New Institutions of Indigenous Self-Governance in Bolivia: Between Autonomy and Self-Discipline

This article analyzes the novel legal and policy framework for indigenous autonomy in Bolivia since the approval of the 2009 Constitution, with a focus on the specific contents of the country’s first five approved statutes of indigenous autonomy. The statutes not only appear to internalize Bolivia’s restrictive framework for indigenous autonomy, but also reveal internal tensions between liberal principles and the supposed norms of indigenous self-governance, thereby challenging common assumptions of indigenous attitudes toward autonomy and highlighting the practical objectives of many local actors. Moreover, they indicate an acceptance by many local actors of the national redistributive-developmentalist economic program pursued by the Morales Government. While acknowledging important variations among the statutes, we observe a distinctively Bolivian hybrid model of indigenous autonomy, and posit that within that model, the approved statutes can be located on a continuum between poles of more communitarian...