Dissertation: “Indigenous Women, the State, and Policy Change: Evidence from Bolivia 1994-2012”. Chair: Dr. Jana Morgan; Committee Members: Dr. Yang Zhong, Dr. Ian Down, and Dr. Jon Shefner.
Indigenous women have historically been among the most marginalized groups in Latin America, experiencing neglect, discrimination, and violence based upon their ethnicity and gender. While their social movements in Bolivia have been sustained for nearly three decades, only in the past decade have we seen significant policy changes that address the special problems confronting indigenous women. Theories of social movements argue that the language of repertoires and framing processes (Benford and Snow 2000), resources of social movements (Foweraker 1991) along with structural opportunities (Tarrow 1983, Tilly 1978) constitute important causes of social movement emergence and success. The purpose of my dissertation is to determine how these theoretical components affect indigenous women’s ability to impact policy in their favor.
The first empirical chapter of my dissertation examines the ways in which organizations’ resources and state and international political opportunities have changed over the past twenty twenty-three years. Using field research from La Paz, Bolivia, government archive information, news reports, and secondary data, I investigate the changing state structures, organizational resources, repertoires of activism, and the international level of support for indigenous issues. More obviously ethnic and gendered claims are found to be present in the most recent round of social movement activities, and indigenous women now confront a profoundly more encouraging international and state structural environment.
The second empirical chapter of my dissertation examines several policies on which indigenous women mobilized in the 1990s. Land reform, bilingual education, domestic violence, and coca eradication policies were the subject of intense mobilization of indigenous women in this period, and I hypothesize that the successes and failures of their movements were determined by the language of their activism, state structural reforms, the neoliberal commitment of the government, and the international environment. I find that the impact of the independent variables outlined in the previous chapter are in fact, highly contextualized in their effects on indigenous women’s success in influencing policy. Ethnic claims housed in broader-reaching, non-ethnic language were often not adequately addressed by government policy. Specific gendered interests of indigenous women were sidelined and/or shallowly treated by mainstreaming “gender” policies of the government, resulting in mixed successes for their initial goals as indigenous women. Finally, the international environment is increasingly conducive to indigenous women’s claims during this period, although in the case of coca eradication, indigenous women’s claims were dismissed largely because of international conflict over narcotics trafficking.
My third empirical chapter addresses the degree to which indigenous women are able to influence policy in the early 2000s, leading up to the election of Evo Morales, and the time period after his election. In this chapter I revisit policies on land reform and violence against women, as well as new disputes over gas and food subsidies, and highway construction through the TIPNIS region of Bolivia. I find that significant changes in state structure and the international community are influential in affecting policy outcomes for indigenous women. I also find that indigenous women’s framing and claims have changed toward more ethnic and gender-specific claims, and that in many cases, they are able to get these more specific needs addressed by the government.
The fourth empirical chapter reviews the outcomes in policies in a more systematic manner, comparing the effects of frames and repertoires, resources, and structural opportunities on policy outcomes in policies discussed in earlier chapters. I find that in more recent years, the ability for indigenous women influence policy is a result of the more explicit and radical language of their activism, structural changes and increases in certain resources (particularly women’s leadership). While international factors are important, it is noted that they are mitigated through structural and organizational factors in their impact on indigenous women’s policy.
My findings contribute to the scholarship on social movements in that they identify particular components like state structure and organizational qualities of movements that influence the ability of social movements to succeed. In addition, my dissertation increases our knowledge of how social movements impact democracy in general by indicating that there are important contextual determinants of the ways in which social movements pursue and achieve their policy goals. The findings in this dissertation will hopefully provide important context for future studies that explore how marginalized people's social movements operate in developing countries.
The first empirical chapter of my dissertation examines the ways in which organizations’ resources and state and international political opportunities have changed over the past twenty twenty-three years. Using field research from La Paz, Bolivia, government archive information, news reports, and secondary data, I investigate the changing state structures, organizational resources, repertoires of activism, and the international level of support for indigenous issues. More obviously ethnic and gendered claims are found to be present in the most recent round of social movement activities, and indigenous women now confront a profoundly more encouraging international and state structural environment.
The second empirical chapter of my dissertation examines several policies on which indigenous women mobilized in the 1990s. Land reform, bilingual education, domestic violence, and coca eradication policies were the subject of intense mobilization of indigenous women in this period, and I hypothesize that the successes and failures of their movements were determined by the language of their activism, state structural reforms, the neoliberal commitment of the government, and the international environment. I find that the impact of the independent variables outlined in the previous chapter are in fact, highly contextualized in their effects on indigenous women’s success in influencing policy. Ethnic claims housed in broader-reaching, non-ethnic language were often not adequately addressed by government policy. Specific gendered interests of indigenous women were sidelined and/or shallowly treated by mainstreaming “gender” policies of the government, resulting in mixed successes for their initial goals as indigenous women. Finally, the international environment is increasingly conducive to indigenous women’s claims during this period, although in the case of coca eradication, indigenous women’s claims were dismissed largely because of international conflict over narcotics trafficking.
My third empirical chapter addresses the degree to which indigenous women are able to influence policy in the early 2000s, leading up to the election of Evo Morales, and the time period after his election. In this chapter I revisit policies on land reform and violence against women, as well as new disputes over gas and food subsidies, and highway construction through the TIPNIS region of Bolivia. I find that significant changes in state structure and the international community are influential in affecting policy outcomes for indigenous women. I also find that indigenous women’s framing and claims have changed toward more ethnic and gender-specific claims, and that in many cases, they are able to get these more specific needs addressed by the government.
The fourth empirical chapter reviews the outcomes in policies in a more systematic manner, comparing the effects of frames and repertoires, resources, and structural opportunities on policy outcomes in policies discussed in earlier chapters. I find that in more recent years, the ability for indigenous women influence policy is a result of the more explicit and radical language of their activism, structural changes and increases in certain resources (particularly women’s leadership). While international factors are important, it is noted that they are mitigated through structural and organizational factors in their impact on indigenous women’s policy.
My findings contribute to the scholarship on social movements in that they identify particular components like state structure and organizational qualities of movements that influence the ability of social movements to succeed. In addition, my dissertation increases our knowledge of how social movements impact democracy in general by indicating that there are important contextual determinants of the ways in which social movements pursue and achieve their policy goals. The findings in this dissertation will hopefully provide important context for future studies that explore how marginalized people's social movements operate in developing countries.