Bolivia

Álvaro García Linera discusses the current deadlock in the struggle for hegemony, the failures and horizons of progressive politics in Latin America, and the growth and limitations of the right.

By Bret Gustafson and Kathryn Ledebur

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June 24, 2017
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Dawn News — This is the final statement of the World Conference of the Peoples For a World Without Borders towards Universal Citizenship, which took place at Tiquipaya, 400 kilometers from La Paz between June 19-20:
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To overcome the systemic crisis of humanity and Mother Earth we must turn to indigenous ecological concepts, says Pablo Solón in his new book Introduction and translation by Richard Fidler September 30, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Life on the Left -- In his balance sheet of Bolivia’s “process of change,” Bolivian intellectual and activist Pablo Solón advanced some proposals for a new course inspired by the ideas of Vivir Bien, a philosophy associated with the indigenous peoples of the Andean countries of South America. Vivir Bien, roughly translated as “living well,” is incorporated as a guiding principle of the state in the new constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia.[1]
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Extracts of vive-president Garcia Linera's address at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (May, 27, 2016). September 9, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Open Democracy — We are facing a historical turning point in Latin America. Some are talking about a throwback, about restorers moving forward. The truth is that in the last twelve months, after ten years of intense progress, of territorial diffusion of the progressive and revolutionary governments in the continent, this progress has stalled, in some cases it has given ground, and in some other cases its continuity is in doubt. Wherever conservative forces have succeeded, an accelerated process of reconstitution of the old elites of the 80s and 90s, which seek to take control of the management of the state, is under way.
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Introduction and translation by Richard Fidler September 8, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Life on the Left with permission — The global drop in commodity prices has been detrimental to the development strategy of many Latin American governments, some of which had used the new income from increased exports of largely unprocessed resources, accompanied by higher royalties and taxes, during the last decade to reduce poverty levels and reinforce and institute new social programs, while attempting to create new industries oriented to the domestic market or adding value to their exports.
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By Pablo Stefanoni, translated by Federico Fuentes August 31, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal originally published in Spanish at Nueva Sociedad — The conflict between the Bolivian government and cooperative miners is new not in terms of its dynamic, but in terms of its scale: the brutal death of a vice-minister, beaten after being kidnapped, has cause a commotion in a country accustomed to radical social protests. Moreover, the crime has put in doubt the advances made towards creating a “strong state”, Evo Morales goal since 2006: not even during the 2003 Gas War, which brought down the Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada government, has a similar type of aggression occurred against such a high level functionary.