Diane Haughney, Neoliberal Economics, Democratic Transition and Mapuche Demands for Rights in Chile (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2006), pp. x+310, $55.00, hb.
present, earlier writing on Bolivia and the Andes not only demonstrates indigenous peoples’ desire for citizenship, but also their active engagement with the state to create the conditions for the improvement of rights. Whilst serious problems of prejudice and racial ambivalence meant that these rights were often curtailed, indigenous peoples in Bolivia and elsewhere in the Andes have long thought and demonstrated themselves to be citizens. A close reading of existing literature on political reform, development and multiculturalism also suggests cause for scepticism about the dawning of the ‘postmulticultural ’ era. An over-emphasis on the multicultural reforms belies their connections to a series of much wider international economic and developmental policy initiatives aimed at reconstructing the state and economy. Seen in the light of these wider reforms, but perhaps also reflecting on the contrast between radical rhetoric and the reality of implemented social democratic and market-oriented policy, we might conclude that there is more continuity of neoliberal governance than rupture. Indigenous peoples can now be presidents, but few real signs so far exist in the past or present to suggest innovation in government, or more than genuine intent to move on from imported tried and tested ideas for the re-foundation of Bolivia’s political and cultural life.