Roots of resistance to urban water privatization in Bolivia: The "new working class," the crisis of neoliberalism, and public services

International Labor and Working-Class History

Volumn 71, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 8-28

  Spronk, Susan ^a  

^a YORK UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 35148845983     PISSN: 01475479     EISSN: 14716445     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0147547907000312     Document Type: Review

References (68)

1. This article is based upon personal interviews and participant observation conducted in Bolivia between July 2004 and August 2005. The research was funded by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the International Development Research Centre. The author would like to thank Étienne Cantin, David Camfleld, Jennifer Klein, Liisa North, Jeffery R. Webber, and Peter Winn for comments. All translations from Spanish are by the author.
2. Cited in Nancy Postero, "Neoliberal Restructuring in Bolivia," A Contracorriente 2 (2005): 133.
3. Álvaro García Linera, "The Multitude," in Cochabambat Water War in Bolivia, ed. Oscar Olivera and Tom. Lewis (Cambridge, MA, 2004), 73.
4. James Dunkerley, "The Crisis of Bolivian Radicalism," in The Latin American Left: From the Fall of Allende to Perestroika, eds. Barry Carr and Steve Elmer (London, 1993), 121-138;
5. Henry Veltmeyer and Juan Tellez, "The State and Participatory Development in Bolivia," in Transcending Neoliberalism: Community-Based Development in Latin America, ed. Henry Veltmeyer and Anthony O'Malley (Bloomfleld, CT, 2001), 67-94.
6. Cited in Harry Sanabria, "Consolidating States, Restructuring Economies, and Confronting Workers and Peasants: The Antinomies of Bolivian Neoliberalism," Comparative Studies in Society and History 41 (1999): 535-562.
7. Linda Farthing, "The New Underground," NACLA Report on the Americas 25 (1991): 18-23;
8. Merilee Grindle, "Shadowing the Past? Policy Reform in Bolivia, 1985-2002," in Proclaiming Revolution: Bolivia in Comparative Perspective, ed. Merilee Grindle and Pilar Domingo (Cambridge, MA, 2003), 318-344;
9. Luis Carlos Jemio and Maria del. Carmen. Choque, Employment-Poverty Linkages and Policies: The Case of Bolivia (Geneva, 2003), 6.
10. On the privatization program and the reaction in the press, see Benjamin Kohl, "Privatization Bolivian. Style: A Cautionary Tale," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28 (2004): 893-908;
11. Roberto Fernández Terán, FMI, Banco Mundial y Estado neocolonial: poder supranacional en Bolivia (La Paz, Bolivia, 2003).
12. Kohl, "Privatization Bolivian Style," 899-904.
13. On the COB and its demise, see Jorge Lazarte, Movimiento obrero y procesos políticos en Bolivia (Historia de la COB 1952-1987) (La Paz, Bolivia, 1989);
14. Carlos Arze, Crisis del sindicalismo boliviano: consideraciones sobre sus determinantes materiales y su ideología (La Paz, Bolivia, 2000).
15. See Fausto Reinaga's La revolución india (La Paz, Bolivia, 1969) for an influential work on the "Indian question" from an indigenista perspective.
16. Statistics are from Juan M. Arbona and Ben. Kohl, "City profile-La Paz-El Alto," Cities 21 (2004), 255-265;
17. Mariana Butrón Oporto and Jorge Miguel V. Rosales, La Población en el Municipio Cercado de Cochabamba (Cochabamba, Bolivia, 2003).
18. Robert Albro, "The Water is Ours, Carajoh Deep Citizenship in Bolivia's Water War," in Social Movements: A Reader, ed. June C. Nash (New York, 2005), 249-271;
19. Lesley Gill, Teetering on the Rim.: Global Restructuring, Daily Life, and the Armed Retreat of the Bolivian State (New York, 2000).
20. Herbert S. Klein, A. Concise History of Bolivia (Cambridge, 2003), 1-23.
21. Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, "Liberal Democracy and Ayllu Democracy: The Case of the Northern Potosí Bolivia," Journal of Development Studies 26 (1990): 105.
22. Xavier Albo, "El Retorno del Indio," Revista Andina 2 (1991): 299-345;
23. Deborah J. Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge (Cambridge, 2005);
24. Alvaro García Linera, "El descencuentro de dos razones revolucionarias: Indianismo y marxismo," Barataria, 1 (2005): 4-14.
25. The first time that a question relating to indigenous identity was asked on the official census was in 1976 when respondents were asked to specify their "maternal tongue." The 2001 census included a question, specifically about indigenous identity.
26. On the growth of the informal sector in Bolivia, see Lourdes Benería, "Shifting the Risk: New Employment Patterns, Informalization, and Women's Work," International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 15 (2001): 27-53;
27. Arze and Kruse, "The Consequences of Neoliberal Reform."
28. For the purposes of this paper, the "working class" is defined broadly as per the above quote in Olivera and Lewis, Cochabamba, 157.
29. On the structural conditions that inhibit workplace organization in contexts such as Bolivia and Peru, see Kenneth. M. Roberts, Deepening Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru (Stanford, CA, 1998), 67-73.
30. Olivera and Lewis, Cochabamba, 107.
31. Olivera and Lewis, Cochabamba, 117-28.
32. Gay Seidman describes such union, strategies as "social, movement unionism" in Manufacturing Militance: Workers' Movements in Brazil and South Africa (Berkeley, 1994).
33. The government promised to cancel the contract but took more than a year to follow through with the promise. Nonetheless, the "Water War" in El Alto was effective in the sense that the government reacted quickly to meet social movement demands.
34. Emanuele Lobina, "Cochabamba-water war," Focus (PSI Journal) 7 (2000);
35. Carlos Crespo Flores, "Water Privatization Policies and Conflicts in Bolivia-The Water War in Cochabamba (1999-2000)" (Ph.D. diss., Oxford Brookes University, 2002), 208.
36. Author interview with Abrahan Grandydier, Vinto, Bolivia, July 14, 2006.
37. Carlos Crespo Flores, La guerra de los pozos (Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1999).
38. Carlos Crespo Flores, Omar Fernández Quiroga, and Carmen Peredo, Los Regantes de Cochabamba en ta Guerra del Agua (Cochabamba, Bolivia, 2004), 70.
39. The following account draws mostly from Olivera and Lewis, Cochabamba, 33-49.
40. Precensia, "Tarifas de agua subirán hasta en un 175 percent en Cochabamba," in 30 Días de Noticias, ed. CEDIB (La Paz, Bolivia, 1999), 25.
41. Olivera and Lewis, Cochabamba, 37.
42. Olivera and Lewis, Cochabamba, 45.
43. Nina Laurie, "Establishing Development Orthodoxy: Negotiating Masculinities in the Water Sector," Development and Change 36 (2005): 536.
44. See inter alia Rocio Bustamente, Elizabeth Peredo, and Maria Esther Udaeta, "Women in the 'Water War' in the Cochabamba Valleys," in Opposing Currents: The Politics of Water and Gender in Latin America, eds. Vivienne Bennett, Sonia Dávila-Poblete and María Nieves Rico (Pittsburgh, 2005), 72-90;
45. Robert Albro "The Water is Ours, Carajo!"
46. Author interview with René Cardona, Cochabamba, Bolivia, July 5, 2005.
47. Author interview with. Abel Mamani, El Alto, Bolivia, July 19, 2005.
48. Nancy Postero, "Indigenous Responses to Neoliberalism," PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 28 (2005): 73-92;
49. Susan Spronk and Jeffery R. Webber "Struggles against Accumulation by Dispossession in Bolivia: The Political Economy of Natural Resource Contention," Latin American Perspectives 34 (2007): 31-47.
50. Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, "Bolivia: Protests Oust Water Company," Weekly News Update #781, January 16, 2005;
51. "El Alto otra vez de pie," Bolpress, January 13, 2005.
52. Carlos Crespo Flores, La concesión de La Paz a tos cinco años; elementos para una evaluación. 2001. http://www.aguabol. ivia.org
53. Author interview with Jhonny B. Vasquez, La Paz, Bolivia, April. 21, 2005.
54. Carlos Crespo Flores, La concesión de La Paz.
55. "Bolivia perdería juicio por Aguas del Tunari," Los Tiempos November 20.
56. Luis Sánchez Gómez, "Directing SEMAPA: An Interview with Luis Sánchez-Gómez," in Cochabamba, ed. Olivera and Lewis, 87-94.
57. Luis Sánchez Gómez and Philipp Terhorst, "Cochabamba, Bolivia: Public-Collective Partnership after the Water War," in Reclaiming Public Water-Achievements, Struggles, and Visions from Around the World, ed. Belén Balanyá, et al. (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2005), 121-130.
58. Sánchez Gómez and Terhorst, "Public-Collective Partnership."
59. Crespo Flores, "Water Privatization," 112.
60. For reasons of confidentiality, these individuals remain unnamed.
61. "Los trabajadores de Semapa paran rechazando un despido." Opinión September 8, 2005.
62. When the interview was conducted, 3000 bolivianos was about US $375 and 2200 about US $275. Author interview with Oscar Olivera, Cochabamba, Bolivia, September 28, 2004.
63. See Olivera and Lewis, Cochabamba, 7, 118-25.
64. "Concejo retira cupo laboral del directorio de Semapa." Los Tiempos October 6, 2005;
65. "Semapa despide a 164 trabajadores pero promete comprar sus servicios." Opinión October 20, 2005.
66. Olivera and Lewis, Cochabamba, 156-7.
67. "El Gobierno se compromete a condonar deudas de Semapa." Los Tiempos February 4, 2006.
68. Julián Pérez, "Social Resistance in El Alto-Bolivia" in Reclaiming Public Water: Achievements, Struggles and Visions from Around the World, 2nd edition (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2006). http://www.tni.org/books/waterelalto.pdf