Una historia de dos izquierdas. El MIR y el MAS entre el origen y el colapso de la «democracia pactada» boliviana (1985-2006)

A Tale of Two Lefts: The MIR and the MAS between the Origins and Collapse of the Bolivian Pact Democracy (1985-2006)

Abstract

In this article, the emergence, rise, and collapse of the unprecedented experience of liberal partocratic democracy in Bolivia (1985-2006) are studied through the trajectory of two self-identified leftist movements, the Revolutionary Left Movement (1971), led by Jaime Paz Zamora, the last and largest manifestation of Bolivian "patrician leftism," and the Movement for Socialism (1997), led by Evo Morales, the political vehicle of the revived rural union opposition to the political establishment. The causes of its collapse are also explored, namely: the growth of expectations and discontent among urban sectors; the reactivation of militant union tradition, in a more dynamic and better organized version, and, in terms of political culture, the diffusion and generalization of Katarism and its Indianist variations.