This authoritative book provides a deeply informed overview of contemporary Indigenous movements in Ecuador. Leading scholar Marc Becker traces the growing influence of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) in the wake of a 1990 uprising, the launch of a new political movement called Pachakutik in 1995, and the election of Rafael Correa in 2006. Even though CONAIE, Pachakutik, and Correa shared similar concerns for social justice, they soon came into conflict with each other. Becker examines the competing strategies and philosophies that emerge when social movements and political parties embrace comparable visions but follow different paths to realize their objectives. In exploring the multiple and conflictive strategies that Indigenous movements have followed over the past twenty years, he definitively charts the trajectory of one of the Americas' most powerful and best organized social movements.

One of the most important stories in Latin American studies today is the emergence of left-leaning social movements sweeping across Latin America includes the mobilization of militant indigenous politics. Formed in 1995 in Ecuador to advance the interests of a variety of people’s organizations and to serve as an alternative to the country’s traditional political parties, Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement (Pachakutik) is an indigenist-based movement and political party. In this critical work, Kenneth J. Mijeski and Scott H. Beck evaluate the successes and failures experienced by Ecuador’s Indians in their quest to transform the state into a participative democracy that would address the needs of the country’s long-ignored and impoverished majority, both indigenous and nonindigenous. Using a powerful statistical technique and in-depth interviews with political activists, the authors show that the political election game failed to advance the cause of either Ecuador’s poor majority or the movement’s own indigenous base. Pachakutik and the Rise and Decline of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement is an extraordinarily valuable case study that examines the birth, development, and in this case, waning of Ecuador’s indigenous movement.

Explores why indigenous movements have recently won elections for the first time in the history of Latin America.

In June 1990, Ecuador saw the first major indigenous rebellion within its borders since the colonial era. For weeks, indigenous protesters participated in marches, staged demonstrations, seized government offices, and blockaded roads. Since this insurrection, indigenous movements have become increasingly important in the fight against Latin American Neoliberalism. Roberta Rice's New Politics of Protest seeks to analyze when, where, and why indigenous protests against free-market reforms have occurred in Latin America. Comparing cases in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, this book details the emergence of indigenous movements under and against Neoliberal governments. Rice uses original field research and interviews with indigenous leaders to examine long-term patterns of indigenous political activism and overturn accepted theories on the role of the Indian in democracy. A useful and engaging study, The New Politics of Protest seeks to determine when indigenous movements become viable political parties. It covers the most recent rounds of protest to demonstrate how a weak and unresponsive government is more likely to experience revolts against unpopular reforms. This influential work will be of interest to scholars of Latin American politics and indigenous studies as well as anyone studying oppressed peoples who have organized nationwide strikes and protests, blocked economic reforms, toppled corrupt leaders, and even captured presidencies.

"Shows how Indigenous women are important political agents in reshaping state sovereignty"--Provided by publisher.

The South American country of Ecuador provides a fascinating case study for understanding the construction and emergence of race and ethnic identities. While themes of ethnic identities, indigeneity, and race relations are commonly examined in our respective disciplines, it is less common to bring together essays with from scholars from such a broad variety of disciplines. The papers collected in this volume provide an opportunity to explore indigeneity in comparative perspective with the rest of the region, as well as to highlight the historically important but understudied Afro-Ecuadorian perspectives. The essays in this volume break out of the common tropes and themes that scholars typically employ in their studies of race and ethnicity in Ecuador. In examining Afro-Ecuadorians and Indigenous peoples through the lens of politics, culture, religion, gender, and environmental concerns, we come to a better understanding of the problems and promises facing this country. These essays convey a large diversity of perspectives, disciplines, and issues that reflect the richness and complexities of the social processes that are present in Ecuador.

Examines constitutional change in Latin America from 1900 to 2008 and provides the first systematic explanation of the origins of constitutional designs.

In Social Movements and Radical Populism in the Andes: Ecuador and Bolivia in Comparative Perspective, Jennifer N. Collins examines why the new left took the form of radical populism in Ecuador and Bolivia and how social movements were impacted by this development. Using a Laclauian approach, Collins argues that anti-neoliberal social movements provided the groundwork for populist identity formation. This book also offers a nuanced and insightful explanation for the decline of Ecuador's indigenous movement, examining the role of state resurgence in the fragmentation of social movements. Collins’s analysis provides key insights into the life cycles of social movements in the Andes from development to decline.

Provides a detailed treatment of an important topic that has received no scholarly attention: the surprising transformation of indigenous peoples' movements into viable political parties in the 1990s in four Latin American countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela) and their failure to succeed in two others (Argentina, Peru). The parties studied are crucial components of major trends in the region. By providing to voters clear programs for governing, and reaching out in particular to under-represented social groups, they have enhanced the quality of democracy and representative government. Based on extensive original research and detailed historical case studies, the book links historical institutional analysis and social movement theory to a study of the political systems in which the new ethnic cleavages emerged. The book concludes with a discussion of the implications for democracy of the emergence of this phenomenon in the context of declining public support for parties.

This work examines the world's indigenous peoples, their cultures, the countries in which they reside, and the issues that impact these groups.