Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T21:52:39.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scaling Democracy: Participation and Resource Extraction in Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2017

Thea N. Riofrancos
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In an extractive economy with territorially uneven costs and benefits, who should decide the fate of oil and mining projects: directly affected minorities or national citizenries? I reframe this question empirically: How are the collective identities and interests attached to various scales of democracy politically constructed in the increasingly frequent conflicts over resource extraction in Latin America, and what can we learn from these conflicts about broader dynamics of democratic contestation? To answer this question, I propose the concept of scaling democracy: the agonistic processes by which the scales of democratic decision-making and the democratic people are contested, established, and transformed. The concept of scaling democracy draws our attention to the ways in which the collective identities and interests attached to the various scales of democracy are constructed. These interest-articulations and collective identities are shaped by available institutional norms, organizational infrastructures, and social meanings. I draw on data from participant observation of a community mining consultation in Ecuador, and show that participatory institutions in the arena of resource extraction have fueled a contentious process of scaling democracy, with broader implications for the study of participatory democracy and scholarship on the relationship between resource-dependency and democracy.

Type
Articles
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 678 - 696
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abers, Rebecca. 2000. Inventing Local Democracy: Grassroots Politics in Brazil. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Abizadeh, Arash. 2012. “On the Demos and Its Kin: Nationalism, Democracy, and the Boundary Problem.” American Political Science Review 106(4): 867–82.Google Scholar
Ahmadov, Anar K. 2014. “Oil, Democracy, and Context: A Meta-Analysis.” Comparative Political Studies 47(9): 1238–67.Google Scholar
Andolina, Robert. 2003. “The Sovereign and Its Shadow.” Journal of Latin American Studies 35(4): 721–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arce, Moisés. 2014. Resource Extraction and Protest in Peru. Ed. Chasteen, John and Conaghan, Catherine. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Arellano-Yanguas, Javier. 2011. “Aggravating the Resource Curse: Decentralisation, Mining and Conflict in Peru.” Journal of Development Studies 47(4): 613–38.Google Scholar
Aspinall, Edward. 2007. “The Construction of Grievance: Natural Resources and Identity in a Separatist Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51(6): 950–72.Google Scholar
Auyero, Javier and Joseph, Lauren. 2006. “Introduction: Politics under the Ethnographic Microscope.” In New Perspectives in Political Ethnography, ed. Joseph, L., Mahler, M., and Auyero, J.. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Baiocchi, Gianpaolo and Ganuza, Ernesto. 2015. “When (and How) Did Participation Become Neoliberal? Two Decades of Democratic Experiments and Best Practices in Latin America.” In Democratizing Inequalities: Dilemmas of the New Public Participation, ed. Lee, C. W., McQuarrie, M., and Walker, E. T.. New York: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Baiocchi, Gianpaolo, Heller, Patrick, and Silva, Marcelo. 2011. Bootstrapping Democracy Stanford. CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bebbington, Anthony and Bury, Jeffrey, eds. 2013. 8 Subterranean Struggles: New Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bebbington, Anthony, Hinojosa, Leonith, Bebbington, Denise Humphreys, Burneo, Maria Luisa, and Warnaars, Ximena, 2008. “Contention and Ambiguity: Mining and the Possibilities of Development.” Development and Change 39(6): 887–914.Google Scholar
Brenner, Neil. 2001. “The Limits to Scale? Methodological Reflections on Scalar Structuration.” Progress in Human Geography 25(4): 591–614.Google Scholar
Bridge, Gavin. 2004. “Contested Terrain: Mining and the Environment.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 29(1): 205–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brysk, Alison. 2000. From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, Maxwell, Hershberg, Eric, and Sharpe, Kenneth, eds. 2012. “Voice and Consequence: Direct Participation and Democracy in Latin America.” New Institutions for Participatory Democracy in Latin America: Voice and Consequences, 1–20.Google Scholar
CEPAL (La Comisión Económica para América Latina). Panorama de La Inserción Internacional de América Latina Y El Caribe, 2009–2010. Santiago: CEPAL, 2010.Google Scholar
Christel, Lucas and Torunczyk, Daniel. 2016. “Movilización Socioambiental Y Sanción de La Ley de Glaciares: Un Análisis a Partir Del Concepto de Soberanías En Conflicto.” Presented at the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, New York, May 29.Google Scholar
Chuji, Monica, Barraondo, Mikel, and Dávalos, Pablo. 2010. Derechos Colectivos de Los Pueblos Y Nacionalidades: Evaluación de Una Decada 1998–2008. Quito: IWGIA, CONAIE, Tukui Shimi.Google Scholar
Cisneros, Paúl. 2011. ¿ Cómo Se Construye La Sustentabilidad Ambiental?: Experiencias Conflictivas de La Industria Minera En Ecuador. Quito: Flacso-Sede Ecuador.Google Scholar
Colloredo-Mansfeld, Rudolf Josef. 2009. Fighting like a Community Andean Civil Society in an Era of Indian Uprisings. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 2003. “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy.” In Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. Matravers, Derek and Pike, Jonathan E.. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Conaghan, Catherine. 2008. “Correa’s Plebiscitary Presidency.” Journal of Democracy 19(2).Google Scholar
Cornwall, Andrea. 2008. “Deliberating Democracy: Scenes from a Brazilian Municipal Health Council.” Politics & Society 36(4): 508–31.Google Scholar
Costanza, Jennifer N. 2015. “Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Prior Consultation: Transforming Human Rights from the Grassroots in Guatemala.” Journal of Human Rights 14(2): 260–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cypher, James Martín. 2010. “South America’s Commodities Boom: Developmental Opportunity or Path Dependent Reversion?” Canadian Journal of Development Studies 30(3–4). 565–638.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert Alan. 1989. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dunning, Thad. 2008. Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eaton, Kent. 2013. “Recentralization and the Left Turn in Latin America: Diverging Outcomes in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.” Comparative Political Studies 47(8): 1130–1157.Google Scholar
Falleti, Tulia G. 2010. Decentralization and Subnational Politics in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Falleti, Tulia and Riofrancos, Thea. 2016. “Endogenous Participation: Prior Consultation in Extractive Economies.” Presented at the Harvard University Comparative Politics Seminar Cambridge, March 9.Google Scholar
Ferguson, James and Gupta, Akhil. 2002. “Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality.” American Ethnologist 29(4): 981–1002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 2005. “Reframing Global Justice.” New Left Review (36): 69–88.Google Scholar
Fung, Archon. 2011. “Reinventing Democracy in Latin America.” Perspectives on Politics 9(4): 857–71.Google Scholar
Fung, Archon and Wright, Erik. 2003. Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance. New York: Verso Books.Google Scholar
Gerring, John. 2007. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gervasoni, Carlos. 2010. “A Rentier Theory of Subnational Regimes: Fiscal Federalism, Democracy, and Authoritarianism in the Argentine Provinces.” World Politics 62(2): 302–40.Google Scholar
Gibson, Edward L. 2005. “Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Democratic Countries.” World Politics 58(1): 101–32.Google Scholar
Gordon, Cynthia and Jasper, James M.. 1996. “Overcoming the ‘NIMBY’ Label: Rhetorical and Organizational Links for Local Protestors.” Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change 19(2): 159–81.Google Scholar
Haber, Stephen and Menaldo, Victor. 2011. “Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse.” American Political Science Review 105(1): 1–26.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2001. “Constitutional Democracy: A Paradoxical Union of Contradictory Principles?” Trans. Rehg, William. Political Theory 29(6): 766–81.Google Scholar
Held, David. 1995. Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Heller, Patrick. 2001. “Moving the State: The Politics of Democratic Decentralization in Kerala, South Africa, and Porto Alegre.” Politics & Society 29(1): 131–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helmke, Gretchen and Levitsky, Steven. 2006. Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hogenboom, Barbara. 2012. “Depoliticized and Repoliticized Minerals in Latin America.” Journal of Developing Societies 28(2): 133–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honig, Bonnie. 2007. “Between Decision and Deliberation: Political Paradox in Democratic Theory.” American Political Science Review 101(1): 1–17.Google Scholar
ILO. 1989. C169: Indigenous and Tribal People’s Convention. Geneva, June 7.Google Scholar
Jaskoski, Maiah. 2014. “Environmental Licensing and Conflict in Peru’s Mining Sector: A Path-Dependent Analysis.” World Development 64: 873–83.Google Scholar
Junge, Benjamin. 2012. “NGOs as Shadow Pseudo Publics: Grassroots Community Leaders’ Perceptions of Change and Continuity in Porto Alegre, Brazil.” American Ethnologist 39(2): 407–24.Google Scholar
Kapiszewski, Diana, MacLean, Lauren M., and Read, Benjamin L.. 2015. Field Research in Political Science: Practices and Principles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Karl, Terry Lynn. 1997. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kirsch, Stuart. 2014. Mining Capitalism: The Relationship between Corporations and Their Critics. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurtz, Marcus J. 2009. “The Social Foundations of Institutional Order: Reconsidering War and the ‘Resource Curse’ in Third World State Building.” Politics & Society 37(4): 479–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, Brooke. 2014. “Indigeneity Unpacked: Politics, Civil Society, and Social Movements in the Andes.” Latin American Research Review 49(1): 223–41.Google Scholar
Lee, Caroline W., Walker, Edward T., and McQuarrie, Michael, eds. 2015. Democratizing Inequalities: Dilemmas of the New Public Participation. New York: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Lucero, José Antonio. 2003. “Locating the ‘Indian Problem’: Community, Nationality, and Contradiction in Ecuadorian Indigenous Politics.” Latin American Perspectives 30(1): 23–48.Google Scholar
Luong, Pauline Jones and Weinthal, Erika. 2001. “Prelude to the Resource Curse: Explaining Oil and Gas Development Strategies in the Soviet Successor States and Beyond.” Comparative Political Studies 34(4): 367–99.Google Scholar
Luong, Pauline Jones and Weinthal, Erika. 2006. “Rethinking the Resource Curse: Ownership Structure, Institutional Capacity, and Domestic Constraints.” Annual Review of Political Science 9: 241–63.Google Scholar
McDonald, Forrest. 2000. States’ Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776–1876. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Mähler, Annegret and Pierskalla, Jan. 2015. “Indigenous Identity, Natural Resources, and Contentious Politics in Bolivia: A Disaggregated Conflict Analysis, 2000–2011.” Comparative Political Studies 48(3): 301–32.Google Scholar
Manin, Bernard. 1997. The Principles of Representative Government. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marston, Sallie A. 2000. “The Social Construction of Scale.” Progress in Human Geography 24(2): 219–42.Google Scholar
McGee, Brant. 2009. “Community Referendum: Participatory Democracy and the Right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent to Development.” Berkeley Journal of International Law 27: 570–632.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 2011. Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. New York: Verso Books.Google Scholar
Montambeault, Françoise. 2015. The Politics of Local Participatory Democracy in Latin America: Institutions, Actors, and Interactions. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Montero, Alfred P. 2001. “Decentralizing Democracy: Spain and Brazil in Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Politics 33(2): 149–69.Google Scholar
Moore, Jennifer and Teresa, Velásquez. 2013. “Water for Gold: Confronting State and Corporate Mining Discourses in Azuay, Ecuador.” In Subterranean Struggles: New Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America, ed. Bebbington, Anthony and Bury., Jeffrey , Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Näsström, Sofia. 2011. ‘‘The Challenge of the All-Affected Principle.’’ Political Studies 59: 116–34.Google Scholar
Nash, June C. 1993. We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us: Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Nylen, William. 2011. “Participatory Institutions in Latin America: The Next Generation of Scholarship.” Comparative Politics 43(4): 479–97.Google Scholar
Orihuela, José Carlos and Paredes, Maritza. 2015. “Plenty of Social Capital, but No Synergy: Participatory Environmental Governance of Mining in Espinar.” San Juan, Puerto Rico.Google Scholar
Paley, Julia. 2002. “Toward an Anthropology of Democracy.” Annual Review of Anthropology: 469–95.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 2012. “Participatory Democracy Revisited.” Perspectives on Politics 10(1): 7–19.Google Scholar
Pogrebinschi, Thamy and Samuels, David. 2014. “The Impact of Participatory Democracy: Evidence from Brazil’s National Public Policy Conferences.” Comparative Politics 46(3): 313–32.Google Scholar
Rasch, Elisabet Dueholm. 2012. “Transformations in Citizenship Local Resistance against Mining Projects in Huehuetenango (Guatemala).” Journal of Developing Societies 28(2): 159–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riker, William H. 1964. Federalism: Origin, Operation, Significance. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Riofrancos, Thea. 2017. “Extractivismo Unearthed: A Genealogy of a Radical Discourse.” Cultural Studies. 31(2): 277–306.Google Scholar
Rodden, Jonathan. 2002. “The Dilemma of Fiscal Federalism: Grants and Fiscal Performance around the World.” American Journal of Political Science 46(3): 670–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodden, Jonathan. 2004. “Comparative Federalism and Decentralization: On Meaning and Measurement.” Comparative Politics 36(4): 481–500.Google Scholar
Rodríguez-Garavito, César. 2011. “Ethnicity.gov: Global Governance, Indigenous Peoples, and the Right to Prior Consultation in Social Minefields.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 18(1): 263–305.Google Scholar
Rodríguez-Piñero, Luis. 2005. Indigenous Peoples, Postcolonialism, and International Law: The ILO Regime. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael. 2001. “Does Oil Hinder Democracy?” World Politics 53(April): 325–61.Google Scholar
Ruiz Acosta, Miguel and Iturralde, Pablo. 2013. La Alquimía de La Riqueza: Estado, Petroleo Y Patrón de Accumulación En Ecuador. Quito: Centro de Derechos Económicos y Sociales.Google Scholar
Sabl, Andrew. 2015. “The Two Cultures of Democratic Theory: Responsiveness, Democratic Quality, and the Empirical-Normative Divide.” Perspectives on Politics 13(2): 345–65.Google Scholar
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa and Avritzer, Leonardo. 2006. “Introduction: Opening up the Canon of Democracy.” Democratizing Democracy: Beyond the Liberal Democratic Canon. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa and Rodríguez-Garavito, César A.. 2005 “Law, Politics, and the Subaltern in Counter-Hegemonic Globalization.” Law and Globalization from Below: Towards a Cosmopolitan Legality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, Suzana. 2004. Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books.Google Scholar
Schatz, Edward, ed. 2009. Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schmitter, Philippe C. and Karl, Terry Lynn. 1991. “What Democracy Is… And Is Not.” Journal of Democracy 29(3): 75–88.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 1987. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Ian. 1999. Democratic Justice. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Ian and Casiano, Hacker-Cordón, eds. 1999. Democracy’s Edges. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sieder, Rachel. 2010. “Legal Cultures in the (Un) Rule of Law: Indigenous Rights and Juridification in Guatemala.” Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Silva, Eduardo. 2009. Challenging Neoliberalism in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sinnot, Emily, Nash, John, and Torre, Augusto de la. 2010. “Natural Resources in Latin America and the Caribbean: Beyond Booms and Busts?” World Bank Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Smith, Benjamin. 2007. Hard Times in the Lands of Plenty: Oil Politics in Iran and Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Graham. 2009. Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Neil. 1992. “Contours of a Spatialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Geographical Scale.” Social Text 33: 55–81.Google Scholar
Smulovitz, Catalina and Peruzzotti, Enrique. 2000. “Societal Accountability in Latin America.” Journal of Democracy 11(4): 147–58.Google Scholar
Spada, Paolo. 2015. “The Diffusion of Participatory Governance Innovations: A Panel Data Analysis of the Adoption and Survival of Participatory Budgeting in Brazil.” Presented at the International Conference on Public Policy, Milan, June.Google Scholar
Stepan, Alfred. 2005. “Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the US Model.” In Theories of Federalism: A Reader. Springer.Google Scholar
Stokes, Susan C. 2006. “Do Informal Institutions Make Democracy Work? Accounting for Accountability in Argentina.” In Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America, ed. Helmke, Gretchen and Levitsky, Steven. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Svampa, Maristella. 2015. “Commodities Consensus: Neoextractivism and Enclosure of the Commons in Latin America.” South Atlantic Quarterly 114(1): 65–82.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 2006. “Afterword: Political Ethnography as Art and Science.” Qualitative Sociology 29(3): 247–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. 1987. False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy. CUP Archive.Google Scholar
Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. 1998. Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Urkidi, Leire. 2011. “The Defence of Community in the Anti-Mining Movement of Guatemala.” Journal of Agrarian Change 11(4): 556–80.Google Scholar
Van Cott, Donna. 2008. Radical Democracy in the Andes. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vitalis, Robert. 2007. America’s Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Walter, Mariana and Urkidi, Leire. In press. “Community Mining Consultations in Latin America (2002—2012): The Contested Emergence of a Hybrid Institution for Participation.” Geoforum.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. 1999. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. 2004. “Concepts and Commitments in the Study of Democracy.” In Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics, ed. Shapiro, Ian, Smith, Rogers, and Masoud, Tarek M.. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. 2010. “Reflections on Ethnographic Work in Political Science.” Annual Review of Political Science 13: 255–272.Google Scholar
Weisbrot, Mark, Johnston, Jake, and Merling, Lara. 2017. Decade of Reform: Ecuador’s Macroeconomic Policies, Institutional Changes, and Results. Washington, D.C.: Center for Economic Policy Research.Google Scholar
Weyland, Kurt. 2009. “The Rise of Latin America’s Two Lefts: Insights from Rentier State Theory.” Comparative Politics 41(2): 145–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon. 1994. “Fugitive Democracy.” Constellations 1(1): 11–25.Google Scholar
Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2003. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Yashar, Deborah. 2005. Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar