Morales and Opponents Defend Bolivia’s Unity

Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, along with the governors of the opposition agreed last week to create a national charter that would prevent the country from further disintegration.  Four out of nine governors of the State Departments have declared autonomy in protest to the new Constitution and its plans to redistribute profit from the countries natural resources to the indigenous populations of Bolivia.

The Bolivian’s main suspicions of President Morales’ new Constitution is that the President is trying to gain the indigenous population’s support as a means to bring across his personal agenda.  Moreover, adversaries are accusing President Morales of following Venezuela’s President Chavez’s footsteps, because the new Constitution has been approved without the presents of the oppositions group in the Constituent. Until there is further compromises and negotiations between President Morales and the governors, the charter cannot be solidified into permanent legislation.

http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/mat/2008/01/08/morales_adversarios_defendem_unidade_da_bolivia-327920379.asp

Peru: Clientelism lite?

Like many Latin American nations, Peru has a long history of clientelism. Recent attempts to transform “clients” to “citizens” have met with partial success, but many of the anti-poverty programs directed towards Peru’s rural poor have instead resulted in interesting forms of semiclientelism.

In 1990, President Fujimori came into power on a platform of reform and development. However, many of his reforms consisted of merely removing the traditional patrons and of the APRA party with his own political brokers. In fact, many “development” projects were managed by the presidential office, thus creating direct clientelistic networks from the regional patrons to Fujimori himself.

Also, the development programs in Peru often acted as vote-generating mechanisms for Fujimori, similar to the Solidarity program in Mexico. In 1994 and 1995, many of the anti-poverty programs in Peru were focused specifically on marginal or swing districts where Fujimori had won (or lost) elections or significant referendum votes.

The departure of Fujimori in 2000 (influenced in no small part by popular mobilization) opened “cracks” for autonomy for the poor from above and below. The 2002 Organic Laws of Regions and Municipalities were enacted to decentralize authorities and reinforce civil society and Regional Coordination Councils were created to allow local communities to decide on programs and funding. However, rural areas still experience competing patronage networks – local elites who are currently out of power use rights-based “carrots” such as the RCCs in order to challenge those currently in power. While offering political rights to the disfranchised poor does appear to be a movement away from clientelism, these coalitions between poor actors and more organized middle-class groups still suffer from disproportionate power structures as the political rights are a carrot that can be taken away.

Still, there is a strong domestic and international movement to turn Peru away from clientelism. Progressive church organizations and NGOs (such as Socios Perú/Centro de Colaboración Cívica) are working with the rural poor and indigenous communities to develop autonomy and civil society. Of course it remains to be seen whether these efforts will also be co-opted into the current semiclientelist systems, or whether the “wiggle room” created by previous popular mobilizations will continue the trend of autonomy.

Fiscal Transparency in Costa Rica

Below is a link to the IMF’s latest assessment on Costa Rica’s fiscal transparency. It think its about as positive a the IMF gets in its assessments of non G8 countries. The main message is that Costa Rica has clearly defined institutions and delegation of fiscal controls. It says that it is clear who can spend money, on what they can spend it and information about what was spend and is the readily available and reliable. It also says the division between public and privite spending, work, etc.. is transparent. It doesn’t assess clientelism directly but this discription of the fiscal policy environment would seem to suggest patron – client relationships in the public realm would be limited.

[ http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2007/cr07372.pdf ]Fiscal Transparency in Costa Rica-IMF

-Central America Group

Argentina Seeks to Cut Patronage From Diet

This article outlines the (over)use of patronage, known as gnocchi, in Argentine politics.  In 2002, spending on political patronage jobs ate up more than $2.2 billion.  Further demonstrating the abuse of patronage in Argentina is the fact that Argentina’s Congress has 72 senators, three from every province, and 257 members of the lower house, one for every 144,000 people. If the same proportions were applied in the United States, the House and Senate would have more than 2,000 members rather than 535.

As stated by Rosendo Fraga, the director of the Center for the New Majority, ”Gnocchis are a way for politicians to cover up the cost of maintaining their political apparatus, I don’t know if this is something essential to Argentine politics, but it is certainly a generalized practice, and one that we can no longer afford.”

 This abuse of patronage led then-President Eduardo Duhalde to promise reforms in Argentina reducing political offices by 25% and political spending by nearly half.

 This article can be read at:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803E4D6113FF93BA25751C0A9649C8B63

Colombia: Hostages, another take

Colombian institutions, politics and economics play out in a state of perpetual conflict.  Thinking of institutionalization as the extent to which there ‘exists agreement on basic procedural rules’, some main Colombian actors –FARC and ELN leftist guerillas, and AUC – remain outside such agreement.   The recent hostage release, a senator and a presidential candidate’s assistant, illustrates  how the actors interact with the added twist of international mediation.

The exchange of goods – hostages – takes place in a negotiated setting.  Without procedural rules, the setting is prepared/facilitated by Chavez, who is seen as one of the ideological hero the FARC.  Chavez engenders a ‘trust’ that does not exist between the parties within Colombia.  Unlike the US negotiating role in the middle east, it Chavez does not seem to offer any kind of  superior commitment mechanism/enforcement.

Chavez first offered to help in August to negotiate the release of hostages and proof of life of Betancourt, the presidential candidate kidnapped in 2002.  In late November, Uribe gave Chavez 1.5 months to get results.  A few days later he ‘fired’ him as a mediator  when Chavez spoke directly and privately with the Colombian Military General – Uribe had expressly requested no contact between Chavez and army generals.   The rejection may be interpreted as Uribe reacting to manipulation of his power base.  In the politicized state, we expect leaders to need to continue to build and maintain control in major bureaucratic institutions.  In this case, Uribe is protecting the loyalty in military.  Uribe relented and Chavez negotiates the release on Jan 10 after a New Year’s botched attempt. 

After the release, Chavez announced he does not consider the FARC as terrorists.  Although few take Chavez seriously, such statements would seem to give credence to the FARC – perhaps within Colombia and internationally.  This is interesting to consider that Uribe, as a leader in a partly politicized state, may need to be concerned with building and maintaining with international actors as well as domestic institutions.

Despite the perpetual conflict, much of Colombia seems to operate within a higher level of institutionalization; the elections of 2006 were largely free of FARC influence and the formal (non-drug) economy seems to be functioning quite well.  I am interested to understand how sections of Colombia and sections of the economy seem to function well.  This variation in performance could be facilitated by the level of institutionalization or evidence of important variation within country that creates different outcomes.