¹ Nolte, Detlef and Schilling-Vacaflor, Almut (eds.), New Constitutionalism in Latin America: Promises and Practices (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012)Google Scholar.

² Arditi, Benjamin, ‘Arguments about the Left Turns in Latin America: A Post-Liberal Politics?’, Latin American Research Review, 43: 3 (2008), p. 67Google Scholar.

³ Arditi, ‘Arguments about the Left Turns’, pp. 72–80.

⁴ Postero, Nancy, ‘The Struggle to Create a Radical Democracy in Bolivia’, Latin American Research Review, 45: Special Issue (2010), pp. 59–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Anria, Santiago, ‘Bolivia's MAS : Between Party and Movement’, in Cameron, Maxwell A. and Hershberg, Eric (eds.), Latin America's Left Turns: Politics, Policies, and Trajectories of Change (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010), pp. 101–25Google Scholar.

⁵ Escobar, Arturo, ‘Latin America at a Crossroads: Alternative Modernizations, Post-Liberalism, or Post-Development?’, Cultural Studies, 24: 1 (2010), pp. 1–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ de Sousa Santos, Boaventura, ‘Enriquecer la democracia construyendo la plurinacionalidad’, in Lang, Miriam and Santillana, Alejandra (eds.), Democracia, participación y socialismo: Bolivia – Ecuador – Venezuela (Quito: Fundación Rosa Luxemburg, 2010), pp. 30–1Google Scholar.

⁷ Philippe C. Schmitter, ‘A Sketch of What A “Post-Liberal” Democracy Might Look Like’, unpubl. manuscript, European University Institute, 2006. According to Schmitter, the term can be attributed to C. B. MacPherson and his essay ‘Post-Liberal Democracy?’, in MacPherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); see Schmitter, Philippe C., ‘The Prospect of Post-Liberal Democracy’, in Hinrichs, Karl, Kitschelt, Herbert and Wiesenthal, Helmut (eds.), Kontingenz und Krise: Institutionenpolitik in kapitalistischen und postsozialistischen Gesellschaften (Frankfurt: Campus, 2000), p. 25Google Scholar n. 1.

⁸ Arditi, ‘Arguments about the Left Turns’, p. 74.

⁹ See Alvarez, Sonia E., Dagnino, Evelina and Escobar, Arturo, ‘Introduction: The Cultural and the Political in Latin American Social Movements’, in Alvarez, , Dagnino, and Escobar, (eds.), Cultures of Politics/Politics of Cultures: Re-Visioning Latin American Social Movements (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), pp. 1–29Google Scholar; Arditi, ‘Arguments about the Left Turns’; Escobar, ‘Latin America’; de Sousa Santos, Boaventura (ed.), Democratising Democracy: Beyond the Liberal Democratic Canon (London: Verso, 2005)Google Scholar; Van Cott, Donna Lee, ‘Latin America's Indigenous Peoples’, Journal of Democracy, 18: 4 (2007), pp. 127–41Google Scholar; and Radical Democracy in the Andes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and Yashar, Deborah J., Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Post-liberal Challenge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ On participatory democracy, see Flores, Fidel Pérez, Filho, Clayton Mendonça Cunha and Coelho, André Luiz, ‘Mecanismos de democracia participativa: o que há comum nas constituições da Bolívia, Equador e Venezuela?’, Observador On-Line, 4: 7 (2009)Google Scholar; and Santos (ed.), Democratising Democracy. On radical democracy, see Postero, ‘The Struggle’; and Van Cott, Radical Democracy. On radical populism, see de la Torre, Carlos, ‘The Resurgence of Radical Populism in Latin America’, Constellations, 14: 3 (2007), pp. 384–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ See Aldana, Marlene Choque, ‘Participación y control social en la nueva constitución boliviana’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas: Nuevo Texto Constitucional (La Paz: IDEA Internacional et al., 2010), pp. 500–1Google Scholar; Anria, ‘Bolivia's MAS’, p. 105; Postero, ‘The Struggle’, p. 75; and Salman, Ton, ‘Reinventing Democracy in Bolivia and Latin America’, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 84 (2008), p. 88Google Scholar. The other two usual suspects in this regard are Ecuador under Rafael Correa and Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, yet in the Venezuelan case there is much more doubt as to the basic continuity of democracy, while in Ecuador the deviation from liberal principles is much less pronounced than in Bolivia. See Escobar, ‘Latin America’; and Wolff, Jonas, ‘New Constitutions and the Transformation of Democracy in Ecuador and Bolivia’, in Nolte, and Schilling-Vacaflor, (eds.), New Constitutionalism in Latin America, pp. 183–202Google Scholar.

¹² This question is obviously related to the debate about the possible emergence of post-neoliberalism. But while the latter focuses on the economic (development) model, this article deliberately looks at the political regime. On ‘post-neoliberalism’, see Burdick, John, Oxhorn, Philip and Roberts, Kenneth M. (eds.), Beyond Neoliberalism in Latin America? Societies and Politics at the Crossroads (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Macdonald, Laura and Ruckert, Arne (eds.), Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira, ‘Toward Post-Neoliberalism in Latin America?’, Latin American Research Review, 46: 2 (2011), pp. 225–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ This is, of course, true for the bulk of studies that are not explicitly interested in post-liberal democracy. See, for example, the collection of essays on ‘Latin America's Left Turns’ in Third World Quarterly, 30: 2 (2010), or the two issues of Latin American Perspectives on ‘Bolivia Under Morales’ (see note 44, below).

¹⁴ The transformation of Bolivian democracy under President Evo Morales is chosen here as a ‘plausibility probe’ because this case is critical in the sense that, as seen above, the notion of emerging post-liberal democracies in Latin America can ‘hardly be expected to hold widely if it did not fit closely there’. Eckstein, Harry, Regarding Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), p. 151Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Schmitter, ‘A Sketch’, pp. 1–2.

¹⁶ Arditi, ‘Arguments about the Left Turns’, p. 73. See also Escobar, ‘Latin America’, p. 3.

¹⁷ Given the peculiar character of any ‘post-something’ concept, post-liberal democracy is conceptually defined negatively by its differences to, and commonalities with, liberal democracy, hence the focus on challenges. If we could define in a positive way the main features of a post-liberal democracy, we could give it a proper name.

¹⁸ Merkel, Wolfgang, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, Democratization, 11: 5 (2004), pp. 36–43Google Scholar. There are of course innumerable proposals for conceptualising liberal democracy, but for the purpose of this paper, the one developed by Merkel, Puhle and colleagues seems particularly suitable because it deliberately goes beyond a narrow notion of liberal democracy as polyarchy. Not only do the five partial regimes cover all the elements usually identified as typically liberal dimensions of liberal democracy, but also, as will be seen, the shape of these partial regimes is specified in fairly substantial liberal ways. The concept has been developed in detail in Merkel, Wolfgang, Puhle, Hans-Jürgen, Croissant, Aurel, Eicher, Claudia and Thiery, Peter, Defekte Demokratie. Band 1: Theorie (Opladen: Leske+Budrich, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, p. 38.

²⁰ Escobar, ‘Latin America’, pp. 19, 27–8; see also Coppedge, Michael, Gerring, John et al. , ‘Conceptualising and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach’, Perspectives on Politics, 9: 2 (2011), pp. 247–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 253.

²¹ Escobar, ‘Latin America’, p. 32. See also Santos, ‘Enriquecer la democracia’, p. 29.

²² Arditi, ‘Arguments about the Left Turns’, p. 77.

²³ Ibid., p. 76. See also Santos, ‘Enriquecer la democracia’, p. 29.

²⁴ Peruzzotti, Enrique and Selee, Andrew, ‘Participatory Innovation and Representative Democracy in Latin America’, in , Selee and Peruzzotti, (eds.), Participatory Innovation and Representative Democracy in Latin America (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2009), p. 4Google Scholar.

²⁵ Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, p. 39.

²⁶ See Coppedge et al., ‘Conceptualising and Measuring Democracy’, p. 253; and Santos, ‘Enriquecer la democracia’, p. 30.

²⁷ See Mény, Yves and Surel, Yves, ‘The Constitutive Ambiguity of Populism’, in Mény, and Surel, (eds.), Democracies and the Populist Challenge (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, p. 44.

²⁹ Huber, Evelyne, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich and Stephens, John D., ‘The Paradoxes of Contemporary Democracy: Formal, Participatory, and Social Dimensions’, Comparative Politics, 29: 3 (1997), p. 324CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Schmitter, ‘A Sketch’, p. 3.

³¹ See Escobar, ‘Latin America’.

³² O'Donnell, Guillermo, ‘Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies’, Journal of Democracy, 9: 3 (1998), p. 119CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, p. 40.

³³ Schmitter, ‘A Sketch’, p. 3.

³⁴ Ibid.; see also Coppedge et al., ‘Conceptualising and Measuring Democracy’, p. 253.

³⁵ Vibert, Frank, The Rise of the Unelected: Democracy and the New Separation of Powers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ See Suvelza, Franz Xavier Barrios, ‘The Weakness of Excess: The Bolivian State in an Unbounded Democracy’, in Crabtree, John and Whitehead, Laurence (eds.), Unresolved Tensions: Bolivia Past and Present (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), pp. 126–30Google Scholar.

³⁷ Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, p. 41.

³⁸ See ibid., p. 42; and Vibert, The Rise of the Unelected.

³⁹ See Lindblom, Charles, ‘The Market as Prison’, Journal of Politics, 44: 2 (1982), pp. 324–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁰ See Escobar, ‘Latin America’.

⁴¹ Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, p. 41.

⁴² See Hammond, John L., ‘Indigenous Community Justice in the Bolivian Constitution of 2009’, Human Rights Quarterly, 33: 3 (2011), pp. 649–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ See Mayorga, René Antonio, ‘Bolivia's Silent Revolution’, Journal of Democracy, 8: 1 (1997), pp. 142–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁴ See Crabtree and Whitehead (eds.), Unresolved Tensions; Benjamin Kohl and Rosalind Bresnahan (issue eds.), ‘Bolivia Under Morales’, Latin American Perspectives, 37: 3–4 (2010); and Zegada, María Tereza, Arce, Claudia, Canedo, Gabriela and Quispe, Alber, La democracia desde los márgenes: transformaciones en el campo político boliviano (La Paz: CLACSO, 2011)Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ See Romero, Carlos, Böhrt, Carlos and Peñaranda, Raúl, Del conflicto al diálogo: memorias del acuerdo constitucional (La Paz: fBDM/FES-ILDIS, 2009)Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ This included laws on the Electoral Organ, the electoral regime, the constitutional court, the Judicial Organ, autonomy and decentralisation, and jurisdictional delimitation.

⁴⁷ See Weisbrot, Mark, Ray, Rebecca and Johnston, Jake, ‘Bolivia: The Economy during the Morales Administration’ (Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2009)Google Scholar, available at www.cepr.net/documents/publications/bolivia-2009-12.pdf.

⁴⁸ The Morales government, in particular, recognised the coca leaf's traditional role in indigenous cultures, increased the level of legal coca production and trade, and pushed for coca's international legalisation. It did try to limit the amount of coca production via cooperative forms of social control at the community level while continuing joint military–police counter-narcotics efforts to cut down on drug trafficking. See Farthing, Linda and Kohl, Benjamin, ‘Social Control: Bolivia's New Approach to Coca Reduction’, Latin American Perspectives, 37: 4 (2010), pp. 197–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁹ The following case study draws mainly on the analysis of primary and secondary sources but was also informed by a series of interviews conducted in La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba between April and May 2009.

⁵⁰ On Bolivia's new Constitution, see IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas; Käss, Susanne and Castellanos, Iván Velásquez (eds.), Reflexión crítica a la nueva Constitución Política del Estado (La Paz: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2009)Google Scholar; Romero, Böhrt and Peñaranda, Del conflicto al diálogo; Almut Schilling-Vacaflor, ‘Bolivia's New Constitution: Towards Participatory Democracy and Political Pluralism?’, GIGA Working Paper 141 (Hamburg: GIGA, 2010), available at www.giga-hamburg.de/dl/download.php?d=/content/publikationen/pdf/wp141_schilling.pdf; and Wolff, ‘New Constitutions’. For overviews of Bolivia's political development under Morales, see Stiftung, Bertelsmann, BTI 2010: Bolivia Country Report (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2010)Google Scholar, available at www.bti-project.de/fileadmin/Inhalte/reports/2010/pdf/BTI%202010%20Bolivia.pdf; Crabtree and Whitehead (eds.), Unresolved Tensions; Gamarra, Eduardo A., ‘Morales and Democracy’, in Domínguez, Jorge I. and Shifter, Michael (eds.), Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America: Third Edition (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), pp. 124–51Google Scholar; Kohl and Bresnahan (issue eds.), ‘Bolivia Under Morales’; Postero, ‘The Struggle’; and Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes.

⁵¹ See Choque, ‘Participación y control social’, pp. 494–5; Escobar, ‘Latin America’, p. 27; Postero, ‘The Struggle’, pp. 71–2; Bonifaz, Carlos Romero, ‘Los ejes de la Constitución Política del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas, p. 29Google Scholar; and Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, chap. 4.

⁵² See www.freedomhouse.org/country/bolivia; www.systemicpeace.org/polity/Bolivia2010.pdf; and www.bti-project.de/laendergutachten/lac/bol.

⁵³ This and all following references to articles, unless otherwise stated, refer to República de Bolivia, Constitución Política del Estado: texto aprobado en el referéndum constituyente de enero de 2009 (República de Bolivia, 2009)Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Further vehicles for direct and participatory democracy include assemblies (asambleas) and councils (cabildos), but these are to have a ‘deliberative character’ only (Article 11/II). A final participatory mechanism is the consulta previa (prior consultation) – that is, the right of indigenous peoples to ‘be consulted … whenever there may be legislative or administrative measures that may affect them’ (Article 30/II). See also the corresponding Ley del Régimen Electoral (Ley 026, 30 June 2010), available at www.gobernabilidad.org.bo/images/upload_slides/documentos/ley_del_regimen_electoral_bolivia.pdf.

⁵⁵ Popular approval of international treaties is mandatory if these imply border issues or processes of monetary, structural economic or political integration. In addition, a referendum can be requested by 5 per cent of the registered voting population or 35 per cent of the members of parliament (Article 257–9).

⁵⁶ The corresponding law passed in June 2010 determines that, to initiate a referendum at the national level, the support of at least 20 per cent of the voting population (and in no department less than 15 per cent) is needed. In addition, various issues – like the unity and integrity of the plurinational state, taxes, internal and external security, organic and framework laws, and the validity of human rights – are exempted from popular decisions. See Ley del Régimen Electoral, Article 16/II, 14.

⁵⁷ Besides a referendum on establishing a regime of departmental autonomy (2006), which was followed in 2008 by illegal referenda on statutes of autonomy in selected departments, and the constitutional referendum in 2009, the revocation of mandates had already been tested before the new Constitution entered into force. In August 2008, Morales easily survived a recall referendum; among the prefects (governors) at the departmental level, Morales’ major opponents also won their recall referenda while two (opposition) prefects lost their offices. See Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, p. 78.

⁵⁸ See Anria, ‘Bolivia's MAS’, p. 113; Dunia Mokrani, ‘Análisis de coyuntura: Escenarios en la segunda gestión gubernamental de Evo Morales’, available at www.rosalux.org.ec/es/analisis/bolivia/item/208-mokrani; Laserna, Roberto, ‘Mire, la democracia boliviana, en los hechos…’, Latin American Research Review 45: Special Issue (2010), pp. 27–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, pp. 49–62, 93–8.

⁵⁹ See Mayorga, René Antonio, ‘Sociedad civil y Estado bajo un populismo plebiscitario y autoritario’, in Arnson, Cynthia J. et al. (eds.), La ‘Nueva Izquierda’ en América Latina: derechos humanos, participación política, y sociedad civil (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2009), p. 113Google Scholar; Laserna, ‘Mire, la democracia boliviana’; Van Cott, ‘Latin America's Indigenous Peoples’, pp. 136–7.

⁶⁰ Morales is indeed the first president since the transition to democracy in the 1980s that can count on direct democratic legitimation as he was elected (twice) in the first round with an absolute majority, whereas, in the case of his predecessors, it was Congress that decided the run-off.

⁶¹ Van Cott, ‘Latin America's Indigenous Peoples’, p. 134. See also Gamarra, ‘Morales and Democracy’, p. 134.

⁶² Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), Los cambios detrás del cambio: informe nacional sobre desarrollo humano en Bolivia (La Paz: PNUD, 2010), pp. 26–7Google Scholar.

⁶³ Gamarra, ‘Morales and Democracy’, p. 135.

⁶⁴ See Irahola, Carlos Böhrt, ‘Cuarenta días que conmovieron a Bolivia y un pacto político forzado’, in , Romero, Böhrt, and Peñaranda, , Del conflicto al diálogo, pp. 72–3Google Scholar; and Carraffa, Carlos Cordero, ‘Nueva Constitución, nuevo gobierno, nuevo Estado’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas, pp. 80–1Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Romero, ‘Los ejes de la Constitución’, p. 23.

⁶⁶ The Bolivian Constitution refers to ‘naciones y pueblos indígena originario campesinos’, translated here, for the sake of simplicity, as ‘indigenous peoples’.

⁶⁷ The latter restriction to civil society self-organisation resulted from the aforementioned congressional revision. In the original draft, organised civil society was meant to participate in decisions about public policy and was free to independently establish ‘its own norms and way of working’. Zegada, María, ‘Análisis político de las reformas al Proyecto de Constitución y de la aprobación de la Ley de Convocatoria al Referéndum’, Opiniones y Análisis, 97 (2008), p. 54Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Barrios, ‘The Weakness of Excess’, p. 136.

⁶⁹ See ibid., pp. 136–7; Hurtado, Roger Cortéz, ‘Control social: la desconfianza armada’, in Käss, and Velásquez, (eds.), Reflexión crítica, p. 351Google Scholar; and Quintanilla, Juan Carlos Pinto, ‘Sobre el control social y la Constitución’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas, p. 489Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ See Kohl, Benjamin, ‘Bolivia under Morales: A Work in Progress’, Latin American Perspectives, 37: 3 (2010), p. 112CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barrios, ‘The Weakness of Excess’, p. 138; and Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, pp. 245–6.

⁷¹ See Anria, ‘Bolivia's MAS’; Schilling-Vacaflor, ‘Bolivia's New Constitution’, pp. 14–7; Stefanoni, Pablo, ‘Indianismo y nacionalismo revolucionario: un análisis del gobierno de Evo Morales’, in Ospina, Pablo, Kaltmeier, Olaf and Büschges, Olaf (eds.), Los Andes en movimiento: identidad y poder en el nuevo paisaje político (Quito: Corporación Editora Nacional, 2009), pp. 103–4Google Scholar; and Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, chap. 6.

⁷² Zuazo, Moira, ‘¿Los movimientos sociales en el poder? El gobierno del MAS en Bolivia’, Nueva Sociedad, 227 (2010), pp. 128–35Google Scholar, quote at p. 134.

⁷³ See Mokrani, ‘Análisis de coyuntura’; and Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, chap. 6.

⁷⁴ Arditi, ‘Arguments about the Left Turns’, pp. 76–7. See also Cortéz, ‘Control social’.

⁷⁵ Anria, ‘Bolivia's MAS’, pp. 112–13.

⁷⁶ See Mokrani, ‘Análisis de coyuntura’; and Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, pp. 93–8. While this is clearly not in the interest of the MAS government, it corresponds to the notion of vertical checks and balances already emphasised by Evo Morales in his pre-inauguration speech at Tiwanaku in January 2006, where he explicitly urged his followers to control, correct and push him. Dunkerley, James, ‘Evo Morales, the “Two Bolivias” and the Third Bolivian Revolution’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 39: 1 (2007), p. 165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁷ Choque, ‘Participación y control social’, p. 494.

⁷⁸ See Anria, ‘Bolivia's MAS’.

⁷⁹ See Ascimani, Guillermo Richter, ‘Análisis crítico de la nueva Constitución Política del Estado’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas, p. 103Google Scholar; and Böhrt, ‘Cuarenta días’, p. 74.

⁸⁰ Mény and Surel, ‘The Constitutive Ambiguity’, pp. 8–10.

⁸¹ See Barrios, ‘The Weakness of Excess’, p. 128.

⁸² Romero, ‘Los ejes de la Constitución’, p. 29. However, the congressional revision of the draft constitution re-established the need for two-thirds majorities for some crucial decisions, namely for the election of those members of the different electoral tribunals determined by parliament and for partial reforms of the Constitution; see Böhrt, ‘Cuarenta días’, pp. 89, 105.

⁸³ See Barrios, ‘The Weakness of Excess’, pp. 134–5; and Lehoucq, Fabrice, ‘Bolivia's Constitutional Breakdown’, Journal of Democracy, 19: 4 (2008), pp. 111–24Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI 2010: Bolivia Country Report, pp. 11–12.

⁸⁵ Peñaranda U., Raúl, ‘Crónica del proceso constituyente’, in Romero, , Böhrt, and Peñaranda, , Del conflicto al diálogo, pp. 150–1Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ Lehoucq, ‘Bolivia's Constitutional Breakdown’, p. 122.

⁸⁷ See Tudela, Farit Rojas, ‘Análisis y comentario de la Primera Parte de la CPE’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas, pp. 283–94Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ In line with the new emphasis on socio-economic rights, the Morales government has significantly expanded social policies. These include an increasing minimum wage, two conditional cash transfers – one (‘Bono Juancito Pinto’) for children if they continue education and one (‘Bono Juana Azurduy’) for pregnant women and young mothers if they seek medical care during and after pregnancy – as well as a universal state pension (‘Renta Dignidad’). See Weisbrot, Ray and Johnston, ‘Bolivia’, pp. 15–6.

⁸⁹ See Suvelza, Franz Xavier Barrios, ‘La Autonomía Indígena Originaria Campesina en la Constitución Política del Estado’, in Käss, and Velásquez, (eds.), Reflexión crítica, pp. 431–68Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ Van Cott, ‘Latin America's Indigenous Peoples’, p. 138.

⁹¹ Cordero, ‘Nueva Constitución’, p. 83. This distortion is, however, rather limited; see Choque, ‘Participación y control social’, p. 499. First, the constitutional revision by Congress restricted these special districts to indigenous peoples in rural areas who are a minority in their respective departments; see Böhrt, ‘Cuarenta días’, p. 78. Second, the respective law (Ley del Régimen Electoral), like the transitional law approved in 2009, limited the number of these special seats in parliament to seven out of 130.

⁹² Nonetheless, the transitional dispositions, added in the congressional agreement, clarify that this requirement is only to be ‘progressively applied according to the law’ (Article 159).

⁹³ See Salazar, Carlos Derpic, ‘La Justicia Comunitaria en la NCPE’, in Käss, and Velásquez, (eds.), Reflexión crítica, pp. 477–516Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ Again, it was Congress that introduced crucial limitations to indigenous justice, most notably references to the ‘right of defence’, to the personal tie to an indigenous people as the basis of indigenous justice, and to a future Law on Jurisdictional Delimitation. See Böhrt, ‘Cuarenta días’, pp. 80–2; and Hammond, ‘Indigenous Community Justice’, pp. 665–70.

⁹⁵ Barrera, Anna, ‘Turning Legal Pluralism into State-Sanctioned Law: Assessing the Implications of the New Constitutions and Laws in Bolivia and Ecuador’, in Nolte, and Schilling-Vacaflor, (eds.), New Constitutionalism in Latin America, p. 374Google Scholar; see also Ley de Deslinde Jurisdiccional (Ley No. 073, 29 December 2010), http://cedoin-gtz.padep.org.bo/upload/deslinde-jurisdiccional-ley.pdf, Articles 8 and 10.

⁹⁶ Together with the prohibition of the death penalty, the mentioned restrictions imply, for example, that lynching – often (if misleadingly) discussed under the heading of ‘community justice’ (Hammond, ‘Indigenous Community Justice’, pp. 671–2) – can by no means be justified as an implementation of indigenous law.

⁹⁷ In this sense, Luis Tapia has argued that the new Constitution, while advancing significantly towards a recognition of ‘political pluralism’, has already established a ‘constitutional hierarchy’ that continues to privilege the model of modern (colonial) political institutions. Tapia, Luis, ‘El pluralismo político-jurídico en la nueva Constitución de Bolivia’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas, p. 263Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ Hammond, ‘Indigenous Community Justice’, pp. 677–80; see also Van Cott, ‘Latin America's Indigenous Peoples’, p. 139.

⁹⁹ See Barrera, ‘Legal Pluralism’, p. 378.

¹⁰⁰ See Jordán, Helena Argirakis, ‘De Congreso a Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas, pp. 361–74Google Scholar; Vargas, Idón Moisés Chivi, ‘El Órgano Judicial’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas, pp. 409–22Google Scholar; Carraffa, Carlos Cordero, ‘La Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional: estructura y organización’, in Käss, and Velásquez, (eds.), Reflexión crítica, pp. 153–90Google Scholar; Veltzé, Eduardo Rodríguez, ‘El Órgano Judicial en la Nueva Constitución’, in Käss, and Velásquez, (eds.), Reflexión crítica, pp. 235–65Google Scholar. That the electoral courts are upgraded to a fourth branch of the state – the ‘Electoral Organ’ – is unusual, but only goes to strengthen this picture of horizontal controls (Articles 109–40).

¹⁰¹ This refers to the Plurinational Constitutional Court, the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (Supreme Court of Justice), the Tribunal Agroambiental (Agri-Environmental Court) and the Consejo de la Magistratura (Judicial Council).

¹⁰² Chivi Vargas, ‘El Órgano Judicial’, pp. 416–17.

¹⁰³ Böhrt, ‘Cuarenta días’, p. 84.

¹⁰⁴ See ‘Mayoría oficialista elige a los primeros 56 candidatos’, La Razón, 14 July 2011.

¹⁰⁵ See Barrios, ‘The Weakness of Excess’.

¹⁰⁶ Álbarez, Gonzalo Chávez, ‘Fetichismo constitucional’, in IDEA Internacional (ed.), Miradas, p. 207Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁷ As we have seen, legislative initiatives by citizens must pass through parliament; the framework for ‘participation and social control’ is defined by law – that is, parliament – as are the limits of indigenous justice.

¹⁰⁸ Cordero, ‘La Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional’, p. 166.

¹⁰⁹ See Tapia, ‘El pluralismo político-jurídico’, p. 263.

¹¹⁰ See Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, pp. 175–98.

¹¹¹ Postero, ‘The Struggle’, p. 62; see also Cunha, Clayton Mendonça and Gonçalves, Rodrigo Santaella, ‘The National Development Plan as a Political Economic Strategy in Evo Morales's Bolivia: Accomplishments and Limitations’, Latin American Perspectives, 37: 4 (2010), pp. 177–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹² See International Monetary Fund (IMF), Bolivia – IMF Country Report 11/124 (Washington, DC: IMF, 2011)Google Scholar.

¹¹³ See Coppedge et al., ‘Conceptualising and Measuring Democracy’, p. 257.

¹¹⁴ See De la Torre, ‘Radical Populism’, p. 384; Laserna, ‘Mire, la democracia boliviana’; Madrid, Raúl L., ‘The Rise of Ethnopopulism in Latin America’, World Politics, 60: 3 (2008), pp. 475–508CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mayorga, ‘Sociedad civil’.

¹¹⁵ Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira, ‘The Ambivalence of Populism: Threat and Corrective for Democracy’, Democratization, 19: 2 (2012), p. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁶ De la Torre, ‘Radical Populism’, p. 384.

¹¹⁷ Gamarra, ‘Morales and Democracy’, p. 134.

¹¹⁸ De la Torre, ‘Radical Populism’, pp. 385, 388.

¹¹⁹ On the Morales administration's anti-institutional bias, see Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI 2010: Bolivia Country Report, pp. 11–12.

¹²⁰ See Molina, George Gray, ‘State–Society Relations in Bolivia: The Strength of Weakness’, in Crabtree, and Whitehead, (eds.), Unresolved Tensions, pp. 109–24Google Scholar.

¹²¹ See Santos, ‘Enriquecer la democracia’, pp. 27, 32.

¹²² De la Torre, ‘Radical Populism’, p. 388.

¹²³ See Kohl, ‘Bolivia under Morales’, p. 116; Mokrani, ‘Análisis de coyuntura’; Laserna, ‘Mire, la democracia boliviana’, pp. 50–7; and Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, chap. 6.

¹²⁴ Postero, ‘The Struggle’, p. 75; Santos, ‘Enriquecer la democracia’, pp. 29–30; Van Cott, Radical Democracy, pp. 8–9.

¹²⁵ Santos, ‘Enriquecer la democracia’, p. 29.

¹²⁶ Collier, David and Levitsky, Steven, ‘Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovations in Comparative Research’, World Politics, 49: 3 (1997), pp. 430–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹²⁷ Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI 2010: Bolivia Country Report, p. 2.

¹²⁸ Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, pp. 49–50.

¹²⁹ Barrios, ‘The Weakness of Excess’, p. 128; Gamarra, ‘Morales and Democracy’, pp. 134–5. In this sense, Whitehead has characterised contemporary Bolivia (like Ecuador and Venezuela) as a ‘distributivist’, ‘participatory’ and ‘illiberal’ democracy: see Whitehead, Laurence, ‘The Fading Regional Consensus on Democratic Convergence’, in Domínguez, and Shifter, (eds.), Constructing Democratic Governance, pp. 32Google Scholar, 35.

¹³⁰ See Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, p. 51; and Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI 2010: Bolivia Country Report for 2002 and 2008 respectively.

¹³¹ Ibid., p. 2.

¹³² Gamarra, ‘Morales and Democracy’, p. 134.

¹³³ Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective Democracies’, p. 33.

¹³⁴ Postero, ‘The Struggle’.

¹³⁵ Whitehead, ‘The Fading Regional Consensus’.

¹³⁶ Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, p. 124.

¹³⁷ I thank two of the anonymous reviewers for urging me to think about this point.

¹³⁸ See Zegada et al., La democracia desde los márgenes, chap. 6.

¹³⁹ See Tapia, ‘El pluralismo político-jurídico’.

¹⁴⁰ See Burdick, Oxhorn and Roberts (eds.), Beyond Neoliberalism; Macdonald and Ruckert (eds.), Post-Neoliberalism; and Rovira Kaltwasser, ‘Toward Post-Neoliberalism’, pp. 225–34.

¹⁴¹ Escobar, ‘Latin America’, p. 3.