Populism,Hegemony, and the Politics of Natural Resource Extraction in Evo Morales's Bolivia |
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| Authors: | Diego Andreucci |
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| Affiliation: | Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain |
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| Abstract: | Is populism necessary to the articulation of counter‐hegemonic projects, as Laclau has long argued? Or is it, as ?i?ek maintains, a dangerous strategy, which inevitably degenerates into ideological mystification and reactionary postures? In this paper, I address this question by exploring the politics of discourse in Evo Morales's Bolivia. While, in the years leading to the election of Morales, a populist ideological strategy was key to challenging neoliberal forces, once the hegemony of the new power bloc was stabilised, indigenous demands for emancipatory socio‐environmental change began to be perceived as a threat to resource‐based accumulation. In this context, the populist signifiers that originated in indigenous‐popular struggles were used by the Morales government to legitimise repression of the indigenous movement. I argue, therefore, that ideological degeneration signals a problem not with populism per se, but rather with the class projects and shifting correlations of forces that underpin it in changing conjunctures. |
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| Keywords: | populism political ecology resource governance indigenous movements Bolivia Ernesto Laclau |
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