“Division at Home,Unity Abroad? The Impact of Local and International Dynamics on Political Opportunity Structure in the Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Secure Highway Conflict”

Abstract

This article observes developments in the construction of a controversial highway project through the protected TIPNIS territory in Bolivia’s Amazonian region between 2003 and 2021. The case study uses theories of political opportunity structure to guide the qualitative investigation about how indigenous groups confronted uncertain domestic and international institutional conditions. To confront divisive obstacles at home, activists ultimately developed strategies for operating within the formal rules and institutions while also creating their own “alternate” or informal sites of contestation at the international and domestic levels. This article ends with a discussion of the significance and power of these alternative institutions to influence policy.

Keywords

indigenous Bolivia Latin America social movements transnational activism environmental rights rights of nature

Introduction and Background

In 2011, the Bolivian president Evo Morales of the Movement toward Socialism (MAS) party announced that the government would cease plans to build the San Ignacio de Moxos highway, proposed to cut through the center of the Amazonian Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (or TIPNIS), a territory that had achieved protected status in 1965. The state formally recognized the TIPNIS ancestral roots of the Mojeño, Yuracaré, and Tsimne (also known as Chimán groups) in 1990 and granted them land tenure in 2009 based on this claim. Morales’ 2011 announcement came after lowland indigenous groups and transnational environmental organizations mobilized protests and marches against construction plans and international observers broadcast violent clashes between police forces and indigenous protesters (see Arnez, 2016; Fundación Solon, 2018). Over the subsequent 10 years, the Morales government pursued various creative maneuvers in pursuit of its development goals, despite the formal agreement to halt construction. The status of the case is currently pending either a friendly settlement or ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on a case filed by TIPNIS activists. Various extra-institutional (alternatively known as non-governmental, non-state, or informal) organizations have also arisen to challenge the state’s processes on ancestral, constitutional, and international legal grounds.

This piece interrogates the relevance of domestic divisions and international/transnational unity with TIPNIS activists by looking closely at a range of domestic and international organizations and institutions seeking to impact the political opportunity structure. Bolivia’s political landscape provides a theoretically interesting location for studying such dynamics because like many Latin American states, it has adopted constitutional provisions that protect rights, land, and identities of indigenous people as part of the democratization process. In the 1990s, Bolivia set the stage for indigenous mobilization by undertaking neoliberal policies that created disparate outcomes for rural and urban indigenous communities, while simultaneously claiming to protect indigenous rights (Lind, 2005; Nash, 2005; Yashar, 2005). Indigenous activism, leading to Morales’ and MAS victories in 2005, transformed Bolivia into an indigenous-led, left-leaning stalwart that introduced relatively successful poverty-reduction programs financed by the newly nationalized natural gas revenues (see Kohl, 2006). These factors represent potential openings in the political opportunity structure that permit citizen/activist policy influence. According to Tarrow’s (1983) early conceptualization, these opportunities come from formal political access, alignments within the political system, and the availability of strategic alliances (27–33).

However, shadow comparisons between TIPNIS and other cases of attempted indigenous policy influence illustrate that political opportunity structures do not represent static or unidimensional situations at one point in time. They may reflect openness to certain causes and closure to others; moreover different “levels” or “sites” of activity might leverage different opportunities than others. These sites may reference geographical (local, national, and international/transnational) or institutional (formal and informal) sites of activism. In the case of Bolivian lowland Amazonian peoples, communities found themselves situated between state political goals for development and defense of local ecosystems from changes that would have deleterious consequences for the health of the environment. The government’s desire to “connect” the department of Beni to the rest of the state—and to neighboring countries—for commercial purposes created a contest between all three essential “sites” of contestation, with clashes resulting between international trade interests, national politics, and the local defense defenders of the land. For MAS critics, this overshadowed previous attempts to prove that indigenous sovereignty and environmental protection were the government’s main motivations.

Investigating the role that division at home and unity abroad may play in TIPNIS outcomes involves analyzing forces from below and above that may subtly impact the political opportunity structure. The challenge of protecting environmentally vulnerable and indigenous territories conflicts with a web of interconnected spheres of influence operating in the Bolivian economy—including, but not limited to, projects to address poverty and the hydrocarbons and mining industries which require infrastructure projects like the TIPNIS highway. This economic reality conditions both domestic and international factors that affect the political opportunity structure. International trade and extraction play a crucial role in development patterns and differences in political preferences among diverse indigenous groups. As a result, many MAS supporters—including many Aymara and Quechua indigenous groups—support construction to achieve various development goals, a factor that further divides indigenous communities in the region. These domestic and international dynamics impact political opportunity structures for marginalized people in supportive and countervailing ways, making it necessary to adopt a long historical perspective at indigenous economic and social circumstances see Fabricant and Postero (2015).¹

To explain TIPNIS activism, this piece also draws from theories about connections between political institutions, culture, and protests. As Benford and Snow (2000) argue, understanding the political opportunity structure requires understanding of the link between political processes and cultural processes, since the cultural understanding (framing) of these opportunities may impact mobilization and outcomes of collective action (p. 631). As a result, various tenets of TIPNIS identity are relevant, including an ancestral connection to the land, which carries different interests for the Mojeño, Yuracaré, and Tsimne (Chimán) groups than for others (even indigenous peoples) living in Bolivia. This detail is also relevant to understanding formal and informal channels of influence and access that improve opportunities for policy influence by indigenous movements. Lacking indigenous solidarity at home and possessing a strong historic distrust for “official” actions taken by the state regarding the highway, activists took advantage of a range of sources of unity (domestic, inter-, and transnational) for the TIPNIS community.

Other studies of TIPNIS activism have effectively explored economic, ethnic, and regional inequalities (Fabricant and Postero, 2015, 2019; McNeish, 2013), constitutional protections in comparative perspective (Kröger & Lalander, 2016), and political economic influences (McNeish, 2013; Webber, 2012; Laing, 2015; Delgado, 2017). Fewer studies have investigated how international organizational dynamics impact the case, along with the potential influences from extra-legal, informal, or alternative institutional arrangements represented by domestic and international civil society organizations. This piece attempts to close that gap by interrogating the subtle meaning that such civil society efforts might mean in the larger institutional game. For indigenous people sheltered in vulnerable ecological communities, such innovations have attempted to strengthen existing institutional and constitutional protections afforded to them, especially in cases where the state’s interpretation of statutes and protections are in opposition to community practices.

As this piece will illustrate, the clash between activists and MAS development goals have been negotiated and contested within various sites—organizations and institutions spanning from formal to informal and from national to international or transnational foundations. In identifying these complex influences, the piece teases out some of the innovative forms that protest may take to impact political institutions (Meyer & Minkoff, 2004). The next sections outline the research question, methods of analysis, literature, and case study findings of these details of the TIPNIS case. I conclude with a discussion about the implications of transnational and informal institutional influences for political opportunities and state behavior.

Methods and Data

This piece analyzes major factors impacting the political opportunity structure toward TIPNIS activists at various points in their resistance to the highway’s construction, focusing especially on reports of protest and demonstration events and important pieces of state legislation in 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2021. The TIPNIS case justifies case study methods because it is a theoretically interesting example of a political phenomenon (indigenous mobilization and state response) (George & Bennett, 2005). The study is also important because of its focus on subnational movements and its investigation of unexpected behaviors in a country with a fresh commitment to indigenous and environmental rights. The case study findings presented here center on highway opposition mobilization and policy efforts in the TIPNIS region over approximately 18 years, from 2003–2021. Using content analysis of primary and secondary sources, including state statutes, publications from civil society organizations, international legal institutions, news, and watchdog organizations’ publications², the analysis presented here uncovers relevant structural components in Bolivia and the international environment that impact indigenous mobilization and policy influence.

Policy Outcomes

The impact of TIPNIS activism on policy is measured by coding policy responses of the government to social movement demands at crucial junctures over the past 18 years. I define policy success (or failure) as any outcome that constitutes a momentary or lasting success (or failure) for the proponents of specific policies, including, but not limited to temporary concessions, litigation outcomes, constitutional provisions, or legislative statute laws. This conceptualization borrows from scholars’ definition of collective action “success” as being linked with material outcomes (Gamson, 1975), agenda acceptance, agenda access, policy victories, output response, and structural changes (Jenkins and Klandermans, 1995, p.12).

Literature

The Political Opportunity Structure (POS)

Opportunity structures (Tarrow, 1983; Tilly, 1978)—meaning state and international “openness” to claims—affect the chances for indigenous movements to achieve favorable policy outcomes. In positioning the state as a crucial point of action for policies impacted by social movements, this article draws from scholarship that has assessed the impact of social movements on political opportunities and public policy as measurable outcome variables (e.g., Amenta & Caren, 2004; Meyer & Rochon, 1997; Whittier, 2004; Kolb, 2007). Many scholars have investigated how state political opportunity structures affect indigenous social movement mobilization and success (Albó,1991, 1994, 2002; Gustafson, 2002; Lucero, 2003, 2008; Van Cott, 2000; Yashar, 2005). Most of these studies identify the causes of mobilization and various measures of success (from political party formation to influence on specific policies), and several scholars stress that structural opportunities are conditioned by other contextual variables (i.e., international and economic factors) (Lucero, 2008; Brysk, 2000; Yashar, 2005).

The case of TIPNIS illustrates how countervailing and complementary forces at both the domestic and international levels, and between informal and formal institutional processes, create a complicated narrative about social movements’ potential impact on policy. In doing so, Therefore, this case study also draws from studies of informal institutions (e.g., Helmke & Levitsky, 2004; O’Donnell, 2006; Levitsky, 2013). Such institutional analyses account for the fact that many “rules of the game” in politics are informal—“created, communicated, and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels” (Helmke & Levitsky, 2004, p. 725). Complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive interactions with formal institutions (Helmke & Levitsky, 2004) are evident in the TIPNIS communities’ participation in and creation of alternate spaces to air their grievances against the state.

This piece also draws from political geographers who argue that space, place, and scale condition social relations and the political opportunity structure (Martin & Miller, 2006; Silvern, 1999; Fraser, Pelling, Scolobig, and Mavrogenis, 2020). These nuances and complexities also lead us to understand how one set of political opportunities might be a catalyst for social movement formation and mobilization, even while these same conditions represent adverse conditions for the chances of achieving their preferred policies. Instead of viewing spaces as mere “containers” of society, political geographers view the role of space as an actively constructed site of cultural expression and shared identity (Martin & Miller, 2006, p. 148). The development potential of natural resources marks the importance of the TIPNIS as “place” while revealing reasons for the uneven application of indigenous and environmental rights. Such nuances also help us understand differences among indigenous groups in preferences for the highway.

In addition, scale is an additional dimension used to define the nature of spatial relationships at various “levels” of authority and hierarchy—commonly related to “nested relationships of city, county, state, national, and transnational governance” (Silvern, 1999; Martin & Miller, 2006, p. 148). These perspectives are especially useful for understanding certain nuances involved in the TIPNIS movement. Specifically, these perspectives highlight how political opportunity structures might be fluid and highly situated in their geographical, political, and historical contexts (Martin & Miller, 2006, p. 144). While the protection of the physical territory is of obvious significance, the complex view of spaces speaks to the TIPNIS activists’ construction of identities related to the territory and the need to “scale” mobilization “up” to transnational actors as well as “out” to informal or alternative institutions.

Domestic Conditions Affecting Policy Outcomes and POS

Tarrow’s (1983) major arenas of political structure affect indigenous movements’ ability to impact policy: openness of formal political access, stability of alignments within the political system, and the availability of strategic posture of potential alliances (Tarrow, 1983, p. 27–33). Several scholars branch off from these three main areas of opportunity as contributory factors to include state organization, cohesion and alignment among political elites, the state of political parties (Jenkins and Klandermans, 1995), the nature of relationships between the state and its citizenry (Goodwin, 1997), and the state’s ability to repress its citizens (McAdam, 1996, p. 29). As I will discuss, indigenous policy efforts in the TIPNIS case confront most of these questions of influence, including the formal opening of opportunities within the state, alliances/conflicts with other groups, and the state’s potential for repression. Indigenous activists saw greater formal openings within the state in terms of representation and constitutional protections, but a lack of alignment with the state’s development goals effectively created a hostile or inflexible political opportunity structure for the TIPNIS activists. But this is where other contexts can partially condition the state’s ability to monopolize power over policy and protest. With civil society organizations at the domestic and international levels broadcasting the conflict, and with all eyes on the state’s first indigenous and socialist president, the Bolivian state’s capacity (or incentive) for repression was greatly reduced. This scenario has led to an uncomfortable recognition and response to the accusations made by non-institutional and NGO actors, even while the government has sought measures to restart construction.

International Conditions Affecting the POS

Political opportunity structure may be influenced, or under the right circumstances, conditioned by, international factors that have been supportive of political goals of indigenous ethnic groups (Albó, 2002; Brysk, 2000; Bengoa, 2000; Yashar, 2005). Brysk (2000) argues that internationalization has various influences on social movements, which benefit from external alliances and legal leverage provided in international agreements. In addition, international human rights laws provide a normative basis for human rights claims domestically and can have a cultural impact of spreading values of the international human rights regime. Yashar (2005) argues that the rise of indigenous movements is aided by international influences and that globalization contributes to the rise of ethnic movements by creating a “transnational civil society” and provides networks, resources, information, and funds that were previously inaccessible to these groups (Yashar, 2005, p. 16). Globalization increases the ability to promote international norms and ideas about human rights, indigenous rights, and environmental rights, among others (Yashar, 2005, p. 16). Other scholars cite international law and norms as an important source of indigenous people’s recourse in Latin America (Hernández Castillo, 2003; Kampwirth, 2002, 2004; Rousseau, 2011; Sierra, 2001, 2007; Speed et al., 2006).

Moreover, a vibrant scholarship has emerged to explain the role that organizations’ programs on human rights have on the states’ human rights observance. Some international and regional human rights organizations create obligations and commitments among groups of relevant states, and many encode the international human rights framework into their own legal systems. Research has concluded that human rights organizations (HROs) may work to curb human rights abuses through socializing states into international norms and identifying weak compliance records among signatory countries (Risse, Sikkink, and Roop, 1999)—especially through naming and shaming rights violators (Bell, Clay, and Murdie, 2012; Hendrix & Wong, 2013; Pruce & Bundabin, 2016; Stroup and Murdie, 2012). HROs may also have other indirect effects by impacting aid sent to states (Esarey & DeMeritt, 2017), and by enabling transnational networks to deploy trans-scalar “boomerang” strategies that recruit support by broadcasting domestic conditions internationally, creating rebound pressure on the institutions of the violating state (Keck & Sikkink, 1999). Significantly for the TIPNIS case, Pruce and Bundabin (2016) reveal that the past two decades have seen organizations work beyond naming and shaming by introducing more sophisticated tools that communicate to wider audiences and serve broader purposes, like conducting fact-finding missions, holding direct consultations with power brokers, amassing wide followings, and commanding media attention (Pruce & Bundabin, 2016, p. 409).

International and regional human rights regimes also may provide a network of international actors with information and networking capability necessary for mobilizing international non-state actors to affect state policy. They may create the forum for introducing pressure on states through diplomatic and economic sanctions and may also provide vital resources to non-state actors that resist state repression. Brysk (1993) argues that “transnational networks of non-governmental organizations can make a variety of contributions to social change, even in the limiting case where they lack conventional power resources and face a repressive, authoritarian state” (p. 261). Therefore, the international community provides fora and resources necessary for social groups’ claims against their states, communicating areas of human rights concerns to the international community, and creating international pressure on states to address problematic human rights practices.

Spatial geographical and informal institutional perspectives (discussed above) also have relevance to the concept of international and transnational movements and institutions. As will be discussed, creating alternate sites of contention where political opportunities at the state level were closed entailed taking advantage of advocacy networks at various scales above the state, while also creating new political opportunities through informal institutions at the subnational level. As Beyers and Kerremans (2012) identify, regional organizational membership can provide alternate spaces and scales of mobilization in the form of venue shopping, as activists are given a wider range of advocates and allies through a web of international agencies and organizations. The general lesson from the literature on inter- and transnational influence holds that globalization or internationalization, through various mechanisms, creates important norms, laws, and resources that support policy changes. In addressing the strategies and approaches used to generate support from legal and non-legal entities in the international sphere, the analysis presented here contributes to a clearer understanding of how civil society efforts affect institutional rules and processes.

Case Study Findings

Domestic Political Contexts: State Response

In the early years of the 21^st century, indigenous communities successfully pursued coca, land reform, and anti-neoliberal policy goals (Los Tiempos, 2011; Monasterios, 2007; Liendo, 2009; Rousseau, 2011), but indigenous activists from the TIPNIS region faced a formal political opportunity structure that was increasingly hostile to their policy demands. President Morales first addressed TIPNIS protests by passing a law protecting the territory in October 2011 (Los Tiempos, 2011;L. Latinoamericana Press, 2012). While the law temporarily halted the construction of the highway, the government sought ways to circumvent the TIPNIS protests and continue building. In February 2012, Morales passed Law 222 for Consultation with the Inhabitants of the TIPNIS, and in July 2012, he announced a constitutional referendum on the plans for highway construction through the territory (L. Latinoamericana Press, 2012). Several members of the TIPNIS region rejected this referendum and the already-initiated consultation with consenting communities (Melendres, 2012; L. Latinoamericana Press, 2012; Bolivia Weekly, 2012). One writer voiced the TIPNIS community’s skepticism: “Might there be previous consultation between the shotgun and the pigeons? (Villegas, 2010, title, p. 1)”

Anti-highway activists have long complained that the “coca highway” was a clear favor to coca interests that had strengthened Evo’s and MAS’s path to electoral success (Achtenberg, 2012, 2015). Cauthin (2018) describes how the population in TIPNIS has almost doubled over the past 15 years, with Aymara, Quechua, and mestizo cocaleros mainly to blame for the increasing population density of the region.³ In addition, the zones in TIPNIS where coca is grown indicate a heavy reliance on more destructive forms of monocrop agriculture, as opposed to the other zones which grow fruit, rice, and other diverse crops (Cauthin, 2018). These resettlements are seen by some ancestral groups as a continuation of the relocation of Aymara and Quechua indigenous people which began with agrarian reform in 1953 to reduce pressures for farmable land (Delgado, 2017). And as Inter-Press InterPress Service (2011) reports, this division has led to variations in support for the highway, with communities displaying competing developmental goals. Peasant farmers, Quechua and Aymara colonists, and cocaleros support the highway for its greater access to markets, greater access to schools and healthcare facilities, and take less issue with the extractivist model of development (Achtenberg, 2011; Delgado, 2017; InterPress Service, 2011). The hydrocarbons industry—inside and outside of the state—has interest in the TIPNIS petroleum reserves, which TIPNIS activists see as a clear conflict with the consultation logic of “Buen Vivir,” or “living well” from a collective standpoint. They view the concept as an aspiration to achieve material, social, and spiritual well-being, though “not at the cost of other members of the environment” (InterPress Service, 2011).

Also in conflict with TIPNIS autonomy were early commitments made by Evo Morales and the MAS party to address poverty (especially of indigenous people) through land reform, which sparked secession efforts in the Santa Cruz region over fears of the seizure of idle land held by wealthy landowners for speculation (Al Jazeera, 2006). The solution adopted by the Bolivian government is outlined by Villegas (2010):

a historical change has occurred in agrarian policy; the big landowners have been pardoned; now it is intended that they dispute the land among the poor. We can state that this what actually has happened and has been made evident above all in the law of productive revolution where the problem of land tenure and latifundio has been replaced by the problem of urban growth… As you can see, inserting these groups (“interculturals” or “settlers”) to the problem instead of negotiating directly, it was a conscious choice for the violent resolution of the conflict. (ibid, p. 7)

President Morales dismissed the complaints of Amazon indigenous communities about the contested consultation process, though activists argued that 32 out of 69 of the TIPNIS communities represented in the dispute had not had their voices heard during the alleged consultation process undertaken by the government (CIDOB, 2012). While the government insists that it had consulted 48 out of the 69 communities and that 47 had approved the highway, the TIPNIS leaders dispute the results and cite their own surveys showing that 52 communities reject the road and the consultation (Actenberg, 2012).

September 2011 saw violent clashes between police and protesters, with tensions reaching their height as police fired on, tear gassed, and detained women along with their children in Chaparina (Alejo, 2012; CIDOB, 2012; Reuters, 2011). Officials attributed the police reaction to indigenous women’s behavior the previous day, when Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca was forced to lead indigenous women marchers through a police barricade setup to impede their progress to La Paz. The minister filed charges of kidnapping against 6 of the women activists which were subsequently dropped for lack of evidence. President Morales denied executive responsibility, stating President Morales denied executive responsibility for the brutal reactions by police, stating that the National Police acted unilaterally (Alejo, 2012; CIDOB, 2012). How repressive reprisals by police forces continued at least until July of 2012 in La Paz (Corz, 2012).

The government passed laws that would seemingly appease TIPNIS residents’ worries about coca growers, environmental damage, and deforestation while simultaneously clearing the way for the project (Los Tiempos, 2013). In 2014, a law allowing mining in the territory was passed, even while the state publicly announced that it would no longer pursue the highway project (Erbol, 2014; Fabricant & Postero, 2015). Additionally, Supreme Decree 2366 was passed in 2015, allowing hydrocarbon activities within natural protected areas (Huarachi, 2020), and in 2017, a new law was passed to remove the “intangible” status of the region (Página Siete Digital, 2017a). The action drew outrage from the residents and international observers, even while the MAS government assured citizens that addressing poverty in the region was a greater priority. Página Siete Digital (2017b) reported in February the same year that according to TIPNIS leaders, the government violated the promise by the Bolivian Highway Administration (the ABC) to stop the highway project, an accusation the president of the ABC has publicly denied.

The government tried various strategies to circumvent the will of the highway-opposed TIPNIS communities, pointing to different informal options (including mixed messaging) as options for state actors. State political opportunities were at times openly hostile—and at other times, simply undermining—to the TIPNIS activists under the Morales government. While the importance of political opportunity structures seems confirmed at various points in the struggle against highway construction, the complete story relates to the ways in which various other social forces—and other constructed “spaces” for contention—interacted with political opportunities to contradict or confirm the claims of indigenous peoples.

Lowland Groups Mobilize in 2021—the Indigenous Parliament

In the most recent example of mobilizations of the TIPNIS communities, between August and October 2021, the lowland region saw some 500 protesters marching by foot from Trinidad to Santa Cruz to pressure the departmental and federal governments to annul legal norms that allow new settlers in their region and to cancel all hydroelectric projects on their lands (Deutsche Welle, 2021). The march had begun with 34 lowland communities forming the Indigenous Parliament, which presented a list of demands for local autonomy and environmental protection of their territories (Des Informemos, 2021; Unitel Bolivia (2021)). Concerns about cocaleros and “settlers” help define the 3 recognized ancestral indigenous TIPNIS groups as unique, an important cultural delineation related to the importance of space (and belonging) as a mobilization context. Also reflecting the importance of the geographical perspectives on space, place, and scale, activists demonstrated how protection of the territory and their own cultural identities were interconnected to reasons for rejecting the highway. They argued:

The TIPNIS is the Big House and belongs to no one, it is part of everyone, it has no owners and we are part of it. Resistance is a way of life, and life is the territory itself. We must defend it from this predatory capitalist system that is putting at risk the lives not only of our communities, but of the entire planet. (Huarachi, 2020)

The Fall 2021 march commemorated the 1990 March for Territory and Dignity led by lowland indigenous people, which ended with state recognition of the area as the ancestral domain of the Mojeño, Yuracaré, and Tsimne (Chimán) indigenous peoples (Bolivia, 1990). On September 25, 2021, their march also memorialized the 10-year anniversary of what lowland communities now refer to as “the Chaparina massacre” in September 2011 (Erbol, 2021). The importance of Chaparina was echoed earlier in 2016 when activists clashed with police during demonstrations against apparent plans to re-start construction. Women activists can be heard shouting at the police in the TIPNIS park:

“This is not Chaparina! You are not in Chaparina! Remember how you harmed us in Chaparina! We have the right to defend our land, the land God gave us! Get out, Evo!” (Arnez, 2016)

During the recent march, delegates held a meeting with the High Commissioner of the UN Commission for Human Rights to request mediation with their demands to the Bolivian state (EFE, 2021). In a show of anti-MAS solidarity, the opposition parties in Santa Cruz publicly promoted the recognition of the newly created Indigenous Parliament, while MAS parliamentarians boycotted the meeting (Becerra, 2021). These experiences at the domestic level mirror interesting patterns at the international level. Where formal processes were found lacking, civil society activists and organizations attempted to build alternative representation processes and sites of contestation to assist their policy goals. This same action is also an example of why it is useful to interrogate how scale, place, and space impact concepts like political opportunities. Where conflicts among indigenous and other groups obstructed a domestic unified front and traditional channels of influence, TIPNIS activists created new alternatives to amplify their concerns to their communities, the Bolivian government, and to international observers and networks.

International Conditions Affecting Political Opportunity Structure

Influences—the Formal Legal Structure

From the standpoint of human rights, a small corn field deserves the same respect as the private property of a person that a bank account or a modern factory receives—the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (OAS, 1993).

TIPNIS activists also invoke international agreements to support their claims that their rights were denied, arguing that Bolivia’s consultation procedures violated international agreements like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and International Labor Organization Convention 169 (Achtenberg, 2011; Kenner, 2011). ILO Convention 169, which recognizes the rights and territories of indigenous peoples, was signed by Bolivia in 1991 and 22 other countries at various times (International Labour Organization (1989)). The United Nations General Assembly passed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples declaration in 2007, with 144 states in favor (United Nations General Assembly, 2007). The UN Human Rights Office works to advance rights of indigenous peoples by supporting legislative change, facilitating dialogue between actors related to indigenous concerns, and developing tools and guidance on the rights of indigenous peoples. In addition, the UN also sponsored the creation of dedicated working groups and councils like the Inter-Agency Support Group in Indigenous Issues and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN OHCHR, 2021).

At the regional level, the inter-American system first began to promote indigenous rights in 1972 when the commission affirmed that “for historical reasons, and based on moral and humanitarian principles, States had a sacred duty to provide special protection to indigenous peoples” (Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 2021). The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights established the Office of the Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 1990 and has focused on the need for protection of indigenous people to their lands and resources and protection of their economic livelihoods along with the protection of their cultural and social rights (Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 2021).

In the TIPNIS case, the OAS agreed to mediate a discussion over the conflict, and convened a meeting with cocaleros, commercial interests, and municipal authorities. However, this process excluded the sub-central TIPNIS groups, which were the most vocal in opposing highway construction on cultural and ecological grounds (Bolivia Weekly, 2012; Echazú, 2011). This exclusion prompted further protest, and exposed divisions in the indigenous movement about the interrelated strategies of poverty reduction and ecological protection versus development. Aside from this unsuccessful attempt at mediation by the Organization of American States in 2011, international forces remained mute on the TIPNIS issue for several years. Activists’ publications and statements appeal to conventions and of the ILO and the UN, but action about the highway largely remained restricted to domestic influences. However, in April of 2020, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released its report on the admissibility of claims that the Bolivian state violated the American Convention on Human Rights, in connection with Articles 1 (states’ obligation to respect rights) and 2 (states’ obligation to adopt decisions with domestic legal effects) (OAS, 2020). The commission identified additional rights violations under consideration according to Articles 5 (right to humane treatment), 21 (right to property), 23 (political rights), and 25 (right to judicial protection), in connection with Articles 1 and 2. The OAS has ruled that it has the competency to rule on Bolivian state actions, while also acknowledging that all domestic remedies had been exhausted by the Mojeño, Yuracaré, and Tsimne (Chimán) peoples (OAS, 2020). Among other major revelations in the document, the commission acknowledges indigenous peoples’ claims that multiple human rights violations occurred against TIPNIS activists, including murders, kidnappings, displacements, and disappearances, including that of an infant (OAS, 2020). In other reports, some testimonies allege that communities resisting the highway have been excluded from government projects and resources like hospitals and schools (Tamayo, 2018).

Formal international intergovernmental institutions contain the most extensive legal framework for indigenous and environmental rights jurisprudences—combined with a mixed record of compliance from their members. However, OAS publications and a formal complaint lodged by TIPNIS representatives with the United Nations in 2011 (Achtenberg, 2011) also highlight the importance of transnational spaces for advocates to provide supportive networks for indigenous communities. Much influence of international/inter-governmental institutions entails “naming and shaming” human rights abusers with the hope that reputational concerns will impact state behavior. But due to their less formal nature, transnational activist organizations have more agency and less diplomatic restraint than inter-governmental organizations in naming and shaming Bolivia for its abuses of indigenous lowland groups. While they may have fewer resources than inter-governmental institutions, smaller, more focused transnational groups can mobilize digital and human resources that rely more on media and legal expertise than military or financial power.

The Role of NGOs: Political, Environmental, and Human Rights Organizations

“If the national government of Bolivia has not listened to us, you are going to be the ones listening to us” –Dirigente Alejandro Yuco, San Vicente, speaking to International Rights of Nature Tribunal Members (Fundación Solon, 2018).

Indigenous communities were divided on the issue of the TIPNIS highway⁴ and indigenous organizations reflected this fact. The highland-centered Unified Syndical Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB) and the Indigenous Council of the South (CONISUR—consisting of coca growers in the TIPNIS region) supported MAS and Morales’ position on the highway (Bjork-James, 2011; Prensa CEDIB, 2012). Meanwhile, two of the largest national indigenous groups, the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB) and the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Aullasuyu (CONAMAQ), experienced public disputes leading to MAS-supporter takeovers and purges of anti-highway/anti-Morales delegates. As Stauffer (2018) reports, some dissident indigenous groups grew out of these outcast members and their groups continued to campaign against Morales’ reelections as well as protection of the TIPNIS region.

In this divided environment, several national and international NGOs played important informational roles while providing mobilization resources to those affected. Documentation of police and government actions, as well as witness testimonies, was were recorded and published by Erbol (a national-level education radio broadcast), the North American Congress on Latin America, and Fundación Tierra (Foundation Earth). These Bolivian NGOs work on behalf of indigenous, native, democratic, and peasant concerns, and have played a strong role in informing listeners and viewers of state activities and activist responses.

NGO support for social movement activity prompted negative responses from the MAS government. In 2013, Morales expelled the US Agency for International Development for allegedly seeking to undermine the government through funding of decentralization initiatives and through its alleged TIPNIS support, furthering the government narrative that the activists’ rebellion was a result of transnational manipulation instead of homegrown resistance to the Bolivian development project (Valdez, 2013). In August 2015, Vice President García Linera publicly threatened to expel Fundación Tierra along with other prominent NGOs supporting the TIPNIS activists, including the Center for the Study of Labor and Agrarian Development (CEDLA) and the Bolivian Center for Documentation and Information (CEDIB). He argued that these respected NGOs were guilty of using funds from abroad to promote a “transnational imperial policy” of environmental activism. While García Linera walked back his intention to expel the NGOs from Bolivia, he maintained that the organizations existed as “fronts” for geopolitical imperialism (Achtenberg, 2015; Página Siete, 2015).

International non-governmental organizations dedicated to environmental advocacy and human rights also played a role in investigating, documenting, and publicizing evidence about the events in the TIPNIS region. The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) and the International Rights of Nature Tribunal are a combined legal international civil society organization that provides legal and mobilization resources for indigenous and environmentally concerned citizens around the world. The network functions around the “rights of nature”—a “new approach to environmental law, which views nature not as a series of resources that human beings can use, but as a living subject with its own interests and rights” (International Rights of Nature Tribunal, 2021). In 2018, the organizations held public hearings in Bonn, Germany, and released findings that Bolivia’s road project had “violated the rights of nature and of indigenous peoples as defenders of Mother Earth,” and “failed to comply with its obligation to respect, protect, and guarantee the rights of Mother Earth as established under national legislation and relevant international regulations” (Hoffner, 2019; International Rights of Nature Tribunal, 2021; Mongabay, 2019). Difficulties in conducting the investigation were reported by the delegation from the tribunal when CONISUR members blocked their entry into TIPNIS territory. However, members of the delegation pressed on with the investigation using official documents to show that the government failed to follow standards of free prior and informed consent. The International Rights of Nature Tribunal website reports that “as a result of media coverage generated from the Tribunal, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales halted (temporarily) the road project” (International Rights of Nature Tribunal, 2021).

Another relevant factor in the TIPNIS conflict included complaints filed against the main financier of the project, BNDES (the Brazilian Development Bank), the largest financial institution in Latin America. Conectas Direitos Humanos (Brazil), Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Laboral y Agrario – CEDLA (Bolivia) and Global Witness (international) sent a joint civil society complaint to the Ombudsman office of the BNDES outlining the ways that the institution had failed to observe its own environmental and consultation standards, as well as indigenous rights. According to these civil society organizations, the highway’s financing should have never been approved by the institution, and even though the bank pulled out of the deal in 2012, questions about the ethical and legal standards surrounding the completed first segment of the highway persist (Conectas Dirietos Humanos, 2015; De Lima & Ellerbeck, 2016). According to the complaint, the government of Bolivia and highway-supporting financial institutions sought ways to subvert the consultation process, like separating the highway into three segments—two of which now had starting points outside of the protected territory. This reorganization would permit construction to begin prior to consultation and resolution of complaints from the locals. In addition, it assured future political pressure on TIPNIS activists to accept construction once the outer segments of the highway had been completed up to their front doors. This strategy, along with the movement of non-TIPNIS inhabitants into the region as “settlers” illustrate some of the advantages utilized by the MAS and Morales governments to undercut the strength of the highway’s opposition.

NGOs also allege that BNDES violated international law by bidding for the contract and engaging in the initial construction of the highway prior to the indigenous groups living in the TIPNIS being consulted. BNDES responded by saying that it had complied with all the social and environmental prerequisites necessary and that it had respected the legal and judicial standards of the Bolivian authorities (Infoamazonia.org, 2021). This is not the first time the Brazilian development bank has been involved in financing high profile projects that have potential for widespread environmental damage. In 2016, it quietly suspended a massive international hydroelectric project that would have damned various parts of the rivers in the amazon region (Branford, 2016). Alarming amounts of corruption and environmental damage are reported in the history of BNDES-financed projects (Branford, 2016).

The Rights of Nature Tribunal and the complaint to the BNDES ombudsman are not remarkable efforts, as these groups utilize similar tactics in many ecological and environmental cases around the world. The initial hints of legitimacy are found in the activists’ utilization of these methods, but there is also additional legitimacy afforded to the process through the responses—negative and positive—elicited by state and development bank officials. The influence conveyed by the environmental specialists and attorneys in the process of constructing rights of nature jurisprudence relies on similar tactics used by formal institutions. These include “naming and shaming” states who abuse human rights to compel compliance with international accords and releasing embarrassing publications about findings of inquiries, inspections, and investigations into state and other actors’ behavior. Absent formal structures to enact judgments against responsible parties, these organizations use these tactics to supplement, if not substitute (Levitsky 2013) responses by formal international institutions. Such actions are informed by an “alternative, Earth-centered legal analysis” that activists believe will have “performative significance as a forum in which an alternative ‘rights of nature’ legal discourse can be articulated and developed” (Maloney, 2016, p. 141–142). Moreover, they are not bound by diplomatic and processual restraints in the same way that inter-governmental organizations are, leaving more freedom for organizations to criticize state actions.

TIPNIS Summary

Understanding the erratic policy response of the Bolivian state to TIPNIS activism requires looking at a range of influences from below (sub-national) and above (international/transnational) that impact political opportunity structures. From the perspective of state and institutional actors, the political opportunity structure seems inconducive or hostile, especially compared to the structure’s position when the mobilizations were about natural gas and water nationalization, land reform, and constitutional reform. The interaction between formal and informal institutions provides an interesting contextualization of the political opportunity structure: Indigenous people from Amazonia would have to carve out their own opportunities with the help of NGOs and activists at home and abroad.

But whether such an informal, extra-institutional legal framework manages to definitively penetrate more traditional institutional discourse depends on various interconnecting factors, such as the amount of international support received by INGOs, the degree of disconnect between government goals and constitutional protections, and the ability of the government to effectively leverage ethnic or other major divisions in its favor. On this latter point, the movement of settlers to the region had been increasing over the previous 50 years, with displaced miners and former state-owned industry employees of various indigenous ethnicities moving to the lowlands region to farm coca (Achtenberg, 2017; Fabricant & Postero, 2015). The presence of highland-connected settlers represented a dual benefit for the MAS government: it could appease its indigenous and poor voting base with land reform while also appealing to more pro-MAS elements to the region that could cast doubt on the legitimacy of the highway opposition’s claims. Moreover, the MAS government reinforced existing divisions between the settler (highland) and indigenous (lowland) communities by offering pro-highway groups services that were denied those in opposition (Arnez, 2016; Tamayo, 2018). The government’s resort to more underhanded activities could be explained, in part, by the fact that the state’s goals were difficult to defend, constitutionally speaking.

Support from international and domestic sources was also a benefit to the indigenous community. Moreover, because such informal and extra-legal functions provided by alternative institutions articulate formal legal standards, the TIPNIS case exhibits how tribunals and alternative sites of justice can complement existing structures even if they aim for more radical goals like competing for or substituting them. Efforts focused on raising the potential for an international legal jurisprudence surrounding the rights of nature are met with a healthy skepticism among international relations scholars who hold a dim view of the potential for international cooperation and treaty enforcement. However, even domestic legal systems struggle with enforcement where legitimate laws are disregarded by rule-breakers. State governments may behave similarly and break the rules, but the presence of international law and procedures legitimates the grievances of those harmed by rule-breaking. Moreover, domestic and international laws are made legitimate not only through the ability to punish non-compliance but through the ability to influence behavior voluntarily without enforcement or punishment.

States are not only legally bound by certain international laws but are also the architects of international laws that often reflect some element of state interests. International organizations do not often enact punishments or enforcement of legal statutes, but they can sometimes encourage cooperation through reputational costs that are borne by breaking agreements to which the state explicitly agreed. Formal enforcement procedures—or the institutions with which they are associated—are not necessarily required in order to encourage compliance among unwilling states. Reputational pressures can result from the extra-legal “alternatives” we see in the creation of the Indigenous Parliament and the GARN and International Rights of Nature Tribunal. These and other civil society organizations have worked tirelessly since the 2010s to pressure not only the Bolivian government, but other official entities in the international community, to act in protection of environmental and indigenous causes like the TIPNIS case.

How, then, do we make sense of the myriad international, transnational, institutional/governmental, and non-governmental influences that converged around the issue of the TIPNIS highway? Picking apart the different elements of state policy that align with and depart from international law requires unpacking the various power dynamics and political preferences of relevant groups involved in the policy arena. I argue that the extra-institutional influences of certain domestic and international forces were subtle but important. In an era where environmental and indigenous rights were encoded into Bolivian law by a pro-indigenous MAS government, and an indigenous president, a nascent civil society dedicated to the jurisprudence of the rights of nature was created. The era that saw indigenous and environmental rights encoded into law by a MAS government and indigenous leaders like Morales served to legitimate a nascent civil society dedicated to the jurisprudence of the rights of nature. The organizations that came together under this philosophy worked consistently at crafting reports and news releases, conducting investigations, holding international tribunals, and maintaining the spotlight on the highway’s developments, thereby drastically reducing the Bolivian state’s capacity—or at the very least, the appeal—of using repression as a strategy of confronting TIPNIS activists.

We should hesitate to call this stalemate a victory for TIPNIS activists, especially because the state has revoked the “intangibility” status of the region and reportedly tries secretly to restart the stalled project. These attempts to subvert the state’s commitments are also important elements of the political opportunity structure that must be considered before we can declare victory or defeat in the case of TIPNIS.

Discussions and Conclusions

While international and domestic influences contain opposing forces that have currently led to an uncertain outcome in the TIPNIS case, it seems logical to conclude that power has shifted toward the TIPNIS anti-highway effort. The uncertain outcome—but one that leans, currently, toward success—has been examined here in relation to the ability to draw on constitutional and international resources to defend their cause. The TIPNIS activists have confronted unyielding political structures and a slow-moving Inter-American Court of Human Rights, resulting in little support from the “formal channels” and institutions at the domestic and international levels. However, transnational and local environmental and indigenous organizations maintained a steady pressure on the government to uphold its environmental and ethnic obligations, and in the absence of formal legal solutions, offered up alternatives which are at least partially legitimated by state and institutional officials’ responses to them. That partial legitimation may have limited utility in the real world of international and domestic courts, but two important points are in order. First, as already considered, pressure to protect reputation may be an important leverage point for governments uniquely situated like Bolivia’s MAS party, which is susceptible to reputational costs among citizens and to its member partners in international organizations. Second, as awareness of environmental rights jurisprudence grows, transnational/international environmental rights narratives may cross over more regularly into domestic legal practices. Thus, the new rights framework may evolve like the human rights framework, through gradual adoption by states in response to international and transnational pressure, as well as domestic demands. Both points further illustrate the importance of scale, place, and space, as the TIPNIS case causes us to anticipate how various sites (and scales) of activism—formal and informal—may affect future political opportunities and subsequent policy outcomes.

Given extra-legal institutions, legal rights, and dynamics between supporters and opposers of the highway, how does political opportunity structure theory grant leverage in explaining the TIPNIS case? Division at home represented some closures for the formal political opportunity structure, but unity abroad aided activists by providing logistical and legal support. Moreover, unity abroad was an important factor affecting the state’s calculus about how to respond. Additionally, a strictly formal understanding of political opportunity structure would preclude viewing influences by non-institutional forces like the Rights of Nature Tribunal or the Indigenous Parliament. But the official response to those efforts illustrates the watchdog and accountability role of forces organized outside of the official legal and state arena. Such a nuanced understanding of political opportunity structure is further enhanced by considering how place, space, and scale interact with these extra-legal institutions. Such organizations have wittingly moved the debate into these arenas of public opinion and international publicity—granting activists greater leverage over the dialogue and fact-finding missions compared to bureaucracies and courts, where the state holds institutional advantages.

At the international level, non-institutional options—the actions of tribunals and other non-binding legal proceedings—might impact the political opportunity structure by keeping the pressure on states and publicizing their activities, so that even with the lack of enforceability of the tribunal findings, the Bolivian state’s capacity for all-out repression and denial of rights to indigenous peoples is limited. The creation of the Indigenous Parliament of the subcentral TIPNIS groups constitutes an “accountability institution” that may factor into the state’s calculus regarding the usefulness of various tactics to quell the unrest over TIPNIS. While the OAS and Bolivian legal structures ultimately contain more legally binding power over the decision, non-binding processes and publicity have played ongoing roles in the state’s response to TIPNIS activists. Those responses have included statutory acquiescence, legal manipulation, public benefits/goods deprivation, seeking back doors to construction efforts, and attacking organizations supporting the rebellious population in the region. This article adds to our understanding of these contexts about cultural and political processes (POS) theories by including informal interactions (heavily influenced by cultural processes) and formal interactions (heavily influenced by political processes) in the analysis.

Future research will benefit from more direct investigation into the strategies of NGO operatives crafting responses to states who violate indigenous territorial and environmental rights. The existing research on the case of the TIPNIS will benefit from a more extensive understanding of the subtle ways that the formal legal framework interacts with the emerging informal frameworks of international and domestic civil society organizations. But also important is to continue to monitor cases like the TIPNIS—and there is no scarcity of cases that pit development against indigenous communities in Latin America (e.g., see Little, 2014)—to understand how political opportunities change under various administrations and with adaptations to the domestic, international, and civil society environments. Such inquiries should also explore policy implications derived from this case study, especially the possibility that international and informal institutions can serve as potential defenses for democracy, indigenous rights, and the environment against ambitious state development goals.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethical Approval

IRB/Human Subjects Status: Exempt from IRB approval/ethics approval/consent to participate (uses secondary/public sources).

ORCID iD

Melissa Buice

Notes

Author Biography

Melissa Buice is an assistant professor in the department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Her research analyzes the impact of indigenous movements on policy change, determinants of support for women as political leaders in Latin America, and determinants of support for LGBTQIA rights, globally. melissa.buice@uncp.edu

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