Ciao!

Sme questions abt your dissertation:
Those public intellectuals that u've been interviewing, are they the "technocrats"? Why are their views significant in your field work? How important is their role in influencing public policies? Any instances?

Well, some of these public intellectuals are "technocrats", but they do have a powerful influence. President Mesa was a public intellectual before becoming the vice presidential candidate. Many leaders of political parties (especially MBL) are public intellectuals. The conference I went to on decentralization was significant; it was intended to give the government a recommendation (the entire event was taped, transcribed, and sent out).

About 20 years ago there was a conference on reforming the electoral system. Participants included Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (later president, twice), Carlos Mesa (now president), Ronald McLean Abaroa (later presidential candidate, mayor of La Paz), Filemon Escobar (later senator for MAS), Victor Hugo Cardenas (later vice president). The topic of the conference: Whether or not to adopt the German MMP electoral system. The system was adopted by the Goni-Cardenas administration.

It's certainly gratifying when some suggestions of these public intellectuals are implemented or at least taken into account.

I thought electoral systems were set in stone. What was the electoral system before MMP?

Probably a silly question: what are blank votes and null votes?

No, electoral systems aren't set in stone, and are often modified in many countries. The Bolivian electoral system's gone through many modifications. Prior to being an MMP system, it was a PR (proportional representation) system, though it changed from a variation on lowest cuotient remainder to Sainte-Laguë to d'Hont (the three are different counting rules used in PR), before changing to MMP.

Blank votes are votes cast w/ no marks on them, which are often protest votes. In countries where voting is compulsory, voter turnout is high, but you also have a good number of blank votes. Null votes are sometimes also called "spoiled" ballots. These are votes that are improperly marked (like marking two candidates, instead of one). The final tally count for seats is counted over "valid" votes — all votes properly cast (neither blank nor null).

"Many leaders of political parties (especially MBL) are public intellectuals"

Interesting... the government is made up of many academics. Why then is Boliva in a dismal state?

(Don't mean that question to come across as sarcastic and/or simplistic - just straight to the point)

Just puzzled abt the economic and social problems besieging Bolivia, when there's a thinktank of intellectuals and their recommendations are frequently taken up.

Just to let you know, since u post often abt the neighboring conflicts between Chile and Bolivia.

I received an invitation (from the Institute of SEA Studies) to a lecture next Friday by the president of Chile, Ricardo Lagos. The topic is on global challenges of the 21st century (THE hot topic for the next 96 years).

I was reading the info about his background in the pamphlet. He too was an academic before he got into politics (which might explain my earlier comment).

Well, to answer your question most directly: One can be an intellectual w/o being intelligent.

Or, more precisely, politics & academia aren't the same thing. Most Bolivian "public intellectuals" aren't really "academics" in the American sense. Most political science in Bolivia is really just punditry.

The old joke that the only numbers are the page numbers. I've only seen one work that even used regression analysis — and it didn't provide any informatino on the kind of regression used (bivariate? multivariate? two-tailed?) or provide p values (which tell you if there results are statistically significant. Very poor quality; the results shouldn't be trusted.

But many "public intellectuals" are idealists who don't know how to play hardball politics. Read too much Marx or Rawls or French philosophers — not enough Machiavelli. That's Mesa's problem, for example. He seems to think he can solve the country's problems w/ a good, elegant, studied speech — not w/ political horse-trading.

Interesting. I'd always thought lots of political problems arise because politicians are too Machiavellian.

Well, I think too many problems in politics are from not reading Machiavelli, not the other way around. At least from a practical standpoint. Many people don't like Machiavelli because he's not an idealist — he doesn't care to describe how politics should be, but how it is.

For example, one of Machiavelli's dictum's is "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." Mesa should've known that. There were rumors (only rumors, mind you, no substantiation) that the viceminister of defense (a navy admiral) was involved in plotting a coup. Mesa removed him. Dumb move. If the guy was plotting a coup, better to keep him close & monitor him. If he wasn't plotting a coup, he now might be (upset at losing his job, public disgrace, etc.). See?