After a decade in local office, are indigenous peoples' governments in the Andes fulfilling their promise to provide a more participatory, accountable, and deliberative form of democracy? Using current debates in democratic theory as a framework, Donna Lee Van Cott examines 10 examples of institutional innovation by indigenous-party-controlled municipalities in Bolivia and Ecuador. In contrast to studies emphasizing the role of individuals and civil society, the findings underscore the contributions of leadership and political parties to promoting participation and deliberation -- even at the local level. Democratic quality is more likely to improve where local actors initiate and design institutions. Van Cott concludes that indigenous parties' innovations have improved democratic quality in some respects, but that authoritarian tendencies endemic to Andean cultures and political organizations have limited their positive impact.

This book provides a detailed treatment of an important topic that has received no scholarly attention: the surprising transformation of indigenous peoples' movements into viable political parties in the 1990s in four Latin American countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela) and their failure to succeed in two others (Argentina, Peru). The parties studied are crucial components of major trends in the region. By providing to voters clear programs for governing, and reaching out in particular to under-represented social groups, they have enhanced the quality of democracy and representative government. Based on extensive original research and detailed historical case studies, the book links historical institutional analysis and social movement theory to a study of the political systems in which the new ethnic cleavages emerged. The book concludes with a discussion of the implications for democracy of the emergence of this phenomenon in the context of declining public support for parties.

This book provides a detailed treatment of an important topic that has received no scholarly attention: the surprising transformation of indigenous peoples' movements into viable political parties in the 1990s in four Latin American countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela) and their failure to succeed in two others (Argentina, Peru). The parties studied are crucial components of major trends in the region. By providing to voters clear programs for governing, and reaching out in particular to under-represented social groups, they have enhanced the quality of democracy and representative government. Based on extensive original research and detailed historical case studies, the book links historical institutional analysis and social movement theory to a study of the political systems in which the new ethnic cleavages emerged. The book concludes with a discussion of the implications for democracy of the emergence of this phenomenon in the context of declining public support for parties.

After a decade in local office, are indigenous peoples' governments in the Andes fulfilling their promise to provide a more participatory, accountable, and deliberative form of democracy? Using current debates in democratic theory as a framework, Donna Lee Van Cott examines 10 examples of institutional innovation by indigenous-party-controlled municipalities in Bolivia and Ecuador. In contrast to studies emphasizing the role of individuals and civil society, the findings underscore the contributions of leadership and political parties to promoting participation and deliberation -- even at the local level. Democratic quality is more likely to improve where local actors initiate and design institutions. Van Cott concludes that indigenous parties' innovations have improved democratic quality in some respects, but that authoritarian tendencies endemic to Andean cultures and political organizations have limited their positive impact.

Since the conquest, indigenous communities throughout Latin American have endured with astonishing restraint a multitude of impositions and indignities. Occasionally that restraint has been punctuated by cycles of rebellion and repression.

Since the Conquest, indigenous communities throughout Latin America have endured with astonishing restraint a multitude of impositions and indignities. Occasionally that restraint has been punctuated by cycles of rebellion and repression. Violent confrontations between Indian organizations and the state in the last two years indicate a growing frustration by indigenous peoples with political attempts to advance their demands. Major altercations have occurred in Mexico, Ecuador, and Bolivia, with smaller scale confrontations becoming a regular occurrence as Indian communities grow increasingly defiant of state authority in the wake of repeated violations of indigenous territorial and human rights. While in some countries such groups have been able to achieve recognition and protection through constitutional and legal reforms, Indians in general continue to be disproportionately the poorest of the poor and regular victims of human rights abuses. They are chronically under represented in political office in all countries of the Americas. This paper explores the complex nexus of security issues that the governments of Latin America and the indigenous communities of the region face at the end of the 20th century. A better understanding of security issues from the perspective of indigenous communities should enable policymakers in the United States to estimate more accurately how U.S. policy plays a role in the aggravation or resolution of interethnic conflict in Latin America. Although the national contexts of indigenous-state relations differ markedly throughout the hemisphere, relevant issues of national security are strikingly similar -- maintenance of international borders, eradication and interdiction of drugs, suppression of armed insurgencies, and containment of rural unrest. National governments, state armed forces, and indigenous peoples, however, all have different conceptions of the meaning of "national security."

Constitutional reform has been one of the most significant aspects of democratization in late twentieth century Latin America. In The Friendly Liquidation of the Past—one of the first texts to examine this issue comprehensively —Van Cott focuses on the efforts of Bolivia and Colombia to incorporate ethnic rights into their fragile democracies. In the1990s, political leaders and social movements in Bolivia and Colombia expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of democracy--its exclusionary nature, the distance and illegitimacy of the state, and the empty promise of citizenship. The highly symbolic act of constitution making elevated a public struggle for rights to the level of a discussion on the meaning of democracy and the nature of the state. Based on interviews with more than 100 participants in the reforms, Van Cott demonstrates how issues promoted by social movements—recognizing ethnic diversity, expanding political participation and improving representation, and creating spheres of cultural and territorial autonomy—were placed on the constitutional reform agenda and transformed through strategic interaction with political power-brokers into the nation’s highest law. The analysis follows each reform through five years of implementation to assess the early results of what Van Cott suggests is an emerging regional model of multicultural constitutionalism. The Friendly Liquidation of the Past fills an important gap in the study of ethnic politics and constitutional reform in the Andes, linking the literature on institutions and political reform to work in political theory on participatory democracy and multiculturalism.