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The Journal of Peasant Studies

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‘If the company belongs to you, how can you be against it?’ Limiting participation and taming dissent in neo-extractivist Bolivia

Almut Schilling-Vacaflor

To cite this article: Almut Schilling-Vacaflor (2017) ‘If the company belongs to you, how can you be against it?’ Limiting participation and taming dissent in neo-extractivist Bolivia, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 44:3, 658-676, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2016.1216984

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2016.1216984

Published online: 10 Oct 2016.

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‘If the company belongs to you, how can you be against it?’ Limiting participation and taming dissent in neo-extractivist Bolivia

Almut Schilling-Vacaflor

The contribution identifies the differentiated strategies used by the government and extraction corporations to limit consultation processes and to tame the dissent of local populations affected by hydrocarbon activities. Based on extensive fieldwork in coca- growing peasant and indigenous Guaraní communities in Bolivia, it discusses how the constraints on communities’ opportunities to exercise voice and agency have been effectively justified through a reliance on the country’s neo-extractivist regime. Furthermore, the analysis of recent retrogressive legal reforms reveals that the Bolivian government has definitely abandoned its original promises to establish ‘progressive neo-extractivism’ with regard to indigenous rights and environmental protection.

Keywords: extractive industries; participation; contentious politics; indigenous people; peasant communities; Bolivia

The enhancement of neo-extractivist development paths has recently attracted academic and public attention, particularly from scholars of Latin America (Bebbington 2009, 2011; Gudynas 2009; Acosta and Gudynas 2010; Burchardt and Dietz 2014; Veltmeyer and Petras 2014). Basically, neo-extractivism refers to the expansion of the state’s role in the extractive sector and the growing use of related revenues for social spending and devel- opment projects for citizens. Veltmeyer (2014) and Gudynas (2009) have argued that a model of ‘progressive extractivism’ – such as that proclaimed by the Bolivian and Ecuador- ian governments in particular – would imply that the environment and the participatory rights of the local populations affected should be given utmost priority in order to avoid having local communities experience only negative impacts while other actors enjoy the benefits of the revenues.1 In Latin America, exports of primary commodities have increased in all countries in the twenty-first century, and the additional fiscal revenues have contrib- uted to the expansion of welfare states and a drop in poverty rates in the region (Burchardt and Dietz 2014). Neo-extractivist development paths have been most pronounced in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, but they have also been present in other Latin American countries such as Brazil and Argentina. Such new extraction practices have not only led to important political and economic changes, but they have also impacted social relations,

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

1It is important to acknowledge that the concept of ‘progressive neo-extractivism’ is highly contested, as it has been interpreted very differently by diverse state and non-state actors.

The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2017 Vol. 44, No. 3, 658–676, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2016.1216984

both between the states and foreign companies and within the respective states (Burchardt and Dietz 2014).

This contribution discusses how Bolivia’s government and extraction corporations have strategically relied on Bolivia’s neo-extractivist regime to limit the participation and collec- tive action of affected indigenous and peasant communities. It presents two in-depth case studies about practices of public consultation and prior consultation and about contentious politics regarding extraction projects: one in the coca-growing Chapare municipality of Entre Ríos and one in the Guaraní capitanía2 Takovo Mora in the department of Santa Cruz. The specific case studies were selected because both localities’ inhabitants have had abundant experiences with gas activities and consultation processes.3 I compare similar phenomena in relation to groups living under very different conditions to provide new insights into the particularities of specific cases and to scrutinize more general trends. The comparison reveals that the local communities’ opportunities to exercise agency and voice regarding hydrocarbon projects in their territories have been limited. By drawing on political ecology approaches, complemented by literature on participatory development and conten- tious politics, the study discusses howparticipatory rights and the dissent of local populations affected by hydrocarbon activities have been effectively constrained. In general, the combi- nation of discursive and legislative strategies with the use of market mechanisms, discussed previously by Bebbington et al. (2013, 251–55), has proven powerful in this regard; beyond such generalfindings, I argue that in the coca-growing communities, substantial participation and the expression of dissent have been inhibited by the alignment of local leaders with the governmental party, while in the Guaraní communities repression and discrediting public discourses in response to community contestations have played a major role. Ultimately, the paper provides new evidence indicating that the Bolivian government has definitively abandoned its earlier promises to guarantee a progressive neo-extractivist regime with strong indigenous and participatory rights.

The paper’s findings are based on distinct fieldwork periods in Bolivia between 2011 and 2015, which together total 15 months. I conducted more than 100 semi-structured interviews with local communitymembers and their representatives, andwith staff fromdiverse statemin- istries and from public and private gas companies. I also observed two prior consultation pro- cesses andparticipated in the assemblies of a coca-growing federation and its unions andwithin the indigenous organization Assembly of Guaraní People (APG) at the national, regional and local levels. After providing a brief outline of the theoretical framework and Bolivia’s neo- extractivist development project, the paper gives an overview of the participatory instruments analysed – prior consultation and public consultation –with reference to international law and the relevant domestic legislation. It then describes how these instruments were limited in prac- tice and how dissent from local populationswas tamed by relying on Bolivia’s neo-extractivist regime in both cases. The paper’s analytical section and conclusions follow.

(Neo-)extractivist transformations: limiting participation and taming dissent

The ‘resource boom’ in Latin America since the beginning of the twenty-first century has contributed to profound social, political, economic and ecological transformations in the

2A capitanía is composed of its affiliated local communities. Capitanías are political entities, but they usually also hold collective land titles (TCOs – Tierras Communitarias de Origen). On land tenure in Bolivia, see Assies (2006). 3On the similarities, differences and tensions between peasant and indigenous populations in Bolivia, see, for example, Fontana (2014) and Canessa (2014).

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region and especially in the Andean countries, which have further intensified their depen- dency on the export of raw materials. Bebbington (2011) and Bebbington and Bury (2013a) provide rich empirical evidence on the expansion of mining and hydrocarbon frontiers into indigenous territories and protected areas in the region. Bebbington and Bury (2013b, 12) argue that these new extraction activities have transformed relations of access to a wide range of resources, politicizing these landscapes in new ways. These changing relations of access have been accompanied by increased conflict and struggle ‘over the very exist- ence of landscapes imbued with cultural meaning, quality of life for large populations, and entire livelihood systems’ (Bebbington and Bury 2013b, 20). Conflicts, however, should not be conceived as negative per se, as they have often contributed to important legal and institutional innovations, such as the promulgation of the new Law on Prior Con- sultation in Peru (Schilling-Vacaflor and Flemmer 2015); agreements with Amazonian populations concerning the remediation of environmental contamination (Bebbington and Scurrah 2013); and the establishment of ‘post-neoliberal’ policies and progressive legal reforms in order to more strongly recognize indigenous, environmental and participa- tory rights in Bolivia and Ecuador.

However, such legal and institutional innovations have remained rather ineffective in practice due to the subordinate role that indigenous rights, participation and the environ- ment have played in Andean resource politics (Bebbington 2011; Bebbington and Bury 2013; Perreault 2015; Flemmer and Schilling-Vacaflor 2016; De Castro, Hogenboom and Baud 2016). According to Svampa (2015, 65–67), the ‘commodities consensus’, which is common to both leftist and rightist governments in the region, encompasses the dispossession and accumulation of land, resources and territory according to a top-down logic and undermines attempts to enhance participatory democracy. Similarly, Kirsch con- cludes that ‘the realpolitik of extractive companies and the extractive economy is one that allows for very little institutional innovation that is other than cosmetic’ (quoted in Beb- bington and Bury 2013, 24). Scholars of Bolivia have discussed the existing limitations on the participatory rights of indigenous and peasant communities affected by extraction projects (Bascopé Sanjinés 2010; Humphreys Bebbington 2012; Pellegrini and Arismendi 2012; Schilling-Vacaflor 2014; Perreault 2015). However, they have not specifically dis- cussed how the argument that it is necessary for the good of all Bolivians to support the neo-extractivist regime, which represents the motor of the government’s ‘proceso del cambio’ (process of change), has limited community participation and dissent in manifold ways. This paper contributes to reducing this research gap.

To analyse the identified limitations to community participation and contestation on the part of local populations, the paper draws on political ecology approaches, as well as on the literature on participatory development and contentious politics. For instance, Hickey and Mohan (2004) have concluded that creating new institutions for participatory governance will not necessarily be more inclusive or more pro-poor and that much will depend on the nature of power relations which imbue these new spaces. Cooke and Kothari (2001) have argued that participatory approaches have far too often been manipulative, constitut- ing an element of tyrannical, top-down planning systems. Therein, community-based approaches ‘become mere empty shells, with meaningful decision-making, interaction and collective action taking place elsewhere, affirming the agenda of elites and other more powerful actors’ (Cleaver 2001, 44).

Bebbington et al. (2013, 251–55) have specifically analysed the strategies used in Andean resource governance to advance the more powerful actors’ (neo-)extractivist agendas. They argue that participation and contention in Andean resource governance have not been limited primarily by repressive state practices. Rather, the strategies of

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dispossession that have been more important in terms of overall effect are discursive and legislative strategies and the use of market mechanisms. Among the discursive strategies, the framing of development as intrinsically tied to (neo-)extractivism, the definition of countries as naturally predisposed to extraction, and the counter-positioning of productive extraction against unproductive or impoverished alternatives have prominently shaped Andean resource governance (Bebbington et al. 2013, 251–55). Legislative strategies of dispossession have been used increasingly in Bolivia since the adoption of its progressive constitution in 2009 in order to limit indigenous and environmental rights seen as obstacles to neo-extractivist expansion. For example, in 2014 and 2015, the government promulgated a whole package of new supreme decrees that undermine indigenous rights to prior consul- tation and compensation and that allow hydrocarbon projects in increasingly more pro- tected areas in the country (see below). Co-optation and clientelism are other powerful tools that have been applied by the Bolivian state and public and private companies alike to tame dissent and contention (on the demobilizing effects of co-optation see Miller 1999; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2009; Bebbington et al. 2013; Schorr 2015).

In addition, my fieldwork in coca-growing peasant communities has clearly shown that dynamics of partisanship, reproduced by the local populations themselves and (strategi- cally) orchestrated by state and company representatives, have played a major role in limit- ing community dissent against resource extraction (on the demobilizing effects of partisanship see Cunill Grau 2000; Heaney and Rojas 2011). The above-mentioned strat- egies for taming community dissent have often occurred simultaneously, thereby reinfor- cing each other. For instance, the fact that many indigenous leaders have been co-opted by the Bolivian government, while others have been repressed, has in the recent past con- tributed to polarization and fragmentation within indigenous organizations across the country (Defensoría del Pueblo 2016a).

Nationalization and the regulation of participation in Bolivia’s hydrocarbon sector

Bolivia’s neo-extractivist project has been supported by the great majority of Bolivians, among them many indigenous and peasant community members. In 2003, social move- ments protested against the planned export of gas to the United States via a Chilean port. As the movement grew, it expanded its demands to include the nationalization of Bolivia’s hydrocarbon sector, the resignation of former president Sánchez de Lozada and the convo- cation of a constituent assembly. It succeeded in having all of these demands met. In 2004, a referendum was organized about whether to carry out a nationalization process, and the question received a ‘yes’ from 92.2 percent of the voters. This result can be explained by the widespread conviction among the citizenry that the country had historically been unjustly dispossessed of its natural riches and, relatedly, that the re-appropriation of these riches could bring them rapid and enormous wealth (Farthing and Kohl 2006). Since 2005, Bolivia has nationalized its gas sector, in a process enacted through the ‘Heroes of the Chaco’ decree, by increasing the share of the public corporation Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) in gas activities and establishing new contracts with and taking over transnational companies.4 The production of gas tripled between 2000 and 2008, and in 2011 the country’s exports of primary commodities even approached 96 percent of total exports (Veltmeyer 2014, 84). The government has used a considerable

4Bolivia’s nationalization was not a ‘full nationalization’, as it did not include expropriation (see Kaup 2010). Foreign investment continues to be of great relevance in Bolivia’s hydrocarbon sector.

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share of the additional revenues to finance extensive social policies. The percentage of Boli- vians living on less than USD 2 per day dropped from 60 percent to 30 percent between 2006 and 2011 (CIA 2011 quoted in Kohl and Farthing 2012, 231).5

In line with progressive neo-extractivism, nationalization and the enhancement of par- ticipation should go hand in hand according to the state’s development plan from 2007. The document established that resource extraction should not only further national develop- ment, but should also contribute to overcoming traditional, ethnocentric development models (Plan de Desarrollo 2007, 3–15). Indeed, the plan postulates that development ‘must be a plural, collective and participatory process, attentive to diversity and different conceptions of the world’ (Plan de Desarrollo 2007, 12). It prioritizes ‘good living’ (vivir bien), including an integral and plurinational democratization process. Accordingly, Bolivia’s domestic legislation establishes that local populations living in the vicinity of hydrocarbon projects have to be consulted before extraction projects can be executed. It foresees public and prior consultation.

Public consultation has to be carried out with the general citizenry about any environ- mental impact assessment (EIA) before the project can receive the environmental license to operate, and must involve local state and non-state authorities. This participatory mechan- ism was already in place before Morales’s government came into power. Its legal foun- dation is Bolivia’s environmental legislation, especially Environmental Law 1333 of 1992 and the regulatory norms it includes. The operating company is responsible for carry- ing out these, mainly informative, processes. In contrast to prior consultation, which con- cludes with binding agreements that are incorporated into the EIA, the objective of public consultation is more vague – namely, to ‘take into account observations, suggestions and recommendations of the public that might be affected’ (article 162 of the regulatory norm on environmental control and prevention).

Prior consultation is a specific right of indigenous peoples (see Rodríguez-Garavito 2010). The legal foundation of the right to prior consultation and to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is international norms: International Labour Organization Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous peoples and the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, both of which have been recognized in Bolivia as domestic laws. The right to prior consultation has also been incorporated into Bolivia’s constitution (2009). In addition, specific domestic legislation regulates this right for the hydrocarbon sector. Hydrocarbon Law No. 3058 of 2005 stipulates that prior consultation has to be carried out when hydrocarbon projects affect indigenous communities. Supreme Decree (SD) 29033 of 2007, which was formulated in cooperation with the national indigenous organization the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples and Communities of Bolivia’s Orient (CIDOB) and the APG and which has enjoyed wide support among Bolivia’s indi- genous population, specifically regulates the consultation procedure in the hydrocarbon sector. In practice, after prior consultation concludes, the operating corporations must provide compensation for those impacts classified as long-term, direct and irreversible in the final prior consultation agreement – with the concrete sums involved being established during company–community negotiations.

5Radhuber (2015) has shown, however, that between 2006 and 2011 the Bolivian state invested more in health, education and infrastructure than it had before, but that the percentage of total investments that these payments constitute has remained basically unchanged. The sustainability and long-term impact of poverty-reduction mechanisms such as cash transfers and the government’s lack of effort to diversify its economy have also been challenged.

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In general, since the beginning of Morales’s presidency, Bolivia has become the country that recognizes the strongest indigenous de jure rights anywhere in the world. However, since the adoption of the new plurinational constitution,6 a trend in the opposite direction has been evident (Tockman and Cameron 2014; Kröger and Lalander 2016). In the following, I present detailed insights into the consultation processes in local contexts, with a focus on the question of how participatory practices and the respective contentious politics have evolved within – and been constrained by – Bolivia’s neo-extractivist regime.

Limited participation and dissent due to partisanship in coca-growing communities

The Chapare is a tropical zone in the department of Cochabamba. Its population has expanded rapidly over the last few decades and now comprises several hundred thousand inhabitants, most of them immigrants from other provinces of Cochabamba and from highland depart- ments. The land used for coca cultivation increased from 13,000 hectares in 1978 to 55,000 hectares a decade later (Painter 1994 cited in Grisaffi 2010, 429). In comparison to other peasant populations in Bolivia, the coca producers (cocaleros) have high incomes, which have fuelled local economies (see García Linera, León, and Monje 2005, 386). However, the cocaleros have also had to struggle fiercely against the often-violent coca-era- dication policies. Bolivia’s fight against coca production, strongly supported by the United States, intensified after 1986. As part of these anti-narcotic policies, Chapare was declared a ‘military zone’, Law 1008 defined all coca production as illegal, and the coca-growing unions repeatedly clashed with police forces and the Bolivian military. In 1992, the six coca-growing federations (Seis Federaciones del Trópico) were founded, representing an esti- mated 40,000 families. In July 2000, Evo Morales was elected executive secretary of the six federations and has remained in this position since. During Morales’s presidency, state pol- icies on coca cultivation have changed dramatically. Now, coca growers are allowed to cul- tivate one cato of coca per family, an area equivalent to 1600 square metres. This was the main demand of the cocalero movement from 2003 on. In the presidential elections in October 2014, in the Chapare municipalities more than 95 percent voted for Evo Morales.

Van Cott’s observation (2008, 103) that in the Chapare there was little difference between the coca growers’ movement and Morales’s Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, as the latter was merely the political instrument of the former, continues to hold true. This symbiosis has also shaped the way extraction projects in this area have been carried out. In Entre Ríos, where I carried out my fieldwork, the Federation Mamoré Bulo Bulo, one of the six coca- growing federations, is extremely powerful. The current mayor of Entre Ríos, who naturally represents the MAS party, was proposed as a candidate by the federation and continues to attend the federation’s assemblies (interview with mayor Aurelio Rojas, Entre Ríos, 22 October 2014). In Bulo Bulo, a district of the Entre Ríos municipality, YPFB Chaco SA oper- ates eight producing gas wells, and in 2011 this (nationalized) company carried out a seismic exploration there. The state company YPFB is also building the largest project for processing natural resources in Bolivia’s history there, together with the South Korean company Samsung: a urea and ammonia plant with a total cost of over USD 800 million. During my field research, in October 2014, President Morales inaugurated two new gas wells in Bulo Bulo. The discourse and symbolism of these ceremonies focused heavily on presenting

6The main idea of a plurinational state is that diverse cultures with their own legal, political and econ- omic institutions coexist in equality. Indispensable elements of a plurinational state are self-governed autonomous entities for indigenous populations and respectful intercultural relationships (Schavelzon 2012).

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the new projects as part of Bolivia’s nationalization process, important for the economy and the citizens’ well-being. Indeed, the population of Entre Ríos has in the past few years ben- efitted from state-sponsored socio-economic projects:

When the social organizations need anything, we present projects and the government finances them. In each educational unit they construct new rooms, sports fields. They modernize our markets, and we have benefitted from domestic access to gas. We have to thank our president for the nationalization; that’s why we are doing well at the national level. (interview with mayor Aurelio Rojas, Entre Ríos, 22 October 2014)

Public consultation and prior consultation: formalities in Bulo Bulo

According to the Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy’s (MHE) internal rules, prior con- sultation has to be carried out only with indigenous communities or peasant communities that hold collective land titles (interviews with three MHE directors responsible for carrying out prior consultation in 2011, 2012 and 2015). Hence, coca-growing peasants holding indi- vidual land titles should only be invited to public consultations. Nevertheless, probably due to its close relations with the Bolivian government, the Federation Mamoré Bulo Bulo has participated in two (more comprehensive) prior consultation processes. One of these con- sultations, carried out in 2008, was about a gas pipeline built by the corporation Transredes (now called YPFB Transporte due to its nationalization), and the other process, concluded in May 2011, was about a seismic exploration by YPFB Chaco. The cocaleros from Entre Ríos have also participated in several public consultation processes – for example, about the drilling of gas wells and the construction of the urea and ammonia plant.

The prior consultation processes with peasants from Bulo Bulo were carried out without visible contention. The former director of the MHE team that organizes prior consultation told me about the consultation regarding the seismic exploration:

Because the population there totally supports the government, we told the consultation partici- pants that the project was from the company YPFB Chaco, which was nationalized, and that we recuperated our natural resources. [… ] in one week we were able to close the consultation process. They said that they must support comrade Evo; it was a political decision. (interview, Santa Cruz, January 2012)

The final agreement contains only a few general demands: that the company should comply with the existing norms, that the local population should be given preference regarding employment opportunities, and that the company should finance social investment pro- grammes (Ministerio de Hidrocarburos y Energía 2011). Similarly, the local socio-environ- mental monitors, who were elected by the municipal government and the cocalero federation to control the companies’ compliance with the EIA and the final consultation agreements, did not assume a critical position towards the extraction activities. One of the monitors, who at that time was part of the federation’s directorate, stated,

One of our main tasks was to avoid problems during the project’s execution. Sometimes there were problems with the workers or the local landholders, and then we had to intervene [… ] because they did not obey when it was just with the company. (interview, Entre Ríos, 29 October 2014)

The public consultations about the new gas wells and the industrial plant were also con- cluded without contestation. It was the president’s decision that the urea and ammonia plant be built in Bulo Bulo, despite technical arguments that it should be constructed close to the Brazilian borders. The former president of the Bulo Bulo civic committee,

664 Almut Schilling-Vacaflor

who helped the Bolivian government convince local landowners to sell their land for the construction of this mega-project, stated,

The government came several times. It told us that the plant will be built in Bulo Bulo and that we have to get the necessary land for it [… ] whether we wanted to or not, we had to get them the land. (interview, Bulo Bulo, 30 October 2014)

The government also used the nationalized hydrocarbon sector as an argument for limiting the payments made for the land required by the company, and even argued that the peasants should give them their lands for free, as they were for the public company (interview, Bulo Bulo, 30 October 2014). According to one member of the municipal government, who was involved in the public consultations in Entre Ríos,

the consultations complied with the norm. The documents were openly accessible, but there were no observations. It might be that this was partly because of a lack of knowledge, right? But anyhow, everything was normal, without any observation or criticism. (interview, Entre Ríos, 20 October 2014)

My interviews with the great majority of local peasants revealed that most of them did not have any knowledge about the public consultations or the EIAs related to these projects.

Constrained contestation due to loyalty to the government

While at first glance a harmonic pro-extraction alliance appears to have existed between local authorities, the coca-growing federation and the national government, when we narrow down the focus to the local peasants directly affected by the resource projects, the story becomes more complicated. In my dozens of interviews with persons living or working close to extraction activities in Bulo Bulo, the interviewees expressed many grie- vances. A great majority of peasants told me about their discontent regarding the negative socio-environmental impacts of hydrocarbon activities and the shortcomings in the implementation of mitigation measures. Likewise, one municipal authority explained,

When they executed the seismic exploration here, there was a lot of criticism. Many people remarked that their territories had been sinking, that their houses had developed fissures and that they had not received any benefits. But nobody wanted to make a formal complaint, because that would have been seen as obstructing our president’s process of change. (interview, Entre Ríos, 20 October 2014)

The coca-growing federation even adopted an appeasing role in cases where local coca- growing unions proposed the organization of collective action. According to one leader of the federation,

we have an agreement with the government that the construction of the urea and ammonia plant will be finished on a specific date. Just a few days ago some comrades wanted to block its con- struction [because of labour and environmental grievances], but we told them that they could not block it [… ]. For political reasons we do not want to harm the company. (interview, Entre Ríos, 4 October 2014)

Before Morales became president and nationalized the gas sector, protest activities, or at least the threat of blockades against the (then private and transnational) extraction compa- nies, were quite common. The current reluctance to express grievances has to do with the community members’, the coca-growing unions’ and the municipal government’s support of Morales’s government and, more generally, of the neo-extractivist regime. This tendency

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of groups close to the government to avoid conflict has been reinforced by the state’s and public companies’ strategic use of the argument that the local communities have to support their president and the public company. One leader of a coca-growing union told me,

The problem is that companies like Repsol and Chaco now depend on YPFB, and YPFB belongs to all Bolivians, as they always tell us. That limits our possibilities for complaint, because they say ‘It belongs to you, to the state, and you should not be against the state’. This was the answer that I got from YPFB Chaco when I remarked that the company should comply with its promise to improve local roads. (interview, Bulo Bulo, 4 November 2014)

Limiting participation and contention in indigenous Guaraní communities

The great majority of hydrocarbon projects in Bolivia are located in the Chaco area, where, it is estimated, approximately 85 percent of the country’s gas reserves are concentrated (Hinojosa 2012, 31). Today, the Guaraní represent approximately 25 percent of the Chaco region’s 300,000 inhabitants (Gustafson 2013, 228). Their communities are spread over the depart- ments of Chuquisaca, Santa Cruz and Tarija. The Guaraní were among the main founders of the CIDOB, which has represented Bolivia’s indigenous lowland peoples since 1982. In 1987 they founded their own national organization, the APG, which represents the Guaraní from all three departments and all – currently 28 – capitanías. These indigenous organizations were established in response to new opportunities opened up by flourishing international development projects for indigenous people, increasing threats related to the expansion of agro-industrial businesses and gas projects, and the movement of highland immigrants into territories claimed by the Guaraní (see Postero 2007). Since its founding, the APG has mainly focused on the consolidation of indigenous collective territories (TCOs), including the Guaraní’s control over natural resources, and on the establishment of self-governed indi- genous autonomies. As in many other places worldwide, collective land tenure claims have been a measure of self-protection against emerging markets (see Li 2010). Even before Evo Morales was elected president and before indigenous rights were amply recognized in dom- estic legislation, the Guaraní mobilized against extraction projects and negotiated directly with extraction companies on several occasions (see Anthias 2012; Hindery 2013).

The Guaraní mainly live from subsistence activities coupled with temporary stints as migrant workers or in nearby agribusiness activities (Albó 2012). In addition, particularly since the 1990s, different types of projects by non-governmental organizations and devel- opment cooperation agencies as well as compensation from hydrocarbon companies have figured among the main sources of income for Guaraní communities (Postero 2007). Due to their long-standing experience with gas activities in their territories and their well-trained leaders and advisors, the Guaraní have been able to successfully press for the inclusion of indigenous rights into domestic legislation. They managed to inscribe their rights to prior consultation and compensation into the Hydrocarbon Law of 2005 and Decree 29033. The Guaraní also supported the nationalization process, and one of their important demands was that it should be the state and not the interested company that organizes con- sultation processes. Without a doubt, the Guaraní are the specialists on prior consultation in Bolivia. Of the 40 prior consultation processes concluded between 2007 and 2013, 30 were carried out with the Guaraní.7

7These data were provided by the MHE. The author is in possession of the primary sources (acts, letters, final agreements) from approximately 32 of these cases. Summaries of these cases will be pro- vided soon on the author’s open-access database: www.consultayconflicto.org.

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The majority of Guaraní people have voted for the MAS party in national, departmental and municipal elections, but their support for the party has been lower than that in the Chapare. In the indigenous electoral districts in Santa Cruz and Tarija, where the Guaraní people are the largest group, support for MAS was 66.3 percent and 81.7 percent, respectively, in the 2014 presidential elections. Most Guaraní representatives who have managed to be elected to the Constituent Assembly or to the national, departmen- tal and municipal governments over the past few years have been candidates of the MAS party. In contrast to the cocaleros, however, many Guaraní leaders have formed strategic alliances with other political parties in order to be elected. In principle, the APG aims to maintain its autonomy from any political party, and this stipulation is even part of many Guaraní zones’ statutes.

For comparative purposes, I focus in the following on the experiences of the Guaraní capitanía Takovo Mora. This capitanía is located in the department of Santa Cruz and eight prior consultation processes have been concluded with it. This capitanía has also headed two massive mobilizations in recent years, with its members raising claims regard- ing the absence of prior consultation about new gas projects that, as the protesters argued, affected their territories. Land ownership has also been a contentious issue. In 1996 Takovo Mora proclaimed its collective ownership of 272,451 hectares, but as of May 2013 only 8514 hectares had been granted to it. Due to the state’s focus on formal land rights and not on the territories claimed by indigenous people, several gas projects that affect the capi- tanía have not been subject to consultation.

Prior consultation in Takovo Mora: state-led or company-led?

I had the opportunity to participate in one prior consultation with Takovo Mora, which centred on the construction of a gas pipeline by YPFB Transporte, in November 2013. The consultation process was carried out late, after the first tracts of the pipeline had already been constructed and the machines and employees necessary to carry out the activity had been contracted. Hence, this consultation was not ‘prior’ when measured against standards of international law. In an informal talk with a representative from YPFB Transporte, he explained that consultations were done in this way because it was faster and easier to negotiate with local communities after the first tracts of a pipeline were already constructed (minutes of meeting, Santa Cruz, 17 November 2014). The pressure to quickly achieve an agreement in the framework of the consultation was evident in all meetings between the MHE and Takovo Mora’s assembly. The ministry staff repeated several times that the process should advance quickly as the pipeline was to be constructed by the public company and that this would be important for fostering the nation’s development (field notes, Takovo Mora, 17 November 2013). Whenever the process became more conflictual, the MHE staff heading the consultation reminded the par- ticipants that the government could just terminate the consultation process at this stage and go ahead without concluding it.

The consultation participants said that the process was not inclusive and comprehensive enough. They had originally asked for the inclusion of more participants and for more than one day to assess the expected impacts of the pipeline in situ. In response to this criticism, the MHE staff explained that consultations must not be too expensive and time-consuming, because the hydrocarbon activities were in the country’s public interest and because the budget for the consultation was provided by the public company (field notes). The MHE staffwere also reluctant to recognize the negative long-term impacts that couldnot be remedied,

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which were identified by the participants.8 Eventually, in order to keep the process going so that the final agreement could be signed without delay, the MHE agreed to incorporate a list of 43 such negative long-term impacts into the document. However, the corporation ultimately recognized the existence of only three long-term impacts that could not be remedied and thus qualified for compensation payments. In addition to the recognition of negative socio- environmental impacts that must be compensated by the operating company, Guaraní commu- nities have often managed to introduce the financing of local socio-environmental monitors and additional mitigation measures into final consultation agreements in order to prevent or reduce future adverse impacts. Overall, however, prior consultation processes in Bolivia have had little effect on the execution of extractive projects (see Flemmer and Schilling- Vacaflor 2016).

In several cases, final consultation agreements, which should be obligatory for the operat- ing corporations, have been challenged and even rejected by the extraction companies (inter- view with representative from MHE, La Paz, 28 January 2012). The former director of the MHE team responsible for carrying out prior consultation told me of an illustrative example from the consultation about a large seismic exploration in the Iñao block, which is operated by YPFB Petroandina SAM, a consortium of the Bolivian and Venezuelan public companies. The communities consulted identified negative long-term impacts related to the planned activi- ties in thefinal consultation agreements, which theywanted the operating company to compen- sate them for. But in the negotiations about the concrete amount of compensation, the state company denied that its project would cause such serious impacts and its staff even went to the vice president to argue their point of view. The government supported the company’s pos- ition. The former state authority I interviewed commented bitterly, ‘I saw that there was not even a minimum of willingness, not even from the superior spheres of the state, to oblige a state company to comply with Bolivian laws’ (interview, Santa Cruz, 15 January 2012).

The above-mentioned observations not only evince the blurred lines between the Boli- vian state and the public hydrocarbon corporation, they also indicate that the power asym- metries between them have favoured the company. Despite the fact that the MHE is formally entitled to carry out consultations, the public corporation has considerably influ- enced such processes. It is particularly problematic that the MHE has often not been able to oblige the company to comply with the final consultation agreement.

Limiting contestation through a mixture of hard and soft power

While collective action against hydrocarbon projects has been almost absent in coca- growing communities, the Guaraní have organized several blockades and marches over the past few years to demand compliance regarding their right to prior consultation. The responses from the state to these contentious performances have taken the following forms: negative media campaigns against the protest leaders, repression by security forces, non-response, and the signing of agreements that have often been disregarded after- wards. The state representatives have justified the repression of Guaraní mobilizations by declaring the necessity of enhancing the state’s neo-extractivist development model. The

8Such disputes about the severity of socio-environmental impacts in terms of duration and remediation have been part of almost all prior consultation processes carried out in Bolivia. While local popu- lations have argued that hydrocarbon-extraction activities, such as deforestation, would irreparably affect their flora, fauna, soils and water, the corporations have framed the adverse impacts of their activities as temporary and remediable.

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phenomenon of partisanship on the part of Guaraní leaders leading to a taming of dissent has also been observed in Guaraní areas.

Conflicts between the state and Takovo Mora escalated when a huge gas plant was to be constructed by YPFB, without consultation, on lands claimed by the capitanía. In this case, the MHE initiated a consultation process on 15 July 2011, but then ended the ongoing process following the declaration of the area in question as state land.9 Only after several weeks of protests by Takovo Mora was the consultation reactivated, and the capitanía ulti- mately received approx. USD 1 million in compensation payments from the company. While at first glance this seems to represent a success for Takovo Mora, the state response to the mobilization had negative consequences for the indigenous leaders who had headed the protest, and exacerbated internal divisions within the APG. During and after the con- flicts between the state and the protesters (between January and April 2012), Bolivia’s executive branch and the public company YPFB conducted a negative media campaign tar- geting the capitanía and its leaders. For example, in a press conference, Vice Minister for the Coordination with Social Movements César Navarro stated, ‘There must not be a block- ade of state-led investment and activity, because this activity is [… ] for the benefit of all Bolivians’ (newspaper article ‘Gobierno: Indígenas de Tacobo Mora bloquean’, 2012a). The negative public propaganda hit many Guaraní people hard. One Takovo Mora advisor reflected,

We are in a very difficult situation because when we oppose any gas activity, we oppose a model that supposedly defends the indigenous people, or even a government of the indigenous people. Therefore, the indigenous communities are reluctant to struggle with the government. They do not want to be discredited. (interview, Santa Cruz, 28 November 2013)

The conflict, moreover, provoked internal divisions between Takovo Mora’s leaders and the national APG. The president of the latter group, Faustino Flores, known to be a sup- porter of the MAS government, publicly distanced himself from the protests, and in return the government promised to deliver more social projects to Guaraní communities (newspaper article ‘Pueblo guaraní ratifica apoyo al cambio’, 2012b). Several of my interview partners argued that the hesitation of the former APG president to engage in open conflicts was also due to employment opportunities offered by the MAS party.

In addition to organizing collective action, the capitanía Takovo Mora also submitted several complaints to the Ministry of Environment and Water because of alleged violations of the final consultation agreements and EIAs. However, to the community members’ discon- tent, these complaints remained unanswered. One indigenous leader remarked with frustration,

There is no place to complain. When we have complained, the responsible state authorities have come to make an inspection, but that’s it; nothing else happens. One of the problems is that the companies are public. Sometimes when we want to criticize them, they even say to us, ‘But if the company belongs to you, how can you be against it?’ (interview, Yateirenda, 13 November 2014)

The abandonment of promises regarding a participatory and environmentally friendly neo-extractivism

The massive use of discrediting discourses against confrontational indigenous leaders on the part of the Bolivian government and the public company YPFB, coupled with recent

9This decision was made by the Ministry of Rural Development in its Supreme Resolution 05788.

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retrogressive legal reforms concerning indigenous, participatory and environmental rights, could pave the way for more aggressive state practices towards dissenting local groups affected by extraction projects. In the context of decreasing world market prices for primary resources such as oil and gas, it is becoming ever clearer that Bolivia’s government has abandoned its earlier ideal of establishing a progressive form of neo-extractivism that honours its previous commitments to indigenous rights and environmental protection.

On 26 November 2014, President Morales promulgated SD 2195, which established upper limits for compensation payments for the negative impacts of hydrocarbon activities on the indigenous or peasant inhabitants of collective lands. Depending on the project type, local populations must not receive more than 0.3 to 1.5 percent of the total project cost. SD 2298 of 18 March 2015 reduces the maximum time frame for a prior consultation process to 45 days. This is a very short amount of time for local populations to be informed about the complex impacts of planned extraction projects, to deliberate internally about these activi- ties and to negotiate with the MHE about any modifications to the planned project. The decree also establishes that the MHE is entitled to take unilateral decisions if the indigenous organizations involved in any given consultation process do not provide a response quickly enough or are unwilling to commit to an agreement. To prevent contention from emerging during the execution of any extraction project, SD 2298 states that ‘after the environmental license is obtained, the operating company will develop its activities without interruption, because of the public interest and utility of hydrocarbon projects, which enjoy the protec- tion of the plurinational state of Bolivia’ and that ‘the MHE will supervise the good devel- opment of consultation processes, thereby guaranteeing the viability of hydrocarbon projects’ (additional article 2 of SD 2298, at: http://www.lexivox.org/norms/BO-DS- N2298.xhtml). This decree indicates that from the state’s perspective, and in contrast to international law, the main objective of prior consultation is not the protection of indigen- ous rights, but rather the viability of extraction activities. These restrictions on the rights to prior consultation and compensation have been motivated by the widespread perception within the Bolivian state that consultation processes would be an obstacle to development. In this sense, President Evo Morales argued,

It is not possible for us to lose so much time in the so-called consultations; this is a great weak- ness of our state and our people, and we have now modified some norms with the sole objective of accelerating investments and obtaining more resources to benefit the Bolivian people. (news- paper article ‘Evo dice que en consulta se pierde mucho tiempo’, 2015)

The APG published several statements rejecting these new decrees and even submitted two legal claims to the country’s Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal. In August 2015, the capitanía Takovo Mora again protested the building of four gas wells without prior consul- tation. Takovo Mora’s leaders invited state ministries to engage in dialogue with them about this problem three times, but they did not receive any response (minutes from Takovo Mora’s assembly meeting, 12 November 2015). Hence, the capitanía, supported by a decision made by the national assembly of the APG, blocked the international road from Santa Cruz to Argentina in order to attract attention to their claim. After nine days, the police violently repressed the protests; they destroyed local houses, wounded community members, put sand into the local water tanks, threw gas cartridges into the mobilized masses and, finally, arrested almost 30 community members (Defensoría del Pueblo 2016b). A few weeks after this violent repression, Bolivia’s vice president visited the area’s Guaraní capitanías, among them Takovo Mora, to inaugurate state-sponsored social projects. This exacerbated divisions within Takovo Mora’s leadership, and a new

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pro-MAS leadership was established. Subsequently, it took the capitanía several weeks of internal crisis to reach the decision not to recognize the parallel leaderships and to agree upon the election of a new directorate (interview with Takovo Mora’s adviser, Santa Cruz, 16 November 2015).

What mechanisms have constrained participation and contestation?

The case studies presented above reveal how both community participation and contesta- tion have been constrained on the ground in neo-extractivist Bolivia: Discursive strategies that present the country and its ‘process of change’ as intrinsically connected to neo-extra- ctivism and that publically delegitimize any critics of this model have worked powerfully together with legal strategies that trim indigenous participatory rights, and with the use of market mechanisms such as the payment of compensation and the financing of social pol- icies. In addition, repression has been used against visible protests from indigenous lowland movements in a few instances. With the exception of partisanship, the strategies identified have been more pronounced in the Guaraní communities, where the local populations’ dissent against current state practices of extraction has been stronger.

The power relations within Bolivia’s neo-extractivist regime have clearly worked against the effective participation of local communities. Local populations have been invited into tightly controlled state-company spaces in which dissent is not tolerated. In addition, any countervailing power that could have enhanced the position of indigenous protesters has been weak or even non-existent in Bolivia, especially in the second and third legislatures during President Morales’ time in office. In these years, the MAS party has held a two-thirds majority within the legislative assembly, has selected all ministers and has pre-selected the highest tribunals’ judges. Hence, a central problem that has limited the bargaining power of indigenous communities has been the lack of horizontal accountability to control and sanction the state. In light of this, it is worth recalling Fung and Wright’s (2003, 263–64) finding that

where countervailing power is weak or nonexistent, the rules of collaboration are likely to favour entrenched, previously organized or concentrated interests [… ]. [C]collaboration, under these conditions is much more likely to become top-down collaborative governance involving experts and powerful interests, even if its impulse originated from bottom-up initiatives.

My case studies, moreover, point to the blurry boundaries between the state and the public hydrocarbon company. The contestations between the Guaraní and the Bolivian state minis- tries in particular suggest that it has been especially difficult for the responsible ministries to control the public company and that the latter has tended, in fact, to be in a dominant position. Luong and Weinthal’s (2010) research has pointed, more generally, to similar problems in other countries where resource extraction lies largely in public hands – namely, that those states have failed to appropriately supervise, control and sanction public companies.

The increased state-led social and infrastructure projects that have been constructed even in remote rural areas under President Morales have been crucial in legitimating the expansion of extraction projects. In negotiations with local communities, both the state and public company’s staff have continually reminded the local populations that they should support the hydrocarbon projects, as they are being carried out by public companies for the benefit of all Bolivians. Kothari (2001, 143) has argued that participatory processes designed to include the previously excluded often result in ‘buying them in’ through the promise of development assistance, in ways that disempowered them to challenge the

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prevailing hierarchies and inequalities in society. Consultation processes in neo-extractivist Bolivia have certainly also in many cases fulfilled the function of enlisting local commu- nities in extraction projects and reproducing the dominant neo-extractivist ideology. Gov- ernmental representatives have also relied on the close link that has been established between the country’s development and neo-extractivism to justify the limitation of parti- cipatory rights and to tame community dissent through legal reforms restricting indigenous rights, discrediting media campaigns against protesters and coercive measures against mobilizations. These latter measures have been used especially in relation to Guaraní com- munities, where the state’s claim to singular authority and power regarding subsoil resources has been more contested. Strategies of co-optation and repression (or ‘divide and conquer’ strategies), as applied by the Bolivian state towards the Guaraní and other indigenous lowland peoples, have severely weakened the indigenous organizations of Bolivia and have contributed to exacerbating internal conflicts and divisions. Nevertheless, despite the state’s efforts to exercise diverse forms of soft and hard power, Guaraní con- testation has not been silenced completely. Within emerging contestations the Guaraní have struggled for their own objectives – namely, control over their territories, the conso- lidation of their self-governing entities, and to obtain a greater share of the pie. Importantly, they have also pointed out the weaknesses of Bolivia’s neo-extractivist model, which has not been reconcilable with the promises of a participatory plurinational state and environ- mental protection.

The paper also indicates that powerful links have been established between support for the MAS’s process of change and pro-extraction attitudes, in the sense that supporting the MAS party has gone hand in hand with supporting the extraction projects. In this context, the participatory rights of affected communities have been viewed by representatives from the state and extraction companies as obsolete and have in practice often been absent or limited to a formality. Along these lines, and expressing a widespread opinion within the Bolivian state and public corporations, a representative from the Gas Trans Bolivia (GTB) company reflected,

Prior consultation is part of the old model, when the oil companies were in private hands. Now the companies belong to the state, to the indigenous people. Hence, the former model of prior consultation, wherein local populations had to struggle against foreign interests, has collapsed. [… ] Now the company works for the public good, fostering national and regional develop- ment. (interview, Santa Cruz, 18 November 2014)

Partisanship – that is, the identification with and the supporting of the governmental MAS party – has especially inhibited the visible expression of dissent against extraction activities in the coca-growing communities. The leaders of the coca-growing federation have even played an important role in paving the way for the ruling party’s extraction projects and in repressing local grievances. This insight confirms Cunill Grau’s (2000, 269–327) argu- ment that the efficacy of social control is directly dependent on the independence and the autonomy that societal actors maintain with respect to state actors. Maintaining autonomy has been a very difficult task for civil society organizations, among them indigenous organ- izations and peasant unions, in a state with a ruling party that has claimed to represent and support Bolivia’s social movements, despite many state practices that have limited indigen- ous rights. Similarly, Heaney and Rojas (2011) have discussed how the election of Presi- dent Barack Obama demobilized the US anti-war movement and have concluded that despite Obama’s pro-war decisions, the activists’ identification with the Democratic Party and many of Obama’s ideals led numerous members to leave the movement. In Bolivia, one negative effect of the existing equivalency between support for the government

672 Almut Schilling-Vacaflor

and the adoption of a supportive attitude towards extraction has been the enormous diffi- culty faced by local populations in criticizing poor company or state behaviour such as the violation of rights or non-compliance with consultation agreements.

Conclusions

This contribution has discussed how Bolivia’s government and extraction corporations have strategically relied on the country’s neo-extractivist regime in order to limit the par- ticipation and dissent of local communities affected by hydrocarbon activities. It has also analysed the limitations of public and prior consultation processes, which have been carried out by the MHE since 2007 in indigenous and peasant communities.

Due to the very close relationships between the coca-growing communities in Bolivia’s Chapare and the current government, we could expect consultation processes carried out with these communities to be more comprehensive and influential than similar processes with other indigenous or peasant populations. Surprisingly, the study finds that the contrary has actually been the case. The consultations with coca-growing peasants have been shorter and less comprehensive and have concluded with weaker agreements than those negotiated with Guaraní communities. My fieldwork in cocalero communities in the Chapare has also brought other interesting dynamics to the fore – namely, that local grievances and timid efforts to organize collective action exist on the ground but are suppressed primarily with the argument that peasants have to be loyal to ‘their’ government. Similarly, the case study on the Guaraní communities from Takovo Mora shows that divergent visions and positions towards the government and towards extraction coexist within local popu- lations, leading to internal divisions and conflicts. The consultations in Guaraní commu- nities have been more contentious, and the government has used a mix of discursive, legislative, repressive and market mechanisms to tame contention. Among the main issues of contention have been the consultation procedures (time, budget, inclusiveness), criticism of the distributed information as biased and incomplete, and disagreements on the severity of expected impacts and concerning the question of ‘just’ compensation pay- ments for damages. Under the guise of ‘public interest’, projects have been pushed through the consultation processes, with biased and incomplete pro-extraction information, to bring them into operation quickly. Ultimately, consultation processes have resulted in agreements that have usually not significantly changed the project’s design or execution. Furthermore, the final consultation agreements have often been disregarded by the operat- ing companies during the project’s execution. There is no independent agency that oversees the credibility of consultation processes, nor is there effective supervision of the agreements reached with local populations.

The paper also reveals the blurred lines between the state ministries and the public extraction company and the considerable influence that the state company – despite the fact that it does not formally participate in the consultations – de facto exercises in shaping the processes and outcomes of prior consultation. Because the nationalized corpor- ations and the plurinational state have been framed in the public discourse as belonging to ‘all Bolivians’ – as a strategic means of taming community dissent – the right to prior con- sultation has increasingly been called into question and viewed as obsolete by state decision makers and corporate representatives alike.

Finally, the paper has also discussed recent retrogressive legal reforms which demon- strate that the Bolivian government has definitely abandoned its original aspiration of estab- lishing ‘progressive neo-extractivism’ with regard to indigenous rights and environmental protection. The social and environmental safeguards initially designed to protect and defend

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the rights of indigenous peoples and peasant communities have effectively turned out to be empty vessels that leave affected local populations vulnerable to top-down development planning and the adverse impacts of extraction projects. The MAS’s appropriation of his- torical indigenous struggles and the legal recognition of indigenous rights have increasingly been at odds with the dominant neo-extractivist model. Neo-extractivism has been trimmed to its core function of revenue creation for the financing of state-led policies, while its orig- inal aspirations to be a motor for participatory and pluralist transformation have been abandoned.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Riccarda Flemmer, Bettina Schorr and my colleagues from the GIGA research team ‘Identities, ideology and conflict’ and the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Peasant Studies for their useful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF) (Project: ‘Prior consultation, participation and conflict transformation. A comparative study of resource extraction in Bolivia and Peru’) and the Norwegian Research Council (Project: ‘Extracting justice?’).

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Dr Almut Schilling-Vacaflor is a sociologist and anthropologist, and is currently a research fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA). Her central research interests are indigenous peoples, law and society, participation and resource governance in Andean countries. Schilling- Vacaflor headed the research project ‘Consultation, participation and conflict transformation in Bolivia’s and Peru’s resource governance’ (German Foundation for Peace Research, 2013–2015) and is currently a principal investigator in the research project ‘Extracting justice?’ (Research Council of Norway, 2015–2017). Email: [email protected]

676 Almut Schilling-Vacaflor

  • Abstract
  • (Neo-)extractivist transformations: limiting participation and taming dissent
  • Nationalization and the regulation of participation in Bolivia’s hydrocarbon sector
  • Limited participation and dissent due to partisanship in coca-growing communities
    • Public consultation and prior consultation: formalities in Bulo Bulo
    • Constrained contestation due to loyalty to the government
  • Limiting participation and contention in indigenous Guaraní communities
    • Prior consultation in Takovo Mora: state-led or company-led?
    • Limiting contestation through a mixture of hard and soft power
    • The abandonment of promises regarding a participatory and environmentally friendly neo-extractivism
  • What mechanisms have constrained participation and contestation?
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Disclosure statement
  • References