Bolivia’s Silent Revolution

Where indigenous peoples constitute a smaller share of the electorate, their recent inclusion denotes a more generalized opening of the political system to excluded and vulnerable sectors of society.

Bolivia now finds itself locked in a stalemate between forces bent on “refounding” the country and an eastern region insisting on greater autonomy.

One key source of the weakness of democracy in the Andean region is the isolation of the “political class” from the rest of society. There are growing signs that this…