Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T07:45:35.423Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Mobility and Economic Development: The Vital Parameters of the Bolivian Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

C. Fred Bergsten
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1952, Bolivia experienced the most thorough-going social revolution in Latin America since the Mexican upheaval early in this century. In the twelve years which have followed, the Andean republic has made remarkable progress in breaking down centuries-old societal gaps and forging an integrated nation. The Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), which inspired the revolution and which has retained firm political leadership of the nation, has played a vital role in politically activating the traditional Indian segment of the population. Prior to 1952, there had been very little communication between this indigenous majority and the Westarnized minority; this “vertical” cleavage was ona major barrier to the political socialization of Bolivia. On a “horizontal” plane, the process was further complicated by cleavages among the various Indian groups and, predominantly along regional lines, among the relatively homogeneous whites.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 1964 , pp. 367 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1964

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

1 Political socialization is defined as “induction into the political culture,” resulting in a set of attitudes toward the political system, its roles and actors. “It includes knowledge of, values affecting, and feelings toward the inputs of demands and claims into the system, and its authoritative outputs.” Almond, Gabriel A. and Coleman, James S., ed., The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), pp. 27-8.Google Scholar

2 Primarily the Quechua and Aymara, descendants of the Incas who have traditionally populated the altiplano, and the numerous smaller ethnic groups of the eastern lowlands.

3 Deutsch, Karl, “Social Mobilization and Political Development,” American Political Science Review, Vol. LV, No. 3 (Sept., 1961), p. 494.Google Scholar

4 Alexander, Robert J., The Bolivian National Revolution (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1959), p. 22.Google Scholar

5 Deutsch, , op. cit., p. 500.Google Scholar

6 Patch, Richard W., “Bolivia: The Seventh Year,” American Universities Field Staff Reports Service: West Coast South America Series, Vol. VI, No. 1 (Feb., 1959), p. 18.Google Scholar

7 Pye, Lucian, “The Non-Western Political Process,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Aug., 1958), p. 469 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, refers to acculturation as the alternative to ascription in such a context.

8 Patch, , “A Note on Peru and Bolivia,” AUFSRS: WCSAS, Vol. VI, No. 6 (July, 1959) p. 25.Google Scholar

9 Patch, “Bolivia: The Seventh Year,” p. 15.

10 Ibid., p. 22. Results of inquiries concerning these functions are presented in tabular form. Fifty family heads in each of three Quechua-speaking communities were included in the survey.

11 Lockwood, Agnes N., “Indians of the Andes,” International Conciliation, No. 508 (May, 1956), pp. 390-1.Google Scholar

12 Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1958), p. 50.Google Scholar He calls this characteristic “empathy,” and refers to it as indispensable to mobility. He also sees confidence with respect to the manipulability of the future as necessary; this trait too seems to be increasingly present in Bolivia.

13 Patch, , “Bolivia: The Restrained Revolution,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 334 (March, 1961), p. 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Committee of Nine, Alliance for Progress, “Measures Designed to Speed Economic Development in Bolivia Under the Alliance for Progress,” mimeographed, May, 1962, pp. i-iii.

15 Lipset, Seymour M., “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review, Vol. LIII, No. 1 (March, 1959), p. 83.Google Scholar

16 Silvert, Kalman H., The Conflict Society: Reaction and Revolution in Latin America (New Orleans: The Hauser Press, 1961), p. 16.Google Scholar

17 Patch, , “Bolivia's Developing Interior,” AUFSRS: WCSAS, Vol. IX, No. 3 (April, 1962), p. 13.Google Scholar Gutiérrez, Alberto Ostría, The Tragedy of Bolivia, trans, by Golden, Eithne (New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1958), p. 192 Google Scholar, charges the MNR with encouraging the workers “to hate the middle class”.

18 Johnson, John J., Political Change in Latin America (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1958).Google Scholar More than proving anything about Bolivia, this shows the fallacy of Johnson's approach to the prevalence of these groups in the process of change in Latin America. He argues that the presence of these attitudes, ipso facto, indicates the presence of a middle class. The converse is probably true, but the attitudes, at least in Bolivia, exist without their being any semblance of a middle class.

19 Osborne, Harold, Bolivia: A Land Divided (Welwyn Garden City, U. K.: Broadwater Press, 1954), p. 3.Google Scholar

20 Bolivia, National Planning Board, “Economic and Social Development Plan for Bolivia 1962-1971,” translated by Peter Gil, Assistant, Committee of Nine, Alliance for Progress, mimeographed, pp. 190-1.

21 Métraux, Alfred, “The Social and Economic Structure of the Indian Communities of the Andean Region,” International Labour Review, Vol. LXXIX, No. 3 (March, 1959), p. 238.Google Scholar

22 Bolivia, National Planning Board, op. cit., p. 105.

23 This is the major factor cited in the failure of past colonization efforts in Bolivia. Crist, Raymond, “Bolivia,” Focus, Vol. X, No. 4 (Dec, 1959), p. 6.Google Scholar

24 Sariola, Sakari, “A Colonization Experiment in Bolivia,” Rural Sociology, VoL XXV, No. 1 (March, 1960), p. 84.Google Scholar