عنوان

From national to pluri-national :

Number

TLets760972

Title Proper

From national to pluri-national :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Matthes, Britta Katharina

Title Proper by Another Author

rethinking the transformation of the Bolivian state through struggles for autonomy

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Dinerstein, Ana ; Copestake, James

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Bath

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2018

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

University of Bath

Text preceding or following the note

2018

Text of Note

Following a series of profound conflicts in the early 21st century, Bolivia became the world's first pluri-national state in 2009. The idea of the pluri-national state goes beyond the (uni-)national state; imagining a state that allows peoples' coexistence on an equal footing in a state that facilitates their autonomy (Garcés, 2011). However, recent research indicates that, in practice, the Bolivian state transformation is full of tensions. Based on a framework that brings together Open Marxism (Holloway and Picciotto, 1977; Clarke, 1991c; Bonefeld et al., 1992b, a; Bonefeld et al., 1995b) and the 'de-colonial option' (Quijano, 2006), I offer in-depth insights into contemporary Bolivia. In this, I understand the state as the political form of the social relations of capital, which is marked by modernity and its 'darker side' - coloniality (Mignolo, 2011). This thesis offers tools for studying how the state 'translates' indigenous- and non-indigenous struggles into policies, law and polity (Dinerstein, 2015) while also mediating external pressures. After embedding the pluri-national state in its historical context, covering the emergence and development of the Bolivian state form, I look in depth at the pluri-national state. In this, I unpack the multifaceted struggles for autonomy and find that when mediating autonomy into the pluri-national state, something essential to the definition of plurinationality is lost in translation. First, struggles for autonomy as peoples' self-determination and deepened decentralisation became subordinated to, yet not annihilated by the government's social-communitarian model that is advocated in the name of the pueblo's self-determination and ensures the state's material basis. Secondly, state-recognised autonomy comes at the cost of submission to a state which continuously operates pre-dominantly according to modern/colonial ideas of law, order and organisation. The contradictions found in the pluri-national autonomy regime and the state are inherent in it and hence, cannot be resolved through reform.

Autonomy

Decentralisation

Self-determination

State transformation

Matthes, Britta Katharina

Copestake, James

Dinerstein, Ana

University of Bath

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y