The Nexus between Social Movements and Transition : Insights from the Bolivian TIPNIS Conflict

Kurzfassung/Abstract

Since the democratization wave of the 1980s and 1990s, social movements have become relevant agents to influence social, political, economic, and cultural transitions in Latin America. Social movements are especially relevant in Bolivia, where indigenous social movement agents particularly enabled Evo Morales to become a protagonist of Latin America’s “Left Turn.” However, despite transformative policies and significant socio-political changes, extractivist economic models and authoritarian understandings of development continued to some extent and led to struggles and demands for reconfigurations. By focusing on the conflict over the Indigenous Territory and National Park Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS), threatened by a state-driven road construction project, this chapter highlights that different ideas and concepts of reconfigurations can be disputed in conflict situations by distinct social agents. The framings of local social movement agents can intensify internal divisions and organizational crises of social movements and decrease constructive conflict resolution possibilities.