Abstract
This chapter applies the conception of democracy promotion as an interactive process that is crucially affected by conflicts over conceptions of justice to the relations between the US and Bolivia. Since 2009, the USA and the Bolivian government have been trying to fix their broken diplomatic relations. These negotiations culminated in 2011 in the signing of a bilateral agreement but, ultimately, failed to establish a basis for mutually acceptable development aid relations. The chapter analyzes these negotiations and suggests a partial explanation that accounts for their dynamics and results. Specifically it shows how the negotiations have pitted Bolivian demands for state sovereignty and mutual respect, based on an egalitarian understanding of inter-state relations, against the US emphasis on common obligations and universal rights, informed by a non-egalitarian notion of liberal hegemony. The failure to balance or reconcile these conflicting notions helps to explain why the negotiations were so difficult and eventually failed to produce a viable outcome.
This chapter has been published as Wolff, J. (2016). Negotiating interference: US democracy promotion, Bolivia and the tale of a failed agreement. Third World Quarterly, 38(4), 882–899, copyright © Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.tandfonline.com on behalf of Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com. I would like to express my appreciation for granting publication rights.
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Notes
- 1.
This literature will be introduced in the following section.
- 2.
These diplomatic cables will be cited in brackets, giving the official code (XXLAPAZXX) by which they can be identified and found at http://www.wikileaks.ch.
- 3.
These interviews have been conducted during research trips to Bolivia (mainly La Paz) in April/May 2009 and March 2013 as well as to the U.S. (Washington, DC) in May 2010.
- 4.
- 5.
For a summary of these charges, see the official report on U.S. “interference” in Bolivia published by the Bolivian Vice Presidency in August 2009 (Vicepresidencia de Bolivia 2009).
- 6.
Claims for (national) sovereignty were, for instance, made by Minister of Autonomy Carlos Romero and Vicepresident García Linera (LaPrensa.com.bo, September 22, 2009, November 22, 2009). In its draft “Framework Agreement”, the Bolivian government included “Unrestricted respect for the sovereignty […] of the States” and “Full respect for the free determination of the peoples” as key principles to govern the bilateral relationship (09LAPAZ66).
- 7.
Bolivia’s draft “Framework Agreement”, for instance, contains several guidelines for bilateral cooperation that emphasize principles of national ownership, government control and alignment with national development strategies (09LAPAZ66).
- 8.
See also La-Razon.com (December 16, 2010); LaPrensa.com.bo (March 20, 2009; July 8, 2009).
- 9.
See, again, Bolivia’s 2009 proposal for a bilateral framework agreement (09LAPAZ66). See also La-Razon.com (December 16, 2010).
- 10.
Similar claims were also directly articulated by Morales himself (09LAPAZ89).
- 11.
In addition, Bolivia for some time also pursued the aim to regain eligibility for the Millennium Challenge Account (see 09LAPAZ658). A further issue concerned the Bolivian demand for the extradition of former president Sánchez de Lozada (see 10LAPAZ7).
- 12.
Therefore, Morales even threatened to lodge a complaint against the ATPDEA suspension at the WTO (09LAPAZ89).
- 13.
Responding to the first U.S. decision to suspend trade preferences under the Bush administration, Morales reportedly said: “We cannot kneel for 63 million dollars” (09LAPAZ89).
- 14.
More specifically, the U.S. emphasized that “people hired for USAID democracy programs were selected based solely on expertise and not on political affiliation” (09LAPAZ1027) and that USAID’s work at the regional level included all departamentos and not only those governed by the opposition, while support for political parties, since 2007, had consisted in multi-party activities only and included also MAS representatives (see Wolff 2012, pp. 425 f.).
- 15.
It should be noted that the U.S. embassy, in internal negotiations, also used more pragmatic arguments (or threats) in order to convince the Bolivian government that it would better not insist on the closure of USAID’s democracy program: such a move, the Bolivian authorities were told, would potentially have a “negative impact” on “the ongoing bilateral talks” between the two governments and could lead U.S. Congress “to transfer a significant amount of USAID’s Bolivia funding to other countries” (09LAPAZ1027).
- 16.
Development cooperation, according to the agreement, is not limited to “state-to-state” cooperation as initially demanded by the Bolivian government but includes “public, private, public-private and nongovernmental organizations”; intergovernmental consultations will only define the “type of executing organization or organizations as well as the criteria and the process of selecting them” (Bolivia and United States 2011, p. 4). The Bolivian government announced that it would respect U.S. assistance in the country, whether implemented by USAID or channeled through NGOs (Opinion.com.bo, November 14, 2011).
- 17.
It should be mentioned that the changes in Bolivia’s economic policies did not directly challenge U.S. economic interests as the “nationalizations” mainly affected Spanish and Brazilian gas companies.
- 18.
While the above-mentioned cable from the U.S. embassy argued that the “steady erosion of democratic practices and institutions under the Morales regime shows no sign of abating and is likely to prove a serious irritant to the bilateral relationship” (09LAPAZ722), neither the leaked cables nor media reports suggest that U.S. concerns regarding the state of Bolivian democracy significantly affected bilateral relations in general or the negotiations between the two governments in particular.
- 19.
This balancing continues with the fifth principle referring to the “universal respect and observance of human rights and fundamental liberties” and the seventh one emphasizing “the development of friendly and cooperative relations based on the respect for the principle of equality of rights and self-determination of the peoples”. The sixth principle refers to peaceful resolution of conflict (including a reference to the “territorial integrity” and the “political independence” of the states), the eighth one refers to “social justice” and the ninth and last one to the environment and “sustainable development” (Bolivia and United States 2011, pp. 2 f.).
- 20.
In terms of justice principles, this normative template is based on a compound version of justice that combines egalitarian principles at the level of individual (human) rights with non-egalitarian principles at the level of collective (state) rights. The latter, if implicitly, include status-related notions of proportionality or equity (based on superior capabilities and merits of the hegemon) as well of priority justice (in line with principles such as “noblesse oblige” and “primogeniture”) (see Zartman 2008, pp. 84 f.).
- 21.
In fact, this is what Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Choquehuanca suggested already in late 2009 in a private conversation at the US Embassy (09LAPAZ1595).
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Wolff, J. (2019). Negotiating Interference: U.S. Democracy Promotion, Bolivia, and the Tale of a Failed Agreement. In: Fehl, C., Peters, D., Wisotzki, S., Wolff, J. (eds) Justice and Peace. Studien des Leibniz-Instituts Hessische Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-25196-3_9
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