTKL Revolutionary Liberation Movement Tupaq Katari (Movimiento de

Liberación Revolucionaria Tupaq Katari)

MSM Movement Without Fear (Movimiento sin Miedo)

MST Landless Movement (Movimento Sem Terra – Brazil)

NC National Council (Plenario Nacional - Uruguay)

NFR New Republican Force (Nueva Fuerza Republicana)

NGO Nongovernmental Organization

NM New Majority (Nueva Mayoría – Uruguay)

OTB Territorial Grassroots Organizations (Organización Territorial de Base)

Pachakutik Ecuadorian Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement - New Country

(Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik – Nuevo País)

PBC Bolivian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Boliviano)

PC Communist Party (Partido Comunista – Uruguay)

PED Processo de Eleicoes Diretas (Direct Election Process)

PJ Justicialist Party (Partido Justicialista – Argentina)

xx
PODEMOS Social and Democratic Power (Poder Democrático Social)

PRD Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución

Democrática – Mexico)

PRI Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional –

Mexico)

PS Socialist Party (Partido Socialista – Chile)

PSDB Brazilian Social Democracy Party (Partido da Social Democracia)

PSUV United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de

Venezuela)

PT Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores – Brazil)

TIPNIS Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (Territorio

Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro-Sécure)

UCS Civic Solidarity Union (Unión Cívica Solidaridad)

UDI Chilean Independent Democratic Union Party

UJC Cruceñista Youth Union (Unión Juvenil Cruceñista)

UN National Unity (Unidad Nacional)

UNDP United Nations Development Program

UNITAS Union of Institutions of Social Work and Action (Unión Nacional de

Instituciones para el Trabajo de Acción Social)

xxi
 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Political parties have undergone deep changes in recent years. As mass party membership

has increasingly become a relic of the past (Levitsky and Cameron 2003; Mainwaring and Zoco

2007; Van Biezen, Mair, and Poguntke 2012), political parties founded to sustain the support of a

single charismatic leader have become more common – prominent examples include the United

Socialist Party of Venezuela under Chávez (Ellner 2013), as well as the Italian Forza Italia and

the Popolo Della Libertá under Berlusconi (McDonnell 2013). In these parties, the locus of

organizational power is squarely at the top. By contrast, other newer parties, such as the Green

“movement parties” in Europe, reject personalism in the interest of boosting participation and

resisting oligarchic pressures.1 However, success in achieving and maintaining internal

grassroots participation, particularly after assuming national governmental responsibilities, has

generally proven to be elusive for political parties (Jachnow 2013).

New parties have been especially important in Latin America (Levitsky, Loxton, and Van

Dyck n.d.). One of the most salient developments in the region is the recent emergence and

ascendance to power of left parties that represent the interests of the politically and socially

marginalized (Cleary 2006; Castañeda 2006; Cameron and Hershberg 2010; Weyland, Madrid,

1
The term “movement party” comes from Kitschelt (2006: 280). For a review of these parties –
particularly left-libertarian ecology parties – and their experience in government, see (Müller-
Rommel 1989; Müller-Rommel and Poguntke 2002).

1
and Hunter 2010; Levitsky and Roberts 2011; Queirolo 2013).2 Usually described as movement-

based parties (Van Cott 2005: 39; Hochstetler 2013: 242), they draw their organizational strength

from connections to grassroots social movements, such as the Brazilian PT (Workers’ Party), the

Uruguayan FA (Broad Front), the Colombian 19th of April Movement (M-19), the Nicaraguan

FSNL (Sandinista National Liberation Front), the Salvadorian FMLN (Farabundo Martí National

Liberation Front), the Venezuelan LCR (La Causa R), and the Bolivian MAS (Movement

Toward Socialism). Movement-based parties are not just a Latin American phenomenon; they

are also emerging in Africa (LeBas 2011), the Middle East (Roy 2013), Western Europe (Mair

2013), Eastern Europe (Glenn 2003), and even North America (Schwartz 2006).3 Despite their

increasing importance and rise in popularity (Leon 2013: 5, 158-159), we know little about how

these parties work. Research has tended to focus on the origins of movement-based parties (e.g.

Kitschelt 1989a; Keck 1992; Bruhn 1997; Goldstone 2003; Chandra 2004; Van Cott 2005;

Madrid 2012), meaning that the internal politics of these parties remain both under-examined and

under-theorized.

In Latin America, the ascension of movement-based parties to national-level power

generated some optimism about the prospects for building internally democratic organizations

that encourage organized civil society to participate both widely and substantively in making

collective decisions (Van Cott 2008; Handlin and Collier 2011; Goldfrank 2011; Madrid 2012;

De la Torre 2013). Extending direct grassroots participation, which has been associated with the

2
In this study, “left” parties are parties committed to the values of equality and solidarity (Huber and
Stephens 2012: 28). Strategically, these parties seek to use state power to “protect individuals from
market failures, reduce socio-economic inequality, and strengthen underprivileged sectors” (Levitsky and
Roberts 2011: 5).
3
On the recent emergence of Podemos (“We Can,” in English) in Spain, see Alonso and Rovira
Kaltwasser (2015); on the emergence and recent rise to power of Syriza in Greece, see Stavrakakis
(2015).

2
post-Cold War notion of “deepening” democracy, is a historic goal of the political left in Latin

America (Roberts 1998: 3). Scholars such as Levitsky and Roberts (2011: 13) and Pribble (2013:

178) have shown that new left parties and political movements in power in Latin America vary in

the extent to which their internal structures disperse authority, but more fundamental questions

remain unanswered: How do these parties and political movements work internally? How

democratic are they? What are their relations to grassroots allies in civil society? And what

causes these movements and parties to exhibit such a wide variation in the manner in which they

concentrate and disperse political power?

These questions have a long tradition in political and sociological thought. They had

great relevance to Moisei Ostrogorki’s (1964 [1902]) classic theoretical work on democracy and

the dangers of oligarchic tendencies within political parties in Democracy and the Organization

of Political Parties, Max Weber’s (1946) writings on parties in Politics as a Vocation, and

Robert Michels’s research on parties and oligarchy theory in Political Parties (1962 [1911]).

The short version of Michels’s theory predicts the inevitable rise of elite-dominated hierarchical

structures that concentrate power and de-emphasize bottom-up participation in processes of

social choice.4 Michels’s oligarchy theory is of special interest here because most influential

analyses of party organization either explicitly confront or arrive at this same conclusion.5

Framed as a “fundamental sociological law of political parties,” it denies the very possibility of

4
To avoid misunderstandings, I distinguish between a “short” and a “long” version of Michels’s
oligarchy theory. While the former is about the centralization of authority and the progressive decrease of
opportunities for participation in decision-making by the grassroots, the latter is about the growing
difference between the preferences of the office-seeking leadership and those of the rank and file, and
about a prevalence of decisions made in favor of the self-regarding political interests of the leaders. For a
discussion on the multiple understandings of, and ambiguities in, Michels’s work, see Linz (2006: 37–
45); also Kitschelt (1989b).
5
The works of Michels (1962 [1911]), Duverger (1954), McKenzie (1955), Kirchheimer (1966), Katz
and Mair (1995), and Panebianco (1988) are examples of this trend.

3
democratic modes of governance within parties – particularly as they contest elections,

institutionalize their structures, and access state power.6 Although the idea of internal party

democracy is the subject of an age-old debate, it has regained increasing attention in the

comparative study of political parties (Hazan and Rahat 2010; Cross and Katz 2013; Cross and

Pilet 2013; Mudge and Chen 2014), partly in response to the almost-universal crises of

representation and the decline of mass party membership. Thus, the broader theoretical question

that I seek to address in this study – the conditions under which political parties can escape a

seemingly inevitable oligarchical fate – is both a classic question of political sociology and a

pressing issue of practical relevance in contemporary societies.

Substantive Relevance

Parties are crucial, if not indispensable, for democracy.7 They do more than make

democracy “workable” for voters and politicians.8 Parties are key for political interest

aggregation and for the translation of programs into policies. Their internal structures, moreover,

have implications not only for the dynamics of inter-party competition, but also for shaping

normatively important public policy outcomes. For example, the politics of redistribution can be

better understood by looking at parties’ organizational attributes, since more internally

democratic parties generally push policy in a bolder, more redistributive, and universalistic

6
This is captured in the statement: “it is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected
over the electors, of the mandatories over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says
organization says oligarchy” (Michels 1962 [1911]: 365).
7
As Schattschneider (1942: 1) writes, “modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of political
parties” (emphasis added).
8
“[D]emocracy,” writes Aldrich (1995), “is unworkable save in terms of parties” (3—emphasis added).

4
direction.9 Thus, there is a potentially high payoff for research on the sources of variation in the

internal distribution of power within and between parties. 10

The question of whether, to what extent, and how parties can defy the trend toward

oligarchization is not just an interesting academic exercise; it has important practical

consequences. As multiple studies document, when democratic participation within governing

parties is deficient, the voices of citizens or even of the party’s own constituents may not be

heard, thereby hindering the average citizen’s participation in political life while enhancing the

discretion of leaders and party elites. When governing parties are more open, by contrast, they

may generate opportunities and incentives for the political empowerment of traditionally

marginalized groups and citizens, which then boosts the input that these marginalized groups

have in organized politics.11 Arguments about party democracy are, in effect, arguments about

“democratizing” or “deepening” democracy.12 The goal of this study is not to refute Michels’s

“iron law” of oligarchy or prove that it does not apply everywhere. Rather, the goal is to use

original, systematic evidence to explain the conditions and mechanisms under which broader and

substantive grassroots participation can be promoted within contemporary governing parties that

9
For excellent analyses, see Pribble (2013) and Huber and Stephens (2012).
10
See Mudge and Chen’s (2014: 320) call for research on this question.
11
Thus, in parallel to workplace democracy (Pateman 1970; Huber 1980), party democracy can promote
the involvement of groups and individuals in the making of collective decisions that affect their social
life. It can achieve so not only by promoting their participation, but also by extending substantive
decision-making authority and influence.
12
While the term “democratizing democracy” is taken from Santos (2005), the idea of “deepening
democracy” is taken from Roberts (1998). Both terms are similar; they presuppose a move from a
“shallow” formal democracy to a more “participatory” mode of democracy—one that expands the
opportunities for popular sectors to exert meaningful influence on the political process (Huber,
Rueschemeyer, and Stephens 1997). In this view, democracy is not just about its formal institutions, but
rather it also has to do with increased empowerment of its citizens, especially the most subordinate groups
in society.

5
have a grassroots social movement base.13 To date, the scholarly literature gives very little

theoretical guidance to assist with the empirical exploration of this puzzle.

Theoretical Relevance

In addition to substantive and practical relevance, this study helps address significant

gaps in the scholarly literature of comparative politics. Understanding the internal life of an

increasingly common phenomenon like movement-based parties adds to one of the most

strikingly under-developed and fragmented literatures in comparative politics: the debate about

what happens inside the “black box” of parties (Levitsky 2001). Political parties remain weakly

organized in much of the developing world (Cyr 2012), but the era of party-building is far from

over (Tavits 2013), and movement-based parties are well-equipped to build strong organizations

(Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck n.d.). Some of these parties are clearly better than others at

generating opportunities for grassroots influence, yet the literature has relatively few insights to

help explain this puzzle.

The current study provides a much-needed addition to the study of the internal life of

movement-based parties. It not only attempts to demonstrate the relevance of civil society

strength for the internal life of such parties, but it also contributes to understanding the broader

theoretical question about what causes the patterns of intra-party power distribution to vary so

widely. In the remainder of this introduction, I propose an original approach that stresses the

effects that historical and structural factors have in affecting internal party governance, and then

I emphasize how these factors generate pressures against the oligarchization of movement-based

parties. I start by giving a more precise definition for the concept of movement-based parties,

13
My approach is thus akin to the one followed by Lipset, Trow, and Coleman (Lipset, Coleman, and
Trow 1977 [1956]: 13) in their seminal study of the conditions affecting union democracy.

6
and then I review the most relevant existing literature. After discussing the literature’s key

contributions and limitations, I present my theory’s arguments and causal mechanisms. I then

outline the case selection and methodological approach and discuss the theoretical contributions

of this study. I conclude by providing a roadmap for the rest of the study.

Movement-Based Parties

Movement-based parties are parties with a core constituency of grassroots social

movements.14 This definition parallels Levitsky’s (2003: 4) definition of labor-based parties, with

social movements rather than organized labor as the core constituency. Movement-based parties

are also different from Kitschelt’s (2006) analytical characterization of “movement parties,”

which are almost always the electoral vehicles of a social movement mobilized around a single

issue (Kitschelt 2006: 283). By contrast, movement-based parties are broader alliances of various

movements and, as such, they are better prepared to incorporate a broader set of issues, actors,

and demands. In contemporary Latin America, examples of these parties include the Brazilian

Workers’ Party (PT), the Ecuadorian Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement – New Country

(Pachakutik), the Uruguayan Broad Front (FA), the Mexican Party of the Democratic Revolution

(PRD), and the Venezuelan Radical Cause (LCR). Outside Latin America, contemporary

examples of movement-based parties include, but are not limited to, the African National

Congress (ANC) in South Africa, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Muslim

Brotherhood in Egypt, as well as historical cases such as Solidarność (Solidarity) in Poland.15

14
The term “core constituency” comes from Gibson (1992; 1996). It refers to specific sectors of society
that provide financial resources, policy-making support, and guidance to a given political party. In the
case of movement-based parties, movements also provide mobilizational power.
15
The mid-nineteenth-century French Republican Party is another key historical movement-based party
that has received some attention in the social-movement literature. See Aminzade (1995).

7
 Movement-based parties follow what Roberts (1998: 75) calls the “organic” model of

party development, in that they are organizationally hybrid: they engage in extra-institutional

social mobilization and also compete for office.16 Members and leaders who run for electoral

office tend to be “drawn directly from social movements rather than from the ranks of a separate,

professional political caste” (Roberts 1998: 75). While these parties may vary in terms of

ideology, they almost always share a rejection of hierarchical control as well as an explicit

commitment to maximizing democratic participation at the grassroots level (Carty 2013).

Movement-based parties are often seen as “transitional phenomena” (Kitschelt 2006:

288), but the “transitioning into what” question is not settled. One salient argument suggests that

the highly participatory and “bottom-up” decision-making patterns that are generally present at

early stages in the life of a movement-based party are viable for only a short time, as the logics

of electoral competition and territorial representation will inevitably push parties to subordinate

their mobilizational strategies to the imperatives of organization and the exercise of power.

However, movement-based parties may not evolve in a unilinear way. It is also theoretically

plausible that such parties follow contingent structural and strategic incentives that make it

possible that they will return to the organizational patterns common in their early phases.17 In

short, there are no a priori reasons to assume that parties based on movements will inevitably, or

by necessity, transition to a form of party that is hierarchical, exclusive, and centralized,

following an “iron law” of organization.

Because movement-based parties are fundamentally moving targets whose organizational

boundaries are empirically fuzzy, they offer unique opportunities to examine potential forms of

16
De Leon (2014: 158) calls them “omnibus” parties, acknowledging that it is “difficult to discern where
the party begins and where it ends.”
17
For a parallel argument, see Kitschelt (2006: 286).

8
political organization that challenge conventional notions of how parties work internally.18 Their

genesis in grassroots mobilization and their hybrid nature may create favorable conditions for

opposition among allied groups to check elites’ power from within and to generate pressures

from below in ways that constrain the decision-making power and autonomy of the party’s top

leadership. This dynamic has the effect of encouraging democratic control from below. Not

every movement-based party develops such accountability structures, however. As I argue in the

present study, the realization of this potential depends heavily on the organizational strength,

unity, and mobilizational capacity of allied movements.

Existing Literature: Contributions and Limitations

The question of whether tendencies toward power concentration can be mitigated has

been key in political sociology analyses of parties. Building on Michels’s “iron law,” a large

body of literature holds that the logics of organization and the exercise of power will inevitably

lead to hierarchy and to the decreasing power of the grassroots activists in internal party affairs.

These studies, of which Duverger (1954), Kirchheimer (1966), and Panebianco (1988) are

amongst the best-known proponents, conceive of parties as dynamic, evolving units. These

studies portray parties as evolutionary undertakings; in other words, this type of literature

assumes that while parties might emerge as representatives of grassroots movements and develop

strong linkages with civic associations and corporate interests, age and maturation will cause

parties to gradually detach from their grassroots allies.

Several factors are said to push parties’ internal structures in the direction of power

concentration. One central explanation is psychological; it assumes that the preference structures

18
The challenge is to identify patterns that are sustainable both in the short and in the long run.

9
of the party leadership change over time, as elites’ enthusiasm for listening to the “bases” tends

to gradually go away.19 The leadership will sooner or later abandon the interests of their

grassroots allies in favor of privileging the logics of electoral competition and political power,

meaning that the leadership will sideline the grassroots from internal decision-making processes.

Another explanation is functional. When parties become increasingly preoccupied with

mainstream electoral competition and adopt “catch all” strategies of recruitment, they need to

distance themselves from their original constituencies, and this move pushes their structures in

the direction of power concentration (Kirchheimer 1966: 193). Similarly, for Panebianco (1988:

264-267), parties might start their lives as “mass-bureaucratic” organizations, but they will

sooner or later move toward becoming “electoral-professional” organizations controlled by an

entrenched minority.

More recent research on parties in advanced industrialized countries has generated

important explanations for the ways in which power within parties tends to become increasingly

concentrated when parties win elections and hold public office (Katz and Mair 1995: 13). These

studies advance a Michelsian-Weberian argument claiming that as parties become closer to the

state, they tend to become separated from their allies in civil society. Western European parties,

Katz and Mair argue (2009: 753), “increasingly function like cartels, employing the resources of

the state to limit political competition and ensure their own electoral success.” For these authors,

the key factors leading to this outcome are a series of social and political transformations. The

growing importance of the mass media, for instance (and the rising costs of political campaigns),

push party leaders to rely less on their constituents and more on public financial subsidies (Katz

and Mair 2009: 754). By depending on state-based funding rather than on membership

19
This assumption is present in the works of Michels (1962 [1911]) and Panebianco (1988).

10
contributions, advocates of the cartel party thesis argue that such developments have brought

about party professionalization, bureaucratization, and hierarchy. As De Leon (2014: 161)

argues, this line of argumentation represents “yet another kind of Michelsian party oligarchy for

the twenty-first century.” An observable implication of the cartel party thesis is a trend toward

internal power concentration, which is, in turn, closely linked to a growing separation between

parties and civil society allies. While using different parlance, scholars of social movements have

reached similar conclusions. Schwartz (2006) argues that parties based on movements tend to

lose their “movement” features as minorities within their structures gain control over party

affairs and become preoccupied with the logics of political power and electoral competition.

The cartel party thesis has been sharply criticized,20 particularly because the experience

of Green parties in government has shown that some of these parties have avoided extensive

hierarchical development and have maintained vibrant connections with their grassroots bases.21

Additionally, the concept of cartelization does not translate well into non-European contexts.

Whether the cartel party thesis, as formulated by Katz and Mair (1995; 2009), is empirically

accurate or not is both a stimulating question and also an academic exercise of splitting hairs.

With or without cartel parties, the trend toward internal power concentration in political parties is

as pervasive in the real world of politics as it is hard to ignore for academics.

Latin American parties are no exception to this trend. Indeed, many scholars have shown

that Latin American parties, including movement-based parties, have indeed followed the

general trend toward internal power concentration. In general, this literature takes the form of in-

depth case studies of major parties, and it is focused on explaining their internal dynamics in

20
For critiques on the cartel party thesis, see Koole (1996) and Kitschelt (2000).
21
See Frankland, Lucardie, and Rihoux (2008) for an assessment with mixed conclusions.

11
response to changing environmental conditions. Existing studies tend to focus on specific

dimensions of internal party organization, such as adaptive capacity (Levitsky 2003; Roberts

1998), institutionalization (McGuire 1997), issues related to emergence and consolidation (Bruhn

1997), and factionalism (Coppedge 1994). While these studies do not focus on explaining

patterns of internal power distributions, they provide powerful evidence in support of a trend

toward oligarchization.22 Hunter (2010) is a good example of one such study; her work focuses

on how the Brazilian PT, which is another classic instance of a movement-based party in power,

has lost a great deal of its initial bottom-up participatory thrust. As the author demonstrates,

participation in electoral arenas caused the party to adapt partisan logic that crowded out or

tended to suppress the movement logic of autonomous social mobilization. This behavior then

enabled a widening gap between the PT and allied civil society organizations.23 This example is

representative of existing studies, which generally indicate that the tendency toward internal

power concentration and oligarchization is pervasive. Such oligarchization begins before parties

come to power and is aggravated when they switch from opposition to government.

Though these works make important contributions to the study of parties based upon

movements, and although in many ways they serve as models for analyzing internal party

dynamics, they do not engage systematically and comparatively with the questions of internal

power distributions, nor do they investigate how parties relate to social movements and to the

state when the former are in power.24 This is an important gap that the present study seeks to

22
More recent comparative works point in a similar direction. See, for instance, Nogueira-Budny’s
(2013) study of left party adaptation in Latin America.
23
Hochstetler (2008) reaches a similar conclusion in her study of PT-civil society dilemmas in Lula’s
Brazil.
24
An exception is Gómez Bruera (2013: Chapter 3). His focus, however, is on how the exercise of power
has transformed the PT’s agenda, not its internal structures.

12
redress. Why do some movement-based parties become top-down organizations, structured to

enhance the power of the leadership and increasingly distanced from the grassroots, whereas

others admit more influence from below and resist the trend toward oligarchization? What are

the contexts or conditions under which this trend does not hold, and what mechanisms help

impede it? As the present study shows, not only do movement-based parties vary considerably in

terms how they are internally organized and how authority and power are allocated within them,

but also they do not evolve in a uniform manner by following the path toward internal

concentration of power and oligarchy. I explain the factors that account for this variation in the

pages that follow.

Studying Power Concentration

The central question driving this study is the degree to which strong civil society

organizations at the grassroots level can wield control over national party affairs and elites within

movement-based parties. To measure degrees of internal power concentration and grassroots

control, I therefore study the balance of intra-party power in processes of candidate selection and

in processes of national policy-making. These two dimensions attract perhaps the highest level of

agreement as valid indicators of intra-party power distribution in the party literature, and they are

arguably the two measures with the broadest scope for comparative analysis. Candidate selection

is commonly regarded as the best measure for internal power distribution (Gallagher and Marsh

1988; Bille 2001; Hazan and Rahat 2010: 6-12; Field and Siavelis 2008: 620).25 Power

25
In an earlier contribution, Schattschneider (1942: 64) goes so far as to claim that “the nature of the
nominating process determines the nature of the party; he who can make the nominations is the owner of
the party. This is therefore one of the best points at which to observe the distribution of power within the
party.”

13
concentration is high when the party’s central leadership, or even a single individual, controls the

selection process; it is low when allied grassroots groups control it.26

However, in contexts of high poverty and inequality, where issues like patronage and

clientelism are generally widespread, candidate selection may not be, by itself, a robust enough

proxy to measure internal grassroots control. In such contexts, grassroots organizations can wield

control over selection, but they may be irrelevant in other party decisions, such as in the policy-

making realm.27 It is therefore crucial to examine whether greater grassroots control over the

selection of candidates also translates into greater grassroots input into, and control over, party

policy (Katz and Mair 1995: 10–11; Loxbo 2013). Taken together, in short, these two

dimensions in the life of a party can tell us a great deal about how power is allocated internally

and the extent to which civil society organizations at the grassroots are genuinely empowered in

relation to party elites.

The MAS as a Movement-Based Party

This study treats the Bolivian MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) as an example of a

movement-based party in power and argues that it deviates from the existing wisdom about this

type of parties: defying theoretical expectations, it has followed a remarkably different

organizational trajectory that has facilitated grassroots impact and constrained elite control, even

after assuming power at the national level.28 This case is particularly important because

26
Low degrees of power concentration thus imply the empowerment of the grassroots in relation to party
elites.
27
In other words, grassroots control of selection processes can be seen as an empirical manifestation of
co-optation.
28
This is the story of the MAS so far; I am not claiming that it will remain open to grassroots input in the
future. It is likely that it will become increasingly centralized if it becomes a hegemonic power holder,
like South Africa’s ANC, but it is also theoretically plausible that if it loses power it will seek to revitalize

14
conventional accounts of movement-based parties focus on cases that develop a strong

organizational infrastructure of collective action before assuming national power, such as the

Brazilian PT (Samuels 2004; Hunter 2010; Ribeiro 2014). Consequently, previous studies’

conclusions tend to stress the “normalization” of these parties and the difficulties of sustaining

bottom-up participation when they govern at the national level.29 Thus, as a deviant case, or as an

“anomaly,” the MAS can serve to advance and refine theories of party development by

explaining organizational patterns that can empower the grassroots in relation to party elites.30

The MAS stands out for its genesis in a highly organized and disciplined social

movement of cocaleros (coca producers). Founded in Bolivia’s Chapare region in the mid-1990s,

it became the country’s largest party in less than a decade. Its leader, Evo Morales, won three

presidential elections (2005, 2009, and 2014) with absolute majorities. The MAS is a different

case from other movement-based parties in the region because it represents indigenous

constituencies—in fact, even more unusually, it grew directly out of the mobilization of these

constituencies. To state that the MAS represents indigenous constituencies is not to say that it is

an “indigenous” party. Instead, we can conceive of the MAS as a party that presents itself using

an ethnic discourse but that also tries to appeal to a wider constituency by blending class and

ethnic elements in a manner that tolerates ethnic diversity.31

linkages with the grassroots. The broader point is that, theoretically, there are no good reasons to assume
a priori that movement-based parties like the MAS will develop in a uniform manner, as the existing
literature predicts.
29
The term “normalization” is taken from Hunter (2007).
30
On the importance of “deviant” cases in comparative politics, see Lijphart (1971: 692). These cases, in
short, can contribute to theory building by challenging and extending established propositions. The term
“anomaly” is taken from Keck’s (1992) study of the origins of the Brazilian PT.
31
Madrid (2008) uses the term ethnopopulism to describe the MAS. Ethnopopulist parties are “inclusive
ethnically based parties that adopt classical populist electoral strategies” (Madrid 2008: 475). These
parties present themselves with an ethnic discourse but try to appeal to a wider constituency. The

15
 As an organization, the MAS emerged from the belief of cocaleros and other peasant

groups that they should have a “political instrument” to contest elections on their own, rather

than in alliance with the existing parties.32 The resulting instrument, a loosely organized party,

engaged in electoral politics at the local level, making rapid gains, specifically in the Chapare

region. Early electoral successes in the Chapare helped to consolidate coca growers as the

leading group within the party’s central leadership. The party’s rapid ascension to power, in turn,

occurred through the construction of an unusually strong rural-urban coalition crafted via

different linkages between the MAS and organized popular constituencies. This development

took place in the midst of a severe social crisis that shook the country between 2000 and 2005

(Anria 2013, 26–28). Ever since assuming power, the MAS has been characterized by its high

degrees of pragmatism—in its rhetoric, its policies, and its alliance-building approach (Harten

2011; Gray Molina 2013; Farthing and Kohl 2014; Anria and Cyr 2015). This pragmatism has

made the MAS elusive to simple classifications, and consequently many scholars have avoided

such efforts.

Despite this pragmatism, the MAS maintains a grassroots social movement core. The

organizations that founded the MAS, and particularly the cocaleros, still constitute its “core

constituency.” According to Gibson (1996: 7), a party’s core constituency provides crucial

financial resources, policy-making support, and mobilizational capacity, shaping the party’s

identity to a large extent. The weight of such groups in internal party affairs is unrivaled in the

case of the MAS, as they have played a central role in setting priorities, agenda items, and

difference between these and exclusionary indigenous-based parties is that the latter cannot make broad
appeals beyond a specific and territorially defined ethnic group. Examples of these are the Pachakuti
Indigenous Movement (MIP) and the Revolutionary Liberation Movement Tupac Katari (MRTKL).
32
The “political instrument”—as the MAS is still referred to by its founders—was created around the
idea of achieving the “self-representation” of popular groups.

16
political action. In sum, then, the party’s genesis as a political organization was undoubtedly

from the bottom up, making the MAS a clear case of an organization that followed the “organic

model” of party development described by Roberts (1998: 75). This foundational element,

together with the fact that the MAS has retained a core constituency of grassroots social

movements even after gaining state power, makes the MAS a clear example of a movement-

based party. While the party as a bureaucratic organization remains relatively weak 20 years

after its emergence, its main source of organizational power derives from its close ties to a wide

array of rural and urban-popular movements and associations, which provide a formidable mass

base and coalition of support. Today, 10 years after it gained power for the first time, the MAS

remains the only truly national party in Bolivia and is that country’s undisputed governing party.

Historical and Structural Explanations

My explanation of the conditions under which movement-based parties can remain open

and internally responsive is based on a combination of historical and structural factors. Historical

factors comprise party organizational attributes embedded in the party’s “genetic model”

(Panebianco 1988: 50), as well as the party’s accumulated experience before capturing executive

power at the national level, both of which create legacies with enduring effects. Structural

factors, in turn, refer to elements broadly associated with the strength, density, and cohesion of

civil society. As the empirical literature shows, strongly organized societies serve as a potential

power base for political parties.33 They can also shape internal party governance in ways that

generate pressures from below and constrain the ability of party’s central leadership to exercise

33
At the most basic level, allies in civil society, including labor unions, peasant leagues, neighborhood
associations, and others, help parties win elections. When parties are in power, allied groups in civil
society can also provide mobilizational power.

17
power. In short, both historical and structural factors create distinctive incentives for and

constraints on party building and the promotion of internal grassroots participation in the

political process when parties govern at the national level. Figure 1.1. provides a summary and

illustration of the main arguments explaining the factors shaping the degree of internal power

concentration.

Figure 1.1. Summary of Main Argument

Historical

1. Organization
2. Local Level Experience 1. Candidate Selection
3. Access to Power (legislative, local-level)
Degree of Power Concentration 2. Policy-making
(agenda-setting, veto)

Structural

1. Civil Society Strength

2. Society-Party Alignments

Historical Factors

The first historical factor is genetic.34 As developed by Panebianco (1988: 50-53), the

concept of a “genetic model” refers to the Weberian-inspired intuition that the founding

34
The literature emphasizing the lasting consequences of a party’s origins has a long lineage that can be
traced back to the classic works of Weber (1968 [1922]), Duverger (1954), Lipset and Rokkan (1967),
and Panebianco (1988).

18
moments of institutions create enduring legacies.35 This study borrows the idea that paths

followed early in the life of parties are important, and it uses the term “genetic model”

specifically in regard to the set of internal organizational structures and patterns of behavior

adopted at a party’s origins. This genetic model creates lasting legacies that can facilitate or

inhibit grassroots participation once parties assume national office.

Three elements regarding the genetic model deserve attention. Specifically, the concern is

with: (1) the existence of organic ties with mass organizations and grassroots social movements,

(2) the development of an elaborate bureaucratic structure, and (3) the internal centralization of

power at the founding moment of a party. I conceptualize the existence of organic ties as the

presence or absence of formal organizational connections with constituent social organizations,

including, but not limited to, labor unions, peasant leagues, and urban popular associations like

neighborhood associations. In turn, I conceptualize the development of an elaborate bureaucratic

structure as the emphasis on constructing rules about membership and delegation of authority.

According to Max Weber (1968 [1922]), the logic of bureaucratization breeds hierarchy and

specialization. It works to ensure that the internal lives of parties are run by the party leadership

and a professional staff, with the grassroots playing a marginal role in internal processes such as

candidate nomination (1968 [1922]: 1129) and the drafting of party programs (1968 [1922]:

1396). Rules about membership and delegation of authority can generate power concentration, as

exhibited in the example of the Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT), but it is also theoretically possible

that, if circumstances are conducive, such rules can contribute to prevent hierarchical control.36

35
In Panebianco’s work, a party’s “genetic model” is defined by three factors traceable to a party’s
founding moment: its initial territorial strategy, the presence (or absence) of an external sponsoring group,
and the role of charisma in the formative phase.
36
Much of this is related to the type of electoral rules within parties, as will be seen in Chapter 5.

19
Finally, I conceptualize the centralization of political authority as the degree to which internal

decision-making rules and mechanisms obstruct or allow for internal grassroots participation. At

one extreme, high levels of centralization are associated with limited grassroots input in the

making of decisions; at the other extreme, low levels of centralization generally involve more

opportunities for grassroots input.

The founding moment of a party has several long-lasting effects. For one, organizational

patterns and practices adopted early on, as defined by the three elements just outlined, can shape

the degree of power concentration within parties later in time. This study demonstrates that the

close links with grassroots social movements and popular organizations developed by the MAS

in its formative years left an indelible mark on the party and affected its behavior once in power.

The MAS emerged out of the autonomous mobilization of social movements, and, ever since its

birth, it has been infused with a rich tradition of participatory politics found in local communities

and popular organizations. As such, the party has promoted grassroots participation since its

founding moment by engaging in regular consultations between the leadership and its grassroots

base.

In the MAS’s early days, low levels of organizational centralization promoted direct

grassroots input in the making of collective decisions in what remained an essentially non-

bureaucratic structure. On the one hand, the lack of an elaborate bureaucratic structure opened

the way for a small but varied group of individuals to become the decision-makers by default,37

but, even as the party gained national-level power, constituent social movements continued to

exert pressure from below that counterbalanced these tendencies. In other words, the lack of an

elaborate bureaucratic structure facilitated the emergence of opposition among allied groups that

37
For a parallel argument, see Madrid (2012: 163)

20
checked power from within and kept open channels for agenda setting from below. Thus, gaining

national-level power resulted in a recurrent tension between attempts to control grassroots

participation from the top and efforts to maintain autonomy from below. Yet, despite the

centralizing logic and pressures associated with governing a country, Bolivian social movements

have maintained a degree of political autonomy from their allies in power, which has allowed

them to pursue their agendas and priorities in spite of attempts to control them from the top. The

explanation is genetic, referring to the party’s foundational moment, and also historical, referring

to its accumulated experience before coming to power.

The comparative literature on party change and strategy provides a useful point of

departure for developing the claim about the importance of parties’ experiences before assuming

national power (Kirchheimer 1966; Przeworski and Sprague 1986; Wickham 2004). It links

electoral participation, legislative activity, and governing experience at the subnational level to

changes in the policy orientation of parties, particularly with regard to changes in the direction of

programmatic moderation (Kitschelt 1994; Samuels 2004; Hunter 2007). Though much of this

literature focuses on explaining changes in parties’ ideological outlook as a result of the kinds of

pressures associated with the dynamics of electoral competition, it also applies to organizational

structures.

The context of social effervescence and political flux in which the MAS came to national

power generated important, long-lasting legacies that shaped its organizational development and

behavior as a governing party. For example, social movements in Bolivia remained vibrant once

their allies captured the presidency because these same founding and allied social movements

had just contributed to the overthrow of two prior unpopular governments and played a crucial

21
role propelling the party to national office.38 From the perspective of the governing party, this

civic engagement meant that the party could rely on continued mobilizational strategies both as a

policy-making tool and in in electoral campaigns. This enabled the party to overcome resistance

from the guardians of the ancien régime and pass key legislation that, in an adverse context,

would fundamentally re-shape Bolivian politics. It also meant that even after assuming office,

the party retained many of the organizational characteristics of its associated social movements

and deliberately resisted developing a bureaucratic organizational pattern. Although once in

power the party leadership attempted to co-opt the leadership of organizational partners in civil

society, grassroots leaders could not always guarantee the compliance of the rank and file with

the government’s policies. This situation led to challenges to the organizational legitimacy of the

party in government.39 It also contributed to keeping the party responsive to movements once in

power and created pressures for power dispersion.

With the rise in popularity and ascent to power of the left in Latin America since 1998

(e.g. Cleary 2006; Castañeda 2006; Cameron and Hershberg 2010), some scholars have taken a

similar approach to mine to understand what elements shape the policy orientation of different

leftist governments (Weyland, Madrid, and Hunter 2010: 18–19). Levitsky and Roberts (2011),

for instance, examine the effects of systemic incentives on governing strategy. They argue that

contexts of widespread crisis encourage parties to pursue more “radical” political projects of

38
They brought new issues to the agenda, imposed a mandate on Morales, and also challenged crucial
government decisions
39
As Kitschelt (1989a: 130) notes, “an organization enjoys legitimacy when its members accept its
decisions as authoritative and final even if they personally disagree with them.” This presupposes a sense
of “loyalty” to the organization—the acceptance of its decisions as authoritative even if they go against
particular or more corporativist interests. Movement-based parties are particularly susceptible to suffering
challenges to their organizational legitimacy, particularly as they grow and become more internally
diverse.

22
state transformation when these parties assume national-level power. By contrast, the argument

goes, contexts of institutional continuity might encourage governing parties to carry out more

moderate reform agendas. While these are valid points, they do not translate ipso facto into

arguments about internal party governance. In other words, policy or ideological changes do not,

by necessity, dictate internal governance structures and practices. The effects of crises on parties

are rarely uniform, as the comparative evidence presented in this study demonstrates. Crisis

contexts may or may not encourage the party leadership to take moderate policy stances once in

power; however, the responses to crises that affect internal party governance are—and should be

treated as—analytically distinctive from external crises. Internal governance adaptations are

almost always contingent on inherited organizational legacies. In short, rather than succumbing

to the homogenizing effects of crises, parties’ responses to internal crises are highly influenced

by their organizational legacies and by the conditions surrounding their access to power. It is

here that historical legacies meet explanations based on broader structural constraints.

Structural Factors

Structural factors associated with the organizational strength of civil society are

important in my explanatory framework. By “civil society,” I mean the totality of politically

oriented associations that contribute to the self-organization of society, which can be the basis

for collective action and political mobilization.40 These associations include, but are not limited

to, labor and peasant unions, neighborhood associations and mining cooperatives, and

organizations representing the urban and rural poor, including the unemployed, artisans,

40
This definition of civil society is a modification of Huber and Stephens’ (2012: 26) definition.

23
pensioners, advocacy groups, and street vendors, among others.41 The focus of this study is on

associations that facilitate the mobilization of the socioeconomic segment of society generally

designated as “popular sectors” (Oxhorn 1998; Silva 2009; Rossi 2015). These associations, as

has been firmly established in the empirical literature, provide different kinds of resources to

political parties, which “enable them to be the primary connectors of state and society” (Vergara

2011: 74). Parties pursue connections to civic associations to expand territorially, recruit leaders,

distribute the party’s program, collect local information, and so on. Whether on the left or on the

right, parties have traditionally benefited electorally from their linkages to unions and other

grassroots movements.

Early theoretical works,42 as well as more recent empirical research on party building,

have established that densely organized civil societies can serve as mobilizing structures for new

movement-based parties.43 The general expectation in that literature is that the organizational

infrastructures of politically oriented associations or other collective actors44 may contribute to

building strong parties by reducing costs and coordination problems associated with those efforts

(LeBas 2011). This “organizational inheritance” – as Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck (n.d.)

argue in a recent contribution – can provide invaluable resources to new political parties and

41
This is clearly a restrictive definition of civil society. It focuses on associations that can provide
resources to parties. It excludes groups such as sports leagues, choral societies, card-playing groups, etc.,
that can also contribute to strengthening civil society but may not necessarily play an important role
shaping the internal politics of parties.
42
See, particularly, the works of Duverger (1954), Huntington (1968), and Lipset and Rokkan (1967).
43
On the importance of linkages between civic associations and parties for party building in Latin
America, see (Collier and Collier 1991; Van Cott 2005; Vergara 2011; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck
n.d.); on African parties, see LeBas (2011); on European parties, see Panebianco (1988), (Kitschelt
1989a; Kalyvas 1996), Bartolini (2000), Glenn (2003).
44
These might include labor and agrarian unions, community associations, religious associations,
indigenous movements, and other “new” grassroots movements.

24
contribute to their long-term empowerment. For these authors, new parties are more likely to

take root, and also to persist over time, where politicians build upon the infrastructure of pre-

existing organizations. Movement-based parties, even if initially loosely organized and held

together, are well positioned to become strong parties in the long run because they draw on the

resources of a multiplicity of civic associations that provide crucial assets for party building.

Existing studies highlight the theoretical importance of the organizational context in

helping to explain the emergence and the strength of movement-based parties, as well as how

that context contributes to electoral competition. In the present study, I take the idea that the

existence of a dense organizational context matters, but I move beyond the party formation stage

and beyond the competition aspect. I add the insight that variation in both the organizational

strength and in the mobilizational capacity of civil society actors can also affect the internal

governance structures of parties and their tendencies toward power concentration. Concretely, I

argue that the presence of civil societies that are: (1) strongly organized, (2) united, and (3)

highly mobilized can generate politically consequential pressures from below that can serve as

limits on the autonomy and decision-making power of the party’s top leadership. These pressures

may also defy trends toward internal power concentration by helping to keep channels open for

agenda setting from the bottom to the top, and thus they can contribute to keeping parties

responsive to societal demands.

The above terms may require some further elaboration. For the purposes of this study,

“strongly organized” civil societies are those with high organizational density, measured as the

percentage of the population that are members of grassroots organizations. The term “united” in

turn refers to affinity of purpose – that is, the ability of social and political actors to privilege

common purpose over narrow organizational interests in order to agree on decisions affecting

25
common interests. Unity among organizations not only strengthens civil society, but it can also

represent a counterweight to the centralizing tendencies of an allied party. “Highly mobilized”

societies, finally, are those where the majority of the population is capable of self-organizing and

articulating demands in the political arena via contentious bargaining. As stated previously, these

different attributes shaping the nature and strength of civil society are power resources that can

help resist a Michelsian shift in the character of an allied movement-based party.45 The three

attributes are not always clearly distinguishable, however. Theoretically and empirically, the

effects of these attributes are intertwined.

The strength of civil society first contributes to resisting pressures toward internal

concentration in the realm of candidate selection. Elite decision-making by the party leadership

is less likely to take place in districts where civil society is strong and politically aligned with the

MAS.46 In such contexts, the grassroots organizations can effectively impose their choices for

MAS candidates, constraining the autonomy of the party leadership. By contrast, in contexts

where civil society is strong but aligned with an opposition party, oligarchic decision-making in

the hands of a small party elite—and even in the hands of one single prominent leader—is much

more likely to occur. The same is true in contexts where civil society is strong but aligned with

multiple parties. Where strong organizations manage to coordinate and agree on a candidate,

then they can wield power within the party and nominate their desired candidate. However,

where there are strong organizations but no consensus among them, a situation I designate as

“coordination failures,” the party leadership is likely to concentrate power and nominate desired

45
They are power resources because groups in civil society, especially popular sectors, can use them to
expand their substantive influence (Rueschemeyer, Huber, and Stephens 1992).
46
The term “political alignments”—or to be “politically aligned”—refers to a shared understanding that
both civil society organizations and the party belong to the same political camp (in other words, it is not
about formal organizational ties).

26
candidates. Finally, contexts of weak civil society create organizational opportunities for power

concentration in the hands of a few party elites, meaning that top-down elite choices tend to

prevail.

Civil society strength also affects the degree of internal power concentration in the

policy-making process. The explanation here is twofold. On the one hand, it focuses on what I

term the “creative capacities” of organizational partners. This term refers to the ability of civil

society organizations to put issues on the agenda and to use pressure to ensure governing parties

respond by passing certain policies. As the present study demonstrates, the capacity of civil

society organizations to generate decisions and policy proposals varies by area and is contingent

on the relative power of groups pushing for reform, giving rise to patterns of interest articulation

best described as “contentious bargaining.” Alongside the pressures in the direction of power

centralization that are generally associated with the function of governing a country,47 alternative

patterns of policy-making can also be found in regard to different policy areas. In policy areas

where large numbers of well-organized popular groups are directly and visibly affected in their

productive roles there is generally more popular pressure for influencing these decisions, and the

MAS has adopted agenda items, priorities, and actions at the behest of some of its stronger allied

grassroots organizations. The pattern holds in explaining the development of agrarian and mining

policies in contemporary Bolivia, where organizational partners of the party in government have

been critically important for advancing their preferred policies. Indeed, it can be asserted that the

greater the organizational strength and mobilizational capacity of allied groups, the greater the

degree to which their participation in collective decision-making will translate into influence on

desired policy outcomes, other things being equal.

47
The MAS, of course, does not fully escape this pattern.

27
 On the other hand, the explanation centers on what I term the “negative capacities” of

allied grassroots actors. This concept refers to the veto and counter-mobilization power of

organizational partners. These partners are usually individual or collective actors whose behavior

can impose effective constraints on the authority and decision-making power of party leaders by

blocking or modifying legislative proposals that are on the agenda. It is in this area that

oligarchic decision-making is most constrained in the case of the Bolivian MAS. Organizational

partners can place limits on the authority of the party leadership and keep the party responsive to

particular societal demands. Not every group has the same capacity to pressure the governing

party from below and block or modify policy proposals, however. A group’s success is

contingent on the breadth of the veto coalition that mobilized popular actors manage to configure

and on the group’s mobilizational capacity. In general, if a mobilized grassroots actor builds a

broad-based veto coalition with multiple sectors of society, then the veto coalition is more likely

to succeed in forcing policy change. At the other extreme, if a mobilized grassroots actor acts

alone and cannot build a strong veto coalition, it is more likely that the party in office will defeat

attempts from below to push policy change. Whether a policy initiative has the support of the

party’s political core is also important, but the effects of this variable are conditioned by the

strength of the veto coalition. In short, meaningful advances toward the mitigation of top-down

elite choices within governing parties require mobilized pressures from below: the broader and

better coordinated the pressures from below, the greater the chances of enhancing the governing

party’s responsiveness to allied grassroots actors.

Counterarguments

Two reasonable critiques of my historical- and structural-centered explanation might be,

firstly, that it fails to capture some of the nuanced ways in which domestic and international

28
economic pressures may contribute to facilitating or hindering internal grassroots participation,

and, secondly, that it ignores leadership qualities that favor oligarchy. My argument does not

discount economic or leadership factors, but it holds that historical and structural elements

discussed above better explain the extent to which governing parties can defy the pro-oligarchy

pressures that economic and leadership factors exert. Comparative evidence of other movement-

based parties in power supports the explanatory power of the historical and structural dimensions

developed above. Economic pressures do not explain why, when confronted with similar

pressures, some parties remain open to input from below and more internally democratic. In

Uruguay, for example, severe economic pressures in the aftermath of the Argentine collapse of

2001 set the policy agenda for the Broad Front (FA). Yet economic pressures did not push

internal structures in the direction of centralization. Similarly, a context of crisis in Bolivia

encouraged the MAS to continue its reliance on mobilizational strategies as a policy tool, a

pattern that is embedded in the party’s “genetic model.” In both cases, organizational legacies

outweighed external pressures.

Charismatic political leaders are widely seen as inimical to internal democracy. When

parties do not manage to outgrow leaders – that is, when they do not “routinize” charisma – there

is a sense that the leaders “own” the parties.48 As Huber and Stephens (2012: 266) note,

historically, dominant personalities “do not have a good track record when it comes to building

strong political parties that would become organizational actors independent of their leaders.”

Latin American history offers several examples of political parties turning into personalistic

vehicles for charismatic leaders who control much of the party’s internal life from the top and

48
On this, see Weber (1968 [1922]: 1121).

29
according to their own taste. Latin America is, in short, what I would term a “cemetery of

oligarchies.”

Morales certainly qualifies as a charismatic leader, and this study underscores that

Morales commands significant legitimacy and internal authority within the MAS. The centrality

of his leadership cannot be overstated; he is the dominant figure who binds together a wide array

of loosely connected grassroots movements and organizations. Yet, his word is not always the

“last word,” and highly mobilized groups recurrently dispute his authority from below. As this

study argues, the nature of the MAS’s internal organization places limits on centralized

authority, as do the dynamics of popular mobilization that takes place in the streets. It is an

empirical question as to whether the personalism of Morales’s leadership, and the fact that there

are no obvious successors being cultivated, might lead to a growing power concentration in the

party in an eventual next term in office, and the answer will depend heavily on the continuing

strength of allied groups in civil society.

Methodological Approach

I address the puzzle of what options movement-based parties have to mitigate the trend

toward oligarchization by using a within-case research design for theory-building purposes. I

proceed in two directions. Using the empirical case of the MAS, I first explore variation in

patterns of candidate selection for national and local level elections, according to the strength of

civil society, the nature of the political alignments between the MAS and civil society, and the

electoral strength of the MAS in different areas of the country. Second, I explore variation in

patterns of policy-making in different policy domains, according to the mobilizational power of

civil society and the alignments between the MAS and both core and non-core groups. While

other scholars have already offered qualitative descriptions of the diversity of the MAS’

30
decision-making mechanisms (e.g. Komadina and Geffroy 2007; Do Alto 2007; Zuazo 2008;

Zuazo 2010; Do Alto and Stefanoni 2010; Harten 2011; Madrid 2012; Crabtree 2013), this study

generates more robust evidence and a more systematic explanation for this diversity by focusing

on explaining internal power distributions in candidate selection and policy-making.

The MAS is an anomaly, which, as has been noted, makes the case theoretically

interesting and can help us understand non-anomaly cases as well. It has a dominant leader, Evo

Morales, who concentrates a great deal of power in his own hands, but yet its internal

mechanisms have given voice and influence to groups that were previously on the margins of

political life. By maintaining a fair amount of its initial bottom-up participatory élan, the MAS

has defied pressures toward oligarchization and has proven to be an organization not easily

controlled from the top, even after assuming national-level power.49 Thus there is much to be

gained from an in-depth examination of the conditions and mechanisms under which elite control

can be attenuated, if not avoided, in a scenario where high degrees of power concentration would

be clearly expected. To accomplish such an examination, an in-depth case-study approach

remains fundamental.50 Although the case-study approach has its drawbacks, as all research

methods do, such an approach is particularly strong at yielding internal validity and discovering

causal mechanisms through process tracing.51 And while case studies have recently been the

target of harsh criticism, often on the faulty assumption that one case equates to one observation

(King, Keohane, and Verba 1994), the case-study approach remains a crucial tool for

49
An observation also noted elsewhere (see Anria 2013), and by other scholars (Crabtree 2013).
50
Gerring (2007) defines the case study approach as “the intensive study of a single case where the
purpose of that study is—at least in part—to shed light on a larger class of cases” (20). In other words,
from case studies we can learn something about political phenomena that is well beyond the mere
description of a particular case.
51
On the issue of internal validity, see Adcock and Collier (2001).

31
understanding power relations among collective actors (in this study grassroots social

movements and political parties) and the conditions of societal and political structures that may

restrain elite behavior. Qualitative data, or causal process observations, are absolutely critical to

capturing the internal dynamics and behavior of movement-based parties.52

To collect causal process observations, I carried out two rounds of field research in

Bolivia, the first one between July and September 2008 and the second between August 2012

and May 2013.53 During this time, I conducted more than 170 in-depth interviews with party

elites at the national, state, and municipal levels, as well as with a wide variety of civil society

actors, including union leaders, activists, journalists, and academics. These interviews provide

the basis for my analysis of legislative candidate selection for national office, developed in

Chapter 3, which focuses on the electoral process leading to the 2009 general election. This was

a key moment for analyzing internal power distributions because the MAS was in its most

expansive phase, and as a result, the lead-up to that election can be conceived of as a likely

scenario for high degrees of power concentration. My analysis draws on systematic interviews

with over 50 incumbent representatives from the departments of La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro,

and Santa Cruz.54 These are the country’s most populated departments, they form the “central

axis” of the country, and they are the places where I carried out fieldwork.55 While these four

52
A causal process observation, CPO, is “an insight or piece of data that provides information about
context, process, or mechanism, and that contributes distinctive leverage in causal inference” (Brady and
Collier 2004: 2). These observations imply and require process tracing and within-case analysis. For an
extensive discussion on CPOs’ distinctive leverage in causal inference, see Mahoney (2010).
53
The results of the first round of fieldwork have been published elsewhere (see Anria 2009; 2010;
2013).
54
Departments in Bolivia (a unitary country) are the equivalent of states or provinces in federalist
countries.
55
However, the majority of my interviews with incumbent representatives were conducted in the
country’s administrative capital, La Paz.

32
departments do not constitute the entire country, the patterns observed there were also common

elsewhere, as confirmed through interviews, secondary sources, and newspaper archives. All

these “thick” data helped me to compare and contrast observations gathered in Bolivia’s major

departments and to see how generalizable my findings are to other districts.

It is difficult, however, to paint a single picture of a complex governing organization

when local contexts shape internal characteristics and behavior. This is particularly difficult to do

in countries with large rural-urban divides, high levels of inequality, or other major sources of

diversity. To create a more accurate account of the MAS, Chapter 3 also includes an analysis of

candidate selection for local office, which focuses on the lead-up to the 2010 municipal

elections. The analysis draws on in-depth interviews with over thirty elected officials at the local

level, as well as unsuccessful aspirants and a variety of local party elites, regional brokers and

notables, grassroots leaders, and activists. This research was conducted in five municipalities,

three urban (La Paz, El Alto, and Santa Cruz) and two rural (Achacachi and Villa Tunari). I

selected rural and urban municipalities with the following electoral configurations: the MAS as

electorally dominant at all levels of competition (national and municipal), opposition parties

dominant at all levels, and mixed or split (neither the MAS nor opposition parties clearly

dominant).56 Although the five municipalities are not representative of the country as a whole,

they are included in this study to capture the diverse organizational patterns and practices that

prevail within the MAS in both rural and urban settings. Subnational comparisons have

important advantages. As Snyder (2001) points out, by “scaling down” the unit of analysis, sub-

56
This allowed for an exploration of the organization of the MAS in its strongest area of support (Villa
Tunari) and also in strongholds of the opposition (Santa Cruz).

33
national comparisons greatly expand the number of observations and help to uncover processes

that are harder to observe at the country level.

Regarding my interviews, I employed a semi-structured format but also included a

number of structured questions in order to be able to identify and compare patterns across

regions.57 Most of the interviews with incumbent representatives and local-level elected officials

were recorded, and these were then transcribed and processed in NVivo to find patterns

emerging from individual accounts. All interviews were conducted in Spanish.

My analysis of policy-making, which is developed in Chapter 4, also draws on a wealth

of original interviews with a wide range of politicians (MAS leaders, representatives,

bureaucrats, advisors) and civil society actors. The focus of the analysis is centered, on the one

hand, on the degree of input of collective actors in the positive formulation of policies through

internal party structures or through their representatives in Congress. Interviews with top-level

party officials, incumbent representatives, and grassroots leaders, as well as participatory

observations in party congresses, were central to developing this analysis. To evaluate degrees of

grassroots impact on decision-making via their access to the executive branch, on the other hand,

I relied on interviews with top- and mid-level officials in the ministries of Rural Development,

Mining, and Economy, as well as in the Office of the Vice-Presidency. These interviews helped

to compare and contrast different degrees of grassroots influence across government

bureaucracies. This in-depth information collected through original interviews was supplemented

with data from secondary sources and from newspaper archives. This additional printed data

helped to establish general timelines for the policies under study and to cross check the accuracy

57
Although I was always prepared with a series of questions and probes, interviews were often more
open-ended than I anticipated – or even wanted. However, allowing participants to “tell their stories”
allowed them to feel more comfortable to tell their side of the story, which yielded richer information.

34
of retrospective accounts from interviews. Finally, to examine the extent to which grassroots

actors can impose effective constraints on the decision-making power of the top leadership via

their veto or counter-mobilization power, I first selected some of the most crucial policies that

faced resistance from below. These included instances where the national government was

forced to reverse decisions as a result of bottom-up pressure, as well as other instances in which

the leadership did not change the policy course in spite of the, often intense, challenges from

below. Interviews with politicians and civil society actors allowed me to reconstruct the

perceptions and calculations of key players during conflicts of high intensity. I supplemented this

information with data from newspaper archives.58

A final component of my research strategy was to gather official documentation by the

MAS. These documents provided useful information on the party’s internal debates and helped

identify relevant political actors within the organization. I also consulted a vast literature of

published and unpublished works on the MAS, most of which is not available in English. I

looked at local publications, as well as theses produced by students at leading universities in the

country. Because Bolivia is sharply polarized between those who passionately support the MAS

and those who are equally passionate in their opposition, it was crucial to obtain a wide variety

of perspectives. I interviewed journalists and academics who are sympathetic to the MAS

government, as well as those who are avid opponents, who shaped my understanding of the

trajectory and organization of the MAS. Finally, fieldwork also included participatory

58
To assist with this, I relied on reports compiled by Bolivia’s Center for Documentation and Information
(CEDIB) in Cochabamba. CEDIB has one of the largest newspaper archives in the country, and it allows
researchers to compile reports based on searches by keyword. For each of the policies under consideration
I prepared a compilation of their coverage in Bolivia’s major newspapers. This allowed me to have access
to every article mentioning the policies under consideration, to create timelines of events, and to identify
key actors. I also relied on social conflict data generously provided by the Fundación UNIR.

35
observation in party congresses, which helped to understand how some of the party’s decisions

are made and communicated internally.

While the heavy lifting for causal inference derives from a within-case examination of

the Bolivian MAS, this study also develops a comparison of the origins, evolution, and

contemporary structure of the Brazilian PT and the Uruguayan FA. These comparisons help to

further support the theoretical claims about the importance of historical and structural factors for

shaping the degree of internal power concentration in movement-based parties. Like the MAS,

both the PT and the FA share a common origin in grassroots movements, and all three came to

national-level power for the first time during Latin America’s left turn (in 2006, 2002, and 2005

respectively). Despite these similarities, they differ sharply in terms of the extent to which they

have promoted and sustained internal grassroots participation once in power. To explain why

they have followed different trajectories, a comparative historical analysis is fundamental. This

method allows me to trace the origins and causes of political outcomes that are harder to observe

in a single case. In order to collect causal process observations about these comparative cases,

this analysis draws mainly on secondary sources and on the analysis of LAPOP survey data.59 In

each of the comparative cases, I begin the narrative by tracing the foundational moment of the

party, the experiences in local-level government before gaining national-level power, and the

mode of access to state power. The comparative analysis helps to detect factors preventing or

facilitating oligarchy that would not be made immediately apparent by studying a single case

59
Hosted in Vanderbilt University, LAPOP (Latin American Public Opinion Project) conducts surveys of
public opinion in Latin America every two years. I used their data to examine the relationship between
partisan engagement and participation in associational life, which in turn served as an indirect measure of
the potential for support for mobilization that the three parties under consideration have, as well as of the
kinds of pressures from below they might confront.

36
over a short period of time. In so doing, the comparative analysis helps improve the overall

evidentiary base of this study and strengthens it theoretically.

A final word on the value of my methodological approach is in order. The choice of a

case-study approach combined with comparative historical analysis was driven by the logic of

the research question animating this study, not the other way around. The collection of causal

process observations via qualitative techniques is crucial for unpacking the “black box” of

movement-based parties and for uncovering processes that parties often prefer to keep behind the

scenes. The internal life of parties and the political logic behind internal decisions can be fully

grasped only with an in-depth knowledge of the cases and “a healthy dose of political sociology”

(Smith et al. 2014; see Roberts' contribution, p. 18). An understanding of the conditions that can

facilitate or help prevent the triumph of oligarchy within movement-based parties cannot be fully

attained by relying on already existing party datasets.60 Thus, my approach accepts the plea made

by Murillo, Shrank, and Luna (see Smith et al. 2014) for the generation of more empirically

grounded and context-sensitive theoretical work, and it also builds on a rich tradition of

comparative historical and political sociology approaches to parties (Duverger 1954; Lipset and

Rokkan 1967; Panebianco 1988; Kitschelt 1994; Levitsky 2003; Luna 2014). The result of this

fieldwork-intensive study is a series of testable hypotheses which, built on the experiences and

organizational development of Latin American movement-based parties, can be tested

empirically elsewhere.

Contributions

A Contribution to the Literature on Party Organization

60
This is particularly true for Latin American parties, where the quality of the existing datasets is
strikingly low.

37
 In this study I seek to contribute to the larger study of party organization. The analysis

stresses, first, that parties are neither unitary nor uniform actors under the tutelage of a unified

leadership.61 Second, it stresses that parties are not uniformly bureaucratic organizations; their

operation and organizational form is dictated neither by their political institutional contexts nor

simply by their ideological orientation.62 Rather, parties (a fortiori movement-based parties) are

highly flexible organizations; the boundaries between such parties and civil society allies tend to

be fluid.63 Some of them, as is the case with the Bolivian MAS, lack an elaborate bureaucratic

structure, and they look and operate differently in different contexts, based on the kinds of

connections they establish with civil society actors. They also invest differently in party

structures across constituencies, from which they derive their organizational power.

Understanding this variation is of great theoretical importance. Other scholars have made

similar arguments, recognizing that parties are complex systems that relate differently to

different constituencies in multiple settings.64 However, existing studies tend to focus on the

linkages between parties and voters (Kitschelt 2000; Kitschelt et al. 2010; Luna 2010; Luna

2014), whereas the present study, by contrast, looks at how parties develop different linkages to

61
Inspired by the work of Downs (1957), much of inter-party competition theory makes this simplifying
assumption (Robertson 1976). The major tenets of this approach to parties are epitomized by Aldrich’s
(1995) argument that election-minded legislators create parties to solve collective action and social choice
problems.
62
Internal party structures are often viewed as reflections of formal institutional rules governing a polity
(Harmel and Janda 1982; Carty 2004) or as reflections of party ideology (Bolleyer 2012).
63
The boundaries between them are even more diffuse when movement-based parties are in power. It
becomes increasingly harder do discern where the movement, the party, and the state start and where they
end.
64
Examining the dynamics of the PJ in Argentina and the PRI in Mexico, Gibson (1997) notes that
populist parties in Latin America tend to have different rural and urban social constituencies and adopt
different organizational logics in each environment. In Chile and Uruguay, Juan Pablo Luna (2014) notes
that the same parties relate differently to their constituencies in some municipalities, and that campaigns
at the national level are in some cases more programmatic whereas at the local level they can be more
clientelistic.

38
their organized constituencies. Specifically, it examines how elements in the party’s social and

political structures create incentive structures that promote more or less grassroots participation

in party affairs. Internal processes, like the selection of candidates, provide good examples of

how parties operate differently depending on how the political space is structured across the

territory. As this study demonstrates, examining how organizational dynamics vary across

geographical constituencies provides the most analytical leverage on complex outcomes that

reflect varying degrees of grassroots participation and internal power distribution. It is only when

we examine these differences with some degree of systematization that the full complexity of

movement-based parties becomes visible.

Other authors have made the argument that parties are not uniformly bureaucratic.

Levitsky (2003), for instance, focused on organizational characteristics, such as informal and

weakly institutionalized party structures, to explain coalitional and programmatic adaptation. In

the present study, similar organizational features help to explain variation in degrees of

grassroots participation and power distribution inside movement-based parties. The lack of an

elaborate bureaucratic structure allows for the development of flexible organizations that stand in

a fluid continuum between alternative forms of political mobilization (i.e. movement and party)

without being reducible to either. Furthermore, it facilitates adaptation to varying political spaces

and thus encourages truly eclectic organization-building dynamics. For example, movement-

based parties are more likely to look and operate “like movements” in high-density

organizational settings. In such contexts, they are less likely to invest resources in building an

independent local party structure; instead, they are more likely to embed their structures on pre-

existing networks and emphasize that the “bases” should exert control over the leadership. By

contrast, in areas of low organizational density, they are more likely to operate in a top-down

39
manner, enhancing the discretion of the leadership and discouraging influence from below. In

short, weak bureaucratization can work in two directions. It can promote the development of

accountability structures and thus contribute to pushing internal structures in the direction of

power dispersion, but it can also push the other way. These patterns are likely to vary according

to how the political space is structured.

The lack of an elaborate bureaucratic structure can thus be seen as a source of

organizational strength. It can enable parties to effectively adapt to varying local political spaces

and to build a remarkably strong mass organization on the basis of establishing close connections

with social movements and other popular organizations. In addition to delivering votes and

facilitating the functions of territorial expansion, such groups contribute to recruiting leaders,

activists, members, and candidates at all levels of competition. Moreover, when the party is in

power, these groups help mobilize mass support in policy-making and provide linkages between

state offices, grassroots movements, and citizens.

Understanding how movement-based parties like the MAS build organizational strength

by tapping into the infrastructures of pre-existing groups is crucial for understanding their

internal dynamics and behavior. Though the availability of pre-existing organizational networks

has been used to explain variation in the emergence and strength of new parties, the present

study adds nuance to these findings. It highlights how these different connections can shape

patterns of grassroots participation and internal power distribution.\

A Contribution to the Literature on the Latin American Left

Studying the MAS can also help us gain a better understanding of the Latin American

Left. The recent rise to power of left parties and political movements has led to analyses of their

various origins, their performance in office, and the sources of their policy orientations once in

40
office. Thus, there is a voluminous literature on the topic of the Latin American Left. Building

on different political and normative concerns, the existing literature tends to group together

Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador in the “radical” or “contestatory” strand of the left (Castañeda

2006; Weyland et al. 2010). In a classification of left parties that takes into account

organizational factors, Levitsky and Roberts (2011) classify the MAS as an example of the

“movement left,” for it is a new organization whose internal structures disperse power among

grassroots actors and is therefore more likely to be held accountable by those grassroots actors.

Despite this welcome correction and the abundance of works in this general area, the literature

on the contemporary left remains insufficiently attentive to questions of internal party

organization and its consequences, as evidenced by the scarcity of careful examinations of

individual and comparative cases.65

By studying the MAS as a case of a movement-based party that has so far defied

oligarchic pressures, this study generates new ideas about the conditions under which these

parties can become organizational actors for the empowerment of popular groups. Several new

left parties in the region have become personalistic tools for the self-regarding goals of a

charismatic leader, as with the PSUV in Venezuela and Correa’s Alianza País in Ecuador.

Although it might be argued that Morales shares similar impulses as Chávez and Correa, this

study shows that he operates under a remarkably different organizational foundation that

constrains his power and authority from below in ways that are not evident in Ecuador and

Venezuela.66 At this point, when we look at organizational factors, the MAS is quite similar to a

broader universe of cases with which the party is rarely compared. For example, the Uruguayan

65
For a notable exception, see Pribble (2013).
66
A point also raised elsewhere (see Anria 2013).

41
FA, which is often classified as belonging to the “moderate” camp of the Latin American Left, is

a good case to compare with the MAS. The FA’s origins are similar to those of the MAS, and it,

too, developed an organization whose internal structures diffuse power and encourage grassroots

input and mobilized participation in ways that constrain the party leadership in power. In turn,

the Brazilian PT can be seen as a contrasting example, or as one whose developmental trajectory

has moved increasingly in the direction of oligarchy. As this study argues, the factors that

explain these diverging trajectories are both historical and structural: elements in their distinctive

“genetic model,” their experiences before assuming governmental power, and structural

conditions associated with the strength and density of civil society account for their diverging

trajectories. These factors create distinctive incentives and constraints for the promotion of

participation in the political process when parties govern nationally.

A Comprehensive Account of the MAS

This study develops the first comprehensive and theoretically informed explanation of the

Bolivian MAS at the national level.67 It first traces its origins as a grassroots social movement

and its electoral growth to then examine the challenges of transitioning from regime challenger

into government. My analysis does not discount the influential role of the party’s charismatic

leader, Evo Morales, but rather places more emphasis on the organizational level: it explains the

complex and often contentious power relations between actors with different, yet overlapping,

67
Unlike the Brazilian PT, which has been the subject of excellent comprehensive analyses of its
formation, organization, and evolution as a national party (Meneguello 1989; Keck 1992; Ribeiro 2008;
Amaral 2010; Hunter 2010), to date, and to my knowledge, there are no parallel “foundational” works on
the MAS.

42
logics of political mobilization (i.e. social movements, the MAS as a party, and those in power),

as well as explaining the structural constraints on the political choices of the leadership in office.

The MAS has been the subject of significant attention in the political science literature.

Most of this literature concentrates on documenting its bottom-up genesis in Bolivia’s rural

cocalero movement (Stefanoni 2003), its transformation into an electoral vehicle (Van Cott

2005; Komadina and Geffroy 2007; Zuazo 2008), and its rise to power (Albro 2005; Stefanoni

and Do Alto 2006; Silva 2009; Harten 2011; Madrid 2012). The literature also features studies

evaluating the experience of the MAS and Evo Morales in power (Postero 2010; Pearce 2011;

Webber 2011; Zegada et al. 2011; Crabtree 2013; Dunkerley 2013; Wolff 2013; Farthing and

Kohl 2014), and biographies of Evo Morales documenting his humble origins, his trajectory as a

social movement leader, and his road to becoming Latin America’s first indigenous president

(Subercaseaux and Sierra 2007; Sivak 2010). With a few exceptions,68 not much attention has

been given to how the MAS functions internally by providing theoretically informed analyses of

its organization and detailed accounts of how it operates. This study redresses this shortcoming

in the existing literature and provides crucial qualitative data on the civil society-party-state

relations that exist in Bolivia, while also placing the findings in a broader comparative

perspective.

Implication for Understanding Broader Political Processes

Analyzing the organization and behavior of the MAS as a governing entity – a striking

development that put an end to white minority political control in Bolivia – serves as a heuristic

68
Do Alto and Stefanoni (2010) and Crabtree (2013) are partial exceptions. Harten (2011) examines
internal organizational issues but does not follow the transformations of the MAS in the face of the
challenges of transitioning from regime challenger to governing entity. His focus is rather on the period
leading to the ascent to power.

43
for theorizing about patterns of social and political change that have taken place in Bolivia and

other Latin American democracies. The experience of the MAS has led to significant changes in

the political arena, including wider regime stability, leadership accountability, representation of

historically excluded and marginalized groups, and expansion of both individual and collective

citizenship rights to indigenous peoples. Changes are particularly evident in this last area, as

demonstrated by the increased power and access to the state of indigenous peoples and peasant-

farming groups, by their massive inclusion in governing and in representative institutions at all

levels, and by the many social policy reforms promoted by the government that benefit the

underprivileged and ensure more equalizing access to state social services.

Thus, in addition to conceiving of movement-based parties like the MAS as simply

electoral vehicles or as instruments for exercising rule, this study argues that we should theorize

about them as promising channels for the incorporation into politics of popular groups that have

been formerly at the margins of political life. The effectiveness of internal grassroots

participation has been crucial for the successful incorporation into politics of traditionally

excluded and marginalized social groups, in the Bolivian case indigenous and peasant groups,

which “boosted [their] political participation and satisfaction with democracy” (Weyland et al.

2010: 142). Looking at the dynamics and dilemmas within movement-based parties in power can

help us gain a better understanding of new patterns of representation and popular incorporation

in post-neoliberal democracies, which occur through more fluid structures than in earlier periods

of social incorporation that Collier and Collier (1991) described for Latin America in the late

1930s and 1940s.

It is through establishing connections with a movement-based party in power that

previously excluded groups in Bolivia have muscled their way into organized politics. Thus,

44
through the prism of the MAS, and of movement-based parties more generally, this study invites

us to rethink issues of incorporation and the mechanisms for the aggregation and representation

of interests, thereby shedding significant light on emerging patterns of articulation of unions, left

parties, and social movements and how these entities relate to the state in contemporary Latin

American democracies. Movement-based parties, particularly when they exercise power, have

the potential to expand the socio-political field and include the interests of excluded strata of

society, thus providing crucial linkages between grassroots movements, state institutions, and

citizens.

Plan of the Study

The rest of the study is organized as follows. Chapter 2 proceeds to portray and analyze

the MAS as a case of a movement-based party in power that has so far defied the trend toward

oligarchization. It provides a history of the evolution of the MAS, from its origins in the coca-

growing areas of the Chapare to its rapid expansion and rise to power. It also specifies the

elements in the MAS’s evolution that created lasting legacies in the life of the party. Chapter 2

discusses how the MAS, an organization that emerged in rural areas and whose core

constituencies shaping its identity are the coca growers in those areas, expanded to Bolivia’s

largest cities and grew exponentially along the way. The story that unfolds is that of a

remarkably hybrid organization that has developed unevenly across constituencies, thereby

facilitating the emergence of accountability structures and constraints on Morales’s authority that

stem from its fluidity and lack of bureaucratization. That story can best be understood by taking

a historical perspective. The chapter ends by discussing the governments of Morales and the

MAS and looking at the internal transformations undergone by the MAS as a governing party.

45
Once in power, it has become increasingly heterogeneous in composition and this has sparked a

series of internal conflicts.

The argument that strong civil societies matter for internal party politics is supported in

Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 3 presents evidence from candidate selection for both national and

local office within the MAS. It demonstrates that in districts where civil society is strongly

organized and united in support of the party, civil society can play an important role in resisting

the trend toward oligarchization; where civil society is weak, top-down elite choices are more

likely to prevail. Strong civil societies can also be aligned with an opposition party, however, or

they can be aligned with multiple parties. In both of these cases, elite choices are likely to

prevail.

Chapter 4 demonstrates that civil society strength also affects the degree of power

concentration in the policy-making process. The chapter focuses, first, on the ability of civil

society organizations to set agenda items, priorities, and party action and to use pressure to

ensure the responsiveness of allied parties. It demonstrates that the capacity of allied groups to

wield power in policy-making varies by policy area and is contingent on the relative power of

groups pushing for reform.

Second, the chapter focuses on the veto and counter mobilization power of allied groups,

or their ability to block or modify legislative proposals pushed forcefully by the central

leadership. It is in this area that oligarchic decision-making is most constrained in the case of the

Bolivian MAS. Allied groups can place limits on the authority of the party leadership and keep

the party internally responsive to particular societal demands, thereby wielding control over

party decision-making. The main story that emerges is that of policy-making under Bolivia’s

MAS as a highly reactive process – a contentious bargaining game between the party in power

46
and allied social movements. That story’s most prominent aspects are well explained by looking

at the strength and mobilization power of civil society actors. Not every group has the same

capacity to pressure the governing party from below and block or modify policy proposals.

Success is contingent on the breadth of the veto coalition that mobilized groups manage to

configure.

Chapter 5 reflects back upon the theoretical issues raised in this study and places the

study of the MAS in comparative and theoretical perspective. The chapter supports the

explanatory power of the historical and structural explanations developed in the present study. It

develops a systematic comparative analysis of the organizational trajectories of the Brazilian PT

and the Uruguayan FA. Both parties emerged out of social movements and are currently in

power at the national level, and yet they followed strikingly different paths.69 While the PT in

power appears to have experienced a Michelsian shift in its character, the MAS and the FA have

remained more open and internally responsive to the grassroots, although in very different ways.

Comparative evidence allows for identifying the roots of this variation. In reflecting on the

similarities and differences between the MAS, the PT, and the FA, the key explanatory factors

helping prevent or consolidate the triumph of oligarchy are to be found in organizational

elements and practices traceable to the parties’ origins and their experience prior to coming to

power at the national level, as well as in structural elements associated with the strength of civil

society.

Chapter 6 concludes this study. It begins by providing a summary and by discussing the

significance of the findings. It then offers additional thoughts on the implications of my theory

69
Like the MAS, both parties were also reelected to presidential terms in 2014.

47
and lays out directions for future research on movement-based parties and for the larger issue of

political inclusion of popular groups in post-adjustment societies.

48
 CHAPTER 2: ORIGINS AND ASCENDANCE TO POWER OF A MOVEMENT-BASED
PARTY

Parties are heavily affected by their origins and early development. Organizational

strategies adopted during the formative phase of a party leave indelible marks on its life, as they

condense early power struggles and lock in the development of the organization in a path-

dependent process. Panebianco describes this in his “genetic model” of party development,

saying:

[A party’s] organizational characteristics depend more upon its history, i.e. on how the

organization originated and how it consolidated, than upon any other factor. The

characteristics of a party’s origins are in fact capable of exerting a weight on its

organizational structure even decades later. Every organization bears the mark of its

formation, of the crucial political-administrative decisions made by its founders, the

decisions that “molded” the organization (1988: 50).

This model is rather deterministic. It posits that almost every aspect of a contemporary party

organization can be traced to “the crucial political choices made by its founding fathers, the first

struggles for organizational control, and the way in which the party was formed” (Panebianco

1988: xiii). Yet, despite Panebianco’s determinism, his analysis is useful here because it brings

to the fore the dimension of “organizational power,” which consists of “explaining the

functioning and activities of organizations above all in terms of alliances and struggles for power

amongst the different actors that comprise them” (Panebianco 1988: xii). His insight, in short,

serves as a starting point for the analysis that follows.

49
 This chapter traces the roots and access to power of the MAS in order to elucidate its

organizational dynamics and party-building strategy. Originating in Bolivia’s Chapare region in

the mid-1990s, it expanded to Bolivia’s largest cities and became the country’s largest party in

less than a decade, as its leader, Evo Morales, was elected to the presidency in 2005 and then

reelected in 2009. The coca growers who formed the MAS still conceive of it as the “political

instrument” of the oppressed.70 As such, the party’s genesis as a political organization was from

the bottom up, making the MAS an example of a movement-based party. These parties are

hybrid organizations: they engage in electoral politics and compete for office, and at the same

time they engage in noninstitutional, contentious bargaining in the pursuit of programmatic

goals. As Roberts (1998: 75) notes, the boundaries that separate the party and the movement are

deliberately blurred.

The MAS has followed this development model. A sponsoring group, namely a rural

social movement of cocaleros, generated its own political leadership, formed a political vehicle

to compete in elections, and maintained some degree of autonomy and leadership accountability

(Van Cott 2005). That the MAS represents an indigenous constituency—and particularly that it

grew directly out of the autonomous social mobilization of these constituencies—makes it a

different case from other movement-based parties in the region and beyond. To state that the

MAS represents indigenous constituencies is not to say that it is an “indigenous” party, however.

Instead, we can conceive of the MAS as a party that presents itself using an ethnic discourse but

70
The “political instrument” was founded on the idea of “self-representation” of the masses (see García
Linera, León, and Monje 2004). Political leaders of the MAS’ organizational core reject the “party”
designation because they associate parties with institutions that divide rather than unite popular forces.
Leaders stress that they are spokespeople, or messengers, for their constituencies, as opposed to their
representatives. That they do not intend to build a conventional party has much to do with this. Based on
the idea of “self-representation” of the masses underpinning the MAS, the political core of the MAS has
privileged the sustaining of political mobilization in relation to the institutionalization of the movement as
a party.

50
tries to appeal to a wider constituency by blending class and ethnic elements in a manner that

tolerates ethnic diversity.

The genesis of the MAS in Bolivia’s cocalero movement has been the subject of attention

in both the scholarly and nonscholarly literature (e.g. Van Cott 2005; Stefanoni and Do Alto

2006; Komadina and Geffroy 2007; Escóbar 2008). Existing studies of the MAS’s dramatic

ascent to power have focused on the “populist” leadership of Evo Morales and how he was able

to woo indigenous and nonindigenous voters, who were disenchanted with the traditional

political parties and the neoliberal policies these parties had implemented. Madrid (2012) has

described Morales and the MAS’s tactics as an example of “ethnopopulism,” meaning that the

movement relied on generic “indigenous” issues devoid of particular cultural referents to provide

the basis for the construction of a polyclass coalition around a charismatic leader (Albro 2005a;

Harten 2011). Yet, despite all the attention paid to Morales’s leadership and his alleged

“populist” strategies, much less attention has been paid to the movement at an organizational

level. More specifically, the literature has largely overlooked how the MAS’s growing electoral

success has been contingent on the construction of an unusually strong rural-urban coalition that

was built on the basis of different linkages between the MAS and organized constituencies in

urban and rural areas. Maps 2.1 through 2.8 highlight this point; they show that the MAS grew

electorally from a very geographically concentrated constituency in rural areas to the national

51
level, and that it did so in a very fast manner.71 This chapter addresses this angle of the MAS’s

rise to power.

71
These maps were built using ArcGIS 10.2 Mapping Software. They use municipal level data for both
presidential elections and municipal elections between 1995 and 2010 (the period of time that the MAS
has engaged in elections). The data were broken down by urban and rural municipalities. 13
municipalities were coded as urban. These include the capitals of Bolivia’s 9 departments, in addition to
El Alto and every other city with a population over 100,000. The remaining municipalities were coded as
rural.

52
Map 2.1. 1997 Presidential Election IU Vote (Rural and Urban)

53
Map 2.2. 2002 Presidential Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban)

54
Map 2.3. 2005 Presidential Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban)

55
Map 2.4. 2009 Presidential Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban)

56
Map 2.5. 1995 Municipal Election IU Vote (Rural and Urban)

57
Map 2.6. 1999 Municipal Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban)

58
Map 2.7. 2004 Municipal Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban)

59
Map 2.8. 2010 Municipal Election MAS Vote (Rural and Urban)

60
 Edward Gibson’s approach to conservative party electoral coalition building helps

articulate the claims advanced in this chapter.72 Gibson (1996: 7) argues that, in order to persist

over time, conservative parties in Latin America tend to rely on two distinctive constituencies: a

“core” constituency and a “noncore” constituency. Although the core constituency provides

financial resources, policy-making support, and guidance, it is generally incapable of making the

party a viable electoral force, let alone an electoral winner. In order to expand their electoral

base, parties make inroads into noncore constituencies. The strategy for reaching these

constituencies generally de-emphasizes ideology and is less programmatically oriented than the

one directed at core groups. As a result, the noncore constituency consists of a less ideologically

committed coalition designed to provide enough votes to guarantee the viability of the party;

and, as such, it is usually less stable than the core constituency. Similarly, in an adaptation of this

argument designed to assess the historical development and functioning of (populist) governing

parties in Latin America, Gibson (1997) identifies that these core and noncore constituencies

typically can be thought of as encompassing two coalitions, a “central” coalition and a

“peripheral” coalition. This chapter uses the terms core and central (and noncore and periphery)

interchangeably.

Following Gibson, this chapter argues that the MAS can be described as having two

distinctive social coalitions. The central coalition is highly targeted. It is based on Bolivia’s rural

sector and consists of the cocaleros in the Chapare, as well as three national-level peasant

organizations, which conceive of the MAS as their “political instrument” (interviews with

Condori, Felipa Huanca, Román Loayza, Dionicio Núñez, Rodolfo Machaca, Segundina

72
Although his study focuses on parties on the right, the conceptual distinction between core and noncore
constituencies is amenable to the study of parties on the left. For empirical examples that support this
claim, see Luna (2014).

61
Orellana, Concepción Ortiz, Juan de la Cruz Villca, and Leonilda Zurita).73 These social

organizations distrust political parties and think of them as obsolete types of organizations that

can slow down social and political change. In this segment of its central coalition, the MAS is

organized from the bottom-up and relies on the collective, assemblylike (asambleísta) style of

decision-making utilized in Bolivia’s social movements. The peripheral coalition, in turn, relies

on a broader set of urban popular organizations and voters in Bolivia’s largest cities, where

neighborhood associations, trade unions, and other forms of local collective organization play a

key articulatory role. The electoral strategy used to attract these peripheral constituencies has

combined attempts to co-opt organized popular sectors with the pursuit of alliances with

established center-left parties in hopes of reaching middle class segments.

In this regard, the MAS provides a clear example of a party that relies on a segmented

linkage strategy to mobilize different constituencies (Luna 2014: 315-19). The different electoral

strategies pursued by the MAS to reach core and noncore constituencies are, in turn, associated

with different organizational strategies. On the one hand, the MAS’s rural roots reflect patterns

of bottom-up organization and organic movement-party linkages, a pattern that has facilitated a

grassroots control over the leadership and is closely associated with the “movement” origins of

the MAS.74 On the other hand, the party’s dramatic extension into urban areas—and the

73
These organizations are the so-called trillizas (the triplets), which include the Unique Confederation of
Rural Laborers of Bolivia (Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia,
CSUTCB); the Syndicalist Confederation of Intercultural Communities of Bolivia (Confederación
Sindical de Comunidades Interculturales de Bolivia, CSCIB); and the Bartolina Sisa National
Confederation of Campesino, Indigenous, and Native Women of Bolivia (Confederación Nacional de
Mujeres Campesinas Indígenas Originarias de Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa,” CNMCIOB-BS).
74
Unlike other parties that emerged from social movements (such as the Brazilian PT), which
consolidated a relatively autonomous and institutionalized bureaucratic structure, the MAS emerged as an
extension of an indigenous social movement. During its initial stages, there was no clear distinction
between the movement and the party “apparatus.” As one of the MAS’s founding members, Dionicio
Núñez, commented in an interview, in this segment “the political structure is married to the social

62
evolution of the party “apparatus” in government, which facilitated access to state and patronage

resources—has fostered the emergence of top-down mobilization strategies and co-optative

practices reminiscent of earlier experiences with populism and neopopulism in those areas.

This chapter thus stresses the hybrid nature of the MAS organization. It argues that the

MAS operates through a hybrid model that functions on the basis of a combination of

autonomous mobilization from below with a top-down strategy of co-optation by a charismatic

leader. Both linkage strategies, which reflect the party’s “movement” origins and its logic of

electoral growth, have allowed the MAS to reach core and noncore constituencies, and thus craft

a multiclass social base. Harmonizing these hybrid linkage appeals has not been an easy task,

however, especially in the period since the MAS assumed governmental power. Although the

MAS has maintained a degree of accountability to the social movements that brought Morales to

power, the centralization of power in the hands of the president and the gradual suppression of

participatory spaces within the party “apparatus” in government (e.g. Madrid 2012: 163) may

indicate potential weaknesses in this regard. This situation has led to conflicts between organized

popular constituencies and the MAS. Since taking office, the MAS has confronted difficulties in

managing tensions within its increasingly heterogeneous governing coalition, particularly over

the control of natural resources and over aspects of policy, and it has faced growing levels of

discontent in its core constituency and its noncore allies, including middle class segments and

indigenous organizations (Anria and Cyr 2015). This chapter provides examples that illustrate

such tensions.

structure as a result of those early decisions,” and because of that it may be “hard to visualize a divorce
between the social movement and the political instrument” (interview with Dionicio Núñez).

63
Factors Contributing to the Formation and Ascendance to Power of the MAS

The emergence and rise of the MAS as a “political instrument” was influenced by at least

four elements that interacted in quite unpredictable ways. One was the implementation and

subsequent crisis of neoliberalism, which created economic losers that would then resist

neoliberal policies. The second factor was the firm resistance to coca eradication programs and

the state repression associated with such programs, which acted as a unifying force and

strengthened peasant and indigenous movements around the defense of their interests. A third

factor was a permissive institutional environment associated with changes in electoral legislation

and the territorial configuration of the country, which provided opportunities for indigenous

social movements and new parties to compete and thrive in local elections. Fourth was a crisis of

Bolivia’s political party system and state institutions that became acute in the context of mass

protests in the early 2000s.

Bolivia implemented draconian neoliberal reforms during the period 1985–2005, and the

consequences of these reforms profoundly shaped the rise of the MAS.75 Central to these policies

was the closure of state-owned and -operated tin mines, which were no longer profitable by the

mid-1980s. This meant that thousands of miners were forced to “relocate” to other sectors of the

economy (Gill 2000). Some of these workers, who were the vanguard and most combative

sectors of the Bolivian proletariat, left the mining camps and moved to cities like El Alto (Lazar

2008), which could not absorb this labor force. Hence, this situation accelerated the growth of

the informal, predominantly artisan economy. Others moved to the coca-producing regions of the

Chapare, where they began to produce coca and organize with the cocaleros. Relocated workers

75
For a review of the neoliberal period in Bolivia, see Kohl and Farthing (2006).

64
brought with them a Trotskyist union-organizing background and a history of militant struggle

and solidarity, which would influence the discourse of the coca growers by introducing elements

of Marxism and nationalism (Stefanoni 2003; Stefanoni and Do Alto 2006; Guillermoprieto

2006; Escóbar 2008). Still, it is worth noting that while relocated miners played an important

role in organizing the coca growers around the idea of forming their own party, the coca grower

movement preceded these mid-1980s developments.

A second important contributing factor involved the position of cocaleros in relation to

coca eradication policies. As Postero (2010: 22) notes, cocaleros “came of age in a low-intensity

war on drugs led by the U.S Drug Enforcement Agency.” Indeed, it was due to Bolivian Law

1008, which framed the U.S.-sponsored drug war, that such groups were able to gain strength

and self-confidence (interviews with Modesto Condori, Filemón Escóbar, and Dionicio Núñez).

The promulgation of this law was followed by state repression and conflicts in which many

cocaleros died. But state repression worked as a catalyst for the cocalero unions, prompting their

participation in the formal political system by constituting a relatively united political front with

other peasant and indigenous organizations (Albro 2005b). In this context, the leaders of the

cocalero movement hatched the idea of building a “political instrument” through which

cocaleros could challenge U.S. imperialism and neoliberal economic policies, both in the halls of

Congress and on the streets (interviews with Condori, Escóbar, Loayza, and Villca; see also

Escóbar 2008; and Hylton and Thomson 2007: 171).

However, the fact that the MAS emerged so powerfully and that it became a national-

level actor so rapidly had much to do with the circumstances of cocaleros in relation to the

national political scene. A permissive institutional environment opened channels of participation

for popular movements in local elections (Van Cott 2003; 2005). The Bolivian institutional

65
environment changed profoundly in the early 1990s, thanks to the 1994 Popular Participation

Law and the 1995 Law of Administrative Decentralization, both of which were passed under the

government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (1993-1997). Taken together, these laws involved

the creation of more than three hundred municipalities throughout the national territory and

instituted direct municipal elections for mayoral and council member positions. In addition,

Bolivia’s constitutional reform under Sánchez de Lozada’s administration introduced single

member districts to one tier of the lower chamber in Congress, creating the so-called

“uninominal” representatives (see Chapter 3). As the Bolivian political scientist Moira Zuazo

(Zuazo 2008; interview with Moira Zuazo) notes, all of these institutional changes unleashed a

process of “ruralizing” politics, meaning that the reforms recognized rural and indigenous

communities as actors in municipal level decisions and expanded citizenship rights to indigenous

peoples; one example of this is that the government began recognizing collective titling for

indigenous territories (Postero 2007: 5–6). Indigenous movements formed their own political

vehicles and, taking advantage of the new opportunity structures, engaged in electoral politics at

the local level, which resulted in rapid gains in access to local offices (Collins 2006; Van Cott

2005, 2008; Albó 2008). Undoubtedly, the most successful of these newly created parties was

the MAS.76

At first, the MAS took form as the Assembly for the Sovereignty of the People (ASP),

which was a social movement organization of peasants and coca growers led by Quechua peasant

leader Alejo Véliz (Burgoa and Condori 2011: 20). ASP never ran for office, but the movement

backed the United Left (IU), which was a declining left party, in the municipal elections of 1995

76
Other indigenous parties include the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement (MIP), headed by Felipe Quispe,
and the Revolutionary Liberation Movement Tupaq Katari (MRTKL), headed by Genaro Flores. These
did not become as electorally successful as the MAS (Madrid 2012: 35–73).

66
and the national elections of 1997. Cocaleros in Cochabamba provided an important flow of

votes, helping the IU gain ten municipal governments in 1995 and four congressional seats to

represent the Chapare region.77 The ASP then formed the Political Instrument for the

Sovereignty of the Peoples (IPSP), which was based on the idea of the “self-representation” and

became the electoral arm of that movement (Burgoa and Condori 2011: 40; García Linera, León,

and Monje 2004). For legal reasons, IPSP, under the leadership of Morales, then borrowed the

acronym and legal registration of a nearly defunct party, the MAS-U, which was a left splinter of

the Bolivian Socialist Falange party, and a member of the IU (interviews with Alejandro

Almaraz, Modesto Condori, Filemón Escóbar, Sergio Loayza, Isabel Ortega, and Juan de la Cruz

Villca).78 This allowed the IPSP to participate in the 1999 municipal elections.

From the beginning, the MAS engaged in electoral politics, and its leaders conceived of it

more as a “political instrument” of the social movements than as a traditional political party. Its

first electoral experience as the MAS was in the municipal elections of 1999, in which it

obtained 3.3 percent of the national vote, and it was in Cochabamba, specifically in the coca-

growing Chapare, where it obtained the most votes (Rojas Ortuste 2000; Ballivián 2003). These

early electoral results helped to consolidate the cocaleros in the Chapare as the leading faction of

Bolivia’s peasant movement, and they also consolidated the leadership of Evo Morales in

77
Evo Morales, Román Loayza, Néstor Guzmán, and Félix Sánchez became uninominal deputies for the
Chapare and fought neoliberalism from the halls of Congress. Evo Morales received 70 percent of the
vote in his district. As Madrid (2012: 48) notes, however, “outside of Cochabamba, the party fared
poorly, winning only 1.2 percent of the total vote.”
78
David Añez Pedraza, who was the former president of the MAS, gave the acronym to Evo Morales and
the coca growers. This explains why in the party statute Mr. Pedraza is formally recognized as life and
honorific president of the MAS (interviews with Juan de la Cruz Villca, Modesto Condori, and Carlos
Burgoa). The letter “U” (an homage to Óscar Únzaga de la Vega, a historic anticommunist leader of the
MAS) was eliminated at a party congress in 2001, once Morales and the coca growers were in control of
the party (Burgoa and Condori 2011: 70). That party congress also formalized the name of the party as
MAS-IPSP. It will be referred to here simply as “the MAS,” however.

67
relation to other peasant leaders such as Alejo Véliz and Felipe Quispe (Zuazo 2008: 29-30).

Having established an anchor in the Chapare—and having decided to pursue an electoral path to

be elected to the government at the national level—the challenge for the MAS was to nationalize

its appeal by winning as many votes as possible.

The cycle of mass protests that started in 2000 with the Water War accelerated this

process of organizational growth. Indeed, the MAS used this context to its advantage and

adopted a “supraclass strategy” of electoral recruitment (Przeworski and Sprague 1986: 70).79

Anthropologist Robert Albro (2005a) has described this period in terms of a “plural popular”

strategy of coalition building, in which indigenous issues became the framing plank for

successful political articulation.

Expanding the electoral base, however, was anything but a straight line. Strategically, the

MAS sought to include left-leaning and nationalist intellectuals, as well as the urban indigenous

and nonindigenous middle classes, for example, by naming José Antonio Quiroga and Antonio

Peredo as vice presidential candidates in 2002 (interviews with Filemón Escóbar, Antonio

Peredo, and José Antonio Quiroga; also see Escóbar 2008).80 But expansion via electoral

mobilization and territorial penetration were not the only component of its repertoire. Indeed, the

dynamics of social mobilization in the streets proved to be central, as they allowed the MAS to

forge a strikingly heterogeneous coalition of disenchanted voters that would challenge the

established political class and the unpopular market reforms they had implemented. Although the

79
This vote-maximizing strategy entails turning to groups other than the core constituencies of a party in
order to gain the support necessary for electoral majorities. Party leaders are generally willing to pursue
this kind of strategy once they know they enjoy sufficient support among their core constituencies.
80
Quiroga was invited to run as Morales’s vice presidential candidate but declined the offer, asserting
personal reasons (interview with José Antonio Quiroga). Morales then selected Antonio Peredo, a
renowned journalist and teacher associated with the Bolivian Communist Party (PCB), and Peredo
accepted the candidacy (interview with Antonio Peredo).

68
MAS did not win the presidency in the 2002 elections, it placed 27 of 130 deputies in the lower

chamber and 8 of 27 seats in the Senate and thus accrued significant institutional positions.81

Appealing to the middle sectors to generate votes involved a set of tradeoffs, as the

recruitment of new allies generated ideological and organizational transformations of the

“political instrument.” One example of such tradeoffs was related to the dynamics of the newly

elected parliamentary group. While some of these new parliamentary deputies were

representatives from the Chapare and had been selected by grassroots organizations through

mechanisms of direct participation (on these, see Chapter 3), others were directly “invited” by

the leadership, had no history of militancy in the MAS, and had few checks from below. Because

they lacked a common socialization inside the party, when these representatives initiated their

work in Congress, they “didn’t even know each other; we met for the first time in the hallways of

Congress” (interview with César Navarro). Many of the “invited” leaders quickly became visible

spokespeople for the MAS, as some had already had parliamentary experience, they related to

the media very effectively, and they knew how to operate within representative institutions. In

contrast, those with little political experience perceived the emergence of unwanted power

imbalances between old and new members and feared an internal power switch from the social

organizations to a group of potentially unaccountable representatives (for a parallel argument,

see Madrid 2012: 60). Ultimately, these tradeoffs elicited derision from leaders of its founding

81
Three days before the 2002 election, U.S. ambassador Manuel Rocha warned Bolivians about the risks
of voting for a candidate associated with coca growing activities. Together with Morales’s expulsion from
Congress months earlier, Rocha’s statement appears to have contributed to the increase of support for
Morales. Inspired by Juan Peron’s electoral campaign in 1945, who campaigned with the slogan “Braden
or Perón” (Spruille Braden was then the U.S. ambassador to Buenos Aires), campaign advisors of the
MAS used Rocha’s words to inflame feelings of nationalism and anti-Americanism, and this boosted the
support for the MAS. Voters rejected the US intervention in domestic politics and in the campaign, and
many who were likely to vote for Reyes Villa or Jaime Paz Zamora decided to vote for the MAS as a sign
of protest to the U.S. Embassy (interview with Marcelo Quezada).

69
organizations and core constituency (interviews with Filemón Escóbar, Román Loayza, Sergio

Loayza, Dionicio Núñez, Juan de la Cruz Villca, and Leonilda Zurita).82

The mass mobilizations that started in 2000, which contributed to the organizational

growth of the MAS, continued in 2003 with the first Gas War, leading to Sánchez de Lozada’s

resignation. They continued with the 2005 May–June protests, which forced both the resignation

of de Lozada’s successor, Carlos Mesa, and the anticipated call for elections. While Morales and

the MAS did not initiate the strikes or participate actively in these protests, they used this

historical moment strategically to expand their following. As Webber (2010) argues, by adopting

the discourse of the most mobilized groups during these popular struggles and incorporating their

demands, Morales and the MAS managed to shift the prevailing balance of social forces to their

advantage and win the presidential elections of 2005. On this occasion, the electoral formula of

Evo Morales and Álvaro García Linera (an Aymara Indian and peasant leader as presidential

candidate and a mestizo middle-class intellectual as vice-presidential candidate) was elected to

the executive in an unprecedented landslide victory (53.7 percent of those who voted). But to

win electoral majorities, the MAS had once again undergone thorough ideological and

organizational adjustments. In addition to having incorporated the demands of mobilized groups

into its discourse, it celebrated pre-electoral alliances with a wide array of urban popular

organizations that would exchange organizational loyalty for more particularistic benefits

(interviews with Alejandro Almaraz, Gustavo Torrico, Iván Iporre, Walter Chávez, and Moira

82
Founding member Román Loayza commented that, “leaders of social organizations that did not
struggle like we did soon became the spokespersons of the MAS, and they tried to use the MAS for their
own interests. We were upset as we watched this happen” (interview with Román Loayza). Antonio
Peredo also commented that whereas on the one hand, “in 2002 the MAS became a national-level force,”
on the other hand the elections signaled “the beginning of the difficulties of structuring the political
instrument” (interview with Antonio Peredo).

70
Zuazo). The relationships between these groups can be described as instrumental. Whereas urban

organizations found in the MAS a vehicle to advance their sectoral interests, the MAS found in

them a possibility to expand its electoral base, especially amongst the urban poor. The linkages

between the MAS and these organizations were never explicitly recognized in party statutes,

however. Overall, these ties remained loosely structured, leading to tensions between the party

and allied social movement after the MAS formed national government.

To summarize, the MAS went through a series of shifts between its founding and its rise

to national-level power: a territorial shift from being a movement anchored in the coca-growing

Chapare to a national movement with rural and urban social bases, as well as a growing presence

in Bolivia’s largest cities such as La Paz and El Alto; a shift in its class make-up from a

movement of coca producers and relocated miners to a catch-all, multiclass movement that

included urban and informal workers as well as middle class individuals, all of whom converged

in their rejection of the political status quo; an ethnic shift from being a largely indigenous

movement to one that incorporated both indigenous and nonindigenous groups; and a shift in

terms of the organizations it comprised, from a small group to an increasingly larger and diverse

group of base and “umbrella” organizations.

It is through this last shift that the MAS inserted itself into the cities of La Paz and El

Alto in the era of mass protests of the early 2000s. Ultimately, these four shifts pushed the MAS

in a more populist direction,83 as it built on top of older political parties’ structures and social

networks and adopted many of these other parties’ practices and participation schemes.

83
For an in-depth discussion, see Anria (2013).

71
The MAS in Two Cities: La Paz and El Alto

The metropolitan area of La Paz and El Alto consists of more than 1.5 million people. La

Paz is Bolivia’s principal city and administrative capital, and, together with El Alto, it comprises

the biggest urban area of Bolivia, making both cities decisive players in national politics (Arbona

and Kohl 2004; Albó 2006).

These cities, which were crucial to the organization and success of the protests of 2000–

2005, are often seen as critical to winning national elections and to ensuring governability.

Indeed, they achieved international prominence when their residents took to the streets and

confronted the military forces that occupied those spaces. Urban residents were central to the

various mobilizations that had rendered the country ungovernable for several years, and they

became key actors in the resignations of Sánchez de Lozada in 2003 and Mesa in 2005. Yet

although the MAS penetrated these cities, it did not accompany the process with the

consolidation of a structure that incorporated the interests and leaderships of these urban

populations.

The MAS’s experience in these cities is relatively recent, and it has been influenced by

the protest activities that took place in September and October 2000 in the Department of La Paz.

In September 2000, the conflicts that began in Cochabamba with the Water War spread to the

highlands of La Paz, as Felipe Quispe (“the Mallku”), Aymara peasant leader and later head of

the Unique Confederation of Rural Laborers of Bolivia (CSUTCB), led a series of mobilizations

against the government of General Hugo Banzer. Protesters demanded that the government fulfill

a series of agreements it had concluded with peasant workers (Esposito and Arteaga 2006).

Although Quispe later formed his own party, the MIP, and rejected association with the MAS

(Van Cott 2005), his mobilizations acted as a blow to the “traditional” political parties and

72
facilitated the expansion of the MAS in the city. Disenchanted with the status quo, paceños and

alteños welcomed the MAS as a viable alternative.

But La Paz and El Alto differ in important ways, and these differences have shaped the

ways the MAS as a rural organization adapted to these urban settings. Specifically, they differ in

terms of their ethnic and class composition. Besides being Bolivia’s fastest-growing city (Arbona

and Kohl 2004: 258), El Alto is an urban community made up overwhelmingly of recent Aymara

immigrants (see table 2.1). In contrast, the cocaleros of the Chapare tend to be Quechua and—to

the extent that they are colonos, as many are—they tend to come from the mining communities

of Oruro and Potosí.

Table 2.1. Population of La Paz and El Alto

La Paz El Alto
1992 2001 1992 2001

Population 715,900 793,292 405,492 649,958

297,507 263,783 261,845 424,504
Poverty (41.55) (33.25) (64.57) (65.31)
78,200 74,420 95,529 111,697
Extreme poverty (10.92) (9.38) (23.55) (17.18)

Self-identification with indigenous peoples

Aymara 275,253 291,977
(49.81) (74.25)
Quechua 55,384 25,025
(10.02) (6.36)
Other 3,175 1,399
(0.57) (0.36)
None 214,296 73,556
(38.78) (18.71)

Figures in parentheses denote percentages.

Note: The 1992 census did not include a question asking whether people self-identified as
indigenous. That is why those values are not included on this table.
Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (INE) (2001).

73
 Table 2.1 also reveals El Alto’s strikingly high levels of poverty. By contrast, La Paz is

more of a “middle class” city, with a significantly larger proportion of the population that does

not claim an “indigenous” identity. Still, according to the 2001 census, close to 50 percent of the

population over 15 years of age self-identifies as Aymara, and 10 percent as Quechua. Such

ethnic and class differences between the MAS’s “core constituency” and its constituency in La

Paz and El Alto have made it difficult for the MAS to adapt to these settings, but this is

particularly true of El Alto, which is a highly politicized social space with a strong Aymara

identity (Albó 2006).

74
Table 2.2. Voting in La Paz and El Alto, General Elections, 1989–2009 (percent)

La Paz El Alto
1989 1993 1997 2002 2005 2009 1989 1993 1997 2002 2005 2009
CONDEPA 30.1 27.6 31.5 47.1 47.9 55.1
ADN 27.5 25.8 15.8 14.8
MNR 22.9 15.5 23.4 14.1 6.8 8.7
MIR 12.5 10.5 10.8 16.3 11.2 12.7
MNR-MRTKL 35.7 24.5
AP 16.4 8.3
UCS 9.2 10.8 9.8 8.1
MBL 5.4
NFR 28.5 21.3
MIP 6.8 17.9
LJ 6.3 6.9
MAS 16.2 55.7 63.1 27.9 77.1 87.5
PODEMOS 28.5 13.9
UN 10.1 14.7 6.1

75
PPB-CN 18.6

Notes: Empty cells denote parties that either did not participate in the electoral contest or received less than 5 percent of
the vote. Parties not in the table, if they placed candidates, received less than 5 percent of the vote in the respective
electoral contest.
Source: Organo Plurinacional Electoral
Table 2.3. Voting in La Paz and El Alto, Municipal Elections, 1989–2010 (percent)

La Paz El Alto
1989 1991 1993 1995 1999 2004 2010 1989 1991 1993 1995 1999 2004 2010
MIR-ADN 37.2 11.2
AP 23.9 20.8
UCS 5.4 18.8 3.4 4.8 2.8 10.8 27.1 5.8 10.8 2.8
MIR 4.2 3.3 16.2 6.4 4.6 21.0 45.6 3.7
ADN 5.3 20.2 17.8 1.5 2.9 3.1 4.1
MNR 13.3 23.2 40.0 15.2 16.7 1.7 8.5 9.3 12.8 7.1 6.6
MBL 4.5 5.1 8.3 0.8 3.9 3.4 2.2 3.6
CONDEPA 40.4 27.4 38.1 38.2 5.7 64.8 35.6 61.8 49.2 19.6
IU 2.2 2.2 0.9 2.8 3.4
MAS 0.9 19.9 34.9 2.1 17.1 38.8
MSM 22.5 45.9 48.5 4.0 2.7 24.4
ASP 2.4 2.6

76
UN 12.3 9.7 1.2 30.4
PP 52.6

Notes: Empty cells denote parties that did not present candidates in the respective election. Parties that are not in the
table, if they presented candidates, received less than 5 percent of the vote and are not relevant for the arguments in this
chapter.
Source: Organo Plurinacional Electoral; Fundemos (1998).
 Table 2.2 shows voting trends in both cities in the general elections since 1989, when the

data for municipalities became more reliable. Specifically, it shows that a populist party

(Conscience of the Fatherland, or CONDEPA) dominated the electoral preferences of El Alto

during the 1990s, capturing over 45 percent of the vote in the general elections of 1989, 1993,

and 1997. While CONDEPA was also an important force in La Paz, this city remained more

committed to “traditional” parties (ADN, MIR, and MNR) up until the 2002 election. Table 2.3

provides additional evidence that El Alto was heavily penetrated by CONDEPA during the

1990s, while residents of La Paz remained more committed to “traditional” parties (though with

a gradual shift toward the center-left Movement Without Fear, MSM, starting in 1999). Against

this backdrop, the MAS pursued two divergent strategies to penetrate these cities: whereas in El

Alto it sought to co-opt grassroots organizations by distributing patronage and resources, in La

Paz it sought to boost its support among middle-class voters by pursuing an alliance with the

already established MSM. This was key to moderating the image of the MAS among urban,

middle class voters (Madrid 2012: 59).

At first, residents of La Paz and El Alto resisted the MAS. Due to its origins in coca-

growing regions, they associated the MAS with illicit activities, such as drug dealing, and they

associated MAS operators with drug traffickers (interviews with Bertha Blanco, Elvira Parra,

Martha Poma, and Roberto Rojas).84 On the one hand, this aversion meant that the expansion of

the MAS was possible only once CONDEPA started to lose influence in cities, which allowed

the MAS to directly capitalize on the neopopulist inroads and symbolic and cultural strategies

used by CONDEPA. On the other hand, this process was complicated by the presence of the

84
Bertha Blanco was one of the people who brought the MAS to El Alto. A former member of the
National Federation of Campesina Women of Bolivia-Bartolina Sisa, she was, at the time of the
interview, estranged from the MAS.

77
MSM, which, particularly in La Paz, had been a dominant force since the late 1990s.85 This

pushed MAS leaders to negotiate a strategic alliance with this party. According to Román

Loayza, this was detrimental to the MAS because it forced the MAS to allow MSM members to

run as MAS candidates and to include some MSM figures in important positions within the

public administration (interviews with Román Loayza; also with Manuel Mercado, Sebastián

Michel, and Marcela Revollo).86

Founded in 1988, CONDEPA emerged at the end of the 1980s to represent sectors that

were “affected by adjustment policies and unrepresented by the established parties” (Mayorga

2006: 154). This party was built around the charismatic leadership of Carlos Palenque, and its

political and symbolic practices combined the extensive use of clientelism, paternalism,

plebiscitary appeals to the masses, unmediated relationships with constituents, and a strong anti-

establishment discourse (Madrid 2012: 47; Alenda 2003; Revilla Herrero 2006). Partly because

CONDEPA failed to consolidate a party structure or forge organic linkages with its constituency,

the party practically died along with its founder in 1997. This party’s loss of political power

created opportunities for the MAS, which would build on top of the networks inherited from

older parties and replicate many of its practices in the cities.

In the municipal elections of 2004, which were affected by the contentious events of the

Gas War, the MAS emerged as the most electorally successful party, especially in the western

part of the country.87 As noted, while the MAS was neither a chief instigator nor a key

85
One of its founders, Juan del Granado, served as mayor of La Paz between 2000 and 2010.
86
Loayza was one of the founding members of the MAS and is now a dissident, since he was accused of
betrayal and expelled from the MAS in April 2009.
87
It is worth noting, however, that even though the MAS won almost every municipal government in the
country, it did not win the municipalities of La Paz and El Alto.

78
protagonist of the protests (Lazar 2006), it used the context to its advantage. After Mesa’s

resignation (or fall) in June 2005, some urban forces attempted to configure a “broad front” as a

mechanism to incorporate a coalition of progressive forces into the MAS, both in order to

develop a comprehensive long-term program of government and as a collective effort to

democratize the MAS. The attempts to configure a broad strategic front failed, as the MAS

insisted on the “zero alliances” formula (interviews with Iván Iporre, and José Antonio Quiroga).

That MAS leaders refused to form alliances with political parties had much to do with the idea of

avoiding any kind of association with, first of all, the “traditional” parties, which were seen as

inefficient and corrupt, and, secondly, with the unpopular neoliberal policies these traditional

parties had implemented.88 The anti-alliance position was also seen as an attempt to protect the

MAS’s anti-establishment stance and guarantee the party’s survival.89 But some of these forces,

particularly the center-left Movement Without Fear (MSM), decided to accommodate the MAS

and negotiated an alliance with heavy personalistic components. In particular, the MAS-MSM

alliance was designed to guarantee important spaces of power for MSM candidates (interviews

with Manuel Mercado, Sebastián Michel, and Marcela Revollo). Before the presentation of lists

to the National Electoral Court, then, the MSM placed some of its candidates on the MAS’s lists.

As some of the MSM candidates performed fairly well in the elections, this situation generated

discontent in the masista rank and file, which saw that their possibilities of getting a job in the

88
Neopopulist parties such as Conscience of the Fatherland (CONDEPA) and Civic Solidarity Union
(UCS) joined governments led by “traditional” parties in the 1990s and 2000s. Not only did this
undermine these neopopulist parties’ anti-establishment credentials, but it also contributed to their
collapse.
89
It might be worth noting that individuals such as José Antonio Quiroga, René Joaquino, and Juán del
Granado, among others, had attempted to articulate a similar front in 2002, without success. This previous
proposal was rejected by peasant leaders on the grounds of wanting to avoid any kind of association with
the “traditional” political parties (interview with José Antonio Quiroga).

79
new government were reduced (on this, see Do Alto 2006). It also caused tensions within the

party’s core constituency, particularly with respect to nominations for bureaucratic and

ministerial posts.90

The MAS, therefore, was not an organic product of these cities. Rather, it inserted itself

into La Paz and El Alto as something foreign. As such, it faced obstacles as it sought to organize

a structure of its own on top of political configurations and existing social networks of older

parties, even though parties like CONDEPA had already broken significant popular ground for

the entrance of the MAS. Along with this organizing, the MAS incorporated militants and party

operators from other parties, such as CONDEPA. These incorporations were accompanied by a

transfer of top-down schemes of participation, as well as a set of co-optative practices that are

now characteristic of the MAS in these settings.

Social Organizations and the Party

The Relationship between the MAS’ ‘Apparatus’ in Power, Social Movement Leaders, and
their Bases

This section examines the relationships between the party “apparatus” in power, the

leadership of the social organizations that support it, and the rank and file. It focuses on three

areas of the country—Villa Tunari, La Paz/El Alto, and Santa Cruz—, which represent

distinctive patterns of interaction between those three components.

As has been shown, the MAS emerged from a very specific social constituency, the

cocaleros in the Chapare region of the department of Cochabamba. Together with the country’s

90
In interviews conducted in 2008, a common complaint by peasant leaders was that the grassroots
organizations that had formed the MAS and that had made its rise to power possible had lost influence in
the nomination of candidates for key positions within the government, particularly in relation to new
members that joined during the campaign (interview with Román Loayza, and Orlando “Tito” Guzmán).

80
main peasant organizations, they still conceive of the MAS as their “political instrument” under

their control, and they view the MAS government as their government. That the MAS was

formed in the Chapare meant that it was infused with the democratic principles and collective

decision-making traditions found in the unions, which provide a framework for decision-making

embedded in a “culture of delegation and accountability” (Crabtree 2013: 284). In that region of

the country, moreover, the MAS as a party does not appear to have an independent role vis-à-vis

the coca growing unions, and indeed, the two can be seen as fused.91 As some have argued,

cocaleros view the MAS more as an extension of the union than as a classic party (Grisaffi 2013:

49). The boundaries between the two are notoriously blurred.

The dynamics between the coca growing unions, the MAS, and the municipal

government can help to illustrate this point. In Villa Tunari, which is the largest municipality in

the Chapare, candidates for local office running with the MAS ticket are almost always drawn

from the coca growing unions (on this, see Chapter 4), and the relationships between elected

officials and union leaders (dirigentes) are close and constant. As the mayor of Villa Tunari,

Feliciano Mamani, commented in an interview: “there is a kind of overlap between social

organizations and municipal authorities. We are constantly talking, either in person or by phone,

and when we have acts of inauguration, sports events, and meetings, for example, they [the

dirigentes] are there first” (interview with Feliciano Mamani).92 The candidates are generally

males and females with considerable leadership experience within the union structure (interviews

91
Indicative of this, in Villa Tunari, the site of my fieldwork, there were no party offices for the MAS. As
Grisaffi (2013: 56) notes, “there is a total overlap between membership of the Union and membership of
the MAS party.” The hegemony of cocaleros in Villa Tunari creates exclusions, however. It marginalizes
people who are not affiliated with the unions from the political process and limits their access to
resources.
92
I attended several meetings where municipal authorities and dirigentes shared the credit for the delivery
of public works. Usually, the dirigentes have the last word in these events.

81
with Emiliana Albarracín, Erasmo Espinoza, Ricardo Henríquez, Segundina Orellana, Julio

Salazar Edgar Torres; also with Fernando Salazar, Eduardo Córdova Eguivar, and Jean-Paul

Benavides). Once in office, elected officials are expected to execute decisions made by the

unions (interviews with Omar Claros and Segundina Orellana), to “work together in the

development of the municipal development plan” (interview with Asterio Romero), and to

“participate actively in the ‘organic life’ (la parte orgánica) of the union” (interview with

Feliciano Mamani). In Villa Tunari, the headquarters of the largest and most militant of the coca

growers’ unions, the Special Federation of Peasant Workers of the Tropics of Cochabamba

(Federación Especial de Trabajadores Campesinos del Trópico de Cochabamba, FETCT),

serves as a meeting place for dirigentes, affiliates, and elected officials. Union affiliates thus

maintain close links with both their dirigentes and their elected officials,93 and they have the

power to hold these delegates accountable to the rank and file. This community-led control

scheme, known as “social control,” happens on a regular and face-to-face basis, occasionally

forcing dirigentes and elected officials to resign before the end of their term. The argument is

that “if the unions nominate authorities and put them in positions of authority, the unions can

also remove those authorities from power” (interview with Jean-Paul Benavides).94

As Grisaffi (2013: 57) notes, because the MAS emerged infused with these community

based forms of governance, it came as no surprise that “when Morales won the 2005 election, the

93
The mayor of Villa Tunari was present in all of the meetings I attended at the FETCT, for example.
94
These relationships can be highly contentious. While mayors may not enjoy full autonomy vis-s-vis the
social movement bases (Van Cott 2008: 184), over time they tend to develop their own interests, and they
are also constrained by legal structures, which may not allow them to follow through on the demands set
by the rank and file. The highest-level female authority within the union structure, Segundina Orallana,
commented: “there are norms in the municipality that mayors have to follow, [and therefore] we cannot
impose [these norms] 100 percent of the time” (interview with Segundina Orellana). Conflicts between
dirigentes and the rank and file arise if the former are seen as “protecting” the mayor and not respecting
the decisions forged in the unions. This usually leads to divisions within the unions.

82
coca growers imagined that the national government would function in a similar way to local

government, in other words, the cocaleros thought of the government officials as nothing more

than spokespeople for decisions forged at their [the cocaleros’s] union meetings.” But governing

a country involves responding to wider domestic and international pressures, so it is unsurprising

to find some mismatch between expectations and actual practices.

Of all the grassroots actors that brought Morales to power, he has maintained strongest

links to the cocaleros in the Chapare. Indeed, he has continued to be the president of the Six

Federations of the Tropics of Cochabamba, which is the overarching union of coca growers. He

travels there frequently to participate in their ampliados and other types of meetings, which serve

to reaffirm his leadership and to collect valuable information from the rank and file. In my

observations during these meetings, he usually begins by telling dirigentes and the rank and file

that he is there “to listen to them,” to “inform them about things we are doing in the

government,” and “to ask you [affiliates] and your leaders to come up with proposals.” However,

when dirigentes talk in these forums, it is rather common to hear complaints about problems of

coordination between the grassroots and the party in government. A union leader of Chimoré

told me in an interview: “never ever did we have the opportunity to tell authorities to their faces

what our problems and demands are. I thank the president for that, for always coming here to

talk to the rank and file. But the representatives and the ministers usually do not come.”

These kinds of complaints capture some of the tensions that exist between the bottom-up

politics and collective decision-making that characterize union politics, on the one hand, and the

top-down logics of governing a country, on the other. Sometimes decisions coming from the top

can create tensions among the rank and file, in particular when these average citizens do not feel

that their dirigentes are putting sufficient pressure on higher-level authorities or are not carrying

83
out the decisions made in the unions. However, Morales still commands overwhelming authority

among the rank and file in the Chapare, and both he and the MAS enjoy strikingly high levels of

support in that region of the country (in the 2009 presidential election the MAS received 96.34

percent of the vote, and in the 2010 municipal election it received 100 percent of the vote).

Dirigentes play a key role shielding Morales from grassroots criticism, which helps to strengthen

his leadership. When unpopular policies that affect the rank and file come from the top, for

example, dirigentes usually blame ministers and representatives for what are seen as mistakes

made by the government but induced by Morales’s alleged disloyal aides.95 Examples of these

policies include the Gasolinazo of 2010 (on this, see Chapter 4), and, paradoxically, Morales’s

coca policy, which is seen by the base as a step in the right direction, but also as an imposition

from the top (Grisaffi 2013: 60).96 In both cases, the dirigentes could not generate full

compliance with the policies and encountered popular resistance.

Despite these tensions, the MAS maintains strong organic links to its core constituency.

While the dirigentes generally align with Morales and “protect” his government and his

leadership, they do not command full control over the rank and file, and thus cannot always

generate compliance of their base with governmental policies. As such, there is neither

95
When asked about the increment of fuel prices in 2010 (an event known as the Gasolinazo), Segundina
Orellana commented: “the ministers made a mistake, they fooled the president” (interview with
Segundina Orellana). Usually, the assumption is that ministers, especially those who do not come from
the ranks of a trusted social organization, are not fully committed to the MAS’s project and are instead
driven by personal motivations.
96
The policy eliminates forced eradication of coca crops but sets a restriction (1 cato, or 50,000 acres) on
the amount of coca that farmers can legally grow. It also replaces the old regime of police and military
repression for a community-led form of “social control” (Farthing and Kohl 2010: 205). Although the
policy was designed with the participation and input of the unions, many coca farmers believe that the
ceiling of permitted coca growth was arrived at arbitrarily, and they complain that it is too low and does
not allow them to guarantee their survival. In the meetings I observed, where the issue of coca production
is a major topic of discussion, Morales also recurrently complained that, “there are several of you [union
affiliates] that do not want to comply with the 1-cato ceiling.”

84
government co-optation of its core constituency nor full grassroots autonomy, but rather

permanent interactions and degrees of cooperation between the two. There are also strong

pressures from below to keep the leadership accountable to the rank and file, a pattern that is

closely associated with the “movement” origins of the MAS and with the legacies of social

mobilization that forged the organization at its inception. These links and interactions are

different in other areas of the country, however, which the MAS penetrated in later stages of its

development by using different strategies. The examples below illustrate two distinctive

alternative patterns.

As was noted in the previous section, penetrating the cities of La Paz and El Alto was

crucial to the MAS’s ability to win electoral majorities and become a national-level actor. There,

the MAS came in as an outsider party and expanded in two ways: first, by building a territorial

party infrastructure, and second, by configuring a network of alliances with urban popular

organizations (see Anria 2009; also 2013). Although the MAS had been inching along with the

latter path to expansion since 2002, its strategic alliance did not truly materialize until the 2005

general election campaign. Organizations representing groups as diverse as artisans,

microenterprises, pensioners, transportation, street vendors, miners working for cooperatives,

and other forms of local organization, such as neighborhood associations (juntas de vecinos),

perceived the alliance with the MAS as a unique opportunity to achieve parliamentary

representation, occupy important positions in the government, and gain access to government

jobs for their affiliates. For the MAS’s part, by forging links to groups with great mobilizational

capacity, the party dramatically expanded its support base and thereby its influence. Given that

some of these organizations had been key protagonists in the protests that forced the resignation

85
of two consecutive presidents, forging alliances with them was also seen as a way to ensure some

degree of governability.

As anthropologist Sian Lazar (2008: 52–55) notes, El Alto is a highly mobilized and self-

organized political space. The main civic organizations at the city level are the Federation of

Neighborhood Boards (FEJUVE) and the Regional Labor Federation (COR).97 These

organizations are critical for ensuring governability in the city and gaining electoral majorities at

the national level (García Linera, León, and Monje 2004; see also Alenda 2003). As a result,

party operators have historically attempted to infiltrate these organizations and control their

leadership, and the MAS is no exception. Indeed, operators believe that infiltrating the leadership

levels of these militant organizations allows the MAS to extend its influence and control

throughout the territory and to recruit leaders who mobilize large numbers of voters.

While, in accordance with their statutes, these organizations do not have formal ties to

political parties, the MAS has configured an umbrella of informal alliances with key dirigentes

through which it has sought to insert itself into the cities to build a political base and acquire

political influence. Trying to win over these organizations, masista operators have frequently

used top-down co-optive practices (interview with Abel Mamani). These have consisted, for

example, of offering positions in the government in exchange for organizational loyalty (or what

in Bolivian parlance is known as pegas), providing services or infrastructure to particular

organizations, and infiltrating the ranks of organizations to directly control their leadership. From

the beginning, this approach was not aimed at building organic ties with these organizations.

97
The FEJUVE is a coordinator of residents, as well as neighborhood councils and associations, in El
Alto. The COR is an umbrella organization of workers, which includes factory workers, teachers,
journalists, and artisans but is dominated by street traders. A third organization, the Federation of Street
Traders (“the Federation”), coordinates associations of street traders. Taken together, the three
organizations possess an impressive mobilizational strength in the city.

86
Bertha Blanco, one of the leaders who brought the MAS into El Alto, noted, “When we were

constructing the MAS, we needed to find candidates [to run for office]. We didn’t have

candidates in the city, and nobody wanted to be associated with the MAS. And what did we do?

We went to find persons within the organizations, for example in the COR. And there we talked

directly with the dirigentes” (interview with Bertha Blanco).

What began as a search for candidates quickly turned into a penetration strategy aimed at

eroding the autonomy of social organizations from the top, a pattern that became particularly

clear after the MAS gained governmental power. As a masista representative for a “uninominal”

district in El Alto commented in an interview: “We can’t deny we do that. We aim for our people

to become leaders in these organizations. It is an effort to control the social organizations from

the top” (interview with Miguel Machaca). A masista delegate to the Constituent Assembly

concurred:

The project we have had as MAS is to be able to take control over the social

organizations. In order to do that, you need to start from working at the district level and

from there you can start climbing. For FEJUVE’s next congress, for example, we have

the wish that we’re going to take on FEJUVE’s leadership […] At least, that’s what I can

tell you that we’d like to happen (interview with Elvira Parra).

These testimonies provide evidence for a deliberate plan to win over previously existing

popular organizations at the regional level by penetrating their social networks and seeking to

control them. But it should be noted that this is not something new in Bolivia. Rather, it reflects a

general pattern of how different collective political interests have long contended for control of

umbrella organizations in Bolivia, as the history of the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB) and the

87
CSUTCB demonstrate (García Linera, León, and Monje 2004). In short, the MAS has not

innovated much in terms of its practices for controlling base and umbrella organizations.

This strategy, however, creates a situation in which dirigentes of social organizations

perceive these entities simply as “a trampoline for launching oneself into a public administration

position” (interview with Gerardo Morales). Becoming a dirigente is therefore a rather attractive

role, for it is a path to getting a government job. The case of FEJUVE in El Alto provides a good

example. Abel Mamani, the highest authority of this organization since 2004, was appointed as

the water minister for the Morales government in 2006. His appointment translated into the

direct presence of a FEJUVE representative in a high-level government position and into

government jobs for some of its affiliates. On the one hand, this entailed growing capacities for

the organization to negotiate corporativist demands from within the state. On the other hand, its

presence in the government eroded its autonomy and created strong divisions within the

organization (interview with Abel Mamani). As a high-level dirigente of FEJUVE commented in

an interview:

We have lost considerable capacities for mobilization. Why? Because dirigentes have

occupied ministries and other public offices […] they have received quotas of power. But

the people can see what their real interests are and thus it is difficult to strengthen the

organization (interview with Luis Huanca).

Much of this had to do with the mode of nomination used by Morales to form his cabinet.

Mamani, for example, was appointed directly by Morales, and he accepted the nomination

without having the chance to consult the rank and file, which alienated the lower-level members

from the leadership (interviews with Abel Mamani, Néstor Guillén, and Fanny Nina).

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 In the case of the COR-El Alto, the linkage with the MAS is subtler and less direct. This

organization has supported the government and the process of social transformation sponsored

by the MAS. Unlike FEJUVE, the COR has never been represented directly in the government

apparatus; in other words, the COR has not physically occupied spaces of power under the

Morales government. But party operators and government officials have sought to infiltrate this

organization, and they have established negotiations directly with the leadership, creating

tensions between dirigentes and the rank and file. As Edgar Patana, the former COR executive in

El Alto and El Alto’s current mayor, commented in an interview:

Former executives of COR have always had rapprochements with political parties. Since

2002 they have been courting the MAS so that they could negotiate spaces of power, such

as a candidacy for deputyship or something else. But we have never been ‘organic’

members of the MAS (interview with Edgar Patana).

The MAS became a national-level force only to the extent that it played an articulatory

role among the experiences, demands, and internal structures of various base and “umbrella”

organizations in urban settings. But, of course with exceptions, the strategies for linking these

organizations and the MAS have been driven predominantly by pragmatism and the negotiation

of spaces of power and influence within the government. The MAS came to these cities as an

outsider party and tried to win over existing base organizations. By incorporating or attempting

to co-opt their leadership into the party “apparatus” in government, a strategy facilitated by

having access to state resources and patronage, the MAS has attempted to control these

organizations from above and thus erode their autonomy and independence. Whereas the rural

dynamic that shaped the emergence of the MAS was one of bottom-up mobilization and organic

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party-movement linkages, a pattern that to a certain extent still characterizes the relationships

between the MAS and its core constituency, the strategy for linking to its peripheral

constituencies in the urban areas under study for this chapter is more top-down and co-optative.

Nevertheless, many of these organizations are the bearers of the legacies of social mobilization

that brought down successive governments; even if dirigentes support the government or are

coopted by it, they cannot always secure that their base will be compliant with the government’s

policies.

Yet another pattern worthy of some elaboration here is found in Santa Cruz, which used

to be a bastion of right-wing opposition to the MAS, particularly during Morales’s first term in

office (2006-2009). In that department, the MAS has grown electorally from rural districts—

particularly from areas recipient of collective peasant migration—to urban areas. In rural areas,

the MAS has grown by forging links with peasant organizations and the lowlands’ indigenous

movement, which is organized around the Bloque Oriente (Eastern Block). The MAS has also

built bonds on the basis of programmatic representation, particularly around the issue of land

redistribution (interviews with Justa Cabrera, Lidia Choque, Hugo Salvatierra, and Lázaro

Tacóo).98 NGOs such as ALAS, CEJIS, and CIPCA played a central role in bringing together

peasant and indigenous organizations, providing spaces for articulation, and providing legal

advice and basic infrastructure (i.e. personnel, offices, suggestions for candidates, etc.) for the

party “in times when nobody wanted to be associated in the MAS in Santa Cruz” (interview with

98
Bloque Oriente was an alliance of peasant and indigenous organizations with a presence in the
departments of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, and Pando. Many of my interviewees described it to me as a
regional version of the Unity Pact. Bloque Oriente developed proposals for the Constituent Assembly,
particularly focusing on common demands and proposals related to land.

90
Alejandro Almaraz; also with Lidia Choque, and Hugo Salvatierra).99 The MAS has faced the

strongest resistance in districts where peasant or indigenous organizations are not well organized

and where the political right is established and in control of well-functioning clientelistic

networks (interview with Lidia Choque).

In the city of Santa Cruz, the MAS has grown in two directions: by pursuing alliances

with powerful sectors with great mobilizational capacity—such as cooperatives, health care

workers, transportation, street vendors, neighborhood associations, and school boards—and by

configuring a strong territorial party infrastructure around districts, which overlaps with the

administrative division of the city (interviews with Tito Sanjinez, and Rodolfo Zeballos).

Although the first strategy has relied on practices reminiscent of those found in El Alto, the

novelty in Santa Cruz lies in the organizational strength of the territorial infrastructure, which

was built on top of existing networks of older parties, such as the Nationalist Revolutionary

Movement (MNR) and UCS.100

Santa Cruz is the only city that has an urban directorate.101 This structure is stable, in the

sense that it operates not only during electoral cycles but also between elections, and it operates

with autonomy from both the peasant organizations that control the departmental directorate

(interviews with Lidia Choque, José Quiroz, Tito Sanjinez, and Hugo Salvatierra) and the party

“apparatus” in power (interviews with Gabriela Montaño, and Álvaro García Linera). Although

99
ALAS is an NGO directed by former minister of rural development, Dr. Hugo Salvatierra. CIPCA is
the Center for Research and Promotion of the Peasantry, and it is an NGO supported by the Catholic
Church. CEJIS is the Center for Juridical, Institutional, and Social Studies.
100
Civic Solidarity Union (Unión Cívica Solidaridad, UCS) was a neopopulist political party founded by
Max Fernández in the 1990s. It made significant electoral inroads and mobilized the urban poor in the
peripheral areas of Bolivia’s largest cities, including La Paz, El Alto, and Santa Cruz.
101
Urban directorates are not recognized in the party’s statute.

91
this territorial party structure yields considerable influence in the nomination of candidates for

local and national office, the party’s top leadership often bypasses it, thereby causing friction

among the rank and file and creating internal divisions. In the municipal election of 2010, for

example, Evo Morales formed an alliance with a right-wing party in Santa Cruz, the Popular and

Solidarity Alliance (ASIP), which guaranteed the nomination of one of ASIP’s leaders as the

mayoral candidate (interviews with Gabriela Montaño, Hugo Salvatierra, Freddy Soruco, and

Hugo Siles). This is indicative of the limits on the territorial party structure’s ability to generate

decisions autonomously. As Tito Sanjinez, the vice-president of the urban directorate in Santa

Cruz, commented in an interview: “this agreement created discontent among the rank and file, as

it was seen as coming from the top” (interview with Tito Sanjinez). While the MAS’ top

leadership praises the urban structure for its mobilizational capacity (interview with Álvaro

García Linera), it does not grant full autonomy to this structure. At the same time, the leadership

of the urban structure recognizes the leadership of the peasant organizations, but maintains tense

and competitive relationships with it.

Morales’s MAS in Power (2006-Present)

Morales took office in January 2006. Becoming a governing party entailed important

internal transformations for his party. This process involved a dramatic organizational expansion

primarily via (1) the articulation of alliances with a wide array of “peripheral” popular

organizations, which can be partially explicable in terms of the logic of “supra-class” electoral

recruitment theorized by Przeworski and Sprague (1986), and (2) also by breaking with the “zero

alliances” formula and, indeed, by celebrating an informal alliance with the MSM, which was

central to engaging the electorate in La Paz. This coalition-building strategy yielded favorable

electoral results, but it also led to the configuration of a strikingly heterodox and loose coalition

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of grassroots actors and those in power. As a governing party, the MAS has sought to maintain

close relationships with both the core and noncore social movements that constitute its social

base, and to retain a degree of responsiveness to its increasingly diverse constituency. This has

not been easy.

Some observers have argued that the MAS has become increasingly detached from

popular organizations as a governing party, and that it has, in fact, undergone a process of

“personalization of power” since the 2000s (Madrid 2011: 241–242). To assess the relationships

between the party in government and the social movements that support it, other scholars have

looked at the composition and evolution of Morales’s cabinet of ministers. While it is true that

his first cabinet included a mix of leaders of rural and urban popular organizations, some of

whom came from “plebeian” origins and had little or no previous experience in government

(Stefanoni and Do Alto 2006; Crabtree 2013: 285),102 the presence of these people in key

positions of the cabinet has tended to decrease over time (see Zegada, Torrez, and Camara 2008;

Laruta 2008; Do Alto 2011: 105). The participation of representatives drawn from popular

organizations in top-level positions within the executive branch has been indeed limited and

isolated. With some exceptions, key positions have been occupied by a technocratic elite that is

“invited” into the ranks of the party, that does not represent grassroots organizations, and that

consequently has few checks from below. A key example of this is Bolivia’s minister of

economy, Luis Arce Catacora, who has been in office since 2006. Of course, the appointment of

these individuals is related to the need for expertise in certain “technical” ministries, and the lack

of cadres from within the ranks of social organizations with that expertise.

102
This observation led Bolivia’s Vice-President to characterize the Morales government as a
“government of the social movements” (García Linera 2009: 90) and to argue that, through the MAS,
social movements are in control of the state (García Linera 2006).

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 Yet other scholars have examined the social composition of the Congress, pointing to a

prominent—and growing—presence of representatives drawn from and nominated by a wide

array of rural and urban grassroots organizations in this institution (Zuazo 2008: 36–41; Crabtree

2013: 285). As Chapter 3 in this dissertation shows, organized popular constituencies allied with

the MAS have managed to retain significant bottom-up influence in the selection of candidates

for national and local office, even after the party assumed national-level governmental power. As

Dunkerley (2007: 166) notes, the “character of the leadership-mass relation is distinctly bottom-

up.”103

Since Morales assumed office in 2006, he has tried to maintain participatory linkages

between the leader, the party in government, and the support base (Roberts 2007). To

differentiate his government from those of Bolivia’s “traditional” parties, and also to avoid their

fate, Morales endorsed the Zapatista principle of “ruling by obeying.” For Freya Schiwy (2008:

9), this “means that if the organizations and social movements that brought Morales to power

find him failing to pursue their decisions, they are likely to force the president to step down.” It

also refers to being responsible for positive actions, and maybe responsive to the will of

constituents while planning those actions. When Morales assumed office, for example, he

addressed the demands set forth by the mass mobilizations of the early 2000s, which had, de

facto, set the government’s agenda.104 Therefore, upon taking office, he nationalized gas and oil,

103
That elected representatives overwhelmingly come from organized popular groups does not mean that
these organizations have a strong influence on setting the legislative agenda, however (on this, see
Chapter 4). Scholars have pointed out that under the Morales government representatives have had a
“subordinate standing” in relation to the executive (Crabtree 2013: 287; also Fornillo 2008: 3).
104
This was known as the “October Agenda.” It was not a clear party program designed by the MAS, but
more of a list of aspirations that emerged from the insurrection of El Alto in October 2003, which the
MAS used for its campaign. The agenda included a wide array of popular demands to re-found Bolivia in
the name of the poor and the indigenous majority. Among the key demands included in the agenda were
the nationalization of hydrocarbons, an agrarian reform, and the call for a constituent assembly.

94
proclaimed a New Agrarian Reform Law, promoted an anticorruption law, and called for a

constituent assembly through which popularly elected delegates would rewrite the country’s

constitution.105 All of these actions can be seen as examples of Morales’s positive accountability

to the social movements that loosely constitute the MAS’s social base; that is, as attempts to

fulfill his campaign promises. In addition, they can be seen as efforts to consolidate Morales’s

leadership and to ensure governability during difficult times, particularly when elites in the

eastern departments dubbed the half-moon, or media luna (Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija, and Pando)

organized a counter-movement that threatened secession (Eaton 2007).106

The centrality of peasant leadership in the MAS is hard to overstate (Zuazo 2010; Do

Alto 2011).107 Coca growers in the Chapare, together with other national-level peasant

organizations, constitute the party’s core constituency. Yet, over time, the MAS has developed a

peripheral constituency by establishing a broad network of alliances with rural and urban popular

organizations. In big cities that are central to win electoral majorities—such as La Paz, El Alto,

Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz—the MAS has drawn support from two powerful sectors of similar

socioeconomic background; namely, transportation and street vendors. These are generally

associated with Bolivia’s large “informal” economy. Alliances also included neighborhood

105
The constitution exemplifies the main tendencies reported in this chapter. Indeed, the 2009
Constitution reflected the MAS’s attempts to follow through on the protests’ repeated calls for a
constituent assembly. At the same time, the outcome of the constituent assembly was a text approved by
progovernment delegates only, and many people accused the MAS of forcing the constitution through in
antidemocratic ways. Nevertheless, that draft was negotiated and modified in Congress, with input from
opposition forces and compromises on both sides. It became law with the constitutional referendum of
January 2009.
106
During Morales’s first term (2006-2009), the political opposition controlled the Senate and was not
willing to compromise. This period was highly contentious, and it reflected the regional dispute between
the west and the east.
107
For example, Morales retains responsibility for leading both the MAS and a social movement
organization, the Six Federations of the Tropics of Cochabamba, which is the overarching union of coca
growers.

95
associations, as well as organizations representing artisans, micro-enterprises, pensioners, and

miners working for cooperatives, among others. Once in office, conflicts emerged among

grassroots allies, particularly over the control of natural resources (Crabtree 2013: 286). The

ongoing frictions among peasant organizations and indigenous organizations over issues of land

redistribution (Fabricant 2012), and the recurrent confrontations among unionized mineworkers

and miners working in cooperatives over the control of mining areas (Webber 2011), are

illustrative of this trend. Conflicts also emerged between old and new members and the MAS

government over aspects of policy. Examples of these are the widespread protests against the

increase of fuel prices in 2010, which paralyzed every major city in the country and eventually

succeeded at forcing the policy to change, and the sustained protests led by indigenous

organizations, beginning in 2011, against the construction of a major highway through the

Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) in lowland Bolivia. These

frictions between grassroots actors and the party in government have proliferated during

Morales’s second term (on this, see UNIR 2012), and they illustrate how complicated and

contested the relationships between social movements and the MAS government are.

There have been attempts to establish mechanisms to channel the bottom-up power of

social movements and to design ways to resolve their redistributive conflicts and disputes. In

September 2004, preceding the rise to power of the MAS, the peasant organizations that

constitute the MAS’s core formed an alliance with large indigenous movements in the eastern

lowlands, like the Confederation of Bolivian Indigenous Peoples (CIDOB), and in the Andean

highlands, like the National Council of Ayllus and Marcas of Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ), and

called it the Unity Pact. The Unity Pact operated independently from the MAS, although it had

dirigentes involved with the MAS, and it organized mass mobilizations demanding the

96
convocation of the Constituent Assembly. After years of deliberations full of tensions, the Unity

Pact also produced a complete draft of a constitutional text and presented it to the Constituent

Assembly (Garcés 2010; also 2011: 57). Above all, it provided advisory consultation; its

proposal for a “plurinational” state was debated and eventually shaped many of the features of

the draft of Bolivia’s new constitution. In the days since the new constitution was approved in

2009, however, the Unity Pact has not been visible or actively participatory in decision-making

processes, as splinters of CIDOB and CONAMAQ have taken a critical stance against the

government and peasant organizations have consolidated their hegemony within the alliance

(interviews with Xavier Albó, Fernando Garcés, Walter Limache, Juan Carlos Pinto, and Raúl

Prada). The MAS government has promoted other innovations to facilitate a bottom-up influence

beyond the constituent assembly process, such as the National Coordinator for Change

(Conalcam). However, there has been strong resistance to institutionalization, in part because

MAS leaders think that institutionalization would be viewed as co-optative, with the MAS

operating as a conventional political party—that is, as one with formal hierarchical elite

structures.

To the extent that these structures do not take hold, the interactions between the party in

government and its grassroots allies remain fluid and unmediated by party or state bureaucracies.

This situation has contributed to the concentration of power in the hands of the president, who

plays the role of an arbiter, often at the expense of the Congress and the judiciary (Anria et al.

2010: 254–60; Madrid 2012: 163; Crabtree 2013: 287). This tendency was further aggravated by

the new constitution, which strengthened executive power. In addition, as we have seen, having

access to state resources has encouraged the use of co-optative strategies vis-à-vis grassroots

groups, which leads to patronage distribution and service provision to particular organizations,

97
among other things, and thus allows the government to influence the leadership and condition the

behavior of allied social movements (Anria 2013: 33-35). However, this is not to say that

Morales’s power is absolute, nor that he can easily control his grassroots allies from the top.

There are limits to his authority, in part because powerful groups in the MAS’s coalition have

managed to retain autonomy and pursue their agendas despite the attempts to control social

organizations from the top (on this, see Chapter 4).

These limitations are set by Morales’s own political camp. Aside from these limitations,

Morales has had to yield to pressures from his opposition from the right, particularly during his

first term, and more specifically in the period of time between the convention of the constituent

assembly and the approval of the new constitution (Stoyan 2014). The outcome of the constituent

assembly was a text approved by progovernment delegates only (Lehoucq 2008: 110–111). The

text needed to be submitted to the verdict of the citizens, which required that the Congress

sanction a law specifying the schedule and other details for the constitutional referendum. As the

MAS controlled the Chamber of Deputies but not the Senate, this bill was blocked in Congress

until the events that followed the recall referendum of August 2008 shook the political arena.

While Morales emerged victorious in this referendum, opposition governors (then “prefects”)

were ratified with large majorities in the media luna. These intensified their demands for

autonomy. In September 2008, after a series of armed confrontations among autonomists and

MAS supporters in Pando and Santa Cruz left several dead, the government and opposition

politicians engaged in deliberations in Congress, where the text of the constitutional draft was

negotiated and modified heavily upon input from the opposition (Romero, Bohrt Irahola, and

Peñaranda 2009). The constitution was then ratified via referendum in January 2009, and in

elections held in December 2009, Morales was reelected by an unprecedented 64 percent of the

98
vote. The MAS also won over two thirds of the seats in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly

(as Congress was renamed in the new constitution).

Bolivia emerged from the constitution-writing process with a constitutional arrangement

that involves indigenous self-rule with innovations in participation, although it maintains the

framework of representative institutions (Cameron and Sharpe 2010; Tockman 2014). The

constitution deepened some participatory elements such as the use of referendums and public

consultations, which were already in place in the old constitution, and which were also used by

previous incumbents (Crabtree 2011: 128–129). It also added a layer of supplementary features

to the electoral regime, such as the system of indigenous autonomies, which have been designed

to promote and institutionalize participatory democracy at the local level (Tockman and

Cameron 2014). Some of these mechanisms, including the recall vote, were used by Morales in

2008 to reaffirm the legitimacy of his administration—and to eventually reduce the number of

opposition governors. Others have been used by social movements, or by indigenous

communities, to gain greater control over their territories.

Yet, despite these participatory innovations, observers have noted important erosions of

liberal rights and freedoms under the Morales government, leading some to argue that Bolivia

has slid into “competitive authoritarianism” (Levitsky and Loxton 2013; Sanchez-Sibony 2013).

Using the same designation, others have noted that in his bid for hegemony, Morales has

crowded out the spaces for meaningful political opposition and moved into the terrain of

nondemocracies (Weyland 2013). It is frequently noted that this tendency was aggravated after

Morales’s reelection in 2009, when the MAS gained full control of the Plurinational Legislative

99
Assembly.108 And, indeed, Bolivia is deeply polarized between those who passionately support

Morales and those who are equally passionate in their opposition. Members of the political

establishment, particularly opposition politicians, almost always highlight that Morales is

undermining certain political rights and freedoms. Among other things, they are concerned with

the government’s attempts to control the mass media, the political use of the judiciary, and the

harassment of opposition politicians and journalists (interviews with Erika Brockmann, Diego

Cuadros, Carlos Hugo Laruta, and Marcela Revollo). This is a legitimate concern. The fact that

the government acts in ways that undermine the rights of individuals and political minorities by

legal means and by controlling the media is indeed a worrisome trend. But to suggest the

emergence of competitive authoritarianism may be misleading and far-fetched. A regime must be

first deemed authoritarian before it can be called competitive authoritarian. It is not enough to

show that it is insufficiently liberal.

That Morales and the MAS command electoral legitimacy (and that they indeed enjoy

substantial levels of popular support) is an inconvenient fact for those who classify Bolivia’s

regime as authoritarian.109 But of course electoral legitimacy is not enough to classify a regime

as democratic. A more fruitful way to approach the classification of Bolivia’s government under

Morales is to focus on organizational dynamics (i.e. the organizational ecology in which his

regime is embedded), which tells us a great deal about how power is organized and exercised.

108
As Crabtree (2013: 289) notes, this electoral tendency also appeared at the regional level. In the 2010
regional elections, the MAS won 6 out of 9 regional governments, as well as a working majority in almost
every regional legislative assembly.
109
The MAS won majorities in the 2006 elections for the constituent assembly, the 2008 recall
referendum (in all but three departments), the 2009 referendum on the Constitution, and the 2010 regional
elections. In the 2009 general elections, Morales won with 64 percent of the vote, and the MAS won 114
(out of 163) seats in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly.

100
 Such an approach tells us that it would be equally misleading to suggest that Morales has

full control of the social movements that support the MAS. Despite the co-optation attempts and

trends highlighted in this chapter, “mobilization in Bolivia comes most from the bottom-up” (De

la Torre 2013: 27). The MAS’s fluidity, or its absence of routinization, leaves wide maneuvering

room for the social organizations allied to it. In many cases, these organizations maintain

considerable autonomy from the MAS, and they mobilize both for and against the government,

often forcing Morales to negotiate with social movements in ways that place limits on his

attempts to concentrate executive power. His authority and popular legitimacy, in short, may be

challenged by what occurs at the level of the social movements that support his government.

Conclusion

This chapter has attempted to show that the MAS operates with different organizational

strategies in different settings. Whereas the MAS’s “movement” roots in a rural social movement

of coca producers reflect a pattern of bottom-up mobilization and organic links to its core

constituency, its rapid extension into urban areas has fostered the emergence of top-down

mobilization strategies and co-optative practices vis-à-vis the leadership of its peripheral

constituency. The party grew from the local to the national level by bringing together a strikingly

heterogeneous constituency through different strategies in rural and urban settings. The electoral

payoffs of such an approach have been significant, and they have helped to consolidate the status

of the MAS as a dominant party. But these same strategies also created internal tensions between

core and noncore constituencies. In addition, the transition from being a rural movement to

becoming the national government introduced new tensions within the governing coalition,

particularly over the control of economic and political resources, and also over aspects of policy.

101
 Despite authoritarian tendencies within the Morales government and the prevalence of

co-optation attempts as efforts to control social movements from the top, movements in Bolivia

have retained considerable autonomy from the governing party. The legacy of social

mobilization (i.e. that some of these movements have contributed to the overthrow of unpopular

governments) means that social movements are still vibrant. Even if their leaders support the

government, or are coopted by it, these leaders cannot always guarantee the compliance of their

base with the government’s policies. Frictions and conflicts within the government coalition, as

seen in the cases of the Gasolinazo and the TIPNIS, have forced the MAS to negotiate with

movements and prevented attempts to concentrate executive power. This reflects an interesting,

and highly reactive, pattern of policy-making in contemporary Bolivia, which will be analyzed

thoroughly in Chapter 4. Here, it suffices to say that Bolivia’s government under Morales is best

described as operating on the basis of a complex combination of the bottom-up power of social

movements – a pattern that is embedded in the party’s “genetic model” – and the-top down logic

and pressures associated with governing a country, rather than as an example of competitive

authoritarianism.

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 CHAPTER 3: CANDIDATE SELECTION WITHIN THE MAS

This chapter examines the degree to which grassroots social movements have been able

to retain control over candidate selection processes in the Bolivian MAS. Using original data

collected through fieldwork in different regions of Bolivia, the chapter identifies conditions of

social and political structures where greater grassroots controlled is most likely and where the

trend toward power concentration does not hold. The key to understanding variation in terms of

degrees of grassroots influence over selection lies on the organizational field in which parties

operate. The analysis reveals that in contexts where civil society is strong, has mechanisms to

arrive at collective decisions, and can agree on selection, then it can effectively impose their

choices for MAS candidates; where civil society is weak, top-down decision-making is more

likely to occur. The analysis also reveals that the MAS operates differently in different contexts

depending on how the political space is structured.

The chapter is organized as follows. First, it defines candidate selection and explains why

this activity is central to understanding internal power distributions. Second, it develops a theory

of within-party variation in candidate selection in which institutional elements interact with civil

society characteristics. Third, the chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the MAS by looking at

how the party selected its legislative candidates in the 2009 general election.110 Fourth, to

110
The selection of legislative candidates is the best point from which to study power distributions within
parties because they generally involve a broader set of actors and processes than executive elections.
While the study of candidate selection for the executive branch could be also beneficial, it requires
separate treatment since presidential races are more personalistic enterprises; they tend to strengthen the
importance of strong personalities and thus contribute to undermine the role of candidate selection
procedures in relation to individual groups or influential personalities that wield overwhelming power.

103
increase number of observations and thus strengthen the evidentiary base for causal inference,

the chapter develops subnational comparisons of how the MAS selected its municipal authorities

in five municipalities for the 2010 elections.111 Finally, the chapter draws conclusions from the

findings and discusses some of the most important implications.

Why Candidate Selection Matters

The selection of candidates is arguably the single most important activity that

distinguishes political parties from other organizations (Hazan and Rahat 2010: 6–12; Field and

Siavelis 2008: 620; Schattschneider 1942: 64). It can be defined as the “process by which a

political party decides which of the persons legally eligible to hold an elective public office will

be designated on the ballot and in election communications as its recommended and supported

candidate or list of candidates” (Field and Siavelis 2008: 621).112

111
Observing selection dynamics during those elections allows us to see the MAS in its most expansive
phase. Since 2009, it has adopted a “catch-all” strategy of electoral recruitment conceived of as a
deliberate plan to (1) control two-thirds in the legislative assembly that would allow the party to
implement the newly approved constitution and (2) establish a strong presence in every municipality in
the country and neutralize the opposition in the eastern departments (interviews with campaign advisor
Jorge Silva, and campaign communications strategist Manuel Mercado). That situation can be seen a most
likely case for oligarchic decision-making, given that the MAS expanded itself to the east and to areas
where there were no strong grassroots organizations that could serve as its base. Yet, the patterns
observed in this chapter are consistent with those found by other researchers who undertook studies at
earlier stages in the life of the party (Komadina and Geffroy 2007; Escóbar 2008; Zuazo 2008; Zegada,
Torrez, and Camara 2008). Thus, there are reasons to believe that the deviant pattern is sustainable in the
long run and that the trend toward oligarchization can be held off if conditions are conducive. The
expansion to the east, which is the strategic shift adopted by the MAS since 2009, only accentuated some
oligarchic decision-making dynamics that already existed at earlier phases. It did not significantly alter
the deviant pattern.
112
Long ago, French political scientist Maurice Duverger (1954) described candidate selection as “a
private act which takes place within the party. Often it is even secret, as parties do not like the odours of
the electoral kitchen to spread to the outside world” (354). Selecting candidates is therefore a rather
mysterious intraparty affair, and due to its hidden secrecies it is still often seen as a “secret garden” of
politics (Gallagher and Marsh 1988).

104
 The selection of candidates is of central interest because it sheds light on the dynamics of

party power struggles among leaders themselves—and between them and aspiring leaders.113

Recognizing the centrality of candidate selection, Schattschneider (1942: 64) goes so far as to

claim that “the nature of the nominating process determines the nature of the party; he who can

make the nominations is the owner of the party. This is therefore one of the best points at which

to observe the distribution of power within the party.” Understanding how individuals become

candidates is indeed central to the analysis of representation and internal party democracy

(Gallagher and Marsh 1988; Katz 2001; P. Siavelis and Morgenstern 2008a; Hazan and Rahat

2010).

Although the significance of candidate selection has been understood for decades,

research on the topic has remained rather underdeveloped until recently, particularly when

compared to the extensive literature on party and electoral systems. That this is the case does not

mean that candidate selection is a trivial matter, however. Recent research into this topic has

noted that candidate selection methods have political consequences on various democratic

dimensions, including representation, participation, competition, and responsiveness (Hazan and

Rahat 2010: 3, 89-164). Other studies have noted that candidate selection processes generally

create loyalties to particular groups or individuals, which in turn impacts the behavior of

legislators once they are in office (P. M. Siavelis and Morgenstern 2008b: 32-34). Moreover, the

importance of candidate selection rests on the idea that these selection procedures can

113
The importance of candidate selection has been acknowledged for over a hundred years. Authors such
as Ostrogorski (1964 [1902]), Michels (1962 [1911]), Weber (1946), Schattschneider (1942), Duverger
(1954), and Panebianco (1988), have noted that the processes of candidate selection are of especial
interest in the study of parties because they considerably determine the distribution of power within
parties.

105
significantly shape patterns of social and political incorporation by including historically

excluded sectors into the political process (I return to this point in Chapter 6).

Ever since Michels’s seminal study, party oligarchy has been associated with exclusive

procedures for candidate selection and centralized decision-making, a model of organization

whereby a party elite or a single leader has complete control over candidate selection.

Conversely, internal party democracy has been loosely associated with more inclusive selection

procedures that spread responsibilities and power among many political actors and that ensure

leadership accountability (Bille 2001; Hazan and Rahat 2010). From this perspective, the

contemporary literature has linked internal party democracy to the idea of power diffusion. If the

idea is to limit power concentration in centralized authorities, a study showing that candidate

selection procedures effectively diffuse power among several political actors can serve to

advance theory by showing ways of organization that can generate genuine empowerment of the

grassroots relation to party elites.

The literature focusing on candidate selection within Latin American parties is small but

growing.114 The existing case studies seem to lend overwhelming support to Michels’s notion of

party politics, and his theoretical argument about power concentration seems to apply to almost

every case, independent of the specific party type. Examples include, but are not limited to, the

Venezuelan Democratic Action (AD) Party in the 1990s (Coppedge 1994), the Argentine

Justicialista (PJ) and Radical parties (McGuire 1997; Jones 2008), the Chilean Independent

Democratic Union (UDI) Party (Navia 2008), the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party

before 2000 (Langston 2008; Wuhs 2008), and the Mexican Party of the Democratic Revolution

(PRD) (Bruhn 1997). In all of these cases, candidate selection is an activity dominated by a small

114
See Siavelis and Morgenstern (2008a); also Siavelis and Morgenstern (2008b).

106
party elite. Even the Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT)—the other classic example of a movement-

based party in contemporary Latin America—seems to be following this pattern (Hunter 2010;

Ribeiro 2014).115

The pages that follow seek to unpack the “black box” of movement-based parties. The

concern is with candidate selection, particularly with the extent to which selection patterns

provide an option that can challenge the trend toward party oligarchization.

Explaining Within-Party Variation in Candidate Selection

Institutional and structural factors interact to shape candidate selection within movement-

based parties. Institutional elements comprise aspects of a country’s electoral system that create

the space for the grassroots to shape the selection process, and elements related to the strength of

the local party apparatus. Structural factors correspond with the organizational strength of civil

society. Strongly organized societies, as the empirical literature shows, serve as a potential power

base for parties. They can play not only an important party-building role, but can also shape

internal party governance.

Institutional Elements

My analysis focuses on two institutional elements – electoral rules and the nature of the

local party organization. Just as electoral systems affect party outcomes like discipline in

Congress (Samuels 1999), electoral systems also affect candidate selection by creating space for

civil society actors to shape the process (P. M. Siavelis and Morgenstern 2008b). Mixed-member

proportional electoral systems (MMPs), like the one used in Bolivia, force parties to produce

115
Although Wendy Hunter’s (2010) book on the transformations of the PT does not delve specifically
into candidate selection dynamics, its overall findings indicate that the PT is transforming into a type of
party where the “iron law” of oligarchy rules without any significant loopholes.

107
individual district candidates alongside a party list. As the literature shows, party leadership

tends to become more central to selection and candidate list placement as district magnitude

increases (Carey and Shugart 1995). Thus, it is likely that grassroots organizations will be able to

exert more influence on selection for single-member district candidates than for proportional

representation candidates.

MMPs create distinct incentives for the party’s top leadership, predisposing it toward the

selection of different types of candidates. In single-member districts, the key for electoral

success is the candidate’s personal reputation and support within the district, which leads to three

possible scenarios. First, a candidate that emerges with strong backing from grassroots

organizations can be accepted by the leadership to increase the probability of getting out the

vote. Second, if there are strong organizations but contested nominations, the leadership can

provide arbitration to maximize the chance of electoral success. In these cases, the option that

maximizes the likelihood of success is for the leadership to choose a candidate that is most

acceptable to a majority of local organizations. Third, where there are few social organizations

linked to the party or where these are weakly organized, the central leadership can use

nominations to build alliances to existing organizations or to attract the support of specific social

sectors. However, for proportional representation candidates the key to electoral success is the

overall strength of the party ticket. Parties often use these candidacies to diversify their lists and

attract maximum electoral support. Candidates can emerge with strong organizational backing,

but they are likely to be acceptable to multiple organizations or attractive to particular social

groups.

Recent studies also highlight the relevance of the organizational strength of party

subunits for party outcomes (Levitsky 2003; Tavits 2013; Van Dyck 2014; LeBas 2011). Tavits

108
argues that local organizational strength helps parties survive.116 In addition to mobilizing

supporters and delivering votes, the literature shows that a strong local party organization can

play a role in the aggregation of political interests, such as in the selection of candidates. It can

either nominate candidates directly, or serve as an arena for resolving conflicts among competing

groups. However, variance in the organizational strength of party subunits does not fully explain

variation in candidate selection patterns, nor how internal conflicts are resolved. This paper

shows that a party’s top leadership can serve as an arbiter in chief in conflicts where the local

party organization is either weak or strong. However, the leadership more likely performs this

role in contexts with a strong and heterogeneous civil society that is not fully aligned with the

party. In other words, it is the failure of coordination among grassroots actors that, in general,

creates an organizational opportunity for the party leadership to centralize power. This finding

points to the importance of examining broader structural elements associated with the strength of

civil society, and more broadly, with the organizational contexts in which parties are embedded.

Structural Elements

Indeed, structural factors associated with the organizational strength of civil society are

central to my explanation. Classic works in political sociology, as well as more recent empirical

research on party building, have established that densely organized civil societies can serve as a

potential power base for parties.117 The expectation is that the organizational infrastructures of

politically oriented associations may contribute to building strong parties by reducing costs and

coordination problems. This “organizational inheritance” – as Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck

116
Tavits (2013: 39-40) uses four indicators to measure party organizational strength: number of party
membership, number of party branches, presence of a professional staff (as a percent of the electorate),
and participation in local elections.
117
See Chapter 1 for a more thorough discussion.

109
(n.d) argue – can provide invaluable resources to new political parties and contribute to their

long-term empowerment. For these authors, new parties are more likely to take root, and also to

persist over time, where politicians build upon the infrastructure of pre-existing organizations.

Movement-based parties, even if initially loosely organized, are well positioned to build strong

parties.

Following these insights, I add that a significant factor affecting the internal governance

of parties and their tendencies toward oligarchization is the variation in the organizational

strength of their civil society allies. Specifically, I argue that the presence of civil societies that

are both (1) strongly organized and (2) united can generate politically consequential pressures

from below. These pressures can, under certain conditions, place limits on the centralized

decision-making power and self-regarding political objectives of the central party leadership.118

Strongly organized civil societies are those with high organizational density (percentage

of the district’s population that are members of grassroots organizations). United means affinity

of purpose – the ability to privilege common purpose over narrow organizational interests in

order to agree on decisions affecting common interests. Unity among organizations not only

strengthens civil society; it can also represent a counterweight to the centralizing tendencies of

an allied party.

Strongly organized civil societies may play a central role in resisting the oligarchization

of allied parties in the realm of candidate selection by nominating desired candidates in spite of

the central leadership’s preferences. This is largely a function of how the political space is

structured in a given electoral district, and of the political alignments between civil society and

118
As I show in Chapter 4, this pressure may also defy the trend toward oligarchization by helping to
keep channels open for agenda setting from below, and can thus contribute to keeping parties responsive
to societal demands.

110
the party. At least four combinations of party-civil society are possible: (1) strong civil society

aligned with the party, (2) strong civil society aligned with opposition parties, (3) strong civil

society with different political alignments, and (4) weak civil society (in which case political

alignments are less relevant).

Systematic evidence from candidate selection within a movement-based party

demonstrates that oligarchic decision-making by the party leadership is less likely to take place

in districts where grassroots organizations aligned with the party are strongly organized, have

mechanisms to arrive at decisions, and can agree on selection. In turn, in contexts where strong

grassroots organizations aligned with the party are absent, or where they are strong but have

multiple alignments and do not agree on selection, oligarchic decision-making in the hands of a

small party elite is much more likely to occur. Similarly, contexts of weak civil society create

organizational opportunities for power concentration in the hands of a few. Thus, the evidence

highlights the importance of both the strength of civil society organizations and political

alignments of civil society on candidate selection outcomes. These findings are consistent with

recent developments in the social movement literature inspired by the organizational ecology

tradition (e.g. Soule 2012).

Though not yet connected to the literature on political parties, organizational ecologists

emphasize the broader organizational field in which parties operate (Robertson 2010). Similarly,

the findings from the Bolivia case suggest that a potentially rewarding area for further research

on the internal dynamics of political parties is the relevant contextual conditions, such as the

impact of diverging patterns of party-civil society relations. Just as parties deploy different

linkage strategies to attract different electoral constituencies in unequal societies (Luna 2014),

their local operations vary according to how the political space is structured.

111
Research Design

In the rest of this paper I focus on the Bolivian MAS. The MAS is a particularly relevant

case for studying power distributions inside movement-based parties because it deviates from the

conventional wisdom. Although there are observable tendencies towards power concentration,

grassroots groups have retained considerable “bottom up” influence in processes of candidate

selection in districts where civil society is strong, has mechanisms to arrive at decisions, and can

agree on selection. The result has been salient variation in candidate selection outcomes across

different geographical constituencies.

According to its statute, the MAS is “the political and ideological branch of the social

organizations that represent Bolivia’s cultural diversity in rural and urban areas” (Article 5). The

statute further stipulates that: “members and activists participate in the different levels of the

political structure [of the MAS] through their natural social organizations, which guide the work

of these leaders and extend their own loyalty, work, and honesty to the structure of the MAS”

(Article 9).

According to the party statute, moreover, the organizational structure of the MAS is

decentralized along territorial and functional lines. The statute recognizes directorates at no

fewer than eight levels: national, departmental, regional, provincial, municipal, indigenous

territories, districts, and sectors (Article 12). For example, it recognizes the organizational

structures of the social organizations and unions at the rural level, the districts and social sectors

in urban areas, as well as the autonomous territories of indigenous peoples.

The highest decision-making authority within the MAS is the Regular National Congress

(Congreso Nacional Ordinario, CON). Here the leadership of the peasant organizations is

recognized by the rule that the CON should “respect the historical trajectory of the three core

112
organizations that head the National Directorate of the MAS: CSUTCB, CSCIB, and

CNMCIOB-BS” (Article 18, b).119 This rule imposes a candidacy requirement for the National

Directorate: having a background as a leader of one of the national-level peasant unions. The

CON has the prerogative to select these leaders by “respecting internal democratic practices in

free elections and through direct and secret vote. Their selection requires an absolute majority of

the delegates attending the congress, or by consensus in accordance to the modality decided by

the congress” (Article 18, a).

Although the party statute is clear on the definition of the internal mechanisms for

selecting leaders for internal leadership bodies such as the National Directorate, it is much less

clear on the procedures that regulate the selection of candidates for elective public office. Article

37 says that it is a responsibility of the National Directorate of the MAS to “coordinate and

respect the modes of selection, as well as the norms and procedures used by social organizations

for the creation of the candidate lists—for national assemblies, departmental assemblies, regional

or provincial assemblies, municipal governments, districts and sectors—that the MAS will

present in electoral contests.” In other words, there is not a single and clearly stipulated

candidate selection method: grassroots organizations should select candidates through whichever

“democratic” means they consider appropriate. In short, the statute does not tell us much about

the internal dynamics of candidate selection within the MAS. This makes the case attractive for

119
These are the Unique Confederation of Rural Laborers of Bolivia (Confederación Sindical Única de
Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, CSUTCB); the Syndicalist Confederation of Intercultural
Communities of Bolivia (Confederación Sindical de Comunidades Interculturales de Bolivia, CSCIB);
and the Bartolina Sisa National Confederation of Campesino, Indigenous, and Native Women of Bolivia
(Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas Indígenas Originarias de Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa,”
CNMCIOB-BS).

113
studying the causes and impact of different selection mechanisms across different districts in the

country.

Examining this variation in a highly diverse country that uses a mixed-member

proportional electoral system (MMP), such as Bolivia, is also useful because it allows for a

systematic comparison of candidate selection strategies.120 It allows us to see how the same party

selects candidates for different electoral lists, while keeping constant all other contextual factors.

There have been some attempts to understand how the MAS selects its legislative

candidates. Zuazo (2008) notes an important rural/urban cleavage in the realm of candidate

selection, and her study has shed light on organizational aspects of the MAS. Based on

interviews with 85 MAS representatives in the 2005-09 Congress, she claims that there are

horizontal decision-making mechanisms for the selection of candidates to run for Congress,

particularly in rural areas. These mechanisms, which tend to guarantee high levels of

participation “from below,” vary greatly for each organization and each region, and they are

rooted in uncodified indigenous customs and traditions. The candidates emerging from these

mechanisms of direct participation are generally known as “organic,” whereas other legislative

candidates who are invited “from above” directly by the leadership are known as “invited.” And

they are predominantly urban. Zuazo’s study does not explore this variation systematically,

however, nor does it delve deeply into the internal dynamics of candidate selection procedures.

The study also focuses on the selection of legislative candidates leading to the 2005 general

election, and thus it fails to capture the internal transformations that the MAS has undergone

120
No study of which I am aware addresses candidate selection within movement-based parties from this
angle, nor do any of the existing studies on the case of MAS take full advantage of this institutional
framework.

114
since it gained power, and particularly after 2009, when it adopted a “catch-all” strategy of

electoral growth by expanding to the east.121

Do Alto and Stefanoni (2010) address candidate selection processes in a more systematic

way. Their ethnographic study provides a “thick” sociological examination of the selection of

legislative candidates for the 2009 general election, focusing on the internal dynamics of specific

uninominal districts in the departments of La Paz, Santa Cruz, and Pando. Like Zuazo (2008,

2010), the authors observe the presence of mechanisms of direct democracy that guarantee high

participation levels “from below,” particularly in rural areas, and they provide detailed accounts

of how these actually work. Do Alto and Stefanoni (2010) argue that while those mechanisms

tend to be respected by the leadership of the MAS, in the absence of clearly established rules and

procedures, the tendency is for those mechanisms to “favor the articulation of clientelist

networks around leaders of social organizations” (354). In short, by examining the micro

dynamics of concrete cases, they point to a tension between the idea of “self-representation”—

what they refer to as the “founding myth” of the MAS—and the actual relationships that exist

between the social organizations and the MAS, and also among the social organizations

themselves (Do Alto and Stefanoni 2010: 354-55). They argue that these power relations not

only shape candidate selection process but also largely determine the outcome.

While these studies offer some important insights on the selection of legislative

candidates and provide a wealth of qualitative information, they also leave some crucial

questions unanswered. In general, they fail to address questions regarding the role of the MAS as

an independent agent in candidate selection. For example, if the candidates are “nominated by a

social organization” that decide to join the MAS, as many of them are, who or what party body

121
On the topic of “catch-all” parties, see Kirchheimer (1966).

115
approves the nominations, and at what level? If there is a rural/urban cleavage, does the MAS as

a party play a more important role in one context than the other? Assuming that candidate

selection processes are contested, does the MAS serve as an arbiter if conflicts emerge between

different organizations that compete for the same space? If so, how are these conflicts resolved?

In short, although existing studies acknowledge variation within MAS and provide a wealth of

qualitative information, they fail to explain what the main sources of that variation actually are.

My empirical analysis addresses this issue. It examines subnational variation in the

selection of candidates for national office in the electoral process leading to the 2009 election.

This is a key moment because MAS was in its most expansive phase, when it adopted a “catch-

all” strategy of electoral recruitment. Thus, the lead up to that election was a highly likely period

for oligarchic decision-making. I rely on evidence collected through interviews with over fifty

MAS representatives from the districts of La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro, and Santa Cruz (see

Table 3.1 and Map 3.1),122 in addition to 120 interviews with key informants, to explain how

candidates are selected under different party-civil society constellations. Interviewees included

leaders of allied grassroots organizations, non-elected regional party brokers, unsuccessful

aspirants, members of the executive branch, representatives of opposition parties, experts,

journalists, as well as candidates nominated for local office in rural and urban districts.123 Data

from these interviews are supplemented by a close reading of newspapers on the process and its

aftermath, and of the existing secondary literature.

122
While these departments do not cover the entire country, the organizational patterns observed there
were also common elsewhere, as confirmed through interviews with representatives and social movement
leaders from other departments in the country.
123
Evidence from the selection of authorities for local-level office further supports the main argument of
this chapter (see below).

116
Table 3.4. Number of Interviews with MAS Deputies and Senators in 2010-2015 Congress, by
Department
Department Number of Total elected Total Seats
Interviews under MAS
La Paz 20 28 31
Oruro 8 11 12
Santa Cruz 8 11 28
Cochabamba 10 16 22
Other 11**
Total 57 66 93*

* This count only includes the total seats for the departments systematically studied in this paper, which
accounts for a clear majority. The total number of seats in the Bolivian Congress is 166. Of these, the
MAS has 114.
** This number includes interviews with MAS representatives from Bolivia’s remaining departments
(Chuquisaca, Potosi, Tarija, Beni, and Pando).

117
Map 3.9. Fieldwork Sites for Legislative Candidate Selection

Pando

El Beni

La Paz

Cochabamba Santa Cruz

Oruro

Chuquisaca
Potosí

Tarija

Yellow: Field Sites

Gray: Other

118
 The analysis developed here reveals tremendous variation across different localities.

Conditions where organizations allied to MAS have a near monopoly of organization are more

likely to be observed in the rural areas in Bolivia’s western departments, including La Paz,

Cochabamba, and Oruro, where single-member district candidates are more likely to emerge

from social organizations and be accepted by the party leadership. This pattern of candidate

selection reflects a de facto diffusion of power, in that it mirrors the balance of power between

MAS and territorially grounded grassroots organizations, and also between these organizations

themselves.

Bolivia is no exception to the rule that urban areas are generally more heterogeneous than

rural areas. In some cities or urban districts the diffusion of power among organizations leads to

a situation where agreement on candidates is difficult, while in other cases the organizational

density (i.e. the presence and strength of organizations aligned with MAS) is significantly lower.

In both types of situations, the candidate selection process exhibits a combination of oligarchic

decision-making with grassroots participation and consensus building. Specifically, where there

are strong organizations but no consensus among them, the leadership is likely to choose a

candidate acceptable to a majority of local organizations; where organizations are weak,

however, the leadership is likely to select candidates that will help to build alliances to existing

organizations or to attract support from particular groups that may increase electoral returns.

These patterns are similar to that observed for most proportional representation candidates.

Finally, in Bolivia’s eastern departments, which represent new arenas of competition for MAS,

the social organizations linked to the party are weak. In the absence of strong organizations that

can agree on candidate selection, elite decision-making is more likely to occur.

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Empirical Setting

Bolivia’s bicameral Congress consists of a Chamber of Senators with 36 seats, and a

Chamber of Deputies with 130 seats. All elected representatives serve five-year terms, and re-

election is permitted. Members of the Chamber of Senators are elected through a closed-list

proportional representation. Deputies are elected by a mixed-member proportional (MMP)

electoral system that has created two different types of seats, “plurinominal” (proportional

representation) and “uninominal” (single-member district -- SMD), forcing parties to produce

individual district candidates alongside a party list.124 In addition, the country’s 2009 constitution

established a few “special” seats for indigenous peoples and Afro-Bolivians. Seventy uninominal

representatives are elected by plurality vote in single-member districts, fifty-three plurinominal

representatives are elected in a closed-list proportional representation system, and the seven

special representatives are elected by plurality vote in single-member constituencies.125

MMPs generate different incentive structures and variable impacts on internal grassroots

participation. SMDs encourage the cultivation of a candidate’s personal reputation and support

within a district. To increase the probability of getting out the vote, there is an incentive to

increase the participation of allied groups, which can mobilize collective support for a given

candidate and thus exert significant influence on the selection process. In the case of proportional

representation candidates, as the literature shows, the party leadership becomes more central to

selection and list placement as district size becomes bigger. In such cases, the power of the

central leadership is strengthened in relation to the grassroots.

124
See Ardaya (2003) for a critical early assessment of this system.
125
In the 2009 general election MAS gained 26 of 36 seats in the Chamber of Senators, 33 of the 53
plurinominal representatives, 49 of the 70 uninominal representatives, and 6 of the 7 special seats.

120
Uninominal Candidates

Generally, in selecting these candidates, the MAS delegates responsibilities and control

to the grassroots organizations that are present in a given electoral district. In these cases, then,

candidate selection consists of procedures that provide significant opportunities for the

grassroots to influence decision-making, and candidates emerge based on the strength of the

social organization they represent. Prior to an election, the National Directorate of MAS issues a

call for nominations to allied grassroots organizations throughout the country. These

organizations then are in charge of conducting screening, pre-selection, and candidate

nomination processes, and they do so by electoral district and according to the norms and

procedures they themselves deem adequate. In most cases, the leadership of the MAS respects

the decisions by grassroots organizations. With some exceptions, these organizations have the

last word on nominations, representing a counterweight to the power of the leadership.

Formal membership in the MAS is not a condition for candidacy. Instead, “aspiring

candidates need to be approved by the people in their territory” (interview with Leonilda Zurita).
126
The only hard-and-fast rule that the MAS respects is that each district has to ensure rigorous

gender equality: by statute, if the titular candidate for a district is a man, the substitute needs to

be a woman and vice-versa. Although there is no rule stipulating that uninominal candidates

must have experience as a leader of a grassroots organization, this is almost always the case. As

a former deputy commented, “it is practically impossible to become a uninominal candidate for

the MAS if you do not have experience as a [social organization] leader” (interview with

126
They also are required to demonstrate no history of corruption, no prior affiliation with a “neoliberal”
or “traditional” party, and a demonstrated loyalty and commitment to the “process of change” led by the
MAS (interview with Samuel Guarayos). These rules, however, can be overlooked under certain
exceptional circumstances, predominantly due to electoral imperatives and other strategic considerations
(interview with Leonilda Zurita).

121
Dionicio Núñez). Interviews with multiple uninominal representatives in La Paz, Cochabamba,

Oruro, and Santa Cruz, confirm this observation. Analyses based on the survey of Latin

American parliamentary elites conducted by the University of Salamanca show that most of

them, indeed, came from a grassroots organization (Zegada and Komadina 2014).

The key actors are grassroots organizations with a territorial base. These gained legal

status as Territorial Grassroots Organizations (OTBs) with the 1994 Law of Popular

Participation, and they generally include neighborhood associations, traditional indigenous

organizations (the ayllus), and modern peasant unions (the sindicatos campesinos). Candidate

selection within the MAS ensures the representation of the OTBs that decide to join the party.127

Below I examine subnational variation in the nomination of uninominal candidates according to

the four party-civil society constellations outlined above.

Strong Civil Society Aligned with the MAS. Where civil society is strongly organized and

aligned with MAS, as in many districts in the western departments of La Paz, Cochabamba,

Oruro, and Potosí, this decentralized form of participation tends to be the norm. The process

begins at the lowest organizational level of the union structure, the sindicatos campesinos, and

then moves up to the territory’s higher organizational levels, the subcentrales and the centrales.

Figure 1 depicts a stylized version of the functional levels of the peasant union organization in

Bolivia.128 In general, the subcentral aligns with the territory of the electoral district, meaning

127
By “joining the MAS” I mean the process by which grassroots organizations align politically with
MAS and engage in competitive nomination processes.
128
The sindicato is the organization that brings together almost all of the families in a given community.
Affiliation is voluntary and the requirements for affiliation include living and having land within that
community. The subcentral is an intermediate structure between the sindicatos and the centrales. It is
generally elected through the vote of the members of the sindicatos. The central brings together all of the
subcentrales in a given province, and it is the highest level of authority in the local-level sindicato
structure.

122
that there is generally one subcentral per electoral district. The more specific mechanics of the

process described below can be only described as a general tendency, and the following account

portrays an “ideal typical” model through which the MAS selects uninominal candidates.129

The selectorate for such candidacies is highly inclusive, and there is a clear emphasis on

extending grassroots participation. As Vice President Álvaro García Linera commented in an

interview, because “these candidates are not handpicked, they are not the candidates of the party

in a strict sense. They are selected by grassroots organizations as a function of their territorial

power, and they are the representatives of those organizations” (interview with Álvaro García

Linera). In other words, in contexts where civil society is strong and aligned with the MAS, the

participation and decision-making capacity of grassroots organizations with a territorial base is

high in the case of uninominal candidates.

The mechanics of selection can be summarized in three steps. First, each sindicato and

other OTBs in a given district organize meetings to conduct a preliminary screening of potential

candidates and then select their nominees. These meetings, called ampliados or cabildos, are

crowded events that ensure broad grassroots participation. The individuals who are elected at this

level will then represent their organization in the competition at the next highest level of

organization, the subcentrales. At this level, each subcentral holds an ampliado or a cabildo to

choose among the sindicato-level nominees. The winner of each subcentral contest then goes on

to compete for representation at the next highest level of organization, the central. The

candidates for each electoral district are defined at this level, as seen below.

129
Exceptions are more easily observable in urban areas, where MAS tries to replicate the selection
methods that are prevalent in rural areas. In urban settings, however, there is generally more
organizational atomization. In the eastern departments, in turn, MAS tries to replicate this “bottom-up”
selection method, but this is combined with a more pragmatic approach to alliance building.

123
Figure 3.1. Basic Organizational Structure of Bolivia’s Peasant Unions130

Central

Subcentral Subcentral Subcentral Subcentral

Sindicato Sindicato Sindicato Sindicato

Sindicato Sindicato Sindicato Sindicato

Sindicato Sindicato Sindicato Sindicato

Sindicato Sindicato Sindicato Sindicato

Third, the central organizes an ampliado or a cabildo with all of the nominees presented by the

subcentrales. The winners at this level typically emerge as uninominal candidates if they receive

the support of all the organizations involved throughout the process. This support is determined

at a large congress of the authorities from all participating levels, and it is obtained by

mechanisms of union democracy that have no uniform codification. The runners-up serve as

substitute candidates for the district.

130
This figure depicts a stylized version of one territorial unit with 4 subcentrales – which coincides with
4 electoral districts – 16 sindicatos, and one central. The central is generally affiliated to one of the nine
departmental federations within the CSUTCB, which is the highest-level organization in the peasant
union hierarchy.

124
Strong Civil Society Aligned with Opposition. The expansion to the east, where the MAS was

historically weak, pushed decision-making structures into a more oligarchic direction.131 In parts

of Santa Cruz, particularly in rural districts, the selection of uninominal candidates followed the

familiar “bottom up” pattern described above; in contrast, in the city of Santa Cruz, where there

are strong organizations aligned with opposition forces, a local party structure played an

influential role and nominated several candidates from its ranks.132 However, department level

selection also involved alliance and coalition building with other parties,133 with politically

influential groups and non-traditional organizations,134 and with a wide array of ad hoc urban

organizations.135 These alliances guaranteed representation for members of those groups, and

were made by the national leadership; neither the local party, nor the grassroots organizations

that control the Regional Directorate created them (interviews with Isaac Ávalos, Lidia Choque,

Gabriela Montaño, Reymi Ferreira, Tito Santibañez, and José Quiroz). The composition of the

electoral list reflected an internal balance of power that favored those urban groups over peasant

organizations, reflecting a more centralized and exclusive selection pattern, whereby the

influence of a small party elite was strengthened.136 It also revealed a strong pragmatism by the

131
Jorge Silva commented that the objective for the 2009 election was “to reach an absolute majority in
both chambers in the Congress at whatever cost” (interview with Jorge Silva). Thus, it is reasonable to
expect a pragmatic approach to selection and alliance building.
132
The configuration of this unusually strong party structure is a function of a deliberate decision by
MAS’s leadership to consolidate its presence in an area that was seen as hostile to MAS (interview with
Álvaro García Linera). See more about this structure in the sub-section “Additional Evidence: Local
Elections.”
133
Such as the center-left Movement Without Fear (MSM).
134
Such as the right-wing Crucenista Youth Union (UJC).
135
Such as the “Coordinator for Change,” the “Professionals for Change,” and the “Lawyers of the
MAS.”
136
Lidia Choque commented that the “agreement ‘from above’ could have only happened because the
social organizations [in Santa Cruz] are not united and each supports whoever offers the best deal.”

125
top party leadership.137 Evidence from other eastern departments, such as Beni and Pando, where

major civil society organizations are aligned with the opposition, reveals a similar pattern of

candidate selection that combines participation from below with oligarchic decision-making. 138

Strong Civil Society Aligned with Multiple Parties. The fact that the MAS has grown fast and in

a decentralized manner has given significant flexibility to newly incorporated local organizations

regarding the selection of candidates.139 In general, their decision to be a part of the MAS implies

mutual benefits. The MAS opens its electoral lists and gives these organizations control over the

selection process. Thus, the MAS benefits from the social networks and organizational

infrastructure of these organizations, which are familiar with the electoral terrain and able to

organize campaigns and mobilize resources more efficiently. In turn, grassroots organizations

137
For example, Nemecia Achacollo, Bolivia’s current Minister of Rural Development and a leader at the
Bartolina Sisa National Confederation of Peasant Women of Bolivia, figures prominently in most of my
interviews as a central actor in the design and configuration of such alliances in Santa Cruz. She is also
identified as a central actor in the final configuration of the electoral lists. Juan Ramón Quintana,
Bolivia’s current Minister of the Presidency, figures prominently as a key operator and as central actor in
the configuration of alliances in Pando. Both ministers do not occupy a leadership position within the
MAS, which shows that in configuring alliances members of the executive can wield significantly more
power than the party structure.
138
Interviews with campaign coordinators in both departments confirm this pattern, a pragmatic approach
to candidate selection and alliance building that, framed as a part of a strategy to penetrate in traditionally
“hostile” territories, centralizes decision-making power in the hand of a group of influential individuals,
including, in some cases, President Morales himself. Indeed, alliances are not defined at the level of the
grassroots (interviews with Walter Chávez, Manuel Mercado, and Jorge Silva). Research undertaken by
Do Alto and Stefanoni (2010) lends additional support to the findings reported here. See, in particular,
their treatment of selection and alliance building in Pando (2010: 348-352).
139
As Harten (2011: 131) notes, in expanding to the cities the MAS has adopted a “laissez-faire
approach” of organizational growth, through which it has sought to “benefit from specific local dynamics,
as opposed to coercing these organizations into adopting a predetermined organizational style.” Though
this style of growth may have been prominent in urban areas, the conclusion appears to apply to non-
traditional rural areas where the MAS has recently sought to insert itself.

126
benefit from the association with the MAS, which generally increases their likelihood of

electoral success.

This symbiotic relationship is different in rural and urban environments, however.

Grassroots organizations with a territorial base are central to selection in both settings, but in

urban areas there are usually no clearly identifiable organizations that exert dominance over the

territory. Rather, there is a multiplicity of neighborhood associations, professional associations,

cooperatives, unions and the like. Since they usually are in competition during the selection

process, these competing organizations often have difficulty agreeing on a preferred candidate.

When conflicts arise and competing organizations cannot reach agreement, a small party elite

that often includes the president himself acts as an arbiter and has the last word.140 As I describe

further below, the failures of coordination among grassroots actors create an organizational space

for the leadership to centralize power, pushing internal decision-making structures into a more

oligarchic direction.

Weak Civil Society. In rural areas, particularly where grassroots organizations have dominant

control over the territory, the MAS has not invested much in the building of a party branch

independent of these organizations.141 In urban areas, by contrast, and particularly in places

where grassroots organizations are not strong, or where they do not have dominant control over

the territory, the MAS has constructed territorial party organizations of varying strength. For the

most part, however, these structures lack independent decision-making power, creating an

140
Despite this, the selection procedures for uninominal candidates in these environments follow a
roughly similar path and, according to most of my interviewees representing urban districts, they try to
emulate the dynamics of the rural areas. They achieve this with different degrees of success, though.
141
Evo Morales commented some time ago that, “where the grassroots organizations are strong, there is
no need to organize MAS” (interview with Leonida Zurita).

127
organizational opportunity for the party leadership to centralize power in contexts where civil

society is weak. In such contexts, elite choices are much more likely to prevail.

Summary. Thus, systematic evidence from the departments of La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro, and

Santa Cruz, complemented by observations of other departments, suggests that the crucial

variable determining the nature of candidate selection is the strength of civil society, which

depends on the strength in terms of number of members and the ability of grassroots

organizations to reach an agreement on selection. In this scenario, MAS diffuses power among

territorially grounded grassroots actors, which generally have the last word on selection. Once

these organizations nominate a candidate, this person becomes a candidate for MAS. However,

when conflicts emerge among competing organizations, MAS tends to concentrate decision-

making power in the hands of a small party elite – and even Morales himself. These disputes are

rarely resolved through formal channels, or by the local party organization. These dynamics are

more commonly observed in urban areas, where the political space is more fragmented, and in

the eastern departments, where MAS expanded by means of a “catch-all” strategy of recruitment.

Plurinominal Candidates

Districts for plurinational candidates are larger, meaning that there are different party-

civil society constellations within each district. It also means that coordination among competing

organizations is generally more complicated than in uninominal districts. Conflicts among such

organizations create an organizational opportunity for the party leadership to centralize power.

Indeed, plurinominal candidates and candidate list placement typically emerge from

agreements between the leadership of the MAS and specific social sectors, or are directly

selected by Morales. These candidacies help to generate balances – territorial, corporate,

urban/rural, and male/female – after the list of uninominal candidates is approved (interview with

128
Adolfo Mendoza; also with Álvaro García Linera). In this instance the selection process is more

centralized; the principal actors are either national party leaders, members of the national-level

government, or brokers with access to patronage resources in departmental governments, and

ultimately Evo Morales himself. In comparison to the uninominal candidates, the relative power

of the party central leadership is strengthened in relation to the grassroots.

Although the selection of plurinominal candidates is more centralized and exclusive, and

therefore more oligarchic, it serves as a part of a deliberate strategy of addition that allows for

the incorporation of sectors and groups that do not have a territorial or an institutional corporate

base. As Leonida Zurita commented, “the idea is to include everyone – that is, professionals,

non-professionals, intellectuals, non-intellectuals, indigenous and nonindigenous middle class,

women, and so on. It is in that sense that our project is one of inclusion and not of exclusion.”

This view is akin to the view of Concepción Ortiz, the MAS’s Vice President, who stated that

this mechanism allows the MAS to balance its electoral lists, and is seen by the leadership as an

inclusionary way to give representation to urban middle classes (interview with Concepción

Ortíz).

Formal membership and a background as a movement leader are not conditions for

candidacy. As a result, some plurinominal candidates, particularly those without such a

background, are generally seen as unwelcome competitors by rural and peasant organizations

and by candidates that emerge from these organizations. They consider themselves the authentic

representatives of the MAS. Indeed, these plurinominal candidates are referred to as “invited.”

That characterization is used to contrast “organic” rural-based rank and file with “invited” urban

and middle classes.

129
 This form of nomination was not widespread during the early days of the MAS. Rather,

as Do Alto and Stefanoni (2010: 312) suggest, the invitation of candidates only became common

in preparation for the 2002 election, when MAS became a national-level actor. The MAS

developed an expansive strategy of electoral recruitment and coalition building in order to

compete successfully for the presidency and the congress. The idea behind this strategic

maneuver was initially simple: to recruit indigenous and nonindigenous middle classes, left-

leaning and nationalist intellectuals, social movement leaders, and professionals, among others,

in order to expand the electoral base.

The strategy of invitation has changed over time, however, and it has served as a

mechanism of accommodation that gives the MAS flexibility in changing electoral and political

environments. It has also been useful once the party assumed power. According to Bolivian

journalist Fernando Molina, once the MAS gained power, the growing presence of “invited”

candidates has responded to two factors: “first, the need to improve the efficiency of the new

regime, and second, the co-optation of the ‘process of change’ by bureaucratic and intellectual

classes” (Molina 2010: 279). Molina’s account assumes that the MAS of necessity has adapted

to, and has been absorbed by, the state apparatus, and that “invited” candidates are just a

reflection of those dynamics. However, while there are oligarchic tendencies within the

legislative group, and while these have intensified when MAS assumed governing roles,

Molina’s conclusion can be misleading. It is possible that “invited” MAS candidates and social

movement representatives do not form any sort of organic group with shared or corporate social

and political interests and incentives – that is, they do not form an oligarchy. At best, they

represent a temporary group of assorted representatives from diverse base organizations in a

loose coalition.

130
 Molina’s functionalism also downplays the choices and power struggles within the party

and the diverse selection mechanisms used by the MAS. According to Jorge Silva, the leading

campaign advisor for the 2009 election, it is important to make an analytic distinction between

plurinominal candidates invited directly by Morales, and those candidates nominated by social

organizations. Most of the former are invited because they are considered “symbolic figures or

political emblems that can give certain vitality to the government. In these cases, the selection

decision does not come out from the social organizations but rather from the top down”

(interview with Adolfo Mendoza). In other words, what takes place in these cases is a top-down

nomination process where the source of legitimacy for these candidates comes from their

accumulated symbolic capital. Examples of these candidates include Ana María Romero de

Campero in the Department of La Paz,142 Rebeca Delgado in the Department of Cochabamba,143

and Betty Tejada in the Department of Santa Cruz.144 The rationale behind these nominations is

to capture the median voter.145

The analysis provided thus far characterizes the selectorate as highly exclusive. It is

therefore possible to argue that the nomination process of plurinominal candidates within the

MAS resembles an “appointment system,” but that would be an oversimplification.146

My research shows that a single leader does not invite the vast majority of the

plurinominal candidates capriciously, and they are not imposed from above. Rather, many are

142
Former ombudswoman and prominent human rights activist.
143
Prominent lawyer and former delegate to the Constituent Assembly.
144
Former representative for the NFR, and vocal advocate for the MAS in Santa Cruz at a moment where
the MAS was highly resisted in that department.
145
Multiple interviews.
146
On the “appointment system” see (Hazan and Rahat 2010: 73–86).

131
nominated by a wide array of social movements, unions, and civic associations that, among other

base organizations, compete for representation. As in the case of the uninominal candidates, prior

to an election cycle MAS’s National Directorate distributes an open call for nominations to

sponsoring and allied organizations throughout the country. After the invitation is out, the social

organizations allied to the MAS – or those that intend to join and nominate candidates – propose

their preferred candidates. According to Jorge Silva, since these nominees are “neither members

nor activists of the social organization nor formal members of the MAS, it is only in this sense

that we can say they are invited. It is not the president who brings them or imposes them on the

organizations, but they are rather the organizations that actually make the invitations” (interview

with Jorge Silva).

In these cases, then, the power struggles among competing organizations to nominate

their own candidates, and how conflicts emerging from these struggles are resolved, are central

to selection. To increase the likelihood of nominating their preferred candidates, competing

organizations need to coordinate with other groups. Coordination is not always easy, however.

An example of the selection of senatorial candidates from the Department of

Cochabamba will further illustrate how the selection of plurinominal candidates works. Of the

list of four senators, the first slot went to Adolfo Mendoza, who had served as a legal and

political advisor to peasant organizations during the constituent assembly; the second slot went

to Marcelina Chávez, who is both a miner in a cooperative and a peasant union leader; the third

slot went to Julio Salazar, who was a prominent coca-growing union-leader in the Six

Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba in the Chapare region; and the fourth slot went to Lidia

Ordónez, who was loosely associated to the “middle” class.

Mendoza explains why he obtained the first slot:

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 [W]e knew that we were going to win at least two seats, but not the four seats

in the Department. The Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba wanted

the first seat for themselves, but that would have been a risky move,

electorally speaking. […] Since the Bartolinas and the Six Federations did not

come to an agreement […], they decided to invite me because they knew me

by my work in the constituent assembly. I was also a visible person nation-

wide, as I had led a public campaign to defend the constitution in

Cochabamba before it was approved, and as a result they thought that my

candidacy would secure urban middle-class votes and increase the

probabilities of winning, if not four seats, at least the first three. I was

someone associated with the construction of the Plurinational State, but

people knew I wasn’t in the MAS. In fact, I didn’t become a candidate

because I was a member of the MAS, or even a leader of a social organization,

but thanks to my collaboration with these. And it wasn’t Morales who invited

me, but rather these organizations (interview with Adolfo Mendoza).147

Failures of Coordination. Even in the case of uninominal candidates, competing social

organizations often do not reach a consensus in the selection process, failing to nominate

candidates. This leads to conflicts among organizations. To date, there are neither clear

hierarchies nor clearly established formal structures and mechanisms to resolve these conflicts

within the MAS. The Regional Directorates, as intermediate-level party bodies, may play an

147
Mendoza added that Evo Morales and the national leadership of the MAS were not pleased with his
nomination, as they conceived of Mendoza as a “free thinker” or one who can “have an independent
opinion and who doesn’t follow ‘organic’ decisions by the party.” Still, his candidacy was approved albeit
“with a big dose of skepticism.”

133
important role in this regard. However, just like the local party apparatus, they do not have

sufficient autonomy and decision-making power, and they try “not to obstruct the decisions made

by the executive or by the social organizations themselves” (interview with Adolfo Mendoza). In

the absence of clear mechanisms for conflict resolution, most participants end up relying on

Morales to resolve them. He plays the role of an arbiter in chief, particularly in areas where the

political apparatus is weaker (e.g., in Beni, Pando, and Tarija). In cases where the MAS has

developed a stronger party apparatus (e.g., in Cochabamba, La Paz, and Santa Cruz), conflicts

are resolved by the intervention of local powerful political actors, who exert significant influence

on intraparty decisions, but also by Morales himself.

When it comes to plurinominal candidates, ad hoc committees composed by a small

group of influential leaders are often formed to decide the final composition of the electoral lists.

While this is an ad hoc arrangement, interviews with plurinominal candidates suggest that this

group typically includes the President, the Vice President, the Presidents of Congress, top

members of the MAS’s National Directorate, and executive authorities of the principal peasant

organizations that constitute the MAS’s political core. Additional leaders sometimes are

included. These groups evaluate the lists proposed by social organizations in each department,

and then negotiate with these organizations to determine which individuals will be selected as

candidates.

These groups can also veto candidates already proposed. Their ability to do so, however,

is contingent on structural elements. Two examples with differences in structural context may

help illustrate this point. The first is in Santa Cruz, where civil society is strong and aligned with

opposition forces. In such a context, vetoes from the top succeeded when regional organizations

engaged in an alliance with the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC), a right-wing shock troop that

134
had violent confrontations with the MAS activists during the first Morales government. This

alliance would guarantee the UJC an important number of seats, which the leadership did not

accept. In other cases, however, despite the veto attempts by committees, social organizations

manage to nominate their preferred candidate. Generally, this occurs where strong grassroots

organizations are aligned with the MAS, as in the Department of Cochabamba.

Summary. The selection of plurinominal candidates is more centralized and exclusive than that

of uninominal candidates. The process can be characterized as a combination of top-down

decision-making by a small – but varying – group of influential leaders, and negotiation and

consensus building from below. While in some cases the leadership can exert significant

influence on the order and composition of the lists, in other instances the social organizations

have more power to nominate their preferred candidate. Consistent with the main argument here,

this is generally the case in areas where social organizations are stronger and aligned with MAS.

When this is not the case, the leadership has more control over candidate selection.

Additional Evidence: Local Authorities

This sub-section presents additional evidence from candidate selection for local level

office, which provides strong supplementary support to the claims developed above. As

sociologist Fernando García commented in an interview “understanding how the MAS selects its

candidates at the local level has been inexplicably under-explored so far. It is there where the

MAS expresses its full heterogeneity. And the interesting thing is that it is in those locations

135
where the MAS decentralizes its authority and decision-making power the most” (interview with

Fernando García).148

This is an idealistic view about the selection of local-level candidates, as the following

pages demonstrate, using five municipalities. The criteria for selecting cases were

straightforward. Taking the results of the April 2010 municipal elections, one urban and one

rural district was selected with the following configurations: the MAS as electorally dominant at

all levels of competition (i.e. national and municipal level), the Opposition dominant at all levels

of competition, and mixed or split (neither the MAS nor the Opposition clearly dominant) (See

Table 3.2 and Map 3.2).

Table 3.5. Subnational Comparative Cases

Urban Rural
MAS Mixed Opposition MAS Mixed Opposition
El Alto All levels
La Paz National Local
Achacachi National Local
Villa Tunari All levels
Santa Cruz All levels

Map 3.10. Fieldwork Sites for Local Level Candidate Selection

148
García is a leading sociologist at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Bolivia.

136
 Strong Civil Society

Aligned with the

MAS. The pattern that most clearly diffuses power can be observed in the municipality of Villa

Tunari and, to a lesser extent, in El Alto. In both cases, where the MAS is dominant at all levels

of competition, selection takes a very similar form as described above in the case of uninominal

legislative candidates. In Villa Tunari, for example, the mayor and all of the representatives to

the municipal council emerge from the two main coca growers’ federations that are present in the

district: the Special Federation of Peasant Workers of the Tropics of Cochabamba (Federación

Especial de Trabajadores Campesinos del Trópico de Cochabamba, FETCT), and the Special

137
Federation of the Yungas of the Chapare (Federación Especial Yungas del Chapare, FEYCH)

(see García Linera, León, and Monje 2004: 381–457; also UMSS 2004: Chapter 4).

Selection follows the sindicato norms, which derive from unwritten usage and customs

practiced in highland sending communities (Van Cott 2008: 183). Once elections for municipal

authorities approach, each local sindicato nominates its preferred candidate, who will then

represent the sindicato and compete at the level of the central. Elections at these two stages are

held either by standing in groups, or by secret ballot (interviews with Segundina Orellana and

Feliciano Mamani). The winners of these contests then compete at the level of the federation,

which is at the top of the local-level hierarchy. The FETCT, which is the largest and most

powerful federation in the municipality, selects the mayor as well as 8 titular candidates and 8

sub candidates for the municipal council. The FEYCH selects the deputy mayor as well as 3

titular candidates and 3 sub candidates for the municipal council. This distribution, which is

generally respected by the competing organizations, reflects the de facto balance of power in the

municipality. Here the MAS as a party does not have an independent role vis-à-vis the grassroots

organizations, and indeed the two seem to be fused. As a journalist at a local radio summarized

it, “the MAS in Villa Tunari is not a political party; it is what allows the local sindicatos to

legally compete in elections” (interview with Walter Cassía).149

149
Although this “bottom up” mechanism is the general pattern, the selection process has several kinds of
distortions. For example, Cordova Eguivar noted that by eliminating the need for counting, the voting
system of the “lines” can be unfair and easily manipulated by powerbrokers and gatekeepers (interview
with Eduardo Cordova Eguivar). In another interview, Jean-Paul Benavides commented that there are all
kinds of agreements under the table that distort the “bottom up” selection process, particularly at the level
of the federation. These agreements, which are typically seen as interferences by either Evo Morales
directly or another member of the executive, can go against the consensus reached by the organizations
(interview with Jean-Paul Benavides). Despite these distortions in the process, the presence of grassroots
organizations that can agree on candidate selection is central.

138
Strong Civil Society Aligned with Multiple Parties. Selection in El Alto is similar as in Villa

Tunari.150 The key organizations that wield power are the Federation of Neighborhood Boards

(Federación de Juntas Vecinales, FEJUVE) and the Regional Labor Federation (Central Obrera

Regional, COR).151 However, these and other smaller organizations compete with an incipient

local party structure that also is involved in selection. Once elections for local office approach,

both the grassroots organizations and the local party structure nominate their preferred

candidates according to their own norms and procedures. The composition of the electoral list

reflects the balance of power within the “grassroots” component, and between the “grassroots”

component and the party structure.152 It also reflects the balance of power between those two and

the national MAS leadership.

For example, the COR nominated Edgar Patana, who had served as the executive

secretary for the organization during the first Morales government, to run for mayor. Though the

COR was not the most powerful organization in the city at the moment of selection (and it still is

not), it had maintained better relations with the national MAS government by defending the

government’s key policies and by coordinating policies with national-level authorities (interview

with Edgar Patana). This strengthened the candidacy of Patana vis-à-vis FEJUVE’s preferred

150
For an alternative assessment of this process, see Mamani and Archondo (2010: 41–52). The main
difference between their account and mine is that theirs does not address the selection of the mayor, and it
focuses exclusively on what I term the “grassroots” component. It fails to mention the existence of a
territorial party structure, and it fails to explain how these two components interact during the selection
process.
151
The FEJUVE is a coordinator of residents, as well as neighborhood councils and associations, in El
Alto. The COR is an umbrella organization of workers, which includes factory workers, teachers,
journalists, and artisans but is dominated by street traders. Other smaller organizations that have a stake in
selection include, but are not limited to, the Unique Federation of Peasant Communities in the Urban and
Semi-Urban Radius of El Alto (Federación Única de Comunidades Campesinas del Radio Urbano y Sub
Urbano de El Alto, FESUCARUSO), and the Federation of Street Traders (“the Federation”).
152
Almost all of the candidates were nominated by grassroots organizations, and a minority was
nominated by the “party” structure.

139
candidate (interviews with Edgar Patana, Néstor Guillén, and Fanny Nina). FEJUVE’s

authorities and leaders of other, smaller local organizations saw Patana’s nomination as an

imposition from above and therefore resisted (interviews with Félix Patzi Abel Mamani, and

Fanny Nina).153

The patterns described above—in Villa Tunari and El Alto—are of special interest

because they represent exceptions to the trend toward oligarchization, albeit in varying degrees.

First, they show that when there is not a single grassroots organization clearly articulating the

local region and serving as a reference, there is space for the emergence of a local party structure

that will then compete for representation with the “grassroots” component. That scenario cannot

be observed in Villa Tunari, where there is no room for an autonomous “party” structure, as the

coca growers’ sindicatos control the local political environment. Second, the patterns show that,

in a context where the territory is divided into competing grassroots organizations, having good

relationships with the party in government can help to shift the balance of power in one’s favor

during the selection process. This, in turn, can open room for “top down” imposition of

candidates, but such an imposition cannot be done without having the support of at least one of

the competing organizations. Taken together, then, the patterns described above provide

additional evidence in support of to the central claim in this chapter: that in districts where civil

society is densely organized and can agree on selection, the grassroots organizations can

effectively impose their choices of candidates and resist the trend toward internal power

concentration.

153
Patana almost lost the contest to a right-wing candidate of National Unity (Unidad Nacional, UN).
This was surprising because El Alto had voted heavily for the MAS in the 2009 general election. Local
authorities understand the “crossover voting” and the poor performance of the MAS in the 2010 local
election as a result of the lack of consensus around the candidacy of Patana (interview with Jorge Silva), a
conclusion shared by UN leaders (interview with Carlos Hugo Laruta).

140
 The municipalities of La Paz and Achacachi follow a different pattern. Here the MAS has

created a precarious party structure that, together with the national leadership and elected

representatives, selected candidates with relative autonomy from the grassroots organizations. In

both cases, MAS candidates emerged “from the top,” but selection took slightly different forms

in both municipalities.

In Achacachi, where there are strong peasant organizations, the territorial party structure

has an influential role in the selection of representatives to the municipal council and it bypasses

the grassroots organizations.154 In 2010, for example, the mayor was “directly invited from

above, by Eugenio Rojas and David Choquehuanca” (interview with Adrián Mamani

Paucara).155 That way of selection was seen by local leaders as an imposition carried out by the

“MAS bureaucracy and its leadership,” and as a result the candidates that emerged from local

organizations ran under the ticket of a competing party (interview with Bernabé Paucara).156 In

this case, the presence of another party willing to serve as an electoral vehicle for grassroots

organizations by respecting their selection norms, gave the organizations an exit option.

In La Paz, where there are not powerful grassroots organizations, selection was similar

but the absence of such organizations meant that the central actors in selection were the MAS

national leadership and the territorial party structure (interview with Jorge Silva). The power

balance between the national leadership and the local party was clearly tilted in favor of the

former—that is, the local party did not have enough power to nominate its preferred candidates.

154
The most powerful organization is the Federation of Peasant Workers Tupac Katari.
155
Eugenio Rojas is a former mayor of Achacachi and a MAS senator. David Choquehuanca is Bolivia’s
Minister of Foreign Relations.
156
In 2004, that party was the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement (Movimiento Indígena Pachakuti, MIP);
in 2010, that party was the Movement for Sovereignty (Movimiento por la Soberanía, MPS)

141
Indeed, the composition of the electoral list reflects the de facto distribution of power quite

clearly: most candidates nominated “from the top” were placed in the safe zone, whereas those

nominated by the party were placed at the bottom (interview with Manuel Mercado).157

Strong Civil Society Aligned with Opposition. That last point was also true for Santa Cruz—

Bolivia’s largest city, and one that has traditionally been considered a stronghold of the

opposition. This city has a pattern that combines decentralized participation with oligarchic

decision-making. The MAS has created a fairly strong territorial party structure that has an

impressive mobilization capacity, and that capacity gives it a central role in candidate selection

and local-level governance.158 This structure, which is led by an urban directorate,159 draws

support from two powerful urban sectors—transportation and street venders—and is territorially

based in sixteen political districts (interviews with Tito Santibañez and Rodolfo Zeballos). The

urban structure operates autonomously from both the national leadership and the Santa Cruz

Departmental Directorate led by peasant organizations (interview with Lidia Choque). And it

wields significant power in candidate selection, particularly in the nomination of representatives

for the municipal council.

Yet, despite its organizational strength, decisions made at this level in Santa Cruz can be

bypassed under certain circumstances. The selection of the mayor is particularly instructive. In

that case, though the territorial structure nominated Saúl Ávalos to run for mayor by an

agreement with the political authorities and social bases in every district, the national leadership
157
This was verified by interviewing all of the nominated candidates that did not fare well in the election.
158
The configuration of this territorial structure, which is unparalleled in other cities of the country due to
its density and stability, represents the peculiar historical trajectory of Santa Cruz and its organizational
dynamics. It also responds to a deliberate decision by the MAS leadership to consolidate its presence in a
territory that was initially seen as hostile to the MAS (interview with Álvaro García Linera).
159
Santa Cruz is the only city in the country that has a MAS “urban” directorate.

142
of the MAS conceived of Ávalos as unelectable and vetoed his candidacy (interview with José

Quiroz).160 Through prominent elected officials from Santa Cruz—including for example the

president of the senate, Gabriela Montano—the MAS national leadership established a formal

alliance with a new political party, the Popular and Solidarity Alliance (Alianza Popular

Solidaria, ASIP).161 This alliance guaranteed representation for ASIP in the municipal council,

including an invitation to ASIP’s president to run for mayor (interviews with Gabriela Montaño,

Hugo Siles, and Freddy Soruco). Lidia Choque, a peasant leader and former president of the

Santa Cruz Departmental Directorate, commented that the “agreement ‘from above’ could have

only happened because the social organizations [in Santa Cruz] are not united and each supports

whoever offers the best deal. Ávalos wasn’t the candidate of the organizations and he had no

support from them.” Her statement is consistent with the central argument that oligarchic

decision-making is more likely to occur in the absence of strong grassroots organizations that can

agree on candidate selection.

Conclusion

The MAS employs several candidate selection methods. Some of those methods diffuse

power territorially and among grassroots actors. At the national level, this can be clearly

observed in the case of uninominal candidates. At the local level, a similar pattern can be

160
Electoral considerations played a central role in this decision. Indeed, opinion polls showed that
Avalos’ voting intention was very low in the city, and having him run as a mayor was a risky move for
the MAS, particularly in its “expansive phase” to the east. In other words, the MAS could not afford to
run with a candidate that, although it was nominated by the social bases, would only bring about a small
voting flow.
161
A political party founded by Roberto Fernández, the son of a former politician that formed the neo-
populist party Civic Solidarity Union (Unión Cívica Solidaridad, UCS) in the 1990s. UCS made
significant electoral inroads in the peripheral areas of Bolivia’s largest cities, including La Paz, El Alto,
and Santa Cruz. ASIP has built its precarious structure on top of the social networks developed by its
antecedent.

143
observed in municipalities where strong grassroots organizations control the territory, something

that is more easily, though not exclusively, observed in rural districts. Using a wealth of original

empirical evidence, the chapter has identified the conditions and explained the mechanisms

under which broad and substantive grassroots participation can be promoted in a movement-

based party. Where civil society is strong, has mechanisms to arrive at collective decisions, and

can reach agreements on candidate selection it can play an important role in defying the

oligarchization of an allied party by maintaining open political spaces for democratic

participation from below. Where these organizations are absent or cannot reach an agreement,

top-down elite choices more likely to prevail.

This chapter has also attempted to explain how candidate selection processes can

facilitate greater grassroots participation in broader political processes. The implication is

noteworthy: under certain circumstances, the way in which movement-based parties select

candidates for elective office can open significant channels of representation for groups that have

been traditionally at the margins of political life and facilitate their incorporation into the broader

political system. Instead of following an organizational path that ratifies Michels’s unilinear

expectation of an “iron law” of oligarchy, movement-based parties can offer an alternative mode

of organization and development that empowers the grassroots in relation to the party elite, if

conditions are conducive. In Bolivia’s MAS, this form of resisting the trend toward

oligarchization is both a part of a deliberate organizational strategy and a reflection of the

existing de facto distribution of power within the party and its sponsoring and allied

organizations—and also among these organizations themselves.

This analysis has implications for understanding internal sources of party variance. Just

as parties deploy multiple strategies to attract different electoral constituencies, they also operate

144
differently in different settings depending on how the political space is structured. I have shown

with a new source of empirical evidence that variation in patterns of party-civil society relations

shape the internal life of parties. The evidence and analysis suggest that internal party processes

should not be seen as a mere reflection of formal institutional rules governing a country. While

these are important and are manifested, for example, in electoral rules, they do not fully explain

sources of variation within movement-based parties. To understand how parties operate, then, it

is crucial to examine the organizational context in which they are embedded, and how this varies

across geographical constituencies.

Having examined candidate selection within the MAS, the next chapter turns to an

analysis of the degree to which greater grassroots control over candidate selection translates into

greater substantive input into the crucial area of national policy-making.

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 CHAPTER 4: NATIONAL POLICY-MAKING

This chapter examines the degree of power concentration within the MAS’s policy-

making process. Specifically, it focuses on the internal party politics and dynamics of popular

mobilization in the streets, and the extent to which both affect government policy. In doing so, it

identifies the most important actors within the MAS governing coalition, their sources of power,

the relationships between them, and the degree to which they exert influence on the policy-

making process. As has been noted in Chapter 1, many studies of party politics within

comparative politics tend to lend support to the Michelsian argument about party oligarchization,

associating party oligarchy with centralized leadership authority. These discussions almost

always entail an over-time decrease in opportunities for participation in policy decisions by party

members and activists. A remedy for oligarchy, it is argued, is more participation in decision-

making and a sense of responsiveness to societal demands.162 Is there anything about decision-

making within Bolivia’s MAS that might indicate whether such a remedy is actually possible?

To answer this question, this chapter proceeds in two ways. First, it examines whether

internal structures allow organized popular constituencies to generate decisions by putting issues

on the agenda. This approach tries to capture the “creative capacities” of the allied grassroots

162
This insight builds on Roberts’s (Roberts 1998: 3) notion of “deepening” democracy, which involves
efforts to “expand participation in the making of collective decisions and enhance governmental
responsiveness to popular concerns.”

146
organizations by tracing their creative policy formulation abilities. Second, the chapter examines

the extent to which internal structures and protest dynamics impose constraints on the exercise of

power by the party leadership. Specifically, this approach tries to capture the “negative capacities”

of the grassroots organizations that form the MAS governing coalition by tracing their veto and

counter-mobilization power.163 The chapter shows that features of party organization and

dynamics of popular resistance in the streets provide opportunities for grassroots influence on the

crucial arena of national policy-making. These groups can block or modify legislation before a

legislative proposal becomes a law, or after the legislative proposal has been passed (that is, at

the implementation stage). The chapter also shows that under certain institutional and political

configurations, social mobilization can serve as a positive policy tool, assisting with the passing

of controversial legislation important to organized popular constituencies.

Why and How We Should Study Policy-Making

The way in which parties make decisions is of central interest because it provides useful

insights into a central question of politics: who actually rules? If we look at governing parties,

moreover, understanding how decisions are made sheds light on where effective—or “real”—

authority falls within the party and the larger system in which it is embedded. In short, decision-

163
We can think of these negative capacities as “social vetoes,” to distinguish them from the more
institutional “veto points” described by Immergut (Immergut 1992) or Huber, Ragin, and Stephens
(1993), who focus on the degree to which constitutional structures disperse power and open channels of
influence on the formulation and implementation of policy. My approach is also different from Tsebelis’s
(2002) notion of “veto players,” which focuses on the actors whose agreement is necessary for altering
the legislative status quo. I conceive of social vetoes as individual or collective actors whose behavior (in
Congress or in the streets) can impose effective constraints on the authority and decision-making power
of party leaders in office.

147
making is central to the analysis of participation, internal party democracy, and regime dynamics

because it reveals important information about how power is organized and exercised.

Party theorists in the Michelsian tradition expect that parties formed by social movements

will evolve into bureaucratic and hierarchical organizations that suppress the “bottom-up” logic

of social mobilization and horizontal decision-making that characterize social movements

(Panebianco 1988: 164–168). Michels argues that even in leftist labor-based parties, which use

the language of grassroots participation and democratic deepening, elitist decision-making will

emerge. The Michelsian image of internal party politics portrays party leaders as pursuing their

own selfish interests, as opposed to their party’s collective goals, and as striving to limit the

influence of the grassroots on party strategy and policy choice. In this view, members and

activists are seen as oddly passive actors with few claims of participation in party decisions, and

as thereby leaving decision-making to political leaders. Thus, according to this model, leadership

entrenchment and grassroots passivity reinforce each other and hinder party democracy.

As has been noted in Chapter 1, the implicit or explicit acceptance of this theoretical

argument is even more common in studies of governing parties. These predict the almost

inevitable emergence of hierarchical elitist structures in which the interests of the party’s

constituent members would be increasingly marginalized. While the emergence of hierarchy will

start before a party ever achieves governmental power, hierarchy will be aggravated when the

party does come to power. This is because complex task structures associated with governing a

country push governing parties to both be efficient in the administration of the state and to

respond to political and economic pressures that come from sectors well beyond the party’s

social base (Deschouwer 2008: 10). Coordinating the interests of diverse constituencies and

reaching collective decisions is complicated and inefficient in complex organizations (Burchell

148
2001; Bolleyer 2011). Therefore hierarchy, specialization, and a cadre of professional politicians

all become necessary to generate decisions.164

Governing parties tend to delegate authority to their leaders in the executive branch

(Coppedge 1994: 64). The general expectation is that governing parties will generate support for

any initiative designed by the executive. Yet, despite the tendency toward executive autonomy,

there is still significant variation. In Argentina during the 1990s, President Carlos Menem could

expect support for most of his initiatives, including reforms that were detrimental to his party’s

historic core constituencies (Levitsky and Way 1998). In Uruguay, however, the market reform

process of the 1990s was slower than in Argentina, in part because the executive branch never

enjoyed comparable levels of autonomy in relation to the governing parties (Pribble 2008;

Bogliaccini 2012).

O’Donnell identified an extreme manifestation of executive autonomy in his study of

“delegative” democracy (O’Donnell 1994). In these democracies, presidents govern with

unchecked power and they are generally unaccountable to societal demands. This means that,

“whoever wins the election to the presidency is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees fit,

constrained only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited

term in office” (O’Donnell 1994, 59). This behavior is generally associated with weak party

organizations, as these play a key role activating mechanisms of “horizontal” accountability

(O’Donnell 1994). It is also associated with weakly organized civil societies, as they play a key

164
At the same time, this logic almost always leads to a popular disenchantment with the ability of parties
to reform state-society relations and generate more inclusive procedures of democratic decision-making.
However, this is still an empirical matter. Governing parties can also transform existing structures through
the adoption of new patterns of participation and decision-making and state-society linkages.

149
role activating mechanisms of “social” accountability (Smulovitz and Peruzzotti 2000). High

levels of executive autonomy can undermine democracy by leading to power concentration.165

Movement-based parties seem well equipped to resist pressures toward power

concentration in the hands of the president. Such parties are “indirect” organizations, in the sense

that they exist as electoral vehicles for other organizations, from which they receive external

loyalty. As Panebianco notes, these parties tend to never fully institutionalize, and this is because

the sponsoring organizations almost always do not feel compelled to grant full autonomy to the

electoral-political vehicle (1988: 62). At the same time, they are generally composed of diverse

grassroots organizations and social movements, whose heterogeneity increases as these parties

expand their electoral base. The hybrid nature of parties based on social movements may

encourage democratic control from below by allowing for the existence of opposition among

allied groups that check political power from within and keep open channels for agenda setting

from below. Such encouragement, as this dissertation argues, can help to attenuate the trend

toward oligarchization.

All movement-based parties encounter similar challenges when they assume national-

level power: tensions emerge between the executive branch, the party’s parliamentary

representatives, the party’s top leadership, and the leaders and grassroots members of sponsoring

organizations that configure the governing coalition. These tensions often interact in

unpredictable ways, and they have not been fully investigated by social scientists.166 Most

165
High levels of autonomy can also strengthen democracy by preventing entrenched minorities from
imposing gridlock or by enabling popular executives to deliver on ambitious, popularly supported
agendas.
166
When dealing with movement-based parties in power, sociologists tend to look at social movement
activity, failing to link it to party activity (Fung and Wright 2003). Political scientists tend to look at their

150
notably, however, all governing movement-based parties share a problem of organizational

legitimacy. As Kitschelt (1989a: 130) notes, “an organization enjoys legitimacy when its

members accept its decisions as authoritative and final even if they personally disagree with

them.” Although his focus is on individual compliance and legitimacy (that is, at the level of

individual members or activists), it is plausible to make a similar argument centered on the

organizational level (that is, at the level of collective actors). Movement-based parties enjoy

organizational legitimacy when their constituent members, usually a diverse set of popular

movements and grassroots organizations, accept the supremacy of the party over the individual

constituent part. Drawing on Hirschman (1970), this presupposes a sense of “loyalty” to the party,

the acceptance of its decisions as authoritative and final even if they go against particular or

more corporativist interests.

Governing movement-based parties are particularly susceptible to suffering challenges to

their legitimacy. This occurs because governing a country involves reconciling the interests of

different groups affected by government policy. It also requires harmonizing the often-diverse

interests of the party’s constituent members. These groups can under certain circumstances

successfully challenge government decisions if they disagree with them or if their interests are

seen as not properly taken into account. As a result, governments headed by movement-based

parties are likely to find themselves at odds with their constituent organizations, which can

contributions to local government institutional innovation, failing to link these innovations to the issues
that arise when these organizations gain national-level power (Van Cott 2008).

151
become an obstacle to their programs. This refers to what I term the “negative capacities” of the

party’s constituent organizations, or their veto and counter-mobilization power.167

Studies in the Michelsian tradition would expect the suppression of such veto powers via

the co-optation of the constituent members (Foweraker and Landman 2000). Yet, evidence

shows that social movements can—and often do—challenge their own governments if their

interests are threatened or not adequately taken into account by government policy. They can do

this with various degrees of success, depending on their power resources. Movements rooted in

production or economic activity are generally stronger than other movements, and therefore can

keep movement-based parties more open and can constrain governments based on these parties

more effectively. As an empirical matter, then, we would expect that the stronger the internal

organization of the sponsoring and allied groups, and the greater the capacities of these groups to

mobilize people into the streets, the more likely they can impose effective constraints on the

centralization of power by a leader or a group of leaders.

The study of decision-making would be incomplete until we consider what I term the

“creative capacities” or positive policy formulation power of the party’s constituent

organizations. With this I refer to their ability to generate decisions by determining which issues

and claims enter the public domain and by proposing solutions to them. When movement-based

parties assume office, they almost always confront the issue of the role of sponsoring and allied

groups in the policy process. Yet, because the movement nature of these parties precludes the

construction of firm institutions and clear participatory channels (Panebianco 1988: 53), the

influence of their constituent organizations risks being limited. The new opportunity structures

167
This behavior can be a double-edged sword from the perspective of “good” government. While
challenging decisions via mobilization can pose effective constraints on the centralization of power, it can
also affect the government’s capacity to rule in the general interest.

152
associated with the exercise of power can expand influence of constituent organizations, but they

can also hinder it.168

The classic Michelsian bureaucratic argument would lead us to expect an increasing

marginalization of the party’s constituent organizations in the policy process (Michels 1962;

Allison 1969; Piven and Cloward 1979). This tendency will aggravate if movement-based parties,

as governing entities, consolidate a dominant position in the political system, for it means that

they may have fewer incentives to be responsive to civil society organizations (Carbone 2008;

Magaloni 2006; Heller 2009). As an empirical matter, then, we would expect that the longer

these parties stay in power, the less likely it becomes for their constituent members to project

themselves into the state and exert influence on the policy making process. In addition, however,

we should expect movement influence to vary across policy areas or ministries. Integrating

insights from the literature on the developmental states and from sociological approaches, their

influence should be greater in ministries whose policies affect large groups of well-organized

constituencies than in ministries whose policies affect broader cross-sections of society.

The Case of the MAS

Eight years after assuming office, it is possible to evaluate whether the MAS has

followed the expectations outlined above and reach some preliminary conclusions about the

behavior of a movement-based party in government. On balance, while the influence of the

grassroots on setting the agenda and participating directly in the generation of policies is limited

168
On the one hand, access to power can come at the expense of moderation (Meyer and Tarrow 1998,
21) and it can also lead to suppression of contentious action via the co-optation of sponsoring and allied
groups (Foweraker and Landman 2000). On the other hand, though, moderation can also be “the price to
pay for the emergence of agile political actors that can negotiate with incumbent regimes” (Foweraker
1995: 103). At the other extreme, when sponsoring and allied groups reject to moderate and to abandon
militant forms of contentious action, they can be excluded from positions of influence in the government
and their ability to shape the agenda can be reduced (Meyer and Tarrow 1998: 21).

153
and non-routinized, the party’s capacity to keep its leadership accountable by blocking or

modifying government policy is more prominent. The leadership, then, is sometimes held

hostage by the social organizations in ways that challenge the trend toward oligarchization.

As noted in Chapter 2, becoming a governing party altered the internal dynamics of the

MAS in significant ways. This process involved the articulation of alliances with a wide array of

peasant and urban workers’ organizations, which can be partially explicable in terms of the logic

of “supra-class” electoral recruitment theorized by Przeworski and Sprague (1986). This

coalition building strategy yielded favorable electoral results, but it also led to the configuration

of a strikingly heterodox and loose governing coalition. After assuming office, the challenge was

how to organize power—and how to govern with that coalition. Tensions quickly emerged

between the bottom-up dynamics present in the origins of the MAS, and the top-down dynamics

associated with governing.

Many observers have argued that the MAS has become increasingly detached from

popular organizations as a governing party (Madrid 2012; Webber 2011; M. Zegada et al. 2011;

Zuazo 2010). To support this claim, some scholars have looked at the social composition and

evolution of Morales’s cabinet of ministers. While his first cabinet included a mix of leaders of

rural and urban organizations as well as people of humble origins (Costa 2008; Stefanoni and Do

Alto 2006),169 studies have found that the presence of these in the cabinet has tended to decrease

over time (Do Alto 2011; M. T. Zegada, Torrez, and Camara 2008; Laruta 2008). Indeed, the

participation of representatives of popular organizations in top-level positions within the

executive branch has been limited and isolated. With some exceptions, key positions have been

169
This observation led Bolivia’s Vice-President to characterize the Morales government as a
“government of the social movements.” For an argument that challenges this notion, see Zegada et al.
(2008).

154
occupied by a technocratic elite that is “invited” into the ranks of the party, that does not

represent grassroots organizations, and thus have few checks from below.170

A different story can be told about the social composition of Congress. About 70 percent

of MAS representatives in the 2009-2015 Congress are men and women drawn from and

nominated by a wide array of rural and urban grassroots organizations.171 That they

overwhelmingly come from organized popular groups does not mean that these organizations

have a strong influence on setting the legislative agenda, however. Scholars have pointed out that

under the Morales government elected representatives have had a “subordinate standing” in

relation to the executive (see Crabtree 2013: 287; also Fornillo 2008: 3). As Do Alto (2011: 105)

notes, when the MAS became a governing party, the locus of decision-making switched from its

representatives in Congress to the executive branch (see also Anria et al. 2010).

Both observations—that the locus of “real” authority lies on the executive, where the

presence of grassroots actors is limited and isolated—lend support to the idea of the

“oligarchization” of the MAS. However, matters are less straightforward once we examine

decision-making by looking at a broader set of internal organizational dynamics combined with

the dynamics of social protests in the streets.

When Morales assumed office in 2006, for example, he addressed the demands set forth

by the mass mobilizations of the early 2000s, which had, de facto, set the government’s

agenda.172 Therefore he declared the nationalization of the hydrocarbon industry, proclaimed an

170
A key example of this is Bolivia’s minister of economy, Luis Arce Catacora.
171
This represents an even larger percentage in comparison to the 2006-2009 Congress. As noted in
Chapter 3, the candidate selection methods employed by the MAS, particularly to nominate “uninominal”
representatives, have led to a growing presence of popular sectors in this institution.
172
This was known as the “October Agenda.” It was not a clear party program designed by the MAS, but
more of a list of aspirations that emerged from the insurrection of El Alto in October 2003, which the

155
extensive agrarian reform, promoted an anticorruption law, and called for a constituent assembly

through which popularly elected delegates would rewrite the country’s constitution.173 All of

these actions can be seen as examples of Morales’s positive accountability to the MAS’s social

base; that is, as attempts to follow through on the demands from the direct action protests of

2000–2005. They can also be seen as an attempt to foster close bonds between the party in

government and its support base, an effort to distance the MAS from the traditional parties in

Bolivia.

Since its origins in the mid-1990s, the MAS’s “core constituency” has been composed of

the coca growers in the Chapare region.174 Together with other national-level peasant

organizations, they have maintained a strong influence over the party’s platform, agenda, and

policy orientation.175 The centrality of peasant leadership in the party is hard to overstate (Do

MAS used for its campaign. The agenda included a wide array of popular demands to re-found Bolivia in
the name of the poor and the indigenous majority. Among the key demands included in the agenda were
the nationalization of hydrocarbons, an agrarian reform, and the call for a constituent assembly.
173
The constitution is of particular interest because it exemplifies the main tendencies found in this study.
The 2009 Constitution reflected the MAS’s attempts to follow through on the protests’ repeated calls for a
constituent assembly. At the same time, the outcome of the constituent assembly was a text approved by
progovernment delegates only, and many people accused the MAS of forcing the constitution through in
antidemocratic ways. Nevertheless, that draft was negotiated and modified in Congress, with input from
opposition forces and compromises on both sides. It became law with the constitutional referendum of
January 2009 (see Stoyan 2014).
174
Gibson (1996: 7) distinguishes core from non-core constituencies. He defines the former as “those
sectors of society that are most important to its political agenda and resources. Their importance lies not
necessarily in the number of votes they represent, but in their influence on the party’s agenda and
capacities for political action.” Non-core constituencies, in turn, are necessary to expand the party’s
electoral base.
175
These organizations include the Unique Confederation of Rural Laborers of Bolivia (Confederación
Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, CSUTCB); the Syndicalist Confederation of
Intercultural Communities of Bolivia (Confederación Sindical de Comunidades Interculturales de
Bolivia, CSCIB); and the Bartolina Sisa National Confederation of Campesino, Indigenous, and Native
Women of Bolivia (Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas Indígenas Originarias de Bolivia
“Bartolina Sisa,” CNMCIOB-BS).

156
Alto 2011).176 Yet, as the MAS became a catchall movement with a national presence, it also

established a broad network of alliances with other grassroots organizations (interviews with

Iván Iporre, Alejandro Almaraz, and Walter Chávez). In big cities that are central for winning

electoral majorities—such as La Paz, El Alto, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz—the MAS has

drawn support from two powerful sectors of similar socioeconomic background: transportation

and street venders. These two sectors are generally associated with Bolivia’s large “informal”

economy. Alliances were also made with organizations representing artisans, micro-enterprises,

pensioners, and miners working for cooperatives, among others.177 Once in office, tensions

quickly emerged between these new members and the MAS government, particularly regarding

policy orientation and the distribution of political power.

These “late incorporations” have complicated the decision-making processes, as growing

heterogeneity in the governing coalition presupposes more intricate forms of consensus building

among diverse constituent members. With exceptions, such as the configuration of the Unity

Pact, which brought together a wide array of organizations and provided input for the

constitutional reform, the MAS has not formalized clear channels of participation and

consultation in decision-making.178 There has been a strong resistance against institutionalizing

the relations between base organizations and the party elite, partly because MAS leaders think

176
For example, Morales retains responsibility for leading both the MAS and a social movement
organization, the Six Federations of the Tropics of Cochabamba, the overarching union of coca growers.
177
The MAS has had a particularly difficult time trying to build alliances with other urban sectors, like
teachers and health workers (see Do Alto 2011: 108).
178
The Unity Pact (Pacto de Unidad) was an alliance of rural and indigenous popular organizations from
the west and east of the country. Operating independently from the MAS, the Unity Pact produced a
complete draft of a constitutional text and presented it to the Constituent Assembly. Above all, it provided
advisory consultation. Since the new constitution was approved, however, the Pacto de Unidad has not
had active participation or visibility in decision-making processes (interview with Juan Carlos Pinto).

157
that formalizing these links might lead the MAS to operate as a conventional political party—i.e.,

one with a formal hierarchical elite structure.179

Insofar as these mechanisms remain absent, Morales “is a referee and no one challenges

his decisions” (interview with Jorge Silva). Many accounts have shown that Morales has

concentrated great power in the executive, at the expense of the legislature and the judiciary

(Anria et al. 2010, 254–260; Madrid 2012: 163). And it is hard to overstate his centrality in the

policy-making process (Crabtree 2013: 287–288). Yet, although he is a dominant actor in the

policy process, he is not all-powerful, and he is not the sole actor. Morales cannot do as he

pleases, as there are limits to his authority that are shaped by the nature of the MAS’s internal

organization and the dynamics of mobilization in the streets.180 It is precisely the MAS’s fluidity,

or the diffuse and non-routinized mode of interaction between the party and the grassroots

organizations, that leaves wide maneuvering room for these to exert pressure on the leadership

(see Anria 2013: 37). The base organizations that support the government, too, have the potential

to play an important policy role.

These actors can impact decision-making in at least four ways. First, they can generate

decisions by putting issues on the public agenda—be it via the party structure, their

representatives in Congress, and/or their direct access to the executive branch. Second, they can

use mobilizations and other pressure mechanisms to assist with the passing of legislation. Third,

they can veto or block the passage of legislation via their representatives in Congress (that is,

179
MAS’s leaders define the organization as a “political instrument” of the peasant indigenous
movement, rather than a conventional party. Leaders do not want such a party, and they think of it as an
obsolete type of organization that can retard social and political change. In this sense, the parallels with
the early Peronism are striking (see McGuire 1997: Chapter 1).
180
These are limitations set by Morales’s own political camp. His capacity to shape policy is also limited
by the opposition and domestic and international investors.

158
before the proposal becomes law). Finally, they can mobilize against the government if their

interests are threatened or seen as improperly accounted for by government policy during the

implementation stage (that is, after the legislation has been passed). Sometimes, they can even

put enough pressure to force the leadership to give in and reverse decisions or take alternative

courses of action, placing real limits on the centralization of power and on technocratic decision-

making.

Agenda Setting

As has been seen in Chapter 3, grassroots actors in Bolivia have gradually increased their

access to representation in Congress and other state institutions via their linkages to the MAS.181

The question here is whether they have been incorporated in the mainspring of national decision-

making power, or whether their participation has been supplanted by party professionalism or

more technocratic decision-making once the MAS became a governing entity.

This section highlights the tensions between these two logics. It shows that while the

capacity of grassroots actors to generate decisions from below may initially seem limited, their

influence should not be overlooked because decision-making is generally a negotiated process.

Not only does Morales consult about strategic decisions with the leadership of prominent

organizations, but he also includes their demands and priorities on the public agenda.182 While

the party structure lacks real influence, an analysis of the parliamentary body reveals a more

mixed picture: there are tendencies toward the centralization of power in the hands of a small

181
Critics like Luis Tapia, a prominent member of a group of intellectuals known as Comuna, criticizes
this scheme of participation by noting that the MAS “has maintained the traits of the relation between
political parties and civil society that were molded in neoliberal terms—that is, access to public office
goes through the party membership or negotiation with that party” (Tapia 2011: 161).
182
For a parallel argument, see Do Alto (2011).

159
group of representatives in what can be seen as an executive-dominated legislative process, but

at the same time the presence of powerful sectors reduces the capacity of the executive to impose

its agenda, as it faces multiple social vetoes. At the executive level, the influence of grassroots

actors varies by policy area, generally reflecting the existing balance of power among competing

groups. The analysis also points to the importance of considering different constellations of

power to better understand decision-making dynamics. If the governing party lacks a majority of

seats in Congress, for example, allied groups have a clearer incentive to cooperate with it—

particularly if they perceive that it advances their interests. In turn, having legislative majorities

increases the likelihood of the MAS to receive increasing pressures from below by dispersing

demand making. In contemporary Bolivia, this dynamic generally occurs via mass protests.183

The Irrelevance of the Party Structure

The MAS’ bureaucracy is significantly underdeveloped. The party has very limited

professional paid staff, equipment, records of membership, and finances (see Anria 2009). Its

headquarters are located in a very modest office in La Paz, where members of the National

Directorate meet at least once a month to coordinate activities. However, formal leadership

bodies such as the National Directorate and the Departmental Directorates do not play an

important decision-making role and they lack independent authority vis-à-vis MAS office

holders, particularly the president and his ministers, and also prominent leaders of social

organizations.

Party structure is designed to disperse power. However, when asked about the role of

party structure in shaping policy options, party platforms, campaign strategies, and overall party

183
This argument is consistent with the findings of a team of researchers in Fundación UNIR, who found
a drastic and sustained rise in protest activity targeting the government since 2009 (UNIR 2012).

160
strategy, most interviewees agree that formal party organs have little influence. Instead, they are

generally seen as “empty shells” with no real power. And in general this is true: party organs do

not generate policies and strategies.184 As key advisor to the National Directorate Ximena

Centellas commented in an interview:

“The formal party organs at the local, departmental, and national levels are ‘political’

bodies, and for the most part they do not have the strength or the experience to propose

anything, really. Their work focuses more on dealing with intraparty conflicts, and with

the conflicts that arise within allied social organizations over power struggles” (interview

with Ximena Centellas; also with Concepción Ortiz).

Instead of relying on party organs for generating decisions, MAS office holders rely more on ad

hoc committees for receiving input on specific topics.185 These committees are almost always

composed of small groups of influential or trusted individuals within the executive branch, who,

184
Positional authority within the party generally does not correspond to “real” authority, legitimacy, or
political influence. The exception is Morales, who is both the president of the MAS National Directorate
and the Executive Secretary of the Six Federations of the Tropics of Cochabamba, the overarching union
of coca growers in the Chapare. The question “Who is most influential in the party?” repeatedly turned up
Morales, certain ministers, and prominent leaders of social organizations. With exceptions, like MAS’s
Secretary of Foreign Relations, Leonilda Zurita, formal authorities within the party did not turn up as
influential in any systematic way. Power and influence depend more on personal skill than on positional
authority.
185
For example, an ad hoc political committee was formed to design the strategy for the 2005 electoral
campaign. Here the party organs, as independent agents, played virtually no role. Instead, the key actors
in this process were individuals who would then become ministers under the first Morales government
(interview with Iván Iporre). This tendency to bypass party organs was aggravated in the 2009
presidential campaign, after having exercised power for one term, thus revealing the increasing weakness
of formal leadership bodies vis-à-vis MAS office holders. Also, the development of the 2009-15 Program
of Government is particularly revealing of this centripetal trend. According to Wálter Chávez, a key
advisor to the government and co-writer of the program, this document was prepared by a reduced
technocratic group, which “restrained itself to writing down a concise version of a program designed by
Evo Morales himself” (interview with Walter Chávez).

161
due to their unstable and fluctuating nature, do not form any sort of organic group with shared

social and political interests and incentives. In short, they do not constitute an “oligarchy.”

According to the party statute, the highest decision-making body is the Regular National

Congress (CON). It invites delegates of allied grassroots organizations to participate and elect

members of the National Directorate, which must be headed by leaders of peasant-based

organizations (Article 18, b). The CON also invites allied organizations to approve, reform, or

modify the party’s Declaration of Principles, the Program of Government, and the Statute

(Article 18, c). In addition, it reviews disciplinary sanctions imposed by the Ethics Board and

resolves disputes over statutory provisions. Other party conventions include the Organic

Congress, which meets to decide on party organizational issues (Article 19). Although these

conventions ensure broad grassroots participation, they do not decide on public policies or on

programmatic orientation. In addition, critics like political scientist Luis Tapia have described

them as “moments of legitimation” of already-made decisions (cited in Zegada et al. 2011:

255).186 Observations in party national and departmental conventions, and interviews with their

participants, lend additional support to Tapia’s claim.

Scholars have noted that instead of relying on bureaucratic party structures Morales

prefers to have direct unmediated consultations with the leadership of grassroots organizations

prior to making decisions (Crabtree 2013: 287). And most of the leaders of (principally allied)

social organizations interviewed for this dissertation confirmed this pattern. The majority of

these consultation channels, however, are non-bureaucratic and non-institutionalized.187 This

186
This logic of decision-making is reminiscent of the functioning of the workers’ movement in 1950s
Bolivia under the leadership of Juan Lechín.
187
An example of this would be the Cochabamba summit of December 2011, which was an ad hoc
meeting convened by Morales and the MAS to receive input on public policies from below. By the end of

162
makes them more likely to depend on the good will of the leader, rather than on clearly

established rules and expectations. There are also annual meetings held between Morales and

allied social organizations to exchange feedback and get input on public policies. However,

observers have noted that, over time the tendency has been for these channels to become less

important for generating relevant decisions. Drawing on interviews with key grassroots actors, a

study by a team of researchers under María Teresa Zegada found that many leaders perceive that

their voices are decreasingly heard by the MAS government, and that their input on decision-

making is limited (Zegada et al. 2011: 249-54).188 My interviews lend additional support to their

findings, but they also suggest that additional caveats need to be introduced, for example, by

looking at the behavior of the parliamentary group.

The Parliamentary Group

The party statute says little about the relationship between the formal party organs and

representatives in Congress. The expectation, however, is that representatives work closely with

their constituencies, that they contribute financially to the party organization, and that they

regularly attend party conventions to inform authorities and the rank and file about their work in

Congress (interviews with Leonilda Zurita, Concepción Ortiz, Modesto Condori, and Nélida

Sifuentes).

the summit, which ensured the participation of a wide array of allied and non-allied groups, seventy
legislative proposals were made and sent to Congress. Critics argued that the MAS use these types of
meetings instrumentally to boost its image and its alleged participatory ethos when its relationships with
social organizations and movements are contested in the streets.
188
This observation leads the authors of this study to conclude that the MAS has not fulfilled the promise
of the principle of “governing by obeying” promoted by Morales after he gained power. For a study on
this principle, which is derived from Mexico’s Zapatismo, see Schiwy (2008).

163
 Representatives are only related to the party structure indirectly, as they are agents of

multiple principals. Many have been nominated by social organizations with which they retain

strong ties; others have been nominated from above due to their individual contribution to the

overall party list; and finally, they have been elected by voters, most whom are neither party nor

movement members. The interviewed representatives often provide different answers to the

question of to whom they are really accountable: the social organizations, the MAS, the “process

of change” led by the MAS, president Morales, and the voters. The lack of a strong party

structure providing guidance means that representatives lack a common socialization inside the

party. Because they come from multiple sectors of society, they have not had a common

socialization outside the party either. In principle, this might enable representatives to pick and

choose to which constituency they are loyal, and this explains why interviews reveal a wide

range of answers. At the same time, however, it creates incentives for the executive branch to

develop its own instances of socialization and control, which serve to centralize power and

discipline the behavior of MAS representatives.189 Their behavior in office seems to follow an

executive-enforced collective discipline that is at odds with the logic of constituency

representation.190

189
My observations and interviews indicate that such efforts occur in the Vice Presidency, where
representatives meet weekly to decide on legislative strategy. The presence of the President or the Vice
President and of key ministers is not uncommon in these meetings, and it is contingent upon the relevance
of the topic. The idea behind the meetings is to generate an internal space of debate before legislative
proposals are sent to Congress, and to avoid open discussion on the legislative floor by projecting an
image of unity. While some representatives conceive of this as a “collective” agenda-setting exercise
designed to ensure a balance between territorial and sectoral demands, others see it as an imposition from
the top.
190
As Komadina (2013: 23) notes, “the behavior of representatives is closely controlled by the executive
… representatives thus have a limited capacity to criticize or observe legislative proposals … and acts of
rebellion are sanctioned.” Many of the MAS representatives interviewed, particularly those representing
“uninominal” districts, expressed discontent with this decision-making pattern, conceiving of themselves
as relatively powerless to generate decisions.

164
 As Vice President García Linera commented:

the presence of [representatives from] grassroots organizations in Congress is not only

symbolic; they are also heavily involved in the design of policies. The interesting thing is

that the MAS, being a flexible and heterogeneous coalition, has to negotiate constantly

with competing organizations to enact legislation. Every law has to be developed with the

social organizations, and when one of them tries to dominate the process then there is the

veto of another organization (interview with Álvaro García Linera).

Although there is some truth in this statement, it needs to be qualified in at least two ways.

First, it is true that base organizations have increased their representation in Congress by

unprecedented levels through their relationships with the MAS. However, as noted in Chapter 3,

while some representatives are selected by the grassroots through mechanisms of direct

participation, others are directly “invited” by the leadership and have few checks from below.

Many of the “invited” leaders have quickly become the most prominent MAS representatives

due to their personal skills, their ways to relate effectively to the media, and their ability to

operate effectively within representative institutions.191 That the party’s structure is not strong

enough to project policies and strategies has the unwanted consequence of an increase in the

power of certain individual representatives, whose power often depends less on their experience

as grassroots or party leaders than on personal skills and resources.192 From the point of view of

191
Differential media access creates endemic conflicts among representatives. Conflicts arise when more
extroverted representatives assume a role of “spokespeople” for the MAS without any prior discussion
with their colleagues.
192
In addition to weak party structures, the informal rule of no-reelection prevailing within the MAS
encourages individualistic behavior and the emergence of this type of leaders; at the same time, in the
longer run, it helps to prevent the consolidation of oligarchies within the parliamentary group.

165
the party’s peasant leadership, however, these are generally unreliable (interviews with Leonilda

Zurita, Sergio Loayza, and Concepción Ortiz). If they align uncritically with the agenda of the

executive, the legislative process is generally dynamic and these leaders are praised for their

loyalty. If they do not align with the executive and publicly express dissent, they can quickly be

seen as traitors.193

Second, despite the growing presence of popular sectors in Congress, this trend has not

automatically translated into greater independent power of legislators to set the legislative

agenda. Most of the legislators interviewed commented that they have limited capacity to initiate

important legislation as independent agents.194 Most of them could not identify important or

controversial legislative proposals that they had introduced to Congress. Indeed, most legislative

proposals are brought to the floor by the executive branch.195 However, an interesting pattern

193
One of the most prominent accusations of treason occurred in early 2013, when the then-president of
the Chamber of Deputies, MAS representative for Cochabamba Rebeca Delgado, criticized publicly the
Asset Recovery Bill that had been introduced to the floor via the Ministry of Government. According to
Delgado: “I knew that the legislative proposal, as it was sent to us, violated the spirit and the text of the
constitution. Because the executive really wanted to push through this one, however, I ‘obeyed’ and
brought the proposal to the floor. But the proposal faced strong resistance by the MAS parliamentary
group, as many sectors, like transportation and street traders, would have been affected by it. And we
were at the verge of not passing a bill that had been sent by the executive, which would have been
unprecedented. I noticed that the executive was not willing to accept certain modifications, so I went
public and criticized the proposal and its designers” (interview with Rebeca Delgado). This sparked a
series of verbal confrontations between Delgado and members of the executive branch, including the
minister of government and the Vice President. The Vice President called Delgado pejoratively a “free
thinker” and made the bold claim that she had not respected the principle of “democratic centralism” that,
for him, structures authority within the MAS. That Delgado is now regarded as a member of the
opposition is a testament to the idea that party indiscipline is not tolerated.
194
Rebeca Delgado, a former president of the Chamber of Deputies, commented: “if an individual
legislator brings in a legislative proposal for a specific project, the executive branch generally does not
send any financing for it. This leads me to say that, in a context where the executive gives you the agenda,
constituency representation is undervalued and not fully exercised” (interview with Rebeca Delgado).
195
To many representatives, these proposals are developed in consultation between the executive and the
grassroots organizations. Although this is hard to observe empirically, they are also correct in pointing out
that many legislative proposals are imposed by the imperatives of the country’s new constitution, which
establishes deadlines to regulate certain provisions.

166
emerging from systematic interviews with representatives and grassroots leaders is that the

presence of representatives coming from grassroots organizations serves the purpose of having

access to privileged information, which allows them to obstruct or modify legislation if it

threatens their group interests. From the point of view of the MAS leadership the unwanted

consequence is that some of the groups that join the MAS then become pressure or veto groups

from within, making it difficult to pass legislation in Congress. They are also pressure groups

from without, by leading resistance to legislation in the streets.

At first glance, then, the relationships between the executive and these representatives

appear instrumental. Under this interpretation, groups are seen as exchanging organizational

loyalty to the MAS to the extent that it delivers specific benefits—or that at least it does not

threaten their interests. Examples of this pattern can be observed in the behavior of

representatives of the transportation sector and cooperative miners, which are two of the most

powerful groups that have gained representation through the MAS. Upon further inspection,

however, it is also possible to interpret their behavior as creating incentives for the executive to

negotiate constantly with allied groups. This means that the executive cannot impose its agenda

without challenges, and thus setting the agenda requires negotiation.

Reflecting on the nature of political representation, legislators from these powerful

sectors and leaders in their respective organizations support the idea of a “corporativist”

representation. Typical responses include: “I should represent the interests of my social

organization”; “as a representative from the transportation sector, I need to keep an eye on

legislation that can potentially damage my sector”; “we receive pressures from below so that we

defend the interests of our sector;” “we support the government but our representatives are there

to keep control on unwanted legislation that can damage our sector.” They are clearly not the

167
only representatives expressing these views,196 but they are among the few who have the power

to actually veto the passage of legislation because they are backed by disciplined sectors with

high mobilization capacity.

So far, my sketch of the MAS points to a trend toward the centralization of power in the

executive that is hard to overlook. The lack of a strong party structure providing guidance and

the lack of real influence of representatives to set the legislative agenda have the consequence of

an increase in the power of Morales and other entrepreneurs within the executive. Yet, despite

this centripetal trend, policy-making in Bolivia is a negotiated process and the capacity of the

grassroots to affect decisions should not be overlooked. When collective actors are strongly

organized and can mobilize large groups of people in the streets, they can put constraints on the

government’s agenda. A better place to examine these dynamics is within the executive branch.

The Executive Branch

The literature on developmental states is useful here because it makes the general

theoretical claim that in order to achieve desired goals state agencies need to be connected to

196
Most of my interviews reveal that representatives share a common tension: whether they should be
accountable to their constituencies or be “loyal” to Morales and the MAS. The social constituencies,
particularly in the case of “uninominal” representatives, generally do put pressures on their
representatives so that they defend the interests of their organizations and their territory. And
consequentially these representatives are generally more reluctant to accept an imposed party line,
particularly when compared to their “plurinominal” colleagues. Yet, the informal rule of non-reelection
places important limits on the incentives to be responsive to their social bases. Instead, it helps to
cultivate better relationships with the executive, as post-Congress career paths depend more on these
relationships than on their performance in Congress or on bureaucratic procedures within the party. This
is particularly acute in a context where the expectation is that the MAS will keep winning elections. For
the argument on the “careerist” orientation of legislators in contexts of term limitations, see Carey (1996).
His argument, however, is that the situation of presidents controlling the political fortunes of term-limited
representatives leads to a reduction of party discipline and cohesiveness. In the case of the MAS, I found
the opposite. Much of it has to do with the dominant nature of the MAS within Bolivia’s political system.

168
their constituencies.197 Early theorizing stresses the importance of autonomous professional

bureaucracies that are connected with their business communities to achieve economic growth

(Johnson 1982, 315–317; Evans 1995).198 Although these studies highlight the need for

insulation from popular pressures to ensure growth, more recent theorizing has noted the

importance of having more meaningful engagement of grassroots organizations with

bureaucracies for achieving successful human development outcomes (Sandbrook et al. 2007;

Evans 2010; Evans and Heller 2014).199 Popular input is seen as important, but is likely to vary

greatly across areas or state bureaucracies. In ministries whose policies affect well-organized

popular constituencies in a direct or visible manner, there is generally more pressure from these

groups to influence decisions.200 In ministries whose policies affect more diffuse cross-sections

of society rather than clearly defined constituencies, the pressure by collective actors is generally

197
Chalmers Johnson (1982) raises this point in his study of the “Japanese model.” In particular, he
highlights the synergy produced by having close interactions between state actors and industrial elites to
achieve developmental goals. Peter Evans (1995) develops the concept of “embedded autonomy” to stress
the importance of having bureaucracies that can operate autonomously from popular pressures but that are
also sufficiently connected to their societies and particularly their business elites. In his view, these two
elements are seen as necessary for a state to qualify as “developmental” (12).
198
For a review of this literature, see Onis (1991).
199
This is because the 21st century developmental state is conceived of as a capability-enhancing state, in
contrast to its 20th century version, which was focused more on economic growth. Because policies that
promote the capability of citizens require states to have accurate information and continuous feedback,
the 21st century developmental state needs a less technocratic and more open approach to policy-making
based on close ties between state agencies and broad cross-sections of civil society (Evans and Heller
2014).
200
The research on land redistribution and agrarian reform is particularly useful here. It suggests that
agriculture ministries and land reform agencies, whose policies generally reach large groups of clearly
defined constituencies, tend to be bureaucracies highly contested by collective actors with competing
interests regarding agrarian policy (Montgomery 1972; Cleaves and Scurrah 1980; Borras Jr and Franco
2010). In addition, the literature suggests that in order to be successful in their goals, these ministries tend
establish close connections to their key beneficiaries – be these agricultural elites, small-scale
entrepreneurs, or peasant farmers (Smith 1993). Similar arguments can be extended to other ministries
dealing with production and industry generally, such as the ministry of mining and the ministry of labor.

169
more dispersed. These agencies tend to lack strong links with grassroots organizations for

consultation and cooperation.201

To assess these arguments and evaluate the degree of grassroots influence at the level of

the executive, this subsection draws on examples of policies developed by the ministries of rural

development, mining, and economy, as well as the office of the vice presidency. When I was

conducting fieldwork, my expectation was to find different levels of grassroots influence across

government agencies. Thinking in terms of a continuum, I expected to find, at one extreme, little

grassroots presence and influence in the ministry of economy and the office of the vice

presidency. At the other extreme, the expectation was to find a more prominent presence and

influence of powerful collective actors in the ministry of rural development and, to a lesser

extent, in the ministry of mining.

Other scholars have already noted that the ministry of economy is “sealed” to the

participation of collective actors (Stefanoni 2010: 161). My interviews with high-level officials

within the ministry, including the minister himself, lend additional support to that observation: “I

believe that people have to participate. But unfortunately the ministry of economy is a very

technical one; and it has to be that way, don’t you think?” (interview with Luis Arce Catacora).

As Chief of Staff María Nela Prada also commented, “there is an institutional inertia that tends to

exclude collective actors from the exercise of power. We receive legislative proposals from

social organizations, but we don’t work permanently with them. Their participation is not

regular; it is not institutionalized” (interview with María Nela Prada). Despite this trend toward

the marginalization of collective actors, they do have some degree of access to the Ministry and,

201
The literature on social movement outcomes makes parallel arguments and lends additional support to
the expectation that movement influence varies according to policy area (Amenta and Caren 2004, 462).
For a comprehensive review of this literature, see Amenta et al. (2010).

170
in occasions, have worked on legislative proposals alongside. Bolivia’s new pension law, for

example, was developed in close dialogue between the Ministry of Economy and the Bolivian

Workers Central (COB), the country’s national trade union federation (interviews with Luis Arce

Catacora and Pedro Montes). As a symbol of this state-society cooperation, the law was

promulgated on December 10, 2010 at the COB’s headquarters. However, this is more of an

exception than a rule in the routine of this ministry.

A similar pattern of limited presence and influence of grassroots actors can be observed

in the office of the vice presidency, which is an important producer of legislative proposals in the

country. Collective actors are occasionally invited to present their demands and share their

opinions on given proposals. However, their participation is not institutionalized and depends

more on the good will of gatekeepers and other contingent factors than on firmly established

rules and expectations. The office of the vice presidency coordinates the relations between the

executive branch and the MAS representatives in Congress (particularly with the presidents of

both legislative chambers), and occasionally between these and the collective actors that might

be affected by a proposed legislation (interviews with Walter Melendres, Adolfo Mendoza, and

Gabriela Montaño).

The ministry of rural development reveals a starkly different pattern. Since the rise to

power of the MAS, powerful collective actors with a rural base, including peasant and

indigenous organizations, have disputed the control of this ministry. On several occasions both

factions have called for the resignation of various high-ranking officials, exerting enough

pressure to succeed in some cases. Land issues are at the core of the dispute between

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organizations with competing views on the agrarian question (Bottazzi and Rist 2012: 544).202 At

the beginning of Morales’s mandate, peasant and indigenous factions converged around the issue

of land reform and they configured a reform coalition that developed the Law of Communitarian

Renewal of the Agrarian Reform.203 The implementation stage, however, has been anything but

smooth; tensions and power struggles emerged among these groups over the distribution, reach,

and pace of the reform process. Almost five years after the reform, peasant organizations such as

the CSUTCB and the CSCIB led mass mobilizations arguing that the reform was unfairly

benefiting indigenous organizations in the lowlands and in the highlands and that it was creating

a new class of indigenous “latifundistas” (interview with Rodolfo Machaca; see also Bottazzi

and Rist 2012: 543). As a notable event, protests by the peasant faction forced the removal of

vice-minister of land Alejandro Almaraz.204 The decision to remove Almaraz from office

reflected the power struggles and internal balance of power within the MAS, which favored the

core peasant organizations vis-à-vis the noncore indigenous organizations (interviews with

Alejandro Almaraz, Idón Chivi, Rodolfo Machaca, and Hugo Salvatierra). As further evidence of

202
Peasant groups favor an individual-right property regime, and indigenous groups advocate a
communal conception of land ownership. The central issue is that communal lands cannot be bought and
sold.
203
In addition to drafting the legislative proposal in collaboration with the vice-ministry of land
(interview with Alejandro Almaraz), peasant and indigenous groups of the highlands and the lowlands
helped to pass the enabling legislation for the Law of Renewal by exerting direct pressure in the streets
when intransigent opposition forces controlled the Congress and threatened to block the government’s
planned reform (Bolpress 2006). This behavior is consistent with arguments in the social movement
literature, which point to the importance of common enemies or “threats” in motivating actors with
competing views to form reform coalitions (Van Dyke and McCammon 2010).
204
Almaraz was in charge of implementing the reform. In an interview, he commented that the “real
problem pushing for my forced resignation was the idea of a communitarian redistribution of land.
Peasant organizations were losing out opportunities for the commercialization of land. Peasant leaders did
not want to lose their business. And they did not want indigenous groups to have large estates that would
not be used productively ” (interview with Alejandro Almaraz). Salvatierra made a similar assessment
(interview with Hugo Salvatierra).

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this, the government called the CSUTCB to draft a new proposal for a land law that would put an

end to “latifundio” (Los Tiempos 2011).

Over time, peasant groups have gained control over the ministry. Its social composition

reveals the diversity of peasant-based groups in Bolivia, and key positions are staffed by

grassroots leaders who represent civil society groups. Nemecia Achacollo, the head of the

ministry since 2010, is a peasant woman with years of experience as a peasant union leader.205

Interviews inside the ministry and with grassroots leaders reveal that collective actors have fairly

easy access to the institution. And key legislative proposals have been developed in close

dialogue between these actors and state officials.

An example is Law 144, the Law of Productive Revolution, which was passed on June 26,

2011. The legislative proposal, which at its core dealt with the issue of “food sovereignty” has

had a long history (Kopp 2011: 156–168). Under the Morales government, the proposal was

brought to the public agenda by the Unity Pact. It was based on a broad consensus reached by the

country’s main rural-based national organizations.206 These, which included both peasant and

indigenous groups, agreed that food sovereignty should be a human right codified in the

country’s new constitution (Kopp 2011: 178-180). Their proposal would then be introduced into

the constitutional text almost verbatim. Frustrated because things in the countryside “remained

the same for quite some time” after the approval of the new constitution, the CSUTCB took the

lead and developed a legislative proposal to enable the newly gained right: “it became our time

205
Achacollo served as the executive of the Bartolinas from 2004 until 2006. She then was elected MAS
deputy, and served as such from 2006 until 2009.
206
Providing spaces for discussion and also technical assistance, both national and international NGOs
such as UNITAS and La Vía Campesina played an important role in bringing together these
organizations, which often have expressed different interests and understandings of what “food
sovereignty” actually means (interviews with Xavier Albó and Walter Limache). Despite their
disagreements they converged on a unified proposal to address the issue of food sovereignty.

173
to manage what happens in the countryside” (interview with Rodolfo Machaca). The proposal

called for a “Decade of Communitarian and Productive Revolution” and it linked food

sovereignty to rural poverty.

According to Víctor Hugo Vázquez, Bolivia’s vice-minister of rural development, “the

CSUTCB proposal was compelling, but it was technically unviable as it was proposed to us”

(interview with Victor Hugo Vázquez). He commented that it needed technical adjustments to

make it feasible. To assist with that, the ministry invited all the affected sectors to a round of

negotiations. The ministry provided the infrastructure and technical assistance for these

dialogues. Engineer Germán Gallardo, who was closely involved in the process, commented that

these meetings “combined technical work with pressure from below and popular participation”

(interview with Germán Gallardo). Interviews with state officials within the ministry, with key

representatives in Congress, and with the leadership of the grassroots actors involved in these

negotiations concur in noting that the most influential group was the CSUTCB. At the other side

of the spectrum, CONAMAQ, an organization that represents indigenous peoples in the

highlands, distanced itself from the process by noting potential environmental concerns

associated to the proposal (interview with Jesús Jilamita).207 Their concerns were legitimate.

After the legislative proposal went through the Ministry of Planning for some technical

adjustments and modifications, it incorporated provisions easing the usage of transgenic seeds. In

the eyes of CONAMAQ and other indigenous groups, these were detrimental for the

207
Their distancing also coincided with a broader tension between the government and indigenous-based
organizations over the government’s plan to build a highway through an indigenous territory. See
following section on “negative or veto powers” for more information on this conflict.

174
environment and their more traditional ways of farming.208 Despite the pressure these groups put

in the streets, the legislative proposal was sent to Congress and was approved with little

modifications (interview with Luis Alfaro).209 It was, in the eyes of several representatives of

indigenous organizations such as CONAMAQ and CIDOB, “a clear victory for the CSUTCB”

(interviews with Jesús Jilamita, Rodolfo Machaca, and Lázaro Tacóo).

The ministry of mining is another highly disputed office. The key collective actors

fighting for its control are the unionized mineworkers, who are represented by the Union

Federation of Bolivian Mineworkers (FSTMB), and the cooperativist miners, who are

represented by National Federation of Mining Cooperatives (FENCOMIN). The pressure exerted

by these groups is determinant for shaping mining policies.210 And mining policies generally

reflect the balance of power between these competing mining sectors, rather than party

professionalism or technocratic decision-making. At the beginning of Morales’s first mandate,

Wálter Villarroel, a cooperativist miner and former president of FENCOMIN, became the

minister of mining. This was the result of a pre-electoral alliance between the MAS and

FENCOMIN, by which FENCOMIN would exchange electoral support for representation in

Congress and in other state institutions (interviews with Ramiro Paredes, Freddy Ontiveros, and

Adalid Rodríguez).211 The alliance, however, broke in October 2006, when cooperativist miners

and the unionized mineworkers of Huanuni clashed over the control of mining activities in the

Posokoni hill, the richest tin mine site in Bolivia. The armed confrontations left 16 dead and

208
The accusations of these groups were that the government was giving in to the pressures of sectors that
did not participate in the negotiation stages, including big landholders and translational companies.
209
MAS representatives from indigenous organizations such as CIDOB and CONAMAQ did not
participate in the legislative sessions for the discussion of this law.
210
For a parallel argument, see Fornillo (2008: 14).
211
Their support was crucial for gaining electoral majorities.

175
more than 68 wounded (El Deber 2006a), forcing the resignation of Villarroel, who was accused

of defending the interests of his sector and not the overall general interest (El Deber 2006b).212

This helped to strengthen the strategic relationships between the unionized mineworkers and the

government, particularly when Morales appointed a new minister with ties to Bolivia’s

nationalist left, and someone who more closely promoted their pro-nationalization agenda. But

this agenda would encounter challenges from below. The MAS-FENCOMIN alliance would

prove to be only temporarily broken.

Having become an increasingly larger group and one of Bolivia’s principal sources of

employment—particularly in the western departments of Oruro, Potosí, and La Paz—the

cooperativist miners became a key pressure group within the governing coalition (Espinoza

Morales 2010: 238–241).213 During the process of constitutional reform, for example, they

played an important behind-the-scenes role and negotiated directly with the executive; they thus

obtained important victories for the sector, like the constitutional recognition of mining

cooperatives as an economic actor in the mining industry (interviews with Ramiro Paredes,

Freddy Ontiveros, and Andrés Villca).214 In addition, through their combined legislative

influence via their representatives in Congress and the pressure they exerted in the streets, they

were able to push through various laws and decrees that benefit the sector, particularly in matters

212
For some authors, Villarroel had an “excessive corporativist attachment” (Stefanoni 2010: 161).
213
It is hard to find reliable data on this sector. However, access to FENCOMIN’s internal databases,
which was facilitated by FENCOMIN’s Secretary of Commerce and Exports Adalid Rodriguez, revealed
that there are over 100,000 active cooperatives in the country.
214
See article 369 in Bolivia’s new constitution.

176
of royalties and taxation.215 Many in the government describe cooperativist miners as “strategic

but uncomfortable allies.” This is because they are central to gain electoral majorities, but have

also become dominant in the shaping of the mining policy agenda. Their pressure has made it

virtually impossible to develop a more comprehensive mining law.216 As a general rule, then,

pressures from below are central to defining policies in the area of mining where Morales cannot

impose his agenda freely. Instead, he has to negotiate constantly with competing sectors. When

these sectors do not agree, there is more room for elite decision-making by pushing Morales to

occupy an arbitration role. At the same time, this logic can also lead to a quasi-Social Darwinian

“rule of the strongest”: decisions generally reflect the existing balance of power between

competing groups.

My sketch of decision-making at the executive level reveals a more nuanced picture of

the relationship between movements and the MAS than the one presented when I examined the

parliamentary body. Although some ministries are “sealed” and offer little room for collective

actors to exert meaningful influence, others are more penetrated by collective actors that engage

in the generation of decisions. This is particularly clear in the case of ministries whose policies

affect clearly defined constituencies, particularly grassroots actors rooted in production or

economic activity. These have had significant influence on decision-making in matters of

agrarian reform and mining policy, reflecting once again the internal balance of power within the

MAS. If these groups are strongly organized and can mobilize large numbers of people, they are

more likely to keep the government open and force it to negotiate sectoral policies successfully.

215
Cooperative miners have been central actors in the negotiations of law 175, which authorizes the
Bolivian Central Bank (BCB) to purchase gold to cooperative mines, and law 186, which eliminates the
added-value tax to the internal commercialization of minerals and metals sold by cooperative mines.
216
The need for a new mining law was established in the country’s new constitution, which has been in
effect since 2009. At the time of this writing, in May 2015, the legislative proposal is still being debated.

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The Importance of Different Constellations of Power

Finally, we also need to examine the role of grassroots organizations under different

constellations of power, a dimension that cuts across all of the above. Here it is useful to make an

analytical distinction between two periods. The first period is between 2006 and 2009 and it

coincides with Morales’s first term in office, when the MAS did not control Congress and had a

strong unified opposition entrenched in Bolivia’s most prosperous eastern departments.217 During

this initial period, this opposition, backed by agribusiness elites, demanded regional autonomy

and threatened to secede as a reaction against indigenous mobilization (Eaton 2007: 73). The

second period starts in 2009, or when Morales was reelected president and the MAS won control

over both legislative chambers.218 This meant that the MAS would confront an atomized and

much weaker opposition—both in Congress and in the streets. Since that time, a state of truce

has characterized the relations between the government and economic elites.

During the first period, which was marked by high levels of polarization and stalemate,

organizations allied with the MAS played a crucial role in decision-making by putting issues on

the public agenda. The most notable of their contributions was the proposal for constitutional

reform, which was developed by the peasant and indigenous organizations that configured the

Unity Pact (interviews with Xavier Albó, Fernando Garcés, Walter Limache, Raúl Prada, and

Adolfo Mendoza). Lacking an independent proposal generated by the party structure, MAS

217
In the national election of December 2005, Evo Morales obtained 53.7 percent of the vote. Although
these results guaranteed the MAS a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, where it won 72 out of 130
seats, they were not enough to guarantee a majority in the Senate, where the MAS obtained 12 out of 27
seats. Parties of the right won the additional seats, turning them into a majority in this legislative body.
Obtaining 28.6 percent of the vote, Social and Democratic Power (PODEMOS) gained 13 seats; gaining
7.8 percent of the vote, the National Unity Front gained 1 seat; and obtaining 6.5 percent of the vote, the
Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) gained 1 seat.
218
The MAS won the 2009 election with 64.22 percent of the vote. The results allowed the MAS to have
88 deputies and 26 senators.

178
representatives adopted this draft as their own during the reform process, which pushed them to

discuss “new” issues, such as alternative types of state, territorial and indigenous autonomies;

natural resources; indigenous representation; and collective rights (Garcés 2010: 67–81). After

this experience, the government also promoted other institutional innovations to facilitate a

bottom up influence beyond the constituent assembly process. The most important was the

National Coordinator for Change (Conalcam), which brought together the rural organizations

that configured the Unity Pact, other urban organizations such as the Bolivian Workers’ Central

(COB), and government officials (Mayorga 2011: 97). However, beyond becoming a space for

debating and generating policy inputs, as its creators had intended (interviews with César

Navarro and Hugo Moldiz), “it proved a useful instrument for mobilizing the government’s

supporters against its adversaries, particularly in 2008, when political elites in the eastern

departments threatened seccession” (Crabtree 2013: 287). Once the pressures from the

opposition eased, the articulatory power of Conalcam declined. And soon after it became defunct,

with parts of indigenous organizations such as CIDOB and CONAMAQ moving into opposition

against the government.

In addition to putting issues on the agenda, allied social organizations played a central

role in the passage of highly contested policies during this period. Two key examples are the

2006 Law of Communitarian Renewal of the Agrarian Reform, which established that land must

fulfill certain socio-economic functions (Bottazzi and Rist 2012: 540–541), and the 2007 Renta

Dignidad, which added a non-contributory tier to Bolivia’s pension scheme (Anria and

Niedzwiecki 2011: 19). While the former served as a mechanism for expropriating land from

large landholders, the latter involved a redirection of revenues coming from the hydrocarbon

sector, meaning that less of this money would be transferred to the regional governments. In

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short, both policies affected the interests of the economic elites in the eastern departments, and

this made them highly contentious. In both cases, legislative blockades by the political

opposition representing those elite interests in Congress, and mobilizations by their allied groups

in the streets, prevented the government from achieving the passage of its planned reforms. With

the convergence of rural and urban organizations of the lowlands and the highlands around a

common enemy, however, MAS supporters led a series of mass protests and counter-

mobilizations. After days of sustained demonstrations in front of the congress, both laws were

enacted. In both cases, the mobilization of allied groups played a decisive role in the passage of

legislation by counterbalancing the pressure from the opposition.219

Morales’s reelection in 2009 marked the beginning of a different period. The electoral

results allowed the MAS to accumulate immense amounts of institutional power, particularly as

it simultaneously won control over Congress (on this point, see Mayorga 2011: 56-61; also

Crabtree 2011). While this broke with the institutional stalemate, the unexpected consequences

of such an overwhelming electoral victory were twofold. First, it led to the strengthening of the

leadership in relation to the grassroots; and second, it weakened the existing channels of bottom-

up dialogue and articulation, like the Unity Pact and Conalcam. The absence of a strong

institutionalized opposition, and the weakening of mobilized sectors representing their interests,

also meant that social organizations allied to the MAS would play a different role under a

different constellation of power. Specifically, it accentuated the tensions between the bottom-up

and the top down logics that characterize the MAS (see Anria 2013; Crabtree 2013; Levitsky and

219
Instances where social organizations allied to the MAS made cercos, or human fences, around the
congress were indeed quite common during this period. A noteworthy cerco took place in February 2008,
when allied organizations surrounded Congress preventing the entrance of members of the opposition and
thus facilitate the passing of the law calling for the public referendum that would decide on whether the
new constitution should be approved or not.

180
Roberts 2011) , by dispersing demand making. The following pages examine these dynamics in

detail.

Negative Capacities and Veto Coalitions

As political scientist Moira Zuazo commented, “Morales is sometimes a hostage of the

social movements that sustain him in power” (interview with Moira Zuazo). This has become

more evident after Morales’s reelection in 2009, when the MAS also won a clear majority of

seats in both legislative chambers. Winning control of the Congress meant that for some time the

MAS did not have to negotiate with intransigent opposition parties in order to pass legislation.

The challenge, then, switched from negotiating in Congress to managing an increasingly

heterogeneous governing coalition. Harmonizing the interests of core and noncore constituencies

proved to be a difficult task. And as a result, the MAS has confronted increasing levels of

discontent from within. There have been many instances where allied social movements clashed

with the MAS government over policy issues. In some cases, moreover, the government has had

to give in and reverse policies due to (often violent) mobilizations against their implementation.

Why do some mobilizations succeed in reversing government policy while others fail?

The argument advanced here is that protests against government policy succeed

depending on the strength of the veto coalition that mobilized popular movements manage to

build. If a mobilized grassroots actor builds a broad veto coalition with multiple sectors of

society, it is more likely to succeed in forcing policy change. If a mobilized grassroots actor acts

alone or cannot build a strong veto coalition, then the government can more easily defeat it. The

policies under consideration share some commonalities. From the government’s perspective,

they are all intended to address pressing issues of general interest. Important economic and

political reasons underpin them and are used by the government to justify the need for such

181
policies. However, their implementation directly affects the particularistic interests of some of

the grassroots organizations and popular movements that support the MAS. From their

perspective, these policies are thus seen as “anti-popular.”

Figure 4.1 summarizes the likely scenarios from the government’s point of view. In

general, the support of the party’s organizational core is necessary for implementing anti-popular

government proposals, as these groups can exert significant counter-mobilization power and

“defend” the government. This, however, generally works if the veto coalition is weakly

organized (Figure 4.1, Case 2). When the party’s organizational core does not align fully with the

government and a powerful veto coalition is built, the government generally finds itself having to

bow to popular pressures (Figure 4.1, Case 3).

Sometimes, however, a strong veto coalition is able to block or modify government

policies even if the party’s organizational core does support these policies. In other words,

having the support of the core is not sufficient for the government to pass proposals that affect

strongly organized popular constituencies; but it is necessary if the policy affects strongly

organized constituencies. The case of the health workers conflict illustrates this pattern (Figure

4.1, Case 1). In a summit convened by the MAS in December 2011, popular movements allied to

the government proposed an increase in working hours of doctors and health care workers, from

6 hours a day to 8 hours a day (Ministerio de la Presidencia and Ministerio de Comunicación

2011, 21). When the government sought to impose this measure via a presidential decree, the

Decree 1126, doctors and health workers organized a series of widespread marches, strikes, and

street blockades in Bolivia’s major cities, along with other urban sectors, like university students,

transportation workers, police officers, and the Bolivian Workers Central (COB). Even though

the coca growers and the peasant organizations allied to the government—the party’s

182
organizational core—supported and defended the policy on the streets, doctors and health care

workers managed to protect the status quo (interview with Paulino Guarachi). The government

was forced to reverse its decision after more than forty days of sustained strikes and

mobilizations. It did so by, first, suspending the initial decree and, second, by issuing another

presidential decree, the Decree 1232, and by promising to convene a summit to discuss the

broader issue of health care reform (Cambio 2012).220

220
This decree was the product of an agreement between the mobilized health care workers, university
students, the COB, and the government.

183
Figure 4.1. Likely Decision-making Scenarios

184
 The Gasolinazo crisis began on December 26, 2010, when the government canceled fuel

subsidies by decree, in a country where gasoline had been heavily subsidized for many years.

Coming as a surprise to most Bolivians, the decision quickly led to a massive increase in

gasoline prices, estimated at 83 percent, as well as a general uncertainty among the population

about prices and availability of basic goods, transportation prices, the stability of the government,

and the next adjustment policies. The price increase was followed by popular revolts against the

policy, including civic strikes, road blockades, and marches. It is interesting that the conservative

right did not lead these mobilizations. Instead, mobilizations were led by sectors that had been

traditional bastions of MAS support—such as neighborhood groups and informal sector workers,

miners, and even coca farmers—in key urban areas and they demanded that Morales either annul

the decree or resign. The mobilizations paralyzed virtually every major city in the country and

eventually succeeded at forcing the policy to change. Protests forced the government to annul its

own decree on the grounds that Morales was actually “ruling by obeying” the people.221

The idea of canceling the fuel subsidy had originally come from the executive branch,

after a series of intense debates on the economic burden that the subsidy actually represents

(interviews with Álvaro García Linera, Noel Aguirre, Luis Arce Catacora, Walter Delgadillo).

The Ministry of Planning designed the regulatory decree, the Decree 748, which received no

input from organized popular constituencies (interviews with Walter Delgadillo, Noel Aguirre,

María Nela Prada Tejada). As the minister of economy, Luis Arce Catacora, commented in an

221
In a public speech, Morales said: “I have understood the recommendations of various sectors—the
workers, the unions, the provinces—and that’s why, in a meeting with the Vice President, the Minister of
Foreign Relations, and the rest of the ministers, we have decided, following the principle of ruling by
obeying the people, to annul the Decree 748 and the rest of the decrees that accompany that policy.”

185
interview: “removing the subsidy was a completely anti-popular measure, and we knew it, but it

was absolutely necessary for the health of our economy. One merit of the government was to put

the issue on the political agenda” (interview with Luis Arce Catacora). Many leaders of

grassroots organizations allied to the government also commented that there was in fact some

degree of consultation before the policy was announced (interviews with Isaac Avalos, Franklin

Durán, Pedro Montes, Andrés Villca, Segundina Orellana, and Leonilda Zurita), but that it took

the form of seeking legitimation of an already-made decision (interview with Rodolfo Machaca).

Interviewees also concur in noting that in those meetings, they were instructed to communicate

the decision to the social bases as a way to guarantee its implementation. But things did not work

out as planned. To most Bolivians, the policy came as a shock, and it hurt their household

economy.

When groups began to mobilize against the policy and a broad veto coalition was formed

in key urban areas, members of the executive branch (including Evo Morales himself) convened

emergency meetings with the coca growers to explain the rationale behind the policy and to ask

for their support (interview with Walter Delgadillo). The assumption was that this sector,

together with the other peasant organizations that constitute the party’s core, would align

unconditionally with the government and that this would be sufficient to stop the mobilizations

and ensure the viability of the policy. While the government and the leadership of coca growers

in the Chapare region reached an agreement, it was not clear whether the rank and file, the

members and affiliates, would comply uncritically (interview with Segundina Orellana). Peasant

organizations like the CSUTCB defended the policy externally, but leaders commented in a

series of interviews that “internally, we told the president to stop it; the policy was not really

sustainable, because it was done with no real consultation, and was thus weakly designed from

186
the beginning” (interview with Rodolfo Machaca). The policy affected the members and

affiliates of these organizations, too, particularly as prices of food and transportation incremented

drastically overnight.222 This revealed a tension between the leadership of the grassroots

organizations that comprise the party’s organizational core and their social bases; while the

former supported the policy, the latter did not. Having the leadership of social organizations on

the government’s side does not automatically restrain the pressures from below in contemporary

Bolivia.

While it would be inaccurate to say that coca growers in the Chapare and other peasant

organizations that comprise the party’s core stopped the policy by themselves, their inability to

align with the government unambiguously was necessary for the veto coalition to succeed. When

these groups told the president to reverse the policy, it was clear that not even the closest allies

would be able to defend it, and that not reversing it could lead to a severe governability crisis. As

Vice President Garcia Linera commented in an interview: “we reversed it when we saw that it

was in the general interest to do so” (interview with Álvaro García Linera).

The case of the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) is more

complex than the other two, but the logic of government decision and resistance in the streets is

somewhat similar.223 In this case, the Bolivian government made the decision to build a highway

through the middle of a national park—a park that is also recognized as an autonomous

indigenous territory.224 The government argued that the highway was crucial for economic,

222
Other interviewees, who prefer to remain anonymous, commented that because the policy led to a
raise in the price of gasoline, a key input for the production of cocaine, coca growers had a clear incentive
to reject it.
223
The reconstruction of this ongoing conflict draws on newspapers coverage as well as on social conflict
data generously provided by the Fundación UNIR.
224
The planned highway would link the departments of Cochabamba and Pando.

187
social, and political reasons. Economically, the government argued, it would help to improve

access to markets for the goods produced by agricultural producers in the region. Socially, it

would help to improve the access to electricity and other public services in formerly neglected

areas of the country. And politically, it was seen as important to advance the territorial

integration of the country, as well as to break with the power of landholders and economic elites

entrenched in the eastern departments, particularly in Beni and Pando (interview with Álvaro

García Linera; see also García Linera 2012).225 However, some indigenous communities living

inside the TIPNIS mobilized against the highway plan arguing that they were not consulted prior

to beginning the construction of the road.226 Specifically, they claimed that the Bolivian

government was violating international agreements ratified by the country and also the country’s

new constitution that enshrines the right of prior consultation. They also claimed that the road

would lead to environmental damage and threat their way of life.

The organizations that constitute the party’s organizational core strongly backed the

highway from the outset (interviews with Segundina Orellana, Omar Claros, Miguelina

Villarroel, Rodolfo Machaca, and Concepción Ortiz).227 But former government allies, including

large indigenous movements in the eastern lowlands, like the Confederation of Bolivian

Indigenous Peoples (CIDOB), and in the Andean highlands, like the National Council of Ayllus

225
As García Linera commented: “as long as we do not have a highway connecting La Paz and Pando,
large landholders will continue to hold political power in that region” (interview with Álvaro García
Linera)
226
Former minister of public works Wálter Degadillo commented: “of course we had done informal
consultation work with the local leaders and organizations inside the TIPNIS—some of this work was
even quite clientelistic and manipulative—and they had agreed on the construction of the highway. But
then we started with the construction, and they rejected and politicized it openly” (interview with Walter
Delgadillo)
227
Particularly the coca growers in the Chapare region represented by the Six Federations of the Tropics
of Cochabamba, and also the Confederation of Intercultural Communities of Bolivia (CSCIB).

188
and Marcas of Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ), organized widespread marches and protests to defend

their collective rights and stop the construction of the highway, or to at least alter its route. The

marches involved violent confrontations between indigenous communities represented by these

organizations, on the one hand, and coca growers (and other peasant groups) on the other hand.

Unlike the Gasolinazo crisis of December 2010, this time the government handled the conflict

with violent repression in a rather confusing series of events, even though, in the end, it did

temporarily suspend the project by reaching an agreement with the mobilized sectors opposing

the highway. It did so by issuing a law, Law 180, which declared the TIPNIS an intangible

territory and prohibited the construction of the highway through it.

But the organizations that constitute the party’s core rejected this law on the grounds that

it violated their rights of economic development. They organized road blockades and a counter

march to La Paz, arguing that “whoever opposes the highway also opposes the economic

progress of the region” and demanding to meet with the president to find a solution.228 These

groups demanded the abrogation of the Law 180, which prohibited the construction of the

highway, and they also threatened to physically confront those groups who opposed the highway

in a parallel march. The conflict ended when the organizations of the party’s core arrived to La

Paz, met with the presidents of both legislative chambers and members of the executive branch,

and reached an agreement on a legislative proposal that would allow to implement a consultation

procedure on whether to build the highway or not. The legislative proposal was then approved

very quickly in Congress, becoming the Law 222, and ensuring that there would be a formal

228
According to many actors in the political opposition, the government instigated this march and used
the core organizations instrumentally. Although this is plausible, it is hard to demonstrate it empirically.

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consultation.229 The government proved to be responsive to the interests of the organizations that

constitute the party’s core.

Although critics may point out that this description overlooks some details, it still

captures the general dynamics of the conflict. These are relevant because they reveal the intense

struggles among the different sectors that attempt to shape policy-making and the internal

balance of power among core and noncore constituencies.230 Despite the sustained resistance of

noncore organized indigenous constituencies and movements, and despite the temporary

suspension of the construction of the highway through the national park, the government has not

fully reversed its initial decision and instead has accommodated to the policy preferences of its

core constituencies.231 Opposition groups have not built a coalition strong enough to pressure the

government to abandon the idea of the highway through the national park. Vice President García

Linera commented: “if you look carefully, we have not reversed our policy. We have suspended

the project temporarily, but will build the highway anyway because the decision is rooted on the

idea of maintaining state sovereignty over the territory” (interview with Álvaro García Linera).

That this position aligns with the policy preferences of coca growers (and other core peasant

groups) is not accidental, however; it reveals that these are the key pressure groups shaping

229
The process of consultation was a long and controversial one, and the results are summarized (Estado
Plurinacional de Bolivia 2012).
230
Though not central to the analysis in this chapter, the TIPNIS conflict has also exposed the
government’s desarrollista (developmentalist) policy agenda, which comes at the expense of indigenous
and environmental concerns.
231
This firm commitment to the highway, and the way in which the government managed the conflict by
repressing anti-highway protesters, led to a deterioration of the relationship between the MAS and
important indigenous movements that represent large numbers of highland and lowland indigenous
peoples. For critics like Raúl Prada Alcoreza, who is a prominent intellectual and a former MAS
representative to the Constituent Assembly, “the TIPNIS conflict has revealed that the MAS government
is indeed anti-indigenous” (interview with Raúl Prada Alcoreza).

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policy and that they are also among the most powerful actors within the governing coalition.232

Their unambiguous support of the highway, coupled with a relatively weaker veto coalition that

opposed it, meant that the government has had more maneuvering room, and the necessary

support, to pursue and implement its desired policies. “If it doesn’t happen now,” García Linera

said, “it will happen later.”233

Taken together, the three cases examined above show that although decision-making is

undoubtedly centralized in the person of the president, Morales is not an all-powerful president

and his government has to legitimize its decisions regularly with the social organizations and

movements that provide support to the government. Organized popular sectors may not hold the

reins of power directly, but they are not left at the margins of the decision-making process either;

they can have some control over collective decision-making if circumstances are conducive.

Specifically, they can place real limits on Morales’s authority by exerting pressure from below,

which in certain cases can keep the MAS responsive to particular societal demands. Not every

popular group has the same capacity to pressure the government from below and block or modify

policy proposals, however; their success is contingent on the strength of the veto coalition they

manage to configure, and it varies by policy issue. Governing in this highly reactive context,

where the organizational legitimacy of the MAS and government decisions are generally

contested in the streets, is not an easy task. On the one hand, these dynamics of decision-making

232
In the interview with García Linera, he went as far as to comment that: “the idea with the highway is
to boost the economic and political power of the peasant groups and other popular and indigenous groups,
in relation to the landholders” (interview with Álvaro García Linera).
233
Several high-level government officials commented that, keeping the consequences of the Gasolinazo
in mind, the government could not afford to reverse this policy, even if it meant alienating the indigenous
constituencies that oppose the highway. Otherwise, the government would be perceived as weak and
permeable to all kinds of social pressures. Still, the government was able to firmly maintain its position
because it counted with the unambiguous support of its core constituencies.

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and popular resistance could lead to an improvement of the quality of the policies, but on the

other hand they could also make it challenging to govern in the general interest, to maintain a

degree of stability, and to carry out governing programs.234

Conclusion

A surface-level analysis of the MAS as a governing movement-based party may initially

lend unquestionable support to the Michelsian argument of party oligarchization. But such a

conclusion would be a caricature of the MAS and it would fail to capture a richer and more

nuanced understanding of the complex relationships between various social movements, the

governing party, and the leadership authority. Decision-making in Bolivia’s MAS is centralized

in the hands of the president and a small—but varying—group of influential leaders. There is no

question that Morales and trusted individuals occupy a central role in the policy process.

However, there are elements in the structure of the MAS that work against those oligarchic

tendencies. Most prominently, the MAS resists the consolidation of elite hierarchical structures

and technocratic decision-making by allowing for the emergence of opposition among allied

groups that put effective limits on the centralization of power and promote a degree of leadership

accountability and responsiveness. The main story that emerged, then, is that of a movement-

based party that allows for significant influence from below. While there are clear pressures

pushing toward internal power concentration, including the centrality of Morales’s leadership

and the logics of exercising state power, constituent movements are far from being irrelevant in

shaping the party’s most important decisions.

234
Addressing these issues would go well beyond the scope of this chapter, however.

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 This chapter has attempted to show that resistance to centralized leadership authority

occurs at two related levels. If we firstly look at the “creative capacities” of the allied grassroots

organizations to generate independent decisions by putting issues and priorities on the agenda

and proposing solutions to them, the prospects for attenuating the trend toward oligarchization

may initially look slim. Still, policy-making in contemporary Bolivia is a highly reactive and

negotiated process open to some degree of societal input; as well, the capacity of the grassroots

to generate decisions and formulate policy proposals varies by policy area and is contingent on

the mobilization capacity of the groups pushing for reform. This chapter has shown that

alongside the pressures toward the centralization of power associated with the function of

governing a country, there are alternative patterns of decision-making in different policy areas.

This is consistent with the expectations derived from the (old and new) developmental state

literature and sociological approaches to social movement outcomes, which show that in policy

areas where large numbers of well-organized people are directly and visibly affected in their

productive roles there is generally more popular pressure for influencing these decisions. The

MAS is permeable to these pressures. To prove this point, the chapter examined the influence of

grassroots actors in the development of agrarian and mining policies and showed that some of

the strongest and most well organized popular constituencies have indeed been influential in

shaping the agenda and advancing their preferred policies through their active participation in

and close interaction with the executive branch.

Finally, if we secondly examine the “negative capacities” of the grassroots organizations

that form the MAS coalition by tracing their veto or counter-mobilization power, the prospects of

mitigating the trend toward oligarchization look even more promising. It is here, where the top-

down logic of governing the country meets the bottom-up logic of social mobilization that

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characterizes the MAS since its origins, that the argument about oligarchization finds the biggest

resistance to its full applicability. It is in this area, moreover, that oligarchic decision-making is

most constrained in the case of the Bolivian MAS. As the chapter has shown, this outcome is a

reflection of both the origins and history of the MAS as an organization. It is also the result of a

deliberate organizational strategy that has rejected bureaucratic hierarchy since its first steps, and

a reflection of the distribution of power that exists within the party and its allied groups—and

also among these organizations themselves.

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 CHAPTER 5: THE MAS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

As the preceding chapters have shown, the Bolivian MAS is a case of a movement-based

party that gradually shed some of its initial characteristics between its founding in the mid-1990s

and its achievement of power in 2006. Yet, it remains different from other parties formed by

social movements; it has followed a remarkably different organizational trajectory. Most

movement-based parties that have made the transition to national power lend overwhelming

support for the Michelsian trend toward oligarchy, almost always developing elite-dominated

hierarchical structures that concentrate power and de-emphasize grassroots participation.

The literature on comparative political parties has observed that when parties win

elections, institutionalize their structures, and increasingly occupy public office, their ties with

allied social movements tend to become weaker and more intermittent. Grassroots participation

in the making of collective decisions seems particularly hard to sustain as the social bases of

parties grow and become more diverse, and as a result of new pressures that come from sectors

well beyond the party’s original social base. It is also challenging to sustain given other

constraints such as domestic and external economic pressures that tend to push governing parties

toward further centralization.235 In turn, all this gives rise to a top-down logic of decision-making

and to a gradual suppression of the bottom-up politics that might characterize a movement-based

party early in its history, or when it is in the opposition.

235
We might expect oligarchic tendencies under more stringent domestic and external economic
constraints. This is because, at times, for instance, satisfying investors may require pushing aside the
grassroots base.

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 The MAS trajectory does not fully conform to this pattern of organizational development,

however. Indeed, the present study has demonstrated that the Bolivian MAS offers some insight

into how party oligarchy can be mitigated in the context of governing a country. It has shown

that, if circumstances permit, movement-based parties may hold an advantage over other parties

to resist hierarchy and power concentration. The hybrid nature of these parties may encourage

democratic control from below by allowing for the existence of opposition among allied groups

that can check power from within and keep channels open for agenda setting from below. The

MAS experience has demonstrated that the extent to which movement-based parties can mitigate

the triumph of oligarchy heavily depends on the organizational strength, unity, and

mobilizational capacities of allied movements.

This chapter examines the origins and development of two other left parties that emerged

out of grassroots social movements, and that are in power in today’s Latin America. Then, it

compares them to the MAS. These parties are the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores,

PT) in Brazil, and the Broad Front (Frente Amplio, FA) in Uruguay. The comparative evidence

from these two additional cases generates insight into the kinds of participatory and

organization-building strategies have handled “the tension between governing and maintaining

grassroots linkages” (Levitsky and Roberts 2011: 421).

Maintaining grassroots linkages, which is associated with the idea of “deepening”

democracy, has been a historical goal of the Latin American Left. Comparative evidence allows

us to see alternative ways of resolving this “reversed” Michelsian dilemma (i.e. how to maintain

participation while having to govern), and to identify the roots of this variation. While the PT in

power appears to have undergone a Michelsian shift in its character, in the sense that its internal

structures concentrate power at the top and discourage grassroots input, the MAS and the FA

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have remained more open and internally responsive, although in very different ways.

In reflecting on the differences between the three cases, four elements are most

important: (1) certain organizational characteristics embedded in their “genetic model,” (2) their

experience before gaining national power, (3) their mode of access to national power, and (4) the

broader structural elements associated with their power base. As the present study argues, these

four elements set parties into distinctive development trajectories and create incentives and

constraints for organization building and for the promotion of participation in the political

process when they govern.

The MAS in Comparative Perspective

The MAS, an example of a movement-based party in power, was born of a rural social

movement composed of coca producers and grew from a rich tradition of participatory politics

found in local communities and base organizations in Bolivia’s Chapare region. It then expanded

to Bolivia’s largest cities and became the country’s largest party in less than a decade (Chapter

2). Although the transition from being a rural movement to gaining national power was

accompanied by efforts to control grassroots social movements from the top, movements in

Bolivia have retained notable degrees of autonomy from the governing party and Chapter 3 has

shown how social movement in Bolivia have maintained considerable influence in the

nomination of candidates within the MAS. For social groups and individuals that had been

historically marginalized and underrepresented in the political arena, this channel of participation

represents an important advance toward inclusion and full citizenship. In the realm of national

policy-making, there is no question that Morales and a small—but varying—group of trusted

individuals occupy a central role; however, Chapter 4 has demonstrated that the bottom-up

influence of collective actors on policy-making varies significantly by policy area, and that it is

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difficult for the party in government to dominate its grassroots partners. In other words, there are

some elements in the structure of the MAS and in the dynamics of social mobilization in the

streets that mitigate the trend toward oligarchy. The bottom-up power of grassroots social

movements embedded in the party’s “genetic model” and the legacies of social mobilization

associated with its ascent to power mean that social movements in Bolivia are still vibrant. At

times the MAS government has tried, but it has not been able to suppress autonomous political

initiative from its grassroots partners.

The Workers’ Party

The Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT) was founded in 1980 “by labor leaders, intellectuals,

and social movement activists” (Keck 1986: 68). After being in the opposition for over two

decades, it won the presidency in 2002 and was then reelected three times, in 2006, 2010, and

2014. Over the period from its inception to the present, the PT has progressively been

transformed from a “democratic socialist mass party” (Keck 1992: 247) into a type of party that

resembles an “electoral-professional” organization (Ribeiro 2008; 2014; Hunter 2007; 2010). At

a first glance, its developmental trajectory appears to lend clear support to the Michelsian

argument about party oligarchization (Ribeiro 2008: 226).

Origins, Formative Phase, and Transformation of Internal Governance

In terms of its origin, the PT is a classic example of a movement-based party. Emerging

under military rule as a political expression of grassroots groups in civil society, it has continued

to maintain close links with a wide array of organized popular constituencies, particularly with

organized labor. In its formative phase, however, the PT was “not just another labor party”

(Guidry 2003) because its initial base went far beyond industrial labor to include “the organized

left, Catholic activists, progressive politicians, intellectuals, and representatives of other social

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movements” (Keck 1992: 7). It also incorporated “segments of civil society that did not identify

themselves with a class perspective, such as feminist groups, gay movements, Afro-Brazilians,

human rights advocates or environmentalists” (Gómez Bruera 2013: 29), becoming a “place of

convergence” for various forces from the Left with distinctive origins (French and Fortes 2005:

17). The PT was also different from classic examples of labor parties because it was not

conceived of as the political arm of a specific sector of the labor movement, and it did not

establish formal institutional relations with unions. Although labor unions played a central role in

the creation of the party, it “was not created by the unions qua organizations” (Keck 1992: 7).

The early formal separation between the unions and the party was an attempt to protect

the autonomy of each union (Keck 1986: 76; 1992: 180). Accordingly, since its inception, it did

not incorporate mechanisms of collective affiliation, and those who decided to join the PT did so

on an individual “party member” basis. The PT has thus followed what Roberts (1998: 75) calls

the “organic” model of party development. These are parties whose “organic relationship with

mass organizations and social movements” provides “a common political space that links

popular and political struggles while respecting their relative autonomy” (Roberts 1998: 277).

Much of the literature on the PT as a national-level organization has attempted to explain

the extent to which the party represents something different in Brazilian—and more broadly

Latin American—politics (Keck 1992; Samuels 2004; Hunter 2007; 2010; Meneguello and

Amaral 2008; Amaral 2010). The goal here is not to assess this debate but to trace elements in

the party’s formative phase and access to power that have set the party in its distinctive

developmental path.

The early works of Meneguello (1989) and Keck (1992) are the essential references to

trace the roots of the PT’s distinctiveness. Taken together, they stress three areas—links to

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external groups, programmatic orientation, and internal organization—that can be traced back to

the formative phase of the party. Keck (1992), for instance, argues that during its first decade the

PT represented “an anomaly” in Brazilian politics due to its strong links to society, its

programmatic appeals, and its focus on aggregating the interests of various grassroots groups

rather than on performing electoral functions. Keck argues that,

[…] the Workers’ party was a novel development among Brazilian political institutions

for several reasons: first, because it is set out to be a party that expressed the interests of

workers and the poor at a political level; second, because it sought to be an internally

democratic party; and finally, because it wanted to represent and be accountable to its

members. All these conceptions have evolved a great deal since the party was founded,

but all of them remain central elements in the party’s identity and are what make it an

innovation (Keck 1992: 239).

Using Duverger’s (1954) classifications, others have characterized the PT as Brazil’s first

“mass bureaucratic” party (Meneguello 1989: 33-34) on the basis of the pattern of party

organization it adopted in its formative phase, including an articulated hierarchical structure,

mass membership, strict requirements for membership, close links to organized groups in civil

society, and a nationally centralized decision-making structure (see also Amaral 2010). The

military regime’s bureaucratic regulations forced new parties to perform onerous registration

tasks within a short period of time, and that heavily influenced the adoption of such

organizational pattern. Heavy regulations pushed party builders into a process of what might be

called “early bureaucratization” (my term; Nogueira-Budny 2013: 115, 117). Establishing a

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bureaucratic, centrally organized party at the very onset of its existence was necessary to permit

the party’s initial survival and it also contributed to its exponential growth and future

programmatic and organizational adaptations (Hunter 2010: 22; Nogueira-Budny 2013: 122). In

short, it became a constitutive element of the party’s “genetic model.”

This organizational model was far from what PT founders had envisioned in the late

1970s. Their vision was a decentralized organization characterized by bottom-up leadership and

decision-making structures—called “basismo” for the emphasis on base participation (Giudry

2003: 91)—that would be a break from the pattern of elitism that had long characterized

Brazilian parties. The hallmark of this model were the party “base nuclei” (“núcleos de base”),

which became an essential component of the PT’s identity and also reflected the founders’ intent

to build an internally democratic party on the basis of a participating mass membership, despite

the restrictions imposed by the military regime (Keck 1992: 103; Amaral 2010: 108). Base nuclei

were small local groups of at least twenty-one party affiliates “organized by neighborhood, job

category, workplace, or social movement” (Keck 1992: 104). They were to forge strong links

with preexisting social movements and to promote an active and diffuse participation of party

affiliates in internal party affairs.

Petistas had envisioned the base nuclei as spaces for the aggregation of interests rather

than as organs focused on electoral competition. They were designed to serve “as the conduit

between party and society to divulge and promote the party policies at the local level”

(Nogueira-Budny 2013: 118). Although nuclei provided spaces for grassroots participation, their

activities in their initial years were “closely linked to the efforts to legalize the party” (Amaral

2010: 110; see also Keck 1992: 106), and even though they provided spaces for collective

deliberation, they lacked real influence on intraparty issues (Amaral 2010: 114). Over time,

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particularly as the PT began to participate in (and to win) elections, these nuclei declined in

importance in relation to the more hierarchical party congresses (“congressos”).

A centralized leadership structure would be useful to Campo Majoritário (Majority

Group), the moderate faction that gained control over the party leadership in 1995. It would

steer the party toward important internal transformations in a further centralizing direction

(Ribeiro 2008: 160). The most relevant manifestation reflecting these changes was with the 2001

reform of the party statute. Until then, the party’s most important bodies for deliberation and

consultation were the annual meetings (“encontros”) at each level of its structure, be it

municipal, state, regional, or national (Partido dos Trabalhadores 1980). Their key function was

(and still is) to discuss program, political strategy, tactics, alliance policy, and party-building

strategies (Partido dos Trabalhadores 2001). In addition, until 2001, the annual meetings selected

members of the directorates (“diretórios”) as well as delegates to be sent to higher-level

meetings (Ribeiro 2008: 240-241). The latter would in turn select the party president. The annual

meetings used to be truly representative and inclusive forums (Ribeiro 2008: 240; also 2014:

111; and Amaral 2010: 83).

But that changed. Approved “after years of conflict between the Campo Majoritário and

the radical factions (with the dominant group imposing its ideas on all relevant issues)” (Ribeiro

2014: 101), the 2001 PT statute reduced the power of the base nuclei236 and reformed the intra-

party electoral system in ways that affected the internal dynamics of party meetings.

Most visibly, it introduced the PED (Processo de Eleições Diretas, or Direct Election

Process) for the selection of party authorities at all levels, so that party authorities should “be

236
Congresses (“congressos”) “started to resolve those issues whose responsibility initially resided within
nuclei” (Nogueira-Budny 2013: 121).

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elected by the direct vote of members” (Ribeiro 2014: 111), and it imposed a simple plurality

internal voting system.237 Annual meetings remained the highest-level decision-making bodies,

but they now take place after the authorities are elected, which reduces their role as a body for

intense internal negotiation.

While sponsors of this reform sold it as a way to deepen internal democracy and develop

more inclusive decision-making processes, the adoption of the PED ended up increasing the

decision-making autonomy of the party leadership by undermining collective actors and

appealing directly to the affiliates (Ribeiro 2014: 112; Hunter 2010: 39-40). The reform made the

party more inclusive, but it also promoted a participation of “low intensity” (Ribeiro 2008: 178).

In addition, the PT structure became more open to new members238 but less permeable to

pressures from the bottom up, allowing the leadership to operate “less constrained by the more

radical holdout […] that sought ideological purity and rejected any form of institutional change”

(Nogueira-Budny 2013: 125). In short, this new system gave increased power to preexisting

hierarchies.239 This in turn would allow the party leadership to shape the party’s future trajectory.

237
Prior to this, party authorities were selected by delegates from annual national meetings (“encontros”).
According to Ribeiro (2014: 111), “this process differed from Brazilian party law and the practice of
other parties in the greater representativeness and inclusiveness of the meetings.” This is because “the
criteria for participation gave greater weight to the ordinary members” in relation to the leadership. As a
result, before 2001, “the PT structure was more permeable to pressure from the bottom up, from the rank
and file on the leadership.” For a parallel argument, see Nogueira-Budny (2013: 121).
238
Initially, the PT had strict requirements for affiliation and demanded a high level of commitment from
members (Meneguello 1989: 33). Over time, after 2001, and especially after assuming national office in
2003, the PT gradually reduced the barriers of entry to join the PT—for example, by introducing
collective affiliations during electoral campaigns—and eased member obligations. In part as a result of
changes in norms and rules of membership, the party dramatically increased the number of affiliates
(Amaral 2010: 66). For a detailed assessment of additional explanations driving the expansion of the PT’s
affiliate base, see Amaral (2010: Chapter 2).
239
According to Ribeiro (2008: 265, 267), the introduction of PED can be seen as an “illusionary”
democratization—that is, a “false” democratization that only boosted the autonomy of the party’s top
leadership, and one that transformed the PT from being a party of activists and militants into a party of

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 Beyond its centralized organization, since its foundation the PT has worked closely with

a wide range of social movements, and it has also embraced a commitment to popular

empowerment and participatory democracy. In 1984 the PT took a direct role organizing a

broad-based coalition that brought millions of people into the streets to demand direct elections

in order to accelerate the end of the military regime (“Diretas já!”). In terms of relationships

with social movements, in the mid-1980s the PT helped to found the MST (Movimento Sem

Terra, or Landless Movement) and an independent labor federation, the CUT (Central Única dos

Trabalhadores, Unified Workers’ Central), although both organizations remained formally

autonomous (Guidry 2003: 90). The links between these movements and the party were

strengthened in the 1990s, when PT representatives actively pursued their demands in Congress

(Baiocchi and Checa 2007: 420). In line with the PT’s emphasis on “basismo,” the party

generated institutional innovations at the local level where, for instance, they won political office

by introducing a wide array of participatory programs (Baiocchi 2003; Wampler 2007). A

commitment to honest government and grassroots participation would become the trademarks of

the PT way of governing, defining the party’s goal of popular empowerment and inclusion as it

struggled to gain national power.

The Road to Power: Legislative Opposition and Local Government

The PT’s path to national power was indeed a long and rocky one. It followed a pattern of

progressive growth from the local level to the national level in both legislative and executive

elections. Along the way, it went from being predominantly urban to reaching out to rural areas

(Ribeiro 2014: 88), and in 2002 Lula was elected president on his fourth try. By that time, the PT

voters. For the argument that the PED deepened internal democracy and represented a challenge to
Michels’s Iron Law, see Meneguello and Amaral (2008) and Amaral (2010).

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was a bureaucratic and centralized organization, and its rise to national-level power did not occur

through the use of mobilizational campaign tactics.

The PT first ran for office in the 1982 mayoral elections, receiving only three percent of

the national vote (Keck 1992: 143). In light of these below-expectation results, party builders

decided to “return to the base,” or to strengthen the movement in relation to the party, since

movement activity was seen as more conducive to social change than participation in institutions

(Keck 1992: 153,164). Although the PT performed better in the 1985 mayoral elections,

particularly in state capitals, the electoral breakthrough only occurred in 1988 (French and Fortes

2005: 19), when the party gained control of thirty-one municipalities, including state capitals and

rural districts where the MST had been active (Keck 1992: 157). Increasing governing

experience in states and cities led to a focus on institutional strategies as opposed to a

strengthening of the social struggles (Lacerda 2002: 63). It also led the PT “to moderate its

discourse, platform and political practices, in terms of public administration and/or its attitude

toward other actors, such as in the political alliances it formed” (Ribeiro 2014: 89). Local

experiences contributed to the growth of the party and expanded its social base. Staying loyal to

the party’s basic political DNA, PT mayors combined pragmatism with institutional innovations

to promote broad-based citizen involvement, such as participatory budgeting, which became the

trademark of many PT administrations (Abers 2000; Baiocchi 2003; Nylen 2003). While the

slogan “PT way of governing” was obviously a discursive tool, “it was rooted in something real:

practical policies that expanded access to education, health, and housing and that improved the

quality of series and goods provided” (French and Fortes 2005: 26).

The PT’s basist ethos shaped these local governments not only due to the participatory

institutional innovations implemented by its mayors but also in the sense that PT leaders did not

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fully abandon social mobilization strategies. Such strategies only worked under very specific

circumstances that were not present in every municipality, however (on this point, see Gómez

Bruera 2013: 81). Above all, as a general pattern, the party’s increasing experience holding local

level executive office provided a sort of “institutional school” for PT leaders that contributed to

their pragmatism in office (Novaes 1993; Samuels 2004). Being elected to government positions

but usually having a minority status in municipal chambers, forced PT officials to rethink the

party’s approach to electoral and legislative alliance making, which initially was restricted to

like-minded parties on the left (Hunter and Power 2005: 129). The commitment to working with

other political forces not only signaled moderation to voters, but it also helped to strengthen an

internal coalition of party moderates who would then centralize party structures and steer the PT

toward the ideological center (Samuels 2004: 1008). Finally, the growing experience holding

subnational level office “generated incentives for the party to place greater emphasis on electoral

and institutional activity and less emphasis on mobilizational and extra institutional struggles”

(Samuels 2004: 1016). The relationships between the party and its social movement base would

not necessarily be “weakened” or cooled down, but they would be altered in nature as the party

increasingly held public office.

At the legislative branch, where the PT increased the presence of “working class men and

women, both rural and urban … including an unprecedented number of Afro-Brazilians, women,

and labor and community leaders” (French and Fortes 2005: 19), the PT developed a “strategy

aimed at furthering the party’s distinctive profile and long-term growth” (Hunter 2010: 45). The

most visible manifestation of this strategy was the anti-neoliberal policy orientation of PT

representatives, who gradually moderated their views from advocating socialism and radical

change to a pragmatic but progressive position aimed at reforming capitalism to protect the

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interests of the underprivileged.240 As well, another visible manifestation of the PT’s legislative

strategy was the party’s “distinctive organizational characteristics of cohesion, loyalty, and

discipline” (Hunter 2010: 55; see also Roma 2005). The PT exerted tight control over

representatives and their legislative activity.241 The experience in the legislative opposition

progressively strengthened the party’s position in representative institutions, and allowed the

party to project itself onto the national political scene as a reasonable alternative to the status

quo. The opposition role it played also “allowed the PT to consolidate grassroots support and

build a strong organization over time” (Hunter 2010: 77). All these elements would become

crucial for its electoral success in the 2002 presidential victory.

Local experiences of municipal administration and years of opposition in the legislative

branch led to greater interaction between the party’s union and social movement base and state

institutions (Avritzer 2009: 9). Some of these movements, particularly in urban areas,

“increasingly engaged in processes of negotiations with the state and deployed strategies that

were less confrontational and disruptive” (Gómez Bruera 2013: 42). At the same time, however,

“the original base of the PT, in terms of its social movement roots, was facing a deep crisis”

(French and Fortes 2005: 26). This was particularly the case in regard to labor unions, as “the

combined effects of economic stagnation, high unemployment rates, and productive restructuring

drove unions into retreat” (French and Fortes 2005: 27). In light of these broader societal

changes, the moderate party faction that now controlled the PT prioritized an institutional rather

240
Amaral (2010) also notes a simultaneous process of ideological moderation among the PT rank and
file. Al parallel argument is found in Samuels (2004).
241
In 2003, four representatives were expelled from Congress after opposing the PT’s economic policy
and its proposal for social security reform.

207
than a mobilizational strategy. Although social mobilization did not disappear from the stage,

protest action decreased notably during the 1990s (Gómez Bruera 2013: 45).

Thus, the 2002 presidential campaign took place in a context of low-intensity

mobilization, and it was designed when the PT enjoyed a situation of relative strength within

representative institutions. The political learning made it clear that in order to ensure

governability, the party would need to shift to the center and create a broader set of alliances than

only with like-minded parties on the left. In 2002, the PT allied with the Center-Right Liberal

Party, which provided José Alencar, a man with close ties to Brazil’s business community, as the

vice presidential candidate (Hunter 2007: 463).242 In addition, the moderate sector led by Lula’s

faction (Campo Majoritário), a faction that by the early 2000s had become a cohesive, dominant

coalition within the party, was able to adopt a professionalized approach for the presidential

campaign. The most visible manifestation of this was the hiring of Brazil’s leading PR expert,

Duda Mendonça, to run the presidential campaign (Ribeiro 2014: 110; Hunter 2007: 464). This

led to a move from activist-intensive campaigns, which were more characteristic during the PT’s

early experiences, toward a marketing-oriented campaign based on the personal appeal of Lula.

This was also evidence that by the early 2000s the party leadership enjoyed significant levels of

autonomy in relation to the rank and file: external experts directed the winning 2002 campaign

and were not subject to any internal accountability mechanisms (Ribeiro 2014: 111). In other

words, the centralization of power and professionalization of the party had already occurred.

The election of Lula was not the product of social mobilization. By 2002, the grassroots

actors had been demobilized:

242
This also reflects the balance of forces in Congress and the powerful influence of Brazilian domestic
capital.

208
 Lula’s electoral victory occurred when social mobilization was not on the ascent (as

would have been true if Lula had won in 1989 or 1994). Lula’s election followed a

decade in which mass activism had fallen off (with the notable exception of the Landless

Workers’ Movement, or MST), and the mass organizations built during the 1970s and

1980s were devastated by an economic liberalization that eliminated, for example, half of

the industrial working class in Brazil […] There is, however, one limited sense in which

Lula’s election can be seen as a victory for social movements. It is very much the triumph

of a remarkable generation of leaders that grew out of the dynamic protest movements

that brought an end to the military regime, even if the organizations they led no longer

have the same dynamism as in the past (French and Fortes 2005: 24).

The image of demobilization is perhaps more accurate in the case of urban movements;

the situation was different in the countryside, “where landless workers (MST and other new

groups) expanded their efforts and remained active, although profound political disagreements

would cool the relationship between the PT and the MST.” Despite this nuance, what matters

analytically is that when Lula’s 2002 campaign was designed the PT was “stronger in the

institutional field but weaker in its organic base” (French and Fortes 2005: 27). This allowed

party moderates to gain distance from the party’s social movement base, to de-emphasize the

party’s socialist programmatic platform and other more radical stances, and to embrace

moderation. The party also adopted modern marketing technology, such as frequent polling, as

an effort to develop more targeted appeals (Hunter 2010: 139). Attempts to install fear among

potential Lula voters led Lula to release the “Letter to the Brazilian People” (da Silva 2002),

209
which signaled to the public (and to domestic and international market operators) the PT’s

commitment to work within the constraints of the prevailing economic model (Samuels 2004:

1004).243 This could be seen as a part of an electoral strategy, as Hunter (2010) argues, and also

as a platform to ensure governability when the PT assumed the presidency (Gómez Bruera 2013:

90). Either way, running on a platform that avoided socialist and confrontational rhetoric, Lula

won 46.4 percent of the first-round vote, reaching 61.3 percent of the valid votes in the runoff

election against PSDB candidate José Serra.

Exercise of National Governmental Power

Once elected, Lula could not escape the general constraints of Brazilian politics:

specifically, the highly fragmented nature of its political system that results from its open-list

proportional representation electoral rules for legislatures (Power 2010). As when the PT started

to accumulate local experiences of municipal administration, the PT came to national-level

executive power with a weak position in both legislative chambers (Gómez Bruera 2013: 85, 91;

also Hunter 2010: 147). As French and Fortes (2005: 28) note, “although the PT won the largest

share of seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the Left was still outnumbered by Center-Right

parties in the National Congress.” In such a weak parliamentary position, the PT could have

opted to mobilize its social movement base—that is, to mobilize its base to promote at least

certain progressive reforms by putting pressure on the legislative branch. However, the PT did

not do so (Gómez Bruera 2013: 91, 92).244 The main roadblock was the PT moderates, who

243
According to Gómez Bruera (2013), the letter was “drafted by a small group of leaders within Lula’s
entourage” (90) and lacked intraparty consensus before it was presented to the public. As such, many
within the party saw it as an imposition from the top (fn. 24, p. 188).
244
This was the strategy promoted by the most radical leftist factions within the PT, which had been
marginalized from the party leadership since the mid-1990s. The opponents were the members of Campo
Majoritário representing party moderates.

210
rejected mobilization because of “a fear of political and social instability” (Gómez Bruera 2013:

93). It is also plausible that a mobilization was not instigated because the party’s union and

social movement base was not seen as having enough strength and mobilizational capacity to

support such a strategy (Gómez Bruera 2013: 94). Driven by a moderate agenda, the Lula

administration opted to engage in broad alliances across the political spectrum in order to ensure

a parliamentary majority that would allow the PT-led government to pass its moderate initiatives

in Congress and “get things done.”

Since Lula assumed the presidency, the PT has had a difficult time satisfying its social

movement allies (Hunter and Power 2007). The orthodox macroeconomic policies, the lack of

significant reform in health and education, and the timid approach to land reform (Hunter 2010:

148-149, 152, 153), together with the lack of creative forms of empowered popular participation

initiatives at the national level (Samuels 2008), has led to “increasing conflict with, and isolation

from, its base of support among social movements” (Baiocchi and Checa 2007: 411). This is not

to say that the PT lacked mechanisms of participation at the national level, however, or to deny

that there have been significant advances in term of the orientation of policies to the benefit of

majorities, such as greater social protection, rising wages, and increased investment in education

(Pogrebinschi 2012; French and Fortes 2012). Nevertheless, critics in academia, commentators

on the Left, and PT moderates seem to agree that the PT-led government has not generated

incentives to promote active grassroots participation in national decision-making (Gómez Bruera

2013: 120).

If the participation of grassroots actors in the formulation of policies has not been

encouraged, their ability to block or modify government policy has been even less evident under

the PT governments. The process of the passage of a highly contentious Social Security Reform

211
(Reforma da Previdência) illustrates this point. Put on the agenda as a way to reduce the

structural deficit in Brazil’s pension system, the PT proposal directly clashed with the interests of

public service trade unions, a well-organized group within the Unified Workers’ Central (CUT)

and within the PT’s base of support (Hunter 2010: 151; Hunter and Power 2005: 131). Although

CUT leaders initially took a conciliatory approach and tried to negotiate with the government

some of the sensitive issues of its proposal, “public sector unions … took a hard line, formally

requesting that the bill be withdrawn from Congress and eventually voting for a general strike”

(Gómez Bruera 2013: 141). This forced the CUT leadership to support the strike, even though

the CUT as an organization would not encourage demonstrations. Despite protests organized by

public servants in Brasilia, “the government prevailed over the vociferous objections of

important historical constituencies within the PT” (Hunter 2010: 151). The reform was passed in

Congress with little modification in response to the pressures from below, even though it

included “numerous concessions” made to other parties in Congress that were central “to obtain

legislative backing” (Hunter and Power 2005: 131). The passage of a top-down reform that

directly collided with the interests of a well-organized historical constituency was facilitated by

the party’s bureaucratized and centralized structure, two of the characteristics of its “genetic

model.”245

The Social Security Reform would not be the only instance where pressures from below

did not force the party leadership to change its moderate policy orientation. A number of

additional times social movements and minority groups that joined the PT during its formative

phase “actively opposed the construction of large infrastructure projects” (Gómez Bruera 2013:

245
A mechanism used by the PT was the punishment of dissidence. Those who refused agree to the
proposal were expelled from the party. According to Nogueira-Budny (2013: 126-127), the mechanism of
tight control over the party membership began shortly after the PT’s foundation.

212
134) that directly affected their living conditions. For the most part, these challenges were placed

on the grounds of environmental concerns. The PT-led governments have to a large extent

succeeded in defending large infrastructure projects, despite this opposition. In general, the PT

administrations have been impervious to challenges from below. Certainly, social movements

allied with the PT have obtained some benefits from their association with the PT. While the

MST achieved little progress in terms of land reform (Ondetti 2008), other movements have

achieved increases in the minimum wage, and some advances in trade union legislation (Gómez

Bruera 2013: 154, 162). In both of these instances, however, allied social movements did not

mobilize autonomously; rather, they were called on by the PT leadership to show strength to

opposition groups in Congress and skeptics within the party. Overall, as Gómez Bruera argues,

“whenever significant changes took place the initiative of the party in government was by and far

the main driving force. Under the PT administration it was the party in public office, and Lula in

particular, that established the main tactics and strategies” (Gómez Bruera 2013: 163).

Summary

Some of the characteristics of the PT’s “genetic model” have had important implications

for the party’s long-term trajectory. Specifically, the PT adopted in its formative moments a mass

bureaucratic pattern of organization with hierarchical decision-making structures and strict party

discipline, which would then facilitate the concentration of power. In addition, the fact that it

gained national-level power after extensive experience at subnational levels (with coalition

building) and with a highly professionalized campaign (rather than as a product of mobilization

tactics), and that it inherited a weak position within Congress when coming to power in a context

of low-intensity mobilization, have determined the party’s trajectory. Once in power, the party

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did not instigate mobilizational strategies, pursuing instead a coalition-building strategy that had

proven beneficial during earlier experiences.

This suggests that certain dimensions of the party’s past can exert important pressures for

the types of participatory projects and agendas parties can carry out once they are in power at the

national level. The PT’s “genetic model” is one of strong links with social movement allies that

initially emphasized grassroots participation, but also one that has facilitated, even if

unintentionally, the concentration of power at the top. The realization of this can not only be

attributable to the “genetic model” but also to the party’s experience in the rise to national-level

power, particularly the experience of government at the subnational level. Although with the

passage of time the PT has not completely sidelined its social movement allies, it has tended to

suppress proactive social mobilization and to encourage the consolidation of a party leadership

with increasing levels of autonomy (Ribeiro 2008; also 2014).

The Broad Front

The development of the Broad Front (FA) is similar to that of the PT in several ways. Its

roots can be traced to the 1960s, when diverse actors on the left—including labor leaders,

established left parties, social movements, splinters of traditional parties, urban guerrilla

organizations, and intellectuals—converged on the idea of creating a popular front. Unity was

achieved by 1971, two years before a coup ushered in 12 years of military authoritarian rule.

Similar to the PT, the FA spent most of its formative period in opposition to an authoritarian

regime (1973-1984), becoming an opposition party during the post-authoritarian period (1985-

2004) and then gaining national-level power in the 2004 presidential election and reelection in

2009. Over the period since its creation, the FA has progressively been transformed from a

“labor-based” “mass party” into a type of party with a broader social base that approximates the

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“electoral-professional” model (Luna 2014: 175). Unlike the PT, however, it has developed since

its origins a type of organization that creates incentives and opportunities for power dispersion,

and one that encourages grassroots input and mobilized participation. Notably, it has maintained

such a structure even after the party assumed governmental power at the national level (Pribble

2008: 92, 94).

Origins and Formative Phase

Founded in 1971 “as a coalition of five fractions that included Communists, Socialists,

Christian-democrats, sectors spitting from both traditional parties, and leftist independents”

(Luna 2006: 416) and reflecting its diverse origins, the party initially had a fractionalized

structure, and became a place of convergence for many groups on the Left with different

organizational identities (Giorgi 2011). Although the number of fractions has fluctuated over

time (Caetano el al. 2003: 15), the four major ones include the Communist Party (PC), the

Socialist Party (PS), the Popular Participation Movement (MPP), and the Uruguay Assembly

(AU). All four have leaders with varied origins, organizational structures, and grassroots

following (Luna 2014: 179-180, 192-196). The early adoption of a fractionalized structure,

which is a central feature of the party’s “genetic model” that was kept alive during the military

authoritarian period, has created incentives against the centralization of power in several ways.

Specifically, it has forced competing fractions to engage in internal negotiations before reaching

decisions, and it has created incentives for competition for party leadership. According to Pribble

(2008: 95), “This internal competition, in turn, presents political elites with incentives to build

organic ties with base organizations so as to institutionalize each fraction’s power.” Pribble

argues that this situation “leads to the strengthening of [intraparty] mechanisms for consultation

215
and participation.”

The FA was not formed by social movements, but it has maintained close links with

organized labor and the student movement, and it has drawn extensive support from them since

its early years. These early connections were crucial for the party to develop an organizational

and an activist base during military authoritarian period, when some groups within the party led

clandestine opposition to the military regime. Although party builders respected the relative

autonomy of mass organizations and social movements, it was clear at the time of the creation of

the FA that the Communist Party had significant influence in the labor movement, and that the

Socialist Party had more influence among the student movement and the urban-intellectual strata

(Luna 2006: 416). According to Luna (2006), moreover, the FA developed early on a “historical

brotherhood” with organized labor, which is visibly “manifested in the party’s adoption of the

union peak organization’s platform as the keystone of its historical programmatic bases,” in “the

continuous interaction between union and party leaders,” and in “the use of the union movement

as a transmission belt for the party” (Luna 2006: 417). In addition, the relationship between

organized labor and the party can be observed in the social composition and evolution of the

FA’s parliamentary group, which has a significant presence of union leaders in key positions

(Luna 2014: 181). Over time, however, the labor movement has progressively gained autonomy

from the FA, particularly from the PC and the PS, and became more radicalized in relation to the

party leadership (Luna 2014: 182). This last factor would then become a source of conflict

between the party and its social movement base when the FA made the transition to

administering local governments.

Since its origins, the FA sought to be an internally democratic party. Accordingly, it

developed an organization with multiple rules and mechanisms of consultation between base

216
organizations and the party elite (Pribble 2008: 93). These would provide a degree of

institutionalization of grassroots input over party platforms, electoral strategies, government

plans, and policy orientations (Pribble 2008: 94). It would also provide the party leadership with

incentives to seek broad-based consensus when making decisions (Caetano et al. 2003: 9). This

last point is especially important, as the FA (unlike the PT) introduced an internal electoral

system requiring absolute majorities, which further complicates decision-making and reduces the

autonomy of the leadership (Caetano et al. 2003: 15, 16). Although the degree of consultation

and deliberation has tended to decrease over time, “the party continues to hold-on to some

characteristics from its origins” (Pribble 2008: 92). These mechanisms have allowed the FA to

maintain close links with its original leftist base of support, and to promote mobilized

participation of allied groups. The parallel construction of a national network of territorial base

committees as spaces for deliberation and collective decision-making has also allowed the party

to generate a large and committed activist base. Taken together, these two elements would define

the party’s project of popular empowerment as it struggled to gain national power.

The Road to Power: Legislative Opposition and Local Government

The FA first ran for office in the 1971 presidential election and received close to 20

percent of the vote (Lanzaro 2011). The party then spent eleven of its formative years under

military authoritarian rule, “with zero access to public office, very little access to media, and the

pervasive threat of arrest and exile” (Van Dyck 2013: 373). In clandestine opposition, the FA

developed a strong organizational foundation that allowed the party to survive and then to

become an important actor in the pacted transition. The FA’s organizational strength was clearly

visible in 1983, when Uruguay democratized. The FA received 21.3 percent of the vote in the

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ensuing 1984 election.246 As with the PT, the FA did not come to national-level power rapidly

after its foundation. The electoral expansion of the party was slow, gradual, and built on solid

organizational foundations. Its vote share grew steadily at the local and the national levels. Its

presidential candidate since 1994, Tabaré Vázquez, only won the 2004 presidential elections

after several attempts. Along the way, the FA went from being predominantly urban-based to

reaching out to rural areas and increasingly catchall in orientation. By the time it captured the

presidency, the FA was a highly institutionalized and professionalized leftist party.

As in the case of the PT, the experience in the legislative opposition, and the governing

experience at the subnational level contributed to the FA’s electoral growth. The long-standing

role as an opposition party in Congress allowed the party to develop a strategy aimed at

differentiating itself from Uruguay’s dominant parties, the Blancos and the Colorados, which had

dominated Uruguayan politics for almost two centuries. This occurred in a context where the

Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) model was in crisis, and parties in power were seeking

to engage in neoliberal reforms. In that context, the most visible manifestation of the FA’s

differentiation was the anti-neoliberal orientation of its representatives, who became a veto

coalition largely due to the party’s organizational structure and mobilizing capacity. It defended

the interests of the ISI beneficiaries. This last element allowed representatives in Congress “to

mount aggressive resistance to proposed [market-oriented] legislation” proposed by the dominant

parties while preserving party discipline in Congress (Pribble 2008: 96).

Also similar to the PT, the experience in legislative opposition gradually strengthened the

party’s position in representative institutions, served as an “institutional school” for its

246
The Colorado Party, which won the election, received 41.2 percent of the vote and the National Party
received 35 percent.

218
representatives and strengthened its participation in institutional struggles. It also allowed the

party to present itself in the national arena as a credible political alternative. As social discontent

with the dominant parties and their policies grew over time, all of these elements would be

crucial for the FA’s electoral success in the presidential election of 2004.

That the FA was successful in opposing several reformist attempts had much to do with

the cohesiveness of its congressional delegation, but also with institutional factors that facilitated

the mobilization of its grassroots base. The use of mechanisms of direct democracy made it

possible for the FA to build coalitions of grassroots actors and challenge reformist attempts in

areas such as the privatization of public companies, the reform of the social security system, the

budget for public education, and even the time limits for labor claims (Altman 2002: 619).

Among some social groups, the FA’s opposition to reform strengthened the party’s position as a

credible alternative to the status quo. In addition, the frequent mobilization of activists in

attempts to block neoliberal reforms through direct democracy devices at the national level

allowed the FA to maintain a vibrant activist base between elections.

At the time that the FA consolidated its position as an alternative to Uruguay’s dominant

parties and became a powerful actor resisting reform attempts, the FA embraced ideological

moderation, even if it did not abandon its commitment to a statist model (Yaffé 2005: 95).

According to Luna (2014: 252), the party gradually “changed from a Marxist mass party to an

electoral-professional one […] while still providing consistent opposition to neoliberal reforms.”

There are several explanations for this. According to Cason (2000), Uruguay’s 1996

constitutional reform, which instituted presidential runoffs, forced the party leadership to engage

in pragmatic alliance making to broaden the party’s constituency. According to Luna (2014), the

FA’s ideological moderation began earlier in the 1990s in response to both electoral constraints

219
and the constraints of the party’s internal structures. The electoral constraints are associated with

the idea that neoliberal reforms had imposed limits on radical leftist platforms. Internally, the

shift toward the ideological center was a consequence of both the internal balance of power

within the FA, which after the fall of the Berlin Wall favored the moderate party fractions (led by

Tabaré Vázquez) in relation to the more radical fractions (broadly led by Danilo Astori), and

contributed to the election of moderate frenteamplistas in city government (Luna 2007). If the

party’s central challenge was to perform well electorally at the national level while maintaining

strong links to its core constituency of unions and other civil society organizations, elected

officials at the local level needed to signal voters they could govern effectively while defending

its historical commitments.

As with the PT, local experiences of public administration also led to a focus on electoral

and institutional activity as opposed to the strengthening of mobilizational and extra institutional

strategies. The increasing experience of frenteamplista mayors (Tabaré Vázquez, and Mariano

Arana) governing Montevideo contributed to their pragmatism in office and to the strengthening

of their position in intraparty affairs, which allowed them to circumvent organizational

constraints and steer the FA toward the center. All this did not necessarily sever the relationships

between the party and its union and social movement base, however. Indeed, as Luna (2014)

notes, this governmental experience also contributed to the strengthening of the links between

the party and grassroots actors by developing a “close to the people administration” (246) in

Uruguay’s capital.247 To achieve this, it implemented an administrative decentralization process

that enabled activists in local committees to engage meaningfully in public deliberations and in

247
That Montevideo is the country’s largest district and home to about half the electorate meant that even
though participatory experiences were less ambitious in Uruguay than in Brazil some of these
experiments engaged a proportionally larger population, and were thus more salient.

220
social policy provision, bringing them increasingly closer to the state. According to Luna’s

(2014) interview evidence, this helped the urban poor to mobilize between elections, to promote

grassroots input in regards to resource allocation, and to expand the territorial reach of the

organization. The influence of the party’s “genetic model,” which placed heavy emphasis on

consultation with the bases, shaped not only these experiences of local participation but also the

governing dynamics. In several occasions, the frenteamplista governments of Montevideo

clashed with unions over aspects of policy when their interests were not taken into account (Luna

2006: 417).

A tension became apparent: while the growing power of moderates within the FA and the

ensuing move toward the ideological center would appear to point in the direction of

centralization of party structures, the FA’s promotion of grassroots input and the labor

movement-party dynamics in power would point in the direction of power dispersion.

The tensions between these two logics increased as the FA pursued national-level power.

Unlike the PT, the Frente did not develop a cohesive dominant coalition that could control the

organization from the top. Its internal voting system prevented the emergence of such a

configuration, as noted above. This contrast is worthy of further elaboration. Given the FA’s

diverse origins, from the beginning its leaders sought to develop an internal system of checks and

balances to promote consensus building and prevent power concentration and entrenchment. In

this spirit, it established early on the criterion of absolute majorities for deciding on certain issues

such as the inclusion of new groups into the party (Caetano et al. 2003: 16). This form of

decision-making, which is generally considered slower and less efficient than simple plurality

systems, has become even slower as the FA has added more layers by progressively

221
incorporating new groups into its structures.248

The FA’s most important bodies for deliberation and consultation are the National

Council (Plenario Nacional, NC) and the Political Committee (Mesa Política, PC). While the

former performs more of a deliberative role and one of its key functions is to develop the FA’s

governing plan, the latter is the political arm of the party and performs more of a monitoring and

oversight function. The party is also made up of small-scale territorial units, known as base

committees (Comités de Base), which have proliferated since the mid-1980s and forge close

links with the party’s rank and file. The leadership of the NC is elected every five years (two

years before the presidential elections) through a system of open primaries, and it assumes the

representation of both party fractions and base committees. Its hierarchical structure is comprised

of “the president and vice president of the party, 72 representatives of the distinct fractions and

groups that make up the party, 36 representatives from the Montevideo local committees, 36

representatives from the departmental committees, and six citizen-militants” (Pribble 2008: 93).

This mixed system of representation has prevented control by one dominant group. Over time,

however, it has tended to over-represent the fractions that invest more heavily in territorial

strategies (Caetano et al. 2003: 17).249

Despite this tendency, party institutions have remained important in internal negotiations.

The characteristics of the party’s procedures and voting system meant that internal changes—like

248
The PT also adopted a strict majoritarian structure in its formative phase (Nogueira-Budny 2013: 125),
but unlike the FA it deepened its commitment to majoritarianism in internal reforms down the road. For
instance, in 2001 the party introduced a simple plurality internal voting system (Amaral 2010: 145-156).
As a consequence of this internal change, “a simple majority in a direct vote for the leadership is
sufficient to impose the line of the dominant group (with a minimum of subsequent amendments) on the
entire party” (Ribeiro 2014: 111).
249
Historically, there has been routinized alternation of power within the party. However, since the MPP
gained control of the leadership in 2002 there has been less alternation, which points in the direction of
centralization.

222
the move toward the ideological center and the scope of electoral alliance making—were slow

processes; they were also intensely debated and challenged by the more radical fractions. While

amidst these transformations unions remained confrontational and occasionally disruptive, the

moderate FA leadership sought to strengthen electoral alliances instead of mobilizing the

party’s organic base to grow electorally.250

Its commitment to institution building became apparent in 2002, when the party

supported the incumbent “at a time when it could have forced his removal by promoting street

riots like those seen in Argentina” (Luna 2014: 244). Confronting an adverse domestic situation,

the FA built electoral alliances with like-minded parties of the left and with other center-left

forces that contributed to the FA’s gradual electoral success. The most visible of these alliances

was in 2002, when New Majority (NM), which included splinter groups from the traditional

parties and of the FA itself, merged with the FA and contested elections together (Yaffé 2005:

105).

Exercise of National Governmental Power

As with the PT, by the time the FA came to power it had already become a more

professional organization and had abandoned its more radical Marxist and anti-capitalist rhetoric.

Unlike the PT however, in2005 it enjoyed a much stronger position in Congress (Lanzaro 2011).

This meant that the FA could pursue its historical commitments without facing an intransigent

legislative opposition. It also meant that to get things done the FA did not have to engage in deal-

making with conservative parties, and that it did not have to mobilize its social base to put

250
The alliance making strategy had started earlier, when Vázquez formed the Progressive Encounter
(EP) in 1994 as an effort to build “a macro-center-left coalition” for the 1994 election (Luna 2014: 244-
245). EP was formed by splinter groups of the two traditional parties, as well as by fractions within the
FA itself that had separated from it. Between 1994 and 2005, FA-EP contested elections alongside as
allies.

223
pressure on Congress. Thus, the key for understanding the Frente’s policy-making dynamics

appears to lie more in the internal power struggles and negotiations among the actors that

constitute the FA than in the halls of Congress. Although the FA has a dense set of formal rules

and structures that regulate internal affairs (Caetano et al. 2003: 15-20), popular leaders like

Tabaré Vázquez and José “Pepe” Mujica have often managed to circumvent these when they

deemed it necessary for the office-seeking success of the party (Luna 2014).

As with the PT, internal party organs are well institutionalized, but for the most part they

do not generate policies or relevant decisions beyond defining the contours of the government

program. It is therefore more useful to look at the relations between the FA and its constitutive

units for insight into how decision-making processes actually work. According to Huber and

Stephens (2012: 203), the close relations between the FA and organized interest groups meant

that policy initiatives under the FA have “tended to be more sweeping in some areas” such as in

health-sector reform and in labor relations, but also were “heavily constrained in others

(education reform) where their allied unions were stakeholders.” In other words, under the FA

governments, policy-making appears to be highly negotiated inside the governing coalition and

not an imposition from the top. Policy-making under the FA requires consultation and consensus

building among a wide array of organizations, a pattern that is embedded in the party’s “genetic

model.” The balance of power among competing actors within the FA can reduce the options for

government proposals and can put limits on centralized decision-making. In addition, the extent

to which grassroots groups can influence policy varies significantly across policy areas.

Bogliaccini (2012) provides further insight on these last points through his analysis of tax

reform and labor reform under the FA governments. These reforms showcase the strength of the

FA’s historical alliance with organized labor, and how this gave leverage to labor in shaping

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decisions that directly affected their interests. The tax reform was one of the most important

policy reforms of the FA, which can be seen as an attempt to fulfill a central aspect of the

Frente’s campaign promises since the 1990s (Bogliaccini 2012: 156). Submitted to Congress by

President Vázquez and Economy Ministry Astori, the government initiative triggered harsh

internal divisions among the fractions that comprise the FA, which have different redistributive

preferences and grassroots following. This led to six months of intense negotiations inside the

governing coalition and often involved strikes and demonstrations in the streets. It was

opposition from within, particularly organized labor in alliance to the MPP fraction led by Pepe

Mujica, what slowed down and constrained the reform process, as neither opposition parties nor

organized business represented a significant obstacle to the FA (Bogliaccini 2012: 158). The

result was a reform that included the input and incorporated the preferences of organized labor,

even if it also introduced elements pushed from the top by Vázquez (Bogliaccini 2012: 161).

The dynamics of labor reform were different, but they also help to show the extent to

which internal structures can prevent power concentration and how decisions are actually made.

In that instance, labor was instrumental in bringing the reinstitution of wage councils into the

legislative agenda (Bogliaccini 2012: 148). These had been suspended during the right-wing

administration of Lacalle (1990-1995), and were not modified during the administrations of

Sanguinetti (1995-2000) and of Battle (2000-2005). Coming from labor, the proposal to reinstate

wage councils did not generate strong divisions inside the FA and was instead passed quickly

after it was sent to Congress, since it reflected the consensus among groups within the FA. The

reinstatement of wage councils, which was an instance where the grassroots shaped the agenda,

can be seen as a double-edged sword. One the one hand, it “achieved not only a more

coordinated process of wage setting and an improvement of wages, but also an increase in

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unionization” (Huber and Stephens 2012: 186). It has also increased the ability of labor to shape

political decisions collectively, and to institutionalize grassroots input on decision-making. On

the other hand, critics can see such pattern of institutionalized participation as promoting the

demobilization of allied groups.251

The image of demobilization was only partially accurate, however. According to Pribble

(2008: 94), “during the party’s first experience ruling the country at the national level, there have

been several instances in which FA base organizations have opposed government policy and

called for a different course of action.” An example of this includes the mobilizations against the

free trade agreement with the United States, which forced Vázquez to abandon the negotiations.

According to Pribble’s interviews there is also an important degree of consultation in the area of

social policy, and a principled resistance to technocratic decision-making. While the passage of

time and experience in government may have led to a decrease of “organic” consultation with

base organizations, this aspect “continues to be a defining characteristic and has important

effects for policy outputs since the government cannot rely on autonomy from the party when

formulating proposals” (Pribble 2008: 94).

Summary

Some of the characteristics of the Frente’s “genetic model” have had a long-lasting

impact on its developmental trajectory. The FA emerged from plural origins and adopted early

on a fractionalized structure with a proportional electoral system and created incentives for

power dispersion that (1) are deeply embedded in the party’s DNA, and that (2) have influenced

the party’s behavior over time. The accumulated experience at the subnational level had the

251
This critique comes mostly from the Communist Party, whose representatives seem to be “unwilling to
abandon the capitalist critique” (Bogliaccini 2012: 164), and see such policies as “reformist.”

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short-term effect of strengthening party moderates, who would use their new power to

circumvent party structures and steer the Frente’s platform toward the center as a part of an

office-seeking strategy. This strategy allowed the party to grow electorally in a gradual and

sustained manner. The experience of local administration also contributed to the increasing

pragmatism of FA leaders, who once in local-level office projected an image of responsible

government and willingness to compromise with other forces.

At the same time, however, FA leaders in office did not abandon their historical

commitments to their base of support in labor and other civil society organizations. The leaders

instead mobilized them between elections through direct democracy devices. That the FA

maintained a “brotherhood” with unions and social movements became clear when it came to

power at the national level in 2005. While the party enjoyed a strong legislative position in both

chambers, the biggest challenge to policy-making came from within. The party’s “genetic

model” is one of close links with labor unions and social movement allies, and one that has

created incentives for the leadership to seek broad-based consensus before reaching decisions.

While the passage of time and experience in government may have encouraged the emergence of

a cohesive party elite with increasing levels of autonomy that can often circumvent party

structures and resist pressures from below, policy-making under the FA still encourages

grassroots input and requires a substantial deal of intraparty negotiation.

Comparing the Cases

What insights does this comparative historical analysis yield? On the basis of an

examination of three left parties with close links to movements, unions, and other popular

organizations in Latin America, we can say that certain dimensions of a party’s past can have

lasting implications for the party’s long-term development and for the types of participatory

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projects and agendas parties can carry out once they are in power at the national level.

Specifically, elements embedded in their “genetic model,” historical factors associated with their

roads to power, and structural factors associated with their power base matter a great deal, for

they put left parties in distinctive organizational trajectories. When combined, these three

elements create particular sets of incentives and constraints for organization building and for the

promotion (or not) of grassroots participation in the political process when these parties govern.

Left parties with close ties to organized popular constituencies vary in the degree to

which their internal structures disperse power (Levitsky and Roberts 2011: 12). Parties can be

said to disperse power when their internal structures both (1) put limits on the exercise of power

by the party leadership, and (2) encourage grassroots participation and input on collective

decision-making. Notwithstanding some salient differences, the MAS in Bolivia and the FA in

Uruguay are examples of organizations whose internal structures disperse power among their

grassroots support base. They are also examples of party organizations in which the party

leadership often finds itself needing to consult and negotiate with a wide array of competing

intraparty constituencies and of organizations that allow social mobilization from below to occur.

By contrast, the internal structures of the PT in Brazil have facilitated the concentration of power

among a small group of political elites and have given rise to an increasingly autonomous and

unaccountable party elite. The PT is also an example of a party that has gradually suppressed

social mobilization from below, a classic case of a movement-based party that confirms the

triumph of party oligarchization. This variation, as I argue in the pages that follow, is rooted in

their distinctive origins, experiences before coming to power, and structural conditions.

Historical Elements

Origins and Internal Structures

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 All three parties emerged in different historical periods: the FA in the early 1970s, the PT

in the early 1980s, and the MAS in the mid-1990s. They were also formed under different types

of regimes: the FA at the beginning of an authoritarian regime, the PT in the latter years of a

military dictatorship, and the MAS during a formally democratic regime. Yet, despite the

different historical contexts and regime types in which they were founded, all three have quite

similar roots in organized civil society: all three were formed as labor- or movement-based

parties seeking to represent the interests of previously marginalized groups. Since their inception,

they have sought to build internally democratic organizations to permit broad-based channels of

consultation and coordination between their constitutive units in base organizations and the party

leadership. In short, all three parties approximated the “organic” model of party development in

their formative phase: they emphasized grassroots organization; they forged close relationships

with mass organizations, social movements, and community-based organizations while

respecting their relative autonomy; and they participated in elections while at the same time

engaging in contentious bargaining in the pursuit of programmatic goals.

Two elements embedded in their distinctive “genetic model” are worth further

elaboration. The first element relates to the bureaucratic development of each party (i.e.

bureaucratic vs. loose). The second relates to the initial level of centralization (i.e. the extent to

which internal structures generated incentives for grassroots consultation, and the effects of their

internal voting rules on intra party affairs). Despite being plural in its origins, the PT developed a

bureaucratic pattern of organization with a clearly defined code of rights and duties for party

members, and effective bureaucracies of enforcement. This allowed the party to survive in an

adverse context. While party founders envisioned a decentralized organization characterized by

bottom-up leadership and decision-making structures, its original internal structures pushed the

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party in a centralizing direction. Subsequent internal rule changes such as the use of direct

elections for the selection of party authorities (to be elected by the direct vote of members) and

the introduction of a simple plurality voting system for intra-party affairs since 2001, have

further aggravated preexisting hierarchies and facilitated the control of a dominant faction over

the life of the party.

Also diverse in its origins, the FA developed early on a bureaucratic organization with

clearly defined membership rights and obligations, and one with dense rules and mechanisms

that promoted institutionalized grassroots participation. Over time, party rules and procedures

have remained important for grassroots consultation and for internal negotiation between

fractions in search of majorities. Unlike the PT, moreover, the FA’s internal voting system has

prevented the possibilities for control by a dominant fraction within the party, even if the

routinized alternation of the leadership in national bodies has tended to decrease in recent years.

Finally, the MAS emerged out of the autonomous social mobilization of vibrant social

movements and a rich tradition of participatory politics found in local communities and base

organizations. In keeping with these features, the MAS promoted grassroots participation by

engaging in regular consultations between the leadership and its grassroots base in what is a

decentralized and loose structure (on these points, see also Harten 2011: 69–70). Moreover, since

its early days it has resisted bureaucratization developing neither clearly defined membership

rights and obligations nor effective bureaucracies to ensure that these are met systematically.

Roads to National Power

The degree of power concentration can also be also explained by the parties’ distinctive

roads to national-level power, and by the broader context in which they assumed national office.

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Table 5.1 shows that all three parties underwent some sort of ideological moderation, from an

advocacy of socialism to a more pragmatic position of reforming capitalism to protect the

interests of the underprivileged. This move toward the center, which varied in intensity among

the cases, was as a reflection of an office-seeking strategy and a result of their experience in

subnational governments. In the process, as the table also shows, they have all increased their

pragmatism and expanded the scope of their alliances, often pushing their internal structures in

the direction of power concentration.

Table 5.6 Dimensions for Comparison Across Cases

Ideological Broader Concentration of De(mobilization)

moderation Alliance Power
Making Before After Before After
assuming assuming assuming assuming
national national national national
power power power power
Medium High Medium Medium Low Medium
MAS

High High High High Medium High

PT

High Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium

FA

These similarities, however, mask important differences across the cases. The PT and the

FA gained national-level power after extensive experience at subnational and legislative levels,

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while the MAS had far less experience operating within these institutions.252 The experience at

the local level in the first two cases had the effect of strengthening party moderates, who would

use their increased power to centralize authority. The extent to which they could do so varied

considerably. Often leading minority governments, PT mayors could circumvent internal

opposition and engage in broad alliances across the ideological spectrum in order to “get things

done.” Constrained by its historical allies, the FA resisted this pattern and generally allied with

like-minded forces on the left. Although the experience in local government led to a focus on

institutional strategies as opposed to a strengthening of the social movements, a situation that

pointed their structures in the direction of power concentration, both parties promoted broad-

based citizen involvement, pointing in the direction of power dispersion. Participatory programs

at the municipal level were far less ambitious in Uruguay than in Brazil (Cameron, Hershberg,

and Sharpe 2012). Nevertheless, their implementation took place in Uruguay’s capital, which

helped to foster a “close to the people administration” in a politically important locale (Luna

2014: 246).

The PT and the FA came to power when social mobilization was not in ascent, unlike the

case when the MAS gained power in Bolivia. The first two followed a broadly similar

“institutional path” to national office (Levitsky and Roberts 2011). Both parties “participated

regularly in elections, gaining representation in legislatures and municipal governments” and

they contended power “within relatively institutionalized party systems that contained strong

centrist and conservative parties” (Levitsky and Roberts 2011: 405, 406). By the time they

gained national power, both parties had professionalized and well institutionalized party

252
Levitsky and Roberts (2011: 406) argue that the MAS followed a “crisis-outsider” path to power, but
the argument is insufficiently nuanced and it overlooks the shorter, but still relevant experience of the
MAS in representative institutions and municipal governments prior to its ascent to national power.

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structures developed over long years in opposition (Hunter 2010). They varied in the extent to

which their internal structures concentrated or dispersed power, however. By the time the PT

captured the presidency it had far more centralized structures (under the control of the moderate

Campo Majoritário faction led by Lula) than when the FA assumed national power. The Frente’s

internal rules discouraged control by a dominant group.

In addition, the ascent to power of the PT and the FA was not the product of sustained

social mobilization. Rather, according to Levitsky and Roberts (2011: 406), it took place “via

routine turnover, in a context where democratic institutions were not in crisis,” which meant that

their access to power was not premised on doing away with the existing order and re-founding of

the state, unlike Bolivia. While this is generally accurate, it fails to capture notable differences in

terms of the institutional position they inherited once they captured national office. This is also

important because it shaped the organizational structures of these governing parties in ways that

encouraged diverging patterns of power concentration or dispersion.

That the FA won a legislative majority in both chambers meant that it did not face

incentives to find centrist coalitional partners to get things gone, and that it could maintain strong

ties to labor unions and other grassroots groups. The most salient governing challenge, therefore,

came from within its own political camp. Internal dynamics encouraged Frente governments to

negotiate potentially controversial reforms and policy initiatives with the party’s fractions,

thereby generating incentives and opportunities in the direction of dispersion. By contrast, the PT

came to power with a much weaker position in Congress. This meant that one of the biggest

governing challenges was to generate a legislative majority to pass laws. And so the PT

responded to divided government by engaging in pragmatic alliance making with parties of the

Center and even the Center-Right—a pattern it had found useful in its experiences of local

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administration, and one that could only be pursued once the more radical factions committed to

bottom-up politics had declined in influence. Ultimately, this need to maintain coalitional deals

pushed its internal structures toward further centralization and eroded connections to grassroots

allies (for a parallel argument, see Handlin and Collier 2011: 157–158).

The MAS captured national office when social mobilization was in ascent (as it would

have been the case had the PT won the 1989 or the 1994 election), and in a context of

widespread crisis (Silva 2009: 142-143). This situation gave Morales and the MAS not only an

incentive for policy reform, but also “a mandate for radical change” (Levitsky and Roberts 2011:

408) that would shape their ways of relating to the grassroots.

Indeed, the MAS won national-level power by promising to convene a constituent

assembly that would re-write the country’s constitution and re-create the Bolivian state, a task

for which social mobilization tactics would be essential to overcome the resistance from the

guardians of the old order. This was far from the agenda in Brazil and Uruguay. Although the

MAS gained office by a wide margin, it did not gain control of Congress253 and faced a rather

strong opposition that was backed by powerful economic interests in Bolivia’s Half Moon

(Media Luna), composed by the eastern departments of Tarija, Pando, and Beni, and led by the

economically powerful Santa Cruz department. Once in power, the MAS responded to legislative

gridlock by encouraging social mobilization from its own organizational partners. Thus, pledging

that the MAS would “govern by obeying” (Anria 2010: 109), it relied on the strength and

mobilization capacity of allied groups to exert pressure on the legislative branch and to

counterbalance the power of political and economic elites in the Media Luna that threatened

succession via a wide array of institutional and noninstitutional mechanisms (Eaton 2007; see

253
The MAS won a slight majority in the lower chamber, but was particularly weak in the Senate.

234
also Chapter 4). This strategy to break a stalemate created incentives and opportunities for power

dispersion and mobilized grassroots participation, and it was only encouraged by the crisis

context in which the MAS captured office (Levitsky and Roberts 2011).

Some may also argue that domestic and external economic pressures would inevitably

give rise to party oligarchy—specifically, that oligarchic tendencies might be aggravated under

more stringent domestic and external economic pressures. However, economic crises and severe

constraints do not have uniform effects on internal governance structures. If we take a look at

ideological or policy issues, these three statements might hold true: the crisis context allowed the

MAS to carry out a more “radical” project of state transformation; the absence of a crisis—but

threat of potential crisis—contributed to the ideological moderation of the PT, and the aftermath

of a severe crisis largely set the policy agenda for the FA in Uruguay. But policy or ideological

issues do not dictate internal party governance. At one extreme, in Brazil, internal structures

moved in the direction of centralization before the PT even made it to power. At the other

extreme, in the case of the MAS in Bolivia, the crisis encouraged reliance on social mobilization

strategies. This tells us that economic crises and severe constraints might have different effects,

and that these are in turn contingent on previous organizational strategies that condition parties’

responses to such constraints.

Structural Elements: Strength of Civil Society

Finally, the degree of power concentration is also shaped by structural elements

associated with the strength of civil society. A densely organized and mobilized society can

serve as a potential power base for parties. Existing social networks and the degree of social

mobilization can provide invaluable resources to political parties and contribute to their

empowerment. In addition, a dense civil society can play an important party-building role by

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generating pressures from below and putting limits to the authority of the party leadership. In

other words, a highly organized and mobilized society is more difficult to dominate from the top.

In the absence of comparable data on union and organizational density for these three

countries, one way to evaluate this issue is to look at the relationship between partisan

engagement and participation in associational life (Handlin and Collier 2011: 147). Such an

approach can tell us a great deal about these parties’ potential for mobilization, and about the

kinds of pressures from below they might confront. Using survey data from 2006-7, Handlin and

Collier (2011) examine this issue by looking at union-based and community based participation

and party-society linkages among left parties. They find that in Brazil the links between the

governing PT and both unions and community-based organizations is surprisingly low. The

proportion of PT partisans who participate in unions and in community-based organizations is

presented in Tables 5.2 and 5.3 respectively. This finding is surprising given the origins and

history of the PT, but unsurprising if we consider Brazil’s large size and the PT’s organizational

development outlined above. As Handlin and Collier (2011, 151) note, “it is possible that the

notion of a highly active and PT-linked civil society accurately describes some regions of the

country on which monographic studies have focused but that characterization does not hold on a

national level.” In such a context, where associational activity on a per capita basis appears to be

low, it seems more likely that oligarchic tendencies will prevail within the governing party.

Table 5.7. Importance of unions among left partisans (percent of left partisans participating in
meetings of unions)

Brazil* Uruguay* Bolivia

At least once a month
Left partisans 5 12 31

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 At least once a year
Left partisans 11 18 50
Notes: Data for Brazil and Uruguay are responses to the question: “Do you attend meetings of a union at
least once a week, once or twice a month, once or twice a year, or never?” Source: LAPOP 2006-7
* Percentages reported in Handlin and Collier (2011: 148).
Data for Bolivia reflect responses to the questions: “Do you attend meetings of an association of
professionals, merchants, manufacturers or farmers at least once a week, once or twice a month, once or
twice a year, or never?” and “Do you attend meetings of a grassroots territorial organization (OTB) at least
once a week, once or twice a month, once or twice a year, or never?” I used this approach because LAPOP
did not ask whether Bolivians attend union meetings. The term OTB is also a generic name for associations
and collectivities like ayllus, neighborhood associations, and rural unions (Lucero 2008: 134).
Consequently, when combined, these two questions serve as a proxy for participation in meetings of unions.
Responses were considered positive if the respondent answered affirmatively to either one of the questions,
or both. In the latter case, the respondent was counted as a participant in union meetings only once.

Table 5.8. Importance of community-based organizations among left partisans (percent of left
partisans participating)

Brazil* Uruguay* Bolivia

At least once a month
Left partisans 9 12 41

At least once a year

Left partisans 18 18 65

Notes: Data for Brazil and Uruguay are responses to the question: “Do you attend meetings of a community
or group for community improvement at least once a week, once or twice a month, once or twice a year, or
never?” Source: LAPOP 2006-7.
* Percentages reported in Handlin and Collier (2011: 150).
Data for Bolivia are responses to the questions: “Do you attend meetings of a community or group for
community improvement at least once a week, once or twice a month, once or twice a year, or never” and
“Do you attend meetings of a neighborhood association at least once a week, once or twice a month, once or
twice a year, or never?” LAPOP did not ask this question in Brazil and Uruguay, but these last
organizations are central to social and political life in Bolivia. Responses were considered positive if the
respondent answered affirmatively to either one of the questions, or both. In the latter case, the respondent
was counted as a participant in community-based organizations only once.

Uruguay reveals a different pattern. Tables 5.2 and 5.3 portray a relatively more densely

organized and vibrant civil society. This should be interpreted with some caution. The proportion

of FA partisans who participate in union meetings and in community-based organizations is

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higher than in Brazil, but these numbers still make up a small number of those who voted for the

governing left party. What is a particularly salient difference between these two cases is that the

FA appears to have a stronger union-party relationship (Handlin and Collier 2011: 150). This is

consistent with the arguments developed in this chapter, which showed that the FA governments

often encountered intense pressures from its support base in unions. Indeed, both the Vázquez

and the Mujica governments found themselves having to negotiate policies and reforms with

strong labor unions, in ways that put limits to centralized decision-making and pushed the FA

governments to expand participation.

A striking difference is revealed when one looks at the case of Bolivia. Levels of

participation in both unions and community organizations are higher among left partisans, which

indicate a densely organized society and high degrees of citizen mobilization and participation.

This high rate of participation is consistent with recent characterizations of Bolivia with deep

historical roots (Gray Molina 2008; Lazar 2008; Vergara 2011; Crabtree 2013). The existence of

such a dense civil society has allowed the MAS to build from existing social networks and

quickly grow electorally, as shown in Chapter 2, and it has also facilitated the large-scale

election of representatives of grassroots organizations to Congress via their links to the MAS, as

seen in Chapter 3. As Vergara states,

Since the social organizations that have helped to enhance MAS are widely expanded and

have strong local presence, it is not surprising that [the] MAS has succeeded in

aggregating interests from multiple levels of political competition (Vergara 2011: 83-84).

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At the same time, such a robust civil society can provide fertile grounds for the generation of

multiple pressures from below that can in turn disperse power and keep open channels for

agenda setting from below, as shown in Chapter 4. In other words, structural characteristics

associated with the strength of Bolivian civil society make power dispersion more likely.

Conclusion

The analysis of the cases presented in this chapter provides evidence about how different

left parties with close ties to unions, social movements, and other popular constituencies

organize power when they govern, and specifically how they deal with the Michelsian tension of

having to govern while maintaining grassroots input. Four elements were identified as crucial to

explaining diversity within the subset of cases analyzed above: features associated with the

parties’ “genetic model” and early institutional development, their experience before gaining

national-level power, their mode of access to power, and structural elements associated with their

power base. When combined, these elements create distinctive configurations of incentives and

constraints for organization building and they shape the types of participatory projects parties

can pursue when in office.

In short, the success of strategies for maintaining and expanding grassroots input while

governing—the degree to which they can prevent or attenuate the trend toward oligarchization—

is heavily contingent on institutional, historical, and structural factors that shape and constrain

the participatory projects of the Left. When seen in comparative perspective, the conditions for a

shift from a more “formal” democracy to a more “participatory” democracy (Huber,

Rueschemeyer, and Stephens 1997) might seem more favorable in Bolivia and Uruguay than in

Brazil. The actual outcome, however, will depend on the unity, strength, and mobilizing capacity

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of allied movements, and whether they manage to retain a capacity to shape the agenda and

affect the making of collective decisions.

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 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION

There have been several important cases of movement-based parties that rose rapidly in

popularity and were able to attain national power in new democracies. This development calls

for a new theoretical understanding of their internal politics, one that helps us move beyond the

stereotype of an inevitable “iron law” of oligarchy toward a more nuanced understanding of new

and, arguably, more fluid and participatory forms of organization. As multiple studies document,

the exercise of state power creates strong incentives in the direction of power concentration,

pulling party elites away from the grassroots. Whether, to what extent, and how governing

movement-based parties can defy this trend has important consequences. Where they resist it

more forcefully, they can enhance the voice and political influence of traditionally excluded

groups and citizens, boosting their participation in organized politics. Thus, resisting

oligarchization is not only important for the politics of the parties themselves, but also for

creating favorable conditions that may allow for a move from “formal” democratic practices

toward more “participatory” kinds of democracy (see Huber, Rueschemeyer, and Stephens

1997).

This study has examined the options for movement-based parties to challenge the trend

toward oligarchization. The question of the sources of variation, both within and between parties,

in terms of patterns of power distributions has been on the agenda of comparative politics for

decades. Yet, despite its long lineage and importance, it remains insufficiently understood and

poorly theorized. It remains central in the study of Latin America, where dominant personalities

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in politics do not have a good track record when it comes to building strong organizations that

can limit their power and autonomy (Huber and Stephens 2012: 266). The sudden wave of

countries electing leftist governments in Latin America between 1998 and 2007 has exhibited

remarkable diversity with regard to the character of their organizational bases (Cameron and

Hershberg 2010). Some of the organizational bases are clear examples of movement-based

parties and include, among others, the MAS in Bolivia, the PT in Brazil, the FA in Uruguay, the

FMLN in El Salvador, and the FSNL in Nicaragua. This development prompted scholars to

investigate patterns of power concentration or dispersion within parties in attempts to classify the

existing varieties of left governments (Levitsky and Roberts 2011) and, also, to study the effect

of party organizational factors on normatively important policy outcomes, like social welfare

policies (Pribble 2013).

The present study has developed a framework that sheds light on the question of why

some movement-based parties in Latin America develop more top-down structures designed to

preserve and enhance the power of party elites, while others develop bottom-up organizations

that admit more influence from the grassroots. The framework focuses on the impact of two

dimensions: historical legacies and structural factors. Specifically, the analysis of the MAS

provides evidence that organizational structures and practices adopted early on, the experiences

before coming to power, and the mode of access to power – the historical legacies – shape

organizational development down the road. They can facilitate the emergence of opposition

among allied groups that check power from within and keep open channels for agenda setting

from below. The strength or density of civil society organizations – a structural condition – is

also influential in shaping internal party governance in ways that can potentially generate

pressures from below and constraints on the exercise of power by the central leadership. Through

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a comparative within-case examination of the MAS, this study identifies conditions of social and

political structure where the Michelsian trend toward oligarchization does not fully hold. The

MAS is a substantively important case for examining this question because it is an anomaly, a

case that deviates from the established wisdom. Thus, by identifying the conditions most likely

to lead to greater grassroots control over party decision-making, this study offers a series of

testable hypotheses that contribute to an age-old debate in the literature on comparative political

parties and, also, to the study of the Latin American left.

Parties make several decisions. Amongst the most important ones are choices with regard

to the candidates who will use their label in elections and choices with regard to policies they

will pursue when in power. The comparative within-case analysis of the MAS provided strong

evidence of the conditions most likely to lead to greater grassroots control over these two areas

of party decision-making. Chapter 3 examined the candidate selection procedures in different

districts of Bolivia and at different electoral levels, finding that in contexts where civil society is

strong, united, and politically aligned with the MAS, grassroots organizations can effectively

impose their choices for MAS candidates. Where civil society is weakly organized, by contrast,

top-down elite choices are more likely to prevail.

In the Bolivian case, greater control by grassroots organizations in candidate selection

procedures has also translated into greater substantive input into policy-making. Chapter 4

examined the degree of grassroots impact on policy-making, finding that the capacity of

grassroots groups to set agenda items, priorities, and actions vary by policy area and is

contingent on the mobilization capacity of allied groups in civil society. In policy areas where

large numbers of well-organized people are directly and visibly affected in their productive roles

there is generally more popular pressure for influencing these decisions. Thus, in policy areas

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such as agrarian and mining policies, some of the strongest and most influential groups that

wielded power in candidate selection (like peasant groups, unions, and cooperative miners) also

managed to shape the agenda and actions adopted by the party in power. In addition, Chapter 4

examined the capacity of allied groups to challenge, block, or modify party decisions, finding

that where mobilized groups are able to build a broad-based veto coalition with multiple sectors

of society, then the veto coalition is more likely to force a policy change. In other words, the

political leverage of constituent movements is contingent on their ability to mobilize across

constituencies and link their claims broadly. The main story that emerged, then, is one of a

movement-based party that allows for significant influence from below. While there are clear

pressures pushing toward internal power concentration, including the centrality of Morales’s

leadership and the logics of exercising state power, constituent movements are far from being

irrelevant in shaping the party’s most important decisions. Fundamentally, policy-making under

Bolivia’s MAS is not insulated from popular pressures. Rather, it is best characterized as a

highly reactive and negotiated process open to some degree of societal input – a contentious

bargaining game between the MAS in power and its constituent social movements.

Generalizability of the Findings

To what extent can these findings be generalized and my theoretical framework made

applicable to other cases? The lessons are two-fold. First, from the comparative within-case

analysis of candidate selection, the most robust instances of grassroots control over party

decision-making are in contexts or districts where there is a high density of organization and the

great majority of grassroots groups are united in support of the MAS. In Bolivia, the first

structural characteristic – a high level of social organization – is more likely to be observed in

rural districts than in urban areas. While this characteristic may be unique to certain rural

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communities in only some parts of Latin America, particularly in the Andean sub-region, the

findings cannot be disregarded as irrelevant. The Bolivian model may not be immediately

applicable to other countries; however, the finding that civil society strength and the nature of

political alignments can shape degrees of grassroots control over candidate selection is an

intriguing and testable hypothesis that can be used to study other cases with similar

characteristics to those of the MAS.

Second, similar reflections can be drawn from the analysis of policy-making. The most

robust instances of grassroots substantive influence are those where mobilized allied groups

challenge unpopular policies and force policy changes. Success in blocking or modifying

legislation is influenced first by historical legacies. The legacy of social mobilization – the fact

that some of the social movements that brought the MAS to power contributed to the overthrow

of unpopular governments – meant allied social movements retained considerable autonomy

from the MAS, and they remained vibrant after the party gained power. Even if their leaders

support or are co-opted by the party in power, the legacy of social mobilization means they

cannot always guarantee the compliance of their grassroots base with the government’s policies.

This situation has forced the MAS to step back and negotiate important policies with the stronger

and more influential movements, preventing attempts to concentrate power. Success in

challenging government policies is influenced, secondly, by structural and political

characteristics associated with the mobilizational capacity of allied groups, and with the nature of

their political alignments between the party and civil society. This particular combination of

historical and structural factors is not necessarily found in all other cases of movement-based

parties. It will most likely be observed in a smaller subset of cases of young movement-based

parties that (1) came to power when social mobilization was in ascent, looking more like social-

245
movement organizations than like established political parties, and that (2) operate in weakly

institutionalized contexts. The cases of Solidarity (Solidarność) in Poland and the African

National Congress (ANC) in South Africa are good comparative examples.

The comparative-historical analysis developed in Chapter 5 strengthened the evidentiary

base for the theoretical claims about the importance of historical and structural explanations. The

analysis reinforced the usefulness of the theoretical framework for understanding power

distributions inside movement-based parties. As a result, there are reasons to believe it can be

useful for understanding and comparing the organizational trajectories of a broader set of

movement-based parties, independent of their stage of development and mode of access to

power. The cases of the PT and the FA share common attributes with the MAS. All of them are

left parties formed by grassroots social movements; they all came to national power after a series

of failed attempts; and they were all re-elected for several consecutive terms. When compared

with the MAS, however, they came to national power in a different stage of organizational

development (as established parties rather than as movements), and they also experienced

different organizational trajectories once in power. While over time Brazil’s PT has lost much of

its initial bottom-up participatory élan, thus experiencing a Michelsian shift in its character, the

Uruguayan FA and the Bolivian MAS have maintained more vibrant grassroots linkages and

have retained a more participatory ethos. In reflecting on the factors accounting for their

different organizational trajectories, Chapter 5 highlighted the theoretical relevance of both

historical elements (certain characteristics embedded in their “genetic” models, their experience

before coming to power, the mode of access to power) and structural factors (the strength of civil

society) in explaining diverging outcomes.

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 Overall, then, the within country and the comparative evidence presented in this study

point to the need to reconsider the role that (1) early organizational development and (2)

variation in density of civil society organizations play in the internal politics of governing

movement-based parties. While the first analytical dimension has been broadly recognized as

important in the party organization literature (Panebianco 1988), more recent research on parties

largely ignores or fails to measure the significance of civil society strength. Yet, as this study has

demonstrated, variation in density of civil society organization is central for understanding

variation in power distributions within and between movement-based parties. Although the

theoretical framework advanced in this study has been built inductively and has been based on

the experiences of a small subset of cases in Latin America, it offers a first step toward more

nuanced understandings of the internal dynamics of movement-based parties more generally – an

approach that is likely to travel to other cases and places.

The comparison with other cases provides a good starting point for testing the

explanatory power of my theoretical framework and, also, for identifying complementary

explanations. There are cases, such as the ANC in South Africa, where high levels of density of

civil society organizations and citizen mobilization prior to assuming power did not translate into

greater grassroots control over party decision-making once in power. Part of this, as the research

of Evans and Heller (2014) indicates, may have to do with the logic and degrees of domestic

political competition and the exercise of undisputed (or hegemonic) power. This dimension of

competition may be a relevant addition to the theoretical framework when it travels to other

contexts, or when it is used to study longer-term organizational trajectories than the ones

analyzed here.

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Significance of the Findings

A central contribution of this study consists in the finding that movement-based parties

do not develop uniformly, following an “iron law.” Rather, they are remarkably flexible

organizations whose boundaries with allied groups in civil society tend to be fluid and

deliberately blurred. Movement-based parties look and operate differently in different structural

contexts, based on the kinds of connections they establish with the organized social

constituencies from which they draw support. This finding informs a long-standing theoretical

debate over the conditions shaping power distributions inside parties, and informs more

contemporary debates about the sources of variation within and between Latin American left

parties, particularly those with a social movement base.

The rise to power of left parties, movements, and leaders in Latin America since 1998 has

generated a variety of scholarly analyses of the causes that enabled the resurgence of the left.254

Along with explaining the causes, much ink has been spilled in the development of classificatory

schemes. Taking into account differences in policy orientation and attitudes toward liberal

democracy, some scholars have classified the left into the “good” and the “bad” types (Castañeda

2006), while from a similar standpoint others have identified a “moderate” and a “contestatory”

left (Weyland, Madrid, and Hunter 2010). This literature, which advances the “two lefts” thesis,

tends to group together President Morales in Bolivia, President Chávez (and now Maduro) in

Venezuela, President Correa in Ecuador, and President Ortega in Nicaragua in the “bad” or

“contestatory” strand of the left, whereas the “good” left has governed in countries like Brazil

(under several PT presidencies), Uruguay (under several FA presidencies), and Chile (under the

254
See, for instance, Cleary (2006); Roberts (2007); Weyland (2009); Luna (2010); Murillo, Oliveros,
and Vaishnav (2010); Baker and Greene (2011); Flores-Macías (2012); Queirolo (2013).

248
leadership of the Concertación). Other scholars have rejected the dichotomization of the left on

the grounds that it does not capture the diversity within each category (Cameron and Hershberg

2010).

Using organizational factors as classification criteria, other scholars developed more

empirically accurate typologies. On the one hand, for authors like Levitsky and Roberts (2011),

the diverse lefts can be classified based on age of the party (or the political movement) and the

degree to which it concentrates or disperses political authority. When combined, these two

dimensions create four varieties of left parties: the populist left (Venezuela under Chávez and

Ecuador under Correa), the populist-machine left (Argentina’s PJ), the movement left (Bolivia’s

MAS), and the institutionalized left (Uruguay’s FA, Brazil’s PT, and Chile’s PS). While the first

two concentrate political authority in the hands of dominant leaders and have few checks from

below, the last two disperse power and are more likely to be responsive to their grassroots base.

On the other hand, Pribble (2013: 178) develops yet another party typology focused on two

dimensions: (1) whether internal rules promote internal democracy and foster close ties with

society and (2) whether parties develop programmatic or non-programmatic appeals.255 When

combined, these two dimensions yield four party types: constituency-mobilizing, electoral-

professional, charismatic movement, and non-programmatic electoral. Both typologies represent

welcome correctives to the previous classifications. They also have something in common: they

distinguish the lefts on the basis of the concentration of power – whether power is concentrated

in the hands of party elites, or even a single leader, versus resting in the hands of allied groups in

civil society to which the leadership remains accountable. In both typologies, the movement-

255
This typology applies to parties on both the left and the right.

249
based parties examined in this study – the MAS, the PT, and the FA – are classified as power-

dispersing organizations.

Classifying those three cases as power-dispersing organizations is an important first step

toward understanding emerging patterns of party-society linkage. Yet, the classification is

accurate only if we look at broad national-level trends, as it only captures the predominant

linkage strategy pursued by each party. As a result, it remains insufficiently nuanced and, in

particular, may distort our understanding of what occurs at subnational levels within each party.

Thus, the present study has not attempted to come up with a new classificatory scheme of left

parties, but to explain the sources of variation in grassroots participation and power distributions

within and between a subset of cases. The finding that structural variation in civil society

strength is an important determinant of within- and between-case power distributions is

theoretically of great significance. It offers insight into the question of why parties (particularly

movement-based parties) operate differently in different contexts and why they invest differently

in party structures across constituencies. Other authors have made similar arguments, but they

have looked at the relationship between parties and voters (Luna 2014). Instead, this study has

looked at the relationship between parties and organized social constituencies. The evidence and

analysis suggest that the operation of parties cannot be seen as a mere reflection of formal

institutional rules governing a country, nor is it simply dictated by a party’s ideological

orientation. While these are important, they do not fully explain sources of variation within

movement-based parties, and also between them. In this way, this study refines existing

arguments about the factors shaping the organization and behavior of parties. In so doing, it adds

both an extra layer of nuance to the existing classifications of left parties in today’s Latin

250
America, and an explanation of why such parties, far from being uniform actors, pursue mixed

linkages with different social constituencies.

The findings presented in this study also suggest that contemporary efforts to “deepen” or

“democratize” democracy, a central goal of the Latin American left (Roberts 1998: 3), are

heavily conditioned by historical and structural factors. While it has been widely recognized that

achievements in democratic deepening by expanding participation and enhancing government

responsiveness have been modest and varied (Levitsky and Roberts 2011: 418), the combination

of historical and structural factors helps to explain some of that variation. Specifically, it helps to

explain why some left parties, like the PT in Brazil, have developed as more hierarchical, top-

down organizations that tend to distance themselves from organized social constituencies and de-

emphasize grassroots participation, whereas others, like the MAS and the FA, have managed to

maintain more vibrant linkages, albeit with varying degrees of institutionalization. Out of the

three cases, moreover, the MAS remains a remarkably different case of a movement-based party,

whose experience seems favorable for enabling a shift from purely “formal” democratic practices

to a more “participatory” form of democracy. As this study has suggested, however, whether the

Bolivian left turn results into a sustained project of deepening democracy will likely depend on

the continued strength, unity, and mobilizational capacity of allied groups in civil society.

The findings about the theoretical importance of civil society strength merit some

additional elaboration. The present study has shown that, enabled by historical legacies and

strengthened by a context of heightened social mobilization, organized actors have been crucial

in keeping the MAS open to societal input and responsive to popular concerns, in ways that are

not evident in the comparative cases, particularly in Brazil. Though that is the story of the MAS

as of this writing, it is likely that the party, just re-elected to a third four-year presidential term,

251
will experience a Michelsian shift in character if it becomes a hegemonic power holder. Thus,

one possible scenario is that it will become increasingly centralized, with more power in the

hands of Morales and trusted individuals and less political space for democratic participation of

allied social movements. This is the path followed by the ANC in South Africa, which

transitioned from an anti-apartheid movement organization into being that country’s undisputed

governing party (Heller 2009; Marais 2011; Evans and Heller 2014). While this is a possible

outcome, heavily driven by the logics of the exercise of undisputed (or hegemonic) power, it

does not diminish the significance of the findings in this study. The analysis has specified the set

of conditions that work for and against power centralization and the mechanisms that can

contribute to the maintenance of vibrant party-society linkages. In looking for those attributes

and patterns in the MAS the study set forth the necessary conditions for enabling greater control

of the grassroots over party elites and party decision-making. Thus, the framework presented in

this study sheds light on two issues related to the relationship between left parties in power and

grassroots participation in contemporary Latin America: (1) why some parties with origins in

(and close connections to) grassroots social movements manage this classic dilemma differently,

and (2) why the same party may pursue different linkages across social constituencies and invest

unevenly in party organization.256

Finally, the findings presented in this study have implications for the study of parties

beyond Latin America. The pressures toward power concentration while governing are by no

means unique to parties in the region. This is particularly problematic for left movement-based

256
For an argument on why parties might invest unevenly in party organization based on a within-case
study of the Brazilian PT, see Van Dyck (2014). For a broader argument based on the experiences of post-
communist parties in East and Central Europe, see Tavits (2013). Both studies regard electoral
considerations as the key driver for differential investments on party organization.

252
parties, which, at least in principle, tend to emphasize grassroots participation as an

organizational project, and as a way of boosting popular sovereignty in the making of decisions.

Whether they can remain open to societal input once they form governments has been the subject

of heated debates among students of parties, especially the Greens. The experiences of these

parties in power has shown that success in achieving and maintaining vibrant grassroots

connections has been mixed at best (Frankland, Lucardie, and Rihoux 2008). For the most part,

however, approximating this goal has proven to be elusive, and many of these parties have

turned into elite-professional organizations (Jachnow 2013). Much of this can be explained by

the fact that the logic of territorial representation pushes party leaderships to focus on multiple

issues beyond the party’s core concern, which involves coalition-building, and this tends to

discourage consultation with the grassroots (Kitschelt 2006). The evidence provided in this study

suggests that this need not to be the same fate for all parties with a movement base, particularly

for those which, by their own origins in diverse social movements, are able to incorporate a

broader set of issues, actors, and demands. Moreover, the evidence suggests that resisting a

Michelsian transformation into elite-professional organizations is contingent on the power of

organization and the continuous strength, unity, and mobilizational capacity of allied groups.

Issues for Further Research

The findings in this study provide several directions for future research. The pages that

follow focus on two broad areas where more systematic research could significantly improve the

existing knowledge: (1) the factors that account for variation in density of civil society

organizations and those that promote or hinder density of synergetic connections between

parties, movements, and states; and (2) the dynamics of mass political incorporation in post-

adjustment societies.

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Movement-Party-State Connections

One potential avenue for further research would involve a more systematic treatment of

the conditions that both facilitate and inhibit vibrant movement-party-state connections over

time. Why do they get strong and why do they grow apart in some cases and not in others? To

begin dealing with this puzzle, one of the most obvious questions that can be asked from this

study starts with the Bolivian case: will the trends observed in this study be maintained in the

long run? If the MAS is still seen as a positive case of a party that has retained vibrant

connections to groups in civil society after assuming power, it would be interesting to examine

clearly negative cases to develop more compelling theoretical explanations of variance. Even

among cases in Latin America, explaining variation is challenging; the data on party and civil

society organizations and party-society connections over time is scarce. In the absence of such

data, the goal of theoretical development can be advanced through case-oriented comparative

research of contemporary and historic cases. If variation within Latin America calls for more

rigorous comparative research, a cross-regional perspective further reinforces this point. As

mentioned, the ANC in South Africa could be a good start, for it is a case where such

connections have severely deteriorated over time. As an unambiguously negative case, its

analysis would allow an exploration of the full range of variation in the outcome of interest.

Exploring this variation is not merely an academic exercise; it has practical implications.

As the literature on power-resources theory has made abundantly clear, left parties closely linked

with popular sector organizations tend to push public policy in a more progressive, universalistic,

and redistributive direction, even if there is significant cross-case and historical variation (Korpi

254
1978; Stephens 1979; Hicks 1999; Huber and Stephens 2001; Huber and Stephens 2012). By

contrast, parties with weaker ties to such groups tend to be less progressive and sweeping in their

policy initiatives (Pribble 2013). Other related research emphasizes the importance of strong

party-society connections as providing the political foundations for building effective state

policy that expands human capabilities and, ultimately, leads to effective states (Lee 2012; Evans

and Heller 2014). If social movements are seen as the starting point of strong parties and state

effectiveness, there is high potential payoff for research into the factors that promote or hinder

density of civil society organizations and synergetic movement-party-state relations. This is

because such a research program can help unpack the factors that explain variation in

development-related policy.

To date, there is little systematic comparative research to explain variation in density of

civil society organization and movement-party-state linkages. The explanation of the inner

workings of the MAS presented here, as well as the comparative analysis of the PT and the FA,

provides a preliminary map of the territory of these dynamics as a step toward theory building.

Additional comparative research can broaden the intellectual dialogue, leading to a cumulative

process of theoretical development on a pressing issue with clear policy implications. Looking at

the conditions that promote or inhibit movement-party-state connections in a more systematic

fashion (by examining both contemporary and historical cases and exploring variation by policy

areas) can raise new questions about the possibilities and challenges that progressive social

change in the twenty-first century represents. It can also help identify additional explanatory

factors that may contribute to strengthen or weaken those links that are not easily detected with a

single case study approach over a short period of time. This is a worthy research program, one

that deserves further attention and more systematic analysis.

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Political Inclusion in Latin America’s Post-Adjustment Era

Another area for further research relates to the question of how the findings in this study

relate to broader debates about Latin America’s second historical process of mass political

incorporation (Roberts 2008; Luna and Filgueira 2009; Reygadas and Filgueira 2010), and how

this second period differs from the first labor-incorporating period described by Collier and

Collier (1991). The first period occurred during the early stages of import substitution

industrialization (ISI) in the twentieth century. Class-based actors, particularly labor movements

(and peasants in some countries), were crucial actors in the expansion of rights in the civic and

social arenas. In terms of the institutional expressions of popular power, the mobilization of these

groups “encouraged the formation of the first mass party organizations in the region, which often

forged organic linkages to labor and/or peasant unions and drew on their human and

organizational resources” (Roberts 2008: 333). In the wake of the 1980s debt crisis, the

implementation of structural adjustment policies resulted in deindustrialization, the

demobilization of these groups, and the emergence of new social actors that attempted to defend

the interests of popular sectors (Kurtz 2004). If structural adjustment policies meant the de-

incorporation or exclusion of popular sectors, social resistance to market reforms since the 1990s

opened up a second period of mass incorporation, a new phase of inclusion marked by a new set

of actors and more varied institutional expressions. Seen from this angle, the Bolivian MAS, the

focus of this study, is an institutional expression of Latin America’s second period of

incorporation.

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 A growing literature on the effects of neoliberalism shows that grassroots groups, in the

Bolivian case particularly the peasant and indigenous movements, suffered from political

exclusion as market reforms advanced and liberal democracies consolidated (Silva 2009: 28).

The literature on democratization offers insight into how this exclusion happened. O’Donnell

(1994) shows how popular groups became irrelevant in the policy-making process during much

of the 1990s, giving rise to what he called “delegative democracies.” These functioned on the

basis of highly concentrated executive power. In order to advance neoliberal reforms, presidents

governed with little consideration for the interests, demands, and priorities of popular groups

“constrained only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited

term in office” (O’Donnell 1999: 164). Complementing this view, the literature on social

movements and parties claimed that social mobilization in neoliberal Latin America was difficult

due to social fragmentation and rising inequality (Roberts 1998; Murillo 2001; Kurtz 2004).

In spite of the conclusions of this early literature, there were areas where popular groups

found ways to make their voices heard, such as the environment, human rights, and indigenous

politics (Oxhorn 1995; Eckstein 2001; Yashar 2005). As Silva (2009: 29) notes, “as long as they

kept property issues off of their agendas, these groups found the liberal democratic state to be

more inclusive toward their interests.” As seen in Chapter 2, favorable legislation, like the 1994

Law of Popular Participation (LPP) in Bolivia, opened new institutional spaces at the local level

and facilitated the political mobilization of indigenous peoples (Van Cott 2005: 69). In addition

to devolving greater administrative responsibilities to subnational units and to shifting budget

resources to municipal levels, the LPP “also sought to build more formal ties between local

governance and the existing civil society, which already formed a dense network of community

ties” (Boulding 2014: 55). The law created institutional opportunities for civil society – including

257
indigenous groups, peasant unions, and urban and rural neighborhood associations – to

participate in decision-making processes at the local level, for instance by engaging in the

elaboration and oversight of municipal development plans (Kohl 2003). It also established that

civil society representation should be based on territory rather than on corporate or functional

lines. As a result of the LPP, the government quickly recognized nearly 15,000 pre-existing

grassroots territorial organizations, whose new functions would be to provide checks and

balances to municipal governments (Boulding 2014: 56). Whether the LPP was designed from

the top or introduced in response to pressures from below, it was a major change that created

opportunities for the inclusion of traditionally underrepresented groups into organized politics.

Groups like the cocaleros (coca growers) in Bolivia used these opportunities to

strengthen their organization – they also formed a new political party, the MAS, with which they

began to participate in elections at the local level. Their electoral strength was initially

constrained to the central Chapare region of Cochabamba (Ballivián 2003), where their leaders

became elected authorities. Enabled by the LPP, initial success in local elections in the Chapare

region contributed to initiating a trend toward the inclusion of indigenous and peasant groups

into the formal political process. It was through establishing connections with the MAS (and

other new, but less successful, parties) that a wider array of popular sector movements and

organizations (composed of indigenous peoples, neighborhood association, pensioners, artisans,

and street vendors, among others) would then muscle their way into executive and legislative

branches of the state. If favorable legislation, like the LPP, created opportunities for inclusion,

the formation of a new party like the MAS served as a vehicle for its realization on a large-scale.

This trend would accelerate as the MAS grew bigger and gained power at the national

level. As the present study has shown, its experience in power has led to significant changes in

258
the political arena. Changes are particularly evident in the increased power and access to the state

of indigenous peoples and peasant-farming groups, and in their massive inclusion in governing

and in representative institutions at all levels. As Chapter 3 demonstrated, greater grassroots

control over the selection and recruitment of candidates has been consequential in Bolivia’s

political process: it has led to large-scale participation by individuals and previously under-

represented groups at the highest level of representation in the country (Vergara 2011: 84). As

Chapter 4 demonstrated, moreover, greater influence over candidate selection outcomes has also

translated into enhanced political influence over agenda setting and the policy-making process

more broadly. Grassroots impact on policy-making, as the chapter further demonstrated, can

occur through two mechanisms: (1) via representation or influence from within the state (by

infiltrating state institutions and bureaucracies), and (2) via contestation or influence from

without (by exerting pressure in the streets). This is not to say popular groups have complete

control over the national agenda. Rather, it is to suggest that even if the leadership in power may

have “delegative” or centralizing tendencies, popular sector interests, demands, and priorities

have become increasingly harder to ignore. Contestation has historically played a central role in

Bolivia’s political life (Gray Molina 2008: 124). In Bolivia’s first period of incorporation, it led

to the development of corporatist channels of interest intermediation, which provided

representation and material benefits for previously excluded groups.257 Whether the emerging

patterns of representation described in this study, and the projection of grassroots groups into the

state, will translate into greater and long-lasting control of public institutions by popular sectors

is still an open question, the answer to which will require time and further investigation.

257
This point is further elaborated elsewhere (Anria and Cyr 2015).

259
 The literature on the Latin American left raises a related and yet unresolved issue.

Whether explicitly or implicitly, it is framed in the form of a tension between the respect of

liberal-democratic forms and the attempts to promote popular sector inclusion (Weyland,

Madrid, and Hunter 2010: 142). In this literature, some leftist governments, like the one by

Morales in Bolivia, have boosted the political influence of previously excluded groups, this at the

cost of undermining horizontal accountability and of their functioning on the basis of expanded

executive power. While there is some truth to this idea, the present study has offered an

alternative analytical lens through which we can study this tension. It has stressed the importance

of looking at the broader organizational fields in which post-adjustment governments are

embedded and their different accountability dynamics. The Morales government may have

boosted the influence of previously excluded groups and at the same time undermined liberal

institutions and horizontal accountability. However, this is not to say liberal institutions and

popular sector inclusion cannot coexist easily. Both elements can be articulated, but this might

require longer time horizons. Accountability of the executive to Congress can coexist easily with

popular sector inclusion, to the extent that popular groups are represented in Congress and

perform oversight functions. Accountability to the judiciary might be more complicated in the

short run, since people from previous administrations mostly control this institution, but in the

long run this might also be possible to the extent that popular sectors get a foothold in the

judiciary. In short, there is not necessarily a tradeoff between popular sector inclusion and

horizontal accountability, but they may be in tension for a considerable time – until the newly

included groups have gained a foothold in all parts of the political system and state apparatus.

Whether that will be the case in Bolivia’s political process remains to be seen.

260
 In addition, to say that the Morales government has undermined horizontal accountability

is not to say that he can govern “as he sees fit.” As the present study has shown, some of the

biggest constraints on Morales’s “delegative” tendencies come from the mobilization of groups

in his own political camp. Given the patterns of political inclusion described above, this type of

mobilization can be interpreted as attempts to defend the principles and promises of political

inclusion. Whether in the Bolivian case such groups will be able to keep pressuring the

government to have their demands and interests included in policy formulation is an empirical

issue, the answer to which will depend on their continued strength, unity, and mobilization

capacity.

All this in turn suggests that in addition to conceiving of movement-based parties like the

MAS simply as ad hoc electoral vehicles, we should theorize about them as promising

instruments for the successful inclusion into politics of popular groups that have traditionally

been on the margins of the political power game. To understand emerging patterns of

representation and political inclusion in today’s Latin American democracies – which include

new social actors and have more varied institutional expressions than in earlier phases of

incorporation – we need more systematic comparative research on the internal life of movement-

based parties. This study has presented a first step toward explaining variation in party-society

linkages among three of such cases, but this could be expanded to include a more systematic

assessment of other institutional expressions of popular power in Latin America’s second period

of mass incorporation, like the political movements led by Hugo Chávez (and now Nicolás

Maduro) in Venezuela, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. If the first period of mass incorporation,

which corresponded to the growth of ISI, led to the development of labor-based parties in much

of the region, the second period, which is more associated with post-ISI economies and more

261
rural settings, has encouraged the formation of mass parties with a more eclectic set of civil

society organizations as their core constituencies. On the basis of the present study, it appears as

if having a more diversified base (the “Bolivia” model) can have important political effects. It

can generate diffuse pressures and play a central role in (1) preventing Michelsian shifts in the

character of allied parties and (2) shaping patterns of popular sector inclusion. While other

scholars have reached similar conclusions on the first pattern by looking at cases outside the

region, like Kerala (Heller 2005), more comparative research is needed on the second pattern to

fully assess the kinds of institutional legacies of Latin America’s second period of incorporation.

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 APPENDIX A: LIST OF CITED INTERVIEWS

The following list provides the names, position (at the moment of the interview), and date of
interview of all interviewees cited in this study, who also agreed to disclose their names and
positions. The interviewees not cited in this study, as well as those who did not explicitly consent
to have their names and positions disclosed, are not included in this list.

Aguirre Ledezma, Noel. Vice Minister of Alternative and Special Education; former Minister of
Planning and Development. La Paz, Bolivia, February 8, 2013.

Albarracín, Emiliana. MAS Councilwoman of the Municipality of Villa Tunari. Villa Tunari,
Bolivia, March 15, 2013.

Albó, Xavier. Cofounder of the Center for Investigation and Promotion of Peasants (CIPCA). La
Paz, Bolivia, December 5, 2012.

Alfaro, Luis. MAS Deputy for Tarija; MAS Delegate to the Constituent Assembly. La Paz,
Bolivia, January 24, 2013.

Almaraz, Alejandro. Former Member of the MAS’s National Directorate; former Vice Minister
of Land. Cochabamba, Bolivia, March 11, 2013.

Ávalos, Isaac. MAS Senator for Santa Cruz; former Secretary General of CSUTCB. La Paz,
Bolivia, August 30, 2012.

Benavides, Jean-Paul. Academic. Cochabamba, Bolivia, March 25, 2013.

Blanco, Bertha. Executive Member of the National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous, and
Native Women of Bolivia (CNMCIOB-BS); MAS Councilwoman of the Municipality of
El Alto. La Paz, Bolivia, August 20, 2008.

Brockmann, Erika. Former MIR Senator and former MIR Deputy for Cochabamba. La Paz,
Bolivia, October 5, 2012.

Burgoa, Carlos Hugo. Bolivian Consul in Tacna, Chile; former Secretary of the MAS’s National
Directorate. La Paz, Bolivia, April 11, 2013.

Cabrera, Justa. Indigenous Activist; President, National Confederation of Bolivia’s Indigenous

Women (CNMIB). Santa Cruz, Bolivia, May 8, 2013.

Cassía, Walter. Journalist; Director of Sovereignty Radio [Radio Soberanía]. Villa Tunari,
Bolivia, March 18, 2013

263
Catacora, Luis Arce. Bolivia’s Minister of Economy (2006-present). La Paz, Bolivia, May 5,
2013.

Centellas, Ximena. Advisor of the MAS’s National Directorate. La Paz, Bolivia, October 31,
2012.

Chávez, Walter. Former MAS Campaign Manager; Journalist and Former Director of the
fortnightly Mad Toy [Juguete Rabioso]. La Paz, Bolivia, December 9, 2012 and May 1,
2013.

Chivi, Idón. Director of Studies and Projects at the Ministry of Communication; former Advisor
to CONAMAQ; member of the Presidential Representation to the Constituent Assembly
(REPAC). La Paz, Bolivia, December 3, 2012.

Choque, Lidia. Former MAS-Santa Cruz President, Santa Cruz; Executive Member of the
National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous, and Native Women of Bolivia
(CNMCIOB-BS). Santa Cruz, May 16, 2013.

Claros, Omar. Secretary General, Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba. Villa Tunari,
Bolivia, March 18, 2013.

Condori, Modesto. Peasant Leader; MAS Founding Member. La Paz, Bolivia, October 31, 2012.

Cordova Eguivar, Eduardo. Academic. Cochabamba, Bolivia, March 13, 2013.

Cuadros, Diego. Former Director of Territorial Organization, Ministry of Autonomy. La Paz,

Bolivia, February 23, 2013.

Delgadillo, Walter. Minister of Public Works, Services, and Housing. Cochabamba, Bolivia,
April 1, 2013.

Delgado, Rebeca. MAS Deputy for Cochabamba; MAS Delegate to the Constituent Assembly.
La Paz, Bolivia, April 23, 2013.

Durán, Franklin. President, Confederation of Transport Drivers (Transport Union). La Paz,

Bolivia, April 17, 2013.

Escóbar, Filemón. Former Leader of the FSMTB (Union Federation for Bolivian Mining
Workers); former MAS Senator for Cochabamba; founding member of the MAS.
Cochabamba, Bolivia, March 26, 2013.

Espinoza, Erasmo. MAS Councilman of Villa Tunari; President of the Municipal Council of
Villa Tunari. Villa Tunari, Cochabamba, March 15, 2013.

Ferreira, Reymi. MAS Candidate for the Mayorship of Santa Cruz; Academic. Santa Cruz,
Bolivia, May 9, 2013.

264
Gallardo, Germán. Planning Director, Ministry of Rural Development and Land. La Paz, Bolivia,
January 10, 2013.

Garcés, Fernando. Academic; Consultant to the Unity Pact [Pacto de Unidad]. Cochabamba,
Bolivia, March 8, 2013.

García Linera, Álvaro. Bolivia’s Vice-President (2006-present). La Paz, May 4, 2013.

García, Fernando. Academic; United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Bolivia. La Paz,
Bolivia, September 3, 2012.

Guarachi, Paulino. Former Secretary General of CSUTCB. La Paz, Bolivia, September 14, 2012.

Guarayos, Samuel. President, MAS-La Paz Departmental Directorate. La Paz, Bolivia, July 28,
2008.

Guillén, Néstor. Community Leader, FEJUVE-El Alto. La Paz, Bolivia, April 9, 2013.

Guzmán, Orlando. Advisor, CONALCAM. La Paz, Bolivia, August 26, 2008.

Henríquez, Ricardo. MAS Councilman of the Municipality of Villa Tunari. Villa Tunari, Bolivia,
March 15, 2013.

Huanca, Felipa. Executive Secretary of the La Paz Departmental Federation of Peasant,

Indigenous, and Native Women of Bolivia (FDUMCIOPL-BS); Secretary General,
National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous, and Native Women of Bolivia
(CNMCIOB-BS); MAS Candidate for Governorship of La Paz. La Paz, Bolivia, February
13, 2013.

Huanca, Luis. Former Executive, FEJUVE-El Alto. El Alto, Bolivia, August 13, 2008.

Iporre, Iván. Director, Plurinational School of Public Administration (EGPP); MAS Campaign
Manager; former Personal Assistant of Evo Morales. La Paz, Bolivia, November 14,
2012.

Jilamita, Jesús. Advisor, CONAMAQ. La Paz, Bolivia, February 5, 2013.

Laruta, Carlos Hugo. Leader of National Unity [Unidad Nacional]. La Paz, Bolivia, February 6,
2013.

Limache, Walter. National Coordinator, Nina Program, Union of Institutions of Social Work and
Action (UNITAS). La Paz, Bolivia, January 18, 2013.

Loayza, Román. Former MAS Deputy for Cochabamba; MAS delegate to the Constituent
Assembly. Author interview. La Paz, Bolivia, July 22, 2008.

265
Loayza, Sergio. MAS Deputy for Beni; Former Vice President of the MAS’s National
Directorate. La Paz, November 5, 2012.

Machaca, Miguel. Former MAS Deputy for El Alto; former President of MAS-El Alto Regional
Directorate. La Paz, Bolivia, August 18, 2008.

Machaca, Rodolfo. Executive Secretary, CSUTCB. La Paz, Bolivia, January 17, 2013.

Mamani Paucara, Adrián. Executive Secretary, Red Ponchos [Ponchos Rojos]. La Paz, Bolivia,
April 19, 2013.

Mamani, Abel. Former President, FEJUVE-El Alto; former Minister of Water. La Paz, Bolivia,
February 19, 2013.

Mamani, Feliciano. Mayor of the Municipality of Villa Tunari. Villa Tunari, Bolivia, March 16,
2013.

Melendres, Walter. Director of Legislative Administration, Office of the Vice Presidency. La

Paz, Bolivia, January 24, 2013.

Mendoza, Adolfo. MAS Senator for Cochabamba. La Paz, Bolivia, November 29, 2012.

Mercado, Manuel. MAS Campaign Coordinator. La Paz, Bolivia, February 27, 2013.

Michel, Sebastián. Vice Minister of Communications. La Paz, Bolivia, April 2, 2013.

Moldiz, Hugo. Minister of Government. La Paz, Bolivia, September 26, 2012.

Montaño, Gabriela. MAS Senator for Santa Cruz; President of the Senate, La Paz, Bolivia,
February 28, 2013

Montes, Pedro. Former Executive Secretary, Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB). La Paz, Bolivia,
April 21, 2013.

Morales, Gerardo. Former Vice Minister of Basic Services; Councilman of El Alto. El Alto,
Bolivia, August 9, 2008.

Navarro, César. Vice Minister of Coordination with Social Movements. La Paz, Bolivia August
23, 2012 [Also interviewed in August 27, 2008]

Nina, Fanny Juana. Former President, FEJUVE-El Alto. El Alto, Bolivia, April 22, 2013.

Núñez, Dionicio. MAS founding member; former MAS deputy for La Paz. La Paz, November
22, 2012.

Ontiveros, Freddy. Advisor, FENCOMIN. La Paz, Bolivia, October 25, 2012.

266
Orellana, Segundina. President, Coordinator for the Women of the Tropic (Cocamtrop);
Secretary General, Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba. Villa Tunari, Bolivia,
March 18, 2013.

Ortega, Isabel. Vice Minister of Indigenous Justice; former MAS Deputy; MAS Founding
Member. La Paz, Bolivia, November 29, 2012.

Ortíz, Concepción. Vice President, MAS National Directorate. Santa Cruz, Bolivia, November 6,
2012.

Paredes, Ramiro. Member, Plurinational Electoral Organ; Advisor, FENCOMIN. La Paz,

Bolivia, October 15, 2012.

Parra, Elvira. Executive Member, National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous, and Native
Women of Bolivia (CNMCIOB-BS); MAS Delegate to the Constituent Assembly. La
Paz, Bolivia, August 14, 2008.

Patana, Edgar. Mayor, El Alto; former Executive Secretary, Regional Workers’ Central of El
Alto (COR-El Alto). El Alto, Bolivia, April 29, 2013.

Patzi, Félix. Former MAS Candidate for the Governorship of La Paz. La Paz, Bolivia, November
28, 2012.

Paucara, Bernabé. Mayor of the Municipality of Achacachi. La Paz, Bolivia, January 14, 2013.

Peredo, Antonio. MAS Senator for La Paz. La Paz, Bolivia, August 21, 2008.

Pinto, Juan Carlos. National Director, Intercultural Service of Democratic Strengthening

(SIFDE), Plurinational Electoral Organ (OEP); Member of REPAC. La Paz, Bolivia,
September 7, 2012.

Poma, Martha. MAS Senator for La Paz. La Paz, Bolivia, February 14, 2013.

Prada Alcoreza, Raúl. Former MAS Delegate to the Constituent Assembly; former Vice Minister
of Strategic Planning; Member of the Comuna Group [Grupo Comuna]. La Paz, Bolivia,
January 29, 2013.

Prada Tejada, María Nela. Chief of Cabinet, Ministry of Economy. La Paz, Bolivia, February 1,
2013.

Quezada, Marcelo. Bolivian Ambassador to Paraguay; Campaign Advisor for the 2002 Elections.
La Paz, Bolivia, July 11, 2008.

Quiroga, José Antonio. Editor, Nueva Crónica y Buen Gobierno; former MAS Candidate for the
Office of the Vice Presidency (2002). La Paz, Bolivia, July 18, 2008.

267
Quiroz, José. President, MAS-Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, Bolivia, May 21, 2013.

Revollo, Marcela. MSM Deputy. La Paz, Bolivia, February 18, 2013.

Rodriguez, Adalid. Secretary of Commerce and Exports of FENCOMIN. La Paz, Bolivia,

October 25, 2012.

Rojas, Eugenio. MAS Senator for La Paz. La Paz, Bolivia, September 21, 2012.

Rojas, Roberto. MAS Deputy for La Paz/El Alto. La Paz, Bolivia, April 11, 2013.

Romero, Asterio. Secretary General, Governorship of Cochabamba; Union Leader. Cochabamba,

Bolivia, March 25, 2013.

Salazar, Fernando. Academic. Cochabamba, Bolivia, March 13, 2013

Salazar, Julio. MAS Senator for Cochabamba; Cocalero Union Leader. La Paz, Bolivia,
December 7, 2012.

Salvatierra, Hugo. MAS Founding Member; former Minister of Rural Development, Agriculture
and the Environment. Santa Cruz, Bolivia, May 15, 2013.

Sanjinez, Tito. Vice President, MAS-Santa Cruz Urban Directorate. Santa Cruz, Bolivia, May 8,
2013.

Sifuentes, Nélida. MAS Senator for Chuquisaca; Vice President of the Senate; Finance
Secretary, MAS National Directorate. La Paz, Bolivia, October 18, 2012.

Siles, Hugo. MAS Councilman for Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, Bolivia, May 14, 2013.

Silva, Jorge. MAS Councilman for La Paz; Vice President, Federation Bolivian Municipalities
(FAM); MAS Campaign Coordinator; former MAS deputy for La Paz. La Paz, January
25, 2013.

Soruco, Freddy. MAS Councilman for Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, Bolivia, May 8, 2013.

Tacóo, Lázaro. CIDOB Leader; Spokesperson of the Second TIPNIS Anti-Road March.
Cochabamba, Bolivia, March 4, 2013.

Torres, Edgar. Union Leader, Special Federation of Peasant Workers of the Tropics of
Cochabamba. Cochabamba, Bolivia, March 18, 2013.

Torrico, Gustavo. Former MAS Deputy for La Paz. La Paz, Bolivia, July 29, 2008.

Vázquez, Victor Hugo. Vice Minister of Rural Development. La Paz, Bolivia, January 9, 2013.

268
Villarroel, Miguelina. MAS Deputy for Cochabamba; Union Leader, Special Federation of the
Yungas of the Chapare. La Paz, Bolivia, February 21, 2013.

Villca, Andrés. MAS Senator for Potosí; Former President of FENCOMIN. La Paz, Bolivia,
August 30, 2012.

Villca, Juan de la Cruz. MAS Founding Member; former Executive Secretary of CSUTCB. La
Paz, Bolivia, October 16, 2012.

Zeballos, Rodolfo. Advisor, MAS-Santa Cruz Urban Directorate. Santa Cruz, Bolivia, May 7,
2013.

Zuazo, Moira. Academic, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation. La Paz, Bolivia, August 29, 2012.

Zurita, Leonilda. Coca Grower and Leader of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba;
Secretary of Foreign Relations, MAS National Directorate, La Paz, 6 November 2012.

269
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