This is (pretty much) the (brief) "proposal" I'll submit for the Graduate College Dissertation Completion Fellowship on Tuesday.

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Introduction and Research Question

After two decades of remarkable political stability, Bolivia’s democratic future became increasingly uncertain after 17 October 2003, when Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada resigned his presidency amid social unrest that left at least 59 dead. For the next two years, Bolivia has lurched from one dramatic political crisis to the next. This was a sharp break from the country’s previous democratic experience. Although Bolivia’s democratic experience was marked by periodic protests, few of these threatened the country’s basic democratic stability. At the very least, Bolivia stood in stark contrast to its Andean neighbors. After the October 2003 “guerra del gas”, many wondered not only whether Bolivia could reestablish some sort democratic political stability, but also whether the country’s basic territorial integrity would survive the sharp regional antagonisms that burst to the surface.

The nearly two decades that followed Bolivia’s transition to democracy highlighted a period of new exceptionalism. Rather than a perennial South American basket case, Bolivia was an unexpected democratic success story. During the 1990s, some scholars even argued that Bolivia was a case of successful democratic consolidation. During this period of optimism, René Antonio Mayorga lauded what he called Bolivia’s “silent revolution”, built around its institutions of “parliamentarized presidentialism” (1997). Other analysts also looked to Bolivia’s unique quasi-parliamentary institutional design to explain the country’s nearly two decades of democratic political stability.

Beyond mere stability, Bolivia was also notable for a remarkable degree of governability not found in other countries, especially in the Andes. Unlike many of their neighbors, Bolivian presidents governed with support from majoritarian multi-party coalitions. Conventional wisdom suggested that the country’s institutional design was, in great measure, responsible for both the country’s striking political stability and its governability (by consistently producing majoritarian multiparty coalition governments). Support for centripetal coalition politics also came from a shared elite consensus on key political issues (most notably neoliberalism), but especially on the basic question of what the Bolivian polity, the political community, should look like.

This study does not seek to explain what factors contributed to Bolivia’s nearly two decades of political stability. Such a question is methodologically difficult to test, since factors one believes contribute to stability may, in fact, be products of stability, or may be both product and reinforcement mechanism. In short, it is much more difficult to explain stasis than kinetics, especially in social science. It is important to note that this study also makes no claim about whether Bolivia’s democracy has broken down, though the political system is most likely going through a process of “deconsolidation”. Nor does this study claim to predict the future of Bolivia’s political system; there is far too much uncertainty at this time to allow for reliable forecasts.

The collapse of an institutionally and democratically elected government marked a dramatic turning point in Bolivia’s political history. The inability of the Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada government to successfully manage the September-October 2003 “guerra del gas” made it glaringly obvious that something had failed in the Bolivian political system. The previous mechanisms of moderated bargaining and majoritarian coalition politics were no longer able to channel, address, or restrain social demands. Thus, the research question this study pursues is simple: What happened? How did Bolivia’s stable political system give way to the subsequent period of chronic instability? More importantly, what led to the unraveling not only of Bolivia’s democratic institutions, but even the core belief in a common political community?

Theoretical Framework

I adopt a historical institutionalist perspective that defines institutions as formal or informal procedures or recognized norms of political behavior. This approach contrasts with rational choice institutionalism, which assumes actors have independent, fixed interests and design institutions to maximize those interests. Historical institutionalism focuses on both formal and informal institutions and readily admits that political outcomes are influenced by historical-contextual factors. Earlier decisions have consequences on the strategies and choices available. Historical institutionalists accept rational choice's assumption that individuals act strategically, but argue that individual interests, choices, and strategies are also affected by historical context.

Though recent literature uses the concept of democratic consolidation, I use the more modest concept of democratic stability. Requirements for democratic consolidation are often debated, but most scholars agree stability is a core necessary condition. Democracy is stable when basic procedural democratic norms are consistently followed. This means: elections go ahead as scheduled without interruptions; they are free of fraud and losers accept their outcomes; and no actors attempt to overthrow the democratic system. In simplest terms, there are no coups d'etat or other attempts to use extra-constitutional power to pursue political (or personal) ambitions.

I highlights four political institutions that affect democratic stability: 1) the electoral system, 2) the party system, 3) executive-legislative relations, and 4) coalition-building norms. Only the electoral system is a formal institution outlined by specific constitutional provisions. The electoral system strongly affects other institutions, especially the party system. Coalition building norms are the least formal. Though influenced by election outcomes, elite coalition building requires trust and a willingness to cooperate with one another.

I also develop a framework for democratic stability as reinforced by broadly shared political consensus. Bolivian political elites shared a consensus derived from the historical legacies of the 1952 National Revolution, which produced a common vision for what I call a Bolivain “national project” (borrowing from Benedict Anderson’s discussions about nations as “imagined communities”). Keeping with a historical institutionalist framework, I argue that the 1952 Revolution shaped the political attitudes of the post-transition political class. Additionally, I argue that the experience of the 1982-1985 economic crisis prompted many political elites to accept neoliberal economic policies.

I propose that both the pre-1985 historical legacies and the institutional framework of parliamentarized presidentialism were mutually reinforcing. The political institutions tended to promote centripetal, moderated multipartism. A common political consensus made coalition-building politics easier. That is, until after 1994.

Hypothesis

In 1994, Bolivia adopted a set of political reforms that included a series of amendments to the constitution, political decentralization (allowing for municipal elections), and adopting a German-style multimember proportional (MMP) electoral system, replacing the previous list proportional representation (list-PR) electoral system. I hypothesize that this change altered the institutional incentive structure, encouraging centrifugal, particularistic political strategies that made coalition-building (and coalition-maintenance) increasingly difficult, even leading to a breakdown of nationwide political consensus.

Method and Data

I adopt a combination of methods, including historical analysis, electoral data analysis, and content analysis. Understanding the historical processes of democratization in Bolivia is important to establish a grounding framework. Thus, I provide an overview of Bolivia since its transition to democracy, taking each government in historical sequence. A substantial discussion of post-1952 Bolivia in Chapter 3 (see Table of Contents) will provide evidence of a common “national project” accepted by post-transition political elites, especially since the three largest parties (MNR, MIR, and ADN) trace their lineage directly to the 1952 National Revolution.

Electoral data gives a clear picture of structural changes in the party system (from a moderate multipartism to a polarized, fragmented multipartism) and vote distribution (from nationwide parties to regionally entrenched, particularistic parties). The electoral data comes from Bolivia’s National Electoral Court (CNE), which was kind enough to provide data disaggregated to the electoral district level. I use such standard measures as electoral volatility, proportionality, effective number of parties, and changes in voter alignments. If the hypothesis is correct, we should see dramatic changes in the effective number of parties (increasing at the national level, decreasing at the regional level), a consolidation of party votes into regional blocks (e.g. increasing their vote share in specific regions, while decreasing their aggregate nation-wide vote share), and a general rise in vote shares for what many Bolivian analysts have called “anti-systemic” parties.

Content analysis allows for an understanding of how political elites altered their public strategies following the 1994 changes to the electoral system. The content analysis data comes from the newspaper archives at the Bolivian Center for Documentation and Information (CEDIB) from each of the five post-transition elections (1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2002). The method involves identifying individual elite statements and looking for key terms that evidence changes in political vote-winning or coalition-building strategies from one election to the next. If the hypothesis is correct, we should see a change from centrist political strategies (i.e. parties hoping to win votes across regional, class, or ethnic pluralities) to particularist strategies (i.e. parties targeting vote-winning efforts only among a particular regional, class, or ethnic group).

Anticipated Findings and Relevant Implications

Thus far, the electoral data confirms the research hypothesis. The two elections since the 1994 change to the electoral system saw a dramatic shift in voter behavior, as the three major political parties (MNR, ADN, MIR) saw their vote shares drop substantially, while new radical “anti-systemic” parties suddenly emerged as significant players (e.g. MAS came in second in its first electoral contest in 2002). Meanwhile, some of the parties became insignificant national players, even as they became dominant regional players (e.g. ADN polled less than 6% in 2002 but came in first in two of nine departments by landslide victories, gathering four of 30 senates seats). Other electoral data demonstrates a similar shift, confirming the hypothesis.

While I have not yet completed the content analysis, preliminary results suggest change in campaign strategies and rhetoric form the pre-1994 to post-1994 political campaigns. Politicians are increasingly appealing to voters using particularist appeals (mostly on the basis of ethno-regional identity) while simultaneously making little effort to send signals to other politicians that they may be willing to work together. Still, with an incomplete content analysis, it is too early to tell if the hypothesis if fully confirmed.

A study of Bolivia’s recent problems with democratic stability is significant in light of a current fascination in the discipline for “constitutional engineering” approaches. Specifically, much of the recent scholarship endorses MMP electoral systems for new democracies as a means to better connect political parties with constituents, increasing democratic accountability. While MMP electoral systems have this benefit, my study suggests that they have potential negative consequences as well. This study serves, in part, as a warning to more carefully consider electoral engineering approaches in general, and MMP electoral systems in particular.