The «Proceso de Cambio» and the Seventh Year Crisis: Towards a Reconfiguration of the Relationship between State and Social Movements in Bolivia

Abstract

On 18th December 2012, Evo Morales celebrated his seventh anniversary as president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. In 2005, this Aymara coca growers’ union leader was elected for the first time, with the support of social movements and, in particular, of the peasant and indigenous sectors, inaugurating a moment of political transition that raised many expectations for an in-depth transformation of the state-civil societal relationship. A complex reshaping that, as the popular belief suggests, was going to pass through a highly delicate moment: the seventh year. Relying upon an in-depth empirical research on social and land conflicts in Bolivia, this work aims to analyze the revitalization of new corporative struggles among collective rural actors (indigenous vs. peasant) in light of the recent institutional and normative reforms. The latter have favored a reconfiguration of the relationship between the state and social sectors, inaugurating a new phase of fragmentation and conflict.