State and Society in Conflict: Comparative Perspectives on Andean Crises (review)

The Andean region is currently the most volatile in Latin America, as witnessed by the turmoil surrounding efforts to draft new constitutions in Bolivia and Ecuador, to radically amend Venezuela's existing constitution, and to terminate Colombia's perennial sociopolitical violence. This edited volume provides an excellent starting point for reflecting upon the origins and development of the current situation. Written prior to the elections of Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Rafael Correa (Ecuador), the volume is premised upon the assertion that in recent decades the Andean countries have experienced a significant deterioration of relations between state and society made manifest in "a failure to incorporate, represent, and respond to vast segments of the population for which the state is increasingly distant, if not alien" (p. 2).

The editors, Paul W. Drake and Eric Hershberg, provide a well-written introductory essay in which they interpret the current juncture as one stemming from the foreign debt crisis of the 1980s and its recessionary impact, which led to the introduction of a neoliberal economic model. The failure of neoliberalism to produce sufficient economic growth, much less to address the region's deep-seated income inequalities, facilitated the rise of new social movements engaged in unmediated forms of participation that have contributed to undermining governability and weakening political institutions, all in the context of the failure of political elites to articulate a consensual national development project. Jeremy Adelman's essay stresses a deeper historical problem—namely, that Andean states were never fully constructed in the first place. For Adelman, the current state-society disconnect in the Andes is "not a recent problem," but rather "a long transgenerational crisis" (pp. 41-2) rooted in the problem of unfinished states, a historical legacy of the nineteenth century.

Ann Mason and Arlene Tickner contribute to this regional-level analysis by examining the transnational nature of security issues in the Andes. They correctly point out that many of the most important Andean security concerns, such as drug trafficking and illegal arms flows, respect no territorial boundaries. Even a seemingly national crisis, such as the Colombian civil conflict, spills over into neighboring countries through refugee flows, the use of adjacent territories by guerrillas and paramilitaries, and the black market in armaments. John Sheahan's article on the Andean economies, while thoroughly examining national differences, likewise emphasizes the structural similarities of the region's countries that inhibit more equitable socioeconomic development. In particular, he underscores the volatility of international capital flows, the excessive dependence on primary product exports, and the poor quality of public education throughout the region.

One of the more notable developments in the Andes has been the rise of new social movements, particularly the indigenous movement. Two of the best essays in this volume examine this development from complementary perspectives. Donna Lee Van Cott underscores the numerous achievements of indigenous movements, particularly through constitutional reforms that have recognized indigenous legal systems, protected collective lands from sale, guaranteed the right to indigenous education, and recognized indigenous languages as official. Deborah J. Yashar draws on social movement theory to present a complex, but convincing, explanation of the rise of indigenous movements, and defends them from charges that they are responsible for the political instability that characterizes the region. Francisco Gutiérrez Sanín explores in depth the issue of political instability through a comparative analysis of the problems besetting Congress in Colombia and Ecuador. While providing useful empirical background, Gutiérrez's attempt to explain legislative weakness veers into a game theoretical analysis toward the end of his article, which may leave many readers scratching their heads in confusion.

The volume also contains three single country case studies that vary in quality. Jo Marie Burt draws upon fieldwork in the urban squatter settlement of Villa El Salvador outside of Lima to provide an extraordinarily rich empirical study of changing state-society relations in urban...