Abstract
Despite being the poorest and least developed country in South America, Bolivia was the first to emerge from the period of military dictatorships that dominated the continent from the mid-1960s into the 1980s. This article examines the role of civil resistance in that country’s seemingly improbable early end to military rule, noting how a broad coalition of unions, intellectuals, the Catholic Church, and opposition parties succeeded in bringing down a series of military leaders, eventually ushering in elected civilian governance. Despite the pro-democracy movement’s successful defeat of the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer in 1978, it took more than four years, three general elections, five presidents and several coups d’etat before full electoral democracy was restored. This article responds to questions of how the movement was able to persist, grow, and maintain largely nonviolent discipline in the face of severe repression, shifting alliances, and internal divisions, and how the movement helped lay the groundwork for more recent radical changes in Bolivian politics. The article illustrates other critical factors in the movement’s success: the willingness to avoid armed struggle, the country’s rich tradition of mass-based civil resistance and defiance of central authority, and grassroots democratic relations.
Highlights
With South America’s lowest levels of economic development and literacy, along with relatively strong indicators of inequality and pronounced divisions among social groups, Bolivia lacks many of the structural characteristics that are designated by Robert A
In view of the repressive military rule, censorship of the media, and suppression of dissident organizing, few observers in the mid-1970s expected that the dictatorships that had ruled the country for most of its history would be replaced in the near future
Building upon Bolivia’s rich tradition of mass-based civil resistance1 and grassroots democratic relations, popular forces were able to end the series of military regimes and establish civilian governance
Summary
With South America’s lowest levels of economic development and literacy, along with relatively strong indicators of inequality and pronounced divisions among social groups, Bolivia lacks many of the structural characteristics that are designated by Robert A. The central thesis is that, thanks in part to the country’s history of civil resistance and democratic relations, Bolivians were able to force the junta to relinquish power through their willingness to avoid armed struggle and mobilize a broad cross-section of the population to make the country effectively ungovernable by military leaders. Most military regimes in Latin America gave way to civilian rule between the late 1970s and 1980s The first of these democratic transitions occurred in Bolivia, though it was not easy or even. Economic inequality, political violence, and sharp divisions over economic policy, Bolivia has remained relatively democratic since 1982, eventually electing the popular union leader Evo Morales in 2006, the first president from that country’s indigenous majority, and ushering in a period of dramatic social and economic reform
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