What happens when social movements swap the streets for governmental seats? For a time, there was no better place to look for answers to this question than in Bolivia. After years of upheaval, the social forces that challenged the hegemony of neoliberalism and of the Bolivian state arrived at the Palacio Quemado with the election of Evo Morales, the country's first Indigenous president, in 2005, carrying a radical mandate.
In Now We Are in Power, Angus McNelly explores what happened since, following closely on Morales's presidency (2005–19), grounding the analysis of this period on important characteristics of the political economy of Bolivia: strong presence of popular social movements, regional divides and wealth of natural resources (p. 5). The book combines a deft use of Gramsci – also a popular reference among Bolivian academic and political circles – with extensive fieldwork in La Paz/El Alto and Santa Cruz, and comprehensive use of literature in English and Spanish, now enriched by McNelly's own contributions.
The book opens with an excellent exposition of Antonio Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, followed by a chapter that revisits the insurgencies of the early 2000s which paved the way for the rise to power of Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). Citing René Zavaleta Mercado, McNelly reminds us of the nationalising power of crises (p. 33): during the Black October of 2003, both the motley character of Bolivian society and the relationships that connect the heterogeneous struggles that constitute it became visible. That moment of catharsis – when radical change seemed possible – was followed by the reconfiguration of social forces and the social and spatial re-establishment of state power. Throughout the book, McNelly examines the contradictions that emanate from these processes, assessing their promises and the shortened horizons for radical change.
These initial engagements set the tone for the analytical chapters, where McNelly further applies his Gramscian conceptual framework to unfolding events in Bolivia. One of the key strengths of the book lies in its examination of how state hegemony relies on the absorption of sections of the civil society by the political society (p. 125). In Chapter 2, McNelly takes us to the MAS's Escuela de Formación Política in El Alto, where party activists try to come to terms with Morales's first and only electoral defeat since 2005: the 2016 re-election referendum. Using the concept of transformism, McNelly argues that the incorporation of social movements into the management of the state institutionalised and de-radicalised contestation, contradictorily distancing the party in power from the bases that led it there. Further scrutinising the consensual underpinnings of the MAS's hegemonic project, McNelly looks at Morales through the prism of Caesarism. The president's persona and leadership, at once profane and sublime, shielded him and the MAS from criticism during critical moments and fostered consensus around his position, contributing to the concentration of the responsibility (and laurels) for progressive change in the figure of Morales himself. While McNelly makes it clear that the MAS changed the face of (and faces inside) the Bolivian state, this was far from fulfilling the radical potential of 2003.
The spatiotemporal unevenness of capitalist development in the periphery is another central theme and extractivism loosely connects two pivotal processes discussed in the book. In Chapter 3, McNelly turns to the ‘two Bolivias’ to revisit how economic elites from the broadly anti-MAS ‘Media Luna’ mobilised racialised political, economic and spatial divides to curtail radical changes to the constitution, favouring agricultural and extractive capital based in the lowlands: a compromise that led to a sense of ‘being forgotten’ among MAS's radical (urban) bases. ‘Change’, they felt, ‘is happening elsewhere’ (p. 104) and, in Chapter 5, McNelly demonstrates how it is materialised through mega infrastructure projects. Here, he considers the centrality of natural resources for the Bolivian imaginary and the failed extractivist promise of modernity which breeds clashes between MAS, parts of its base and within the base – as infamously represented by the TIPNIS (Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory) conflict in 2011. McNelly is at his best when demonstrating how the promise of progress is perpetually concretised in the future whereas the present is characterised by a sense of ‘deferral, degeneration, abandonment’ (p. 159).
Wrapping up at the conjuncture of another crisis – the 2019 coup against Morales – the final two chapters take stock of the contradictions in the proceso de cambio and restate the contributions of the book's compelling use of the passive revolution. Here, and throughout the book, a closer analysis of the role of the material gains in breeding consensus around the MAS would strengthen the argument. If not radical, the drop in poverty and inequality were politically relevant and it would be interesting to see how this fits into McNelly's analytical model. The book ends, somewhat unexpectedly, pointing to feminist movements as beacons of the anti-capitalist struggle across Latin America. While this is appealing, there is little to prepare us for this turn of events and the book could be better concluded with a consideration of the future of struggles in many of the battlefields discussed in the text, such as the extractivist frontier.
Yet, Now We Are in Power confirms how paradigmatic Bolivia is to the analysis of the outcomes of social movements’ accession to power. McNelly demonstrates this through a nuanced study of the rise and demise of radical social forces and a critical interpretation of the reconfiguration of state power under Morales. In doing so, he provides valuable insights about the success and limitations of the proceso de cambio, seen here as a de facto passive revolution. This can and should inform the actions and analysis of other social movements in Bolivia and elsewhere, making this book as relevant for academics and activists alike and an excellent addition to syllabi in politics, international development and Latin American studies.
