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Hispanic American Historical Review 82.2 (2002) 395-396



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Book Review

"A bala, piedra y palo":
La construcción de la ciudadanía política en Bolivia, 1826-1952


"A bala, piedra y palo": La construcción de la ciudadanía política en Bolivia, 1826-1952. By MARTA IRUROZQUI VICTORIANO. Nuestra América, no. 8. Sevilla: Diputación de Sevilla, 2000. Tables. Bibliography. 451 pp. Paper.

The history of elections and of elite politics in nineteenth-century Bolivia is one of the most important issues in the country's history. The images that we still have are those of early-twentieth-century scholars such as Alcides Arguedas, who, through their racist views, saw nineteenth-century politics as populated by caudillos, military dictators, and the undisciplined rabble. Marta Irurozqui has taken it on herself to revise our understanding of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-centuries politics and this book is one result of these efforts.

Her main analysis regards how democracy was practiced in Bolivia and how the rhetoric of democracy eventually enabled subalterns to become citizens. She does this through four main chapters: one chapter discusses the rhetoric of democracy in Bolivia from 1825 to 1925; another focuses on the issue of electoral rhetoric (and the uses of rhetoric about fraud); a third chapter deals with actual election results and how they were achieved; and a fourth chapter shows how subalterns (she considers mainly urban artisans and community Indians) used this democratic discourse for their own ends. The heart of her study the period between 1880 and 1925, when a vigorous two-party system was in place.

The author has constructed a highly complex argument that relies on a great host of detail gleaned from newspapers, novels, politicians' correspondence, pamphlets, and legislation. Let me try to summarize some of the main threads: first, Irurozqui argues that she could not find that subalterns created their own political culture independent of that of the elites'. Rather, she asserts that subalterns tried to fit into the definition of good citizenship so that they could also participate in elections and political life. For artisans, this meant not being a servant to someone else, having property, and learning how to read and write. Likewise, Indians also requested schools so that they could become full citizens, though Irurozqui claims that the popular sectors rebelled as a form of political pressure to achieve citizen rights (p. 414). The issue of fraud emerges as central, as does the associated issue of who is worthy of voting. Both the governing party and the opposition engaged in fraudulent practices during elections. According to the author, the important point was not so much that fraud occurred, but that it was always the other party that engaged in more of it. This was related to the quality of the voters. Whichever party was writing the description of the political activity, their party was virtuous whereas the opposition was an uncultured rabble. This rhetoric always disqualified a large sector of the population, making it difficult for subalterns to feel secure in their citizen rights. By the early twentieth century the increased racism in elite discourse put artisans (who often were accused of being Indians migrants from the countryside) and, of course, Indians at an even greater disadvantage. Because of the [End Page 395] new racist ideology, the elites, despite witnessing greater agitation in the rural areas, saw Indians as being by their very nature incapable of becoming full citizens.

There are many interesting insights in this very densely written book. Irurozqui provides the reader with a wealth of details, especially in chapters 2 and 3, which give a detailed account of elections between 1880 and 1925. However, there are various problems as well. Although the author uses the letters of the Liberal leader Eliodoro Camacho well, she does not use the most ample source of this sort, the letters of Gregorio Pacheco (nor those of Aniceto Arce). She also confuses the reader between expressed political ideals and political actions; in most cases the ideals...

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