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Chaco as tenth department?

Technorati tags: Bolivia politics

So. The rural provinces in Bolivia know as the Chaco have decided to secede from their respective departments. The Chaco is made up of five provinces in Santa Cruz, Tarija, and Chuquisaca; it's also where most of the natural gas reserves are. Here's the story in La Razon, Los Tiempos, and El Deber. I think someone just turned the crazy knob to eleven.

Posted by Miguel at 10:43 AM | Permalink

Quick notes

Two brief notes. First, my friend Matt had an art show in Detroit (at Synergy Gallery). I couldn't go, but someone posted some pictures. As always, amazing.

Second, I attended an interesting talk this evening. The annual WMU Klein Lecture (on East-Central Europe) focused on Bosnia & the question: "Democracy without a Demos?" The lecturer was Robert Hayden, a political anthropologist. His talk was about how democratization can (sometimes) lead to the breakup of states if voters back candidates that emphasize ethnic/cultural cleavages. He also alluded to the toxic (my word, not his) European-Romantic form of nationalism that emphasizes the Nation as the natural civic unit. Good stuff. Even got to ask him about the comparison to Bolivia.

Posted by Miguel at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

5 weeks to go

I'm currently swamped in footnote purgatory. Referencing individual newspaper articles to give rich, qualitative descriptions of Bolivian elections going back to 1985 is not nearly as exciting as it sounds. I just finished slogging though the 1989 election. Which, ironically, is the last of the easy ones — starting in 1993 the sheer volume of newspaper stuff increases exponentially. But I think I'm keeping up a decent pace, w/ five weeks left to go.

Which reminds me: I need to do a complete overhaul of my Bolivian politics tidlywiki. I'm noticing that there's about five times more information I have that's not up and available. Soon as my dissertation's finished & defended, that'll go up. I promise.

And, w/ that, I should head home for some much-needed dinner. And some exercise. I gotta do this all over again tomorrow.

Posted by Miguel at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

FYI

Apologies, but blogging will be light for the next several weeks. I'm traveling for job interviews, preparing for an April political science conference, and trying to wrap up my dissertation by mid-May. Those are priorities. I might get to post a note here or there, but unlikely.

Posted by Miguel at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Assembly & referendum approved

Technorati tags: Bolivia politics Evo Morales

Barrio Flores beat me to the punch on this one. The question wording for Bolivia's parliament approved the language for the upcoming autonomy referendum.

Parliament also acted w/ uncharacteristic speed & unanimity, and both the constituent assembly & autonomy referendum were approved today. The date for both elections is 2 July 2006 (see La Razón & El Deber). Here's the text of the law regulating the assembly & referendum. The next few months will show a dizzying pace of campaigning for both elections, and I'm particularly curious to see the kinds of electoral lists that compete for the assembly seats.

More on the assembly at MABB.

Posted by Miguel at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Potential assembly composition

Technorati tags: Bolivia politics

The figures below are merely conjecture, based on the 2005 election results for uninominal districts (that is, the portion of the Bolivian legislature that is elected directly by simple plurality in single-member districts). But if the constituent assembly is composed as outlined in my previous post, we might expect the assembly to look like this:

Posted by Miguel at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Constituent assembly almost ready

Technorati tags: Bolivia politics

The final parliamentary vote's still upcoming. So things could change. But it seems there's a consensus agreement on Bolivia's constituent assembly. The biggest two big hang-ups were: 1) whether the autonomy referendum would be binding, or not, and binding on who; and 2) how seats would be apportioned and how representatives would be elected. Both issues have been agreed upon. The next post outlines the assembly's potential composition.

Posted by Miguel at 01:09 PM | Permalink