Thomas Grisaffi (London
School of Economics)
Radio Sovereignty: The Sovereign Voice of the Bolivian Coca Growers?
The landslide victory of Evo Morales in the 2005 Presidential election marks a watershed in Bolivian history. Until that point politics in this poverty stricken Andean country had been dominated by a small group of white-mestizos, and was seen as a closed, prearranged system operated for the benefit of elite groups. In contrast Morales' Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo - MAS) led government appears to reflect a new pattern of relationships between state and society. The MAS party is a coalition of urban and rural social movements -predominantly represented by indigenous organizations. A startling feature of Morales’ approach is the emphasis he puts on the fact that there is no distinction between MAS party structures and Bolivia’s patchwork of social movements. He claims that MAS is a social movement.
This research is based on extended fieldwork with the Chapare coca growers’ union, the powerbase of Morales’ MAS party. Through a case study of the management of the coca union’s radio station (Radio Sovereignty) I build an analysis of the nature of the relationship between the political party and the social bases from which it emerged. I describe the government’s appropriation of union owned radio as a means to disseminate its own political message. Significantly, the government continues to present union owned radio as if it were ‘independent media’. I argue that this case can tell us something about the nature of the MAS in power, namely that there has been a reversal of the original linkages between the political party and the social organizations with which it aligns. It appears as if the bottom-up grassroots mobilization has been replaced with a more top down form of organization.
