Personalist Politics, Clientelism and Citizenship: Local Elections in El Alto, Bolivia

The article investigates the citizenship practices of urban Aymara in a neighbourhood of El Alto, Bolivia, through an examination of the municipal elections of December 1999. Using ethnographic methods, I focus on the instrumental and affective sides of clientelism, a central feature of Bolivian elections. I argue that clientelism is a part of citizenship practice, a means of engaging with the state in the person of the politician. A majority of the Bolivian population are marginalised from the oligarchic mestizo system of government, as represented by the traditional political parties. However, at local level, and especially during election campaigns, there is more permeability, and this article sees clientelism as a set of strategies through which citizens attempt to make politics, and politicians, more representative and responsive.     

Complicity,Collectives, and Killing in War*

Recent work on the ethics of war has struggled to simultaneously justify two central tenets of international law: the Permission to kill enemy combatants, and the Prohibition on targeting enemy noncombatants. Recently, just war theorists have turned to collectivist considerations as a way out of this problem. In this paper, I reject the argument that all and only unjust combatants are liable to be killed in virtue of their complicity in the wrongful war fought by their side, and that noncombatants are not permissible targets because they are not complicit. I then argue that just combatants have some reason to direct force against unjust combatants rather than unjust noncombatants, because they should respect the reasonable self-determining decisions of other political communities, when those communities settle on the distribution of a negative surplus of cost for which they are collectively but not individually responsible. These collectivist reasons will not fully justify the Permission and the Prohibition, but they can contribute to that justification.     

El Alto,Ciudad Rebelde: Organisational Bases for Revolt

The events of October 2003 reveal something about how Bolivian democracy works under ‘normal’ circumstances because they built upon well‐established patterns of political behaviour whereby corporate groupings have become used to direct negotiations with the government. It was the breakdown of these patterns that forced the resignation of the President in 2003. I detail here the collective identities that provide the foundations for mobilisational power in Bolivia and examine the organisation behind the uprising in El Alto and its roots in quotidian experiences of collective mobilisation. I conclude with a consideration of the relationship between social mobilisation, democracy and politics in contemporary Bolivia.     

Reviews

The Letters of Frederic William Maitland. Edited by C. H. S. Fifoot. Chitty & Jacob's Queen's Bench Forms. Nineteenth edition. By I. H. Jacob, LL.B. Studies in Criminal Law. By Norval Morris and Colin Howard. Ventures in Criminology. Selected Recent Papers. By Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck. Hendrick the Axe Collector. A Study in juvenile criminal guilt. By Denis Hart. Forgery Detection–A Practical Guide. By Wilson R. Harrison, M.SC., PH.D. The Law of Carriage by Inland Transport. Fourth Edition. By Otto Kahn-Freund, M.A., LL.M., DR.JUR., with the assistance of John Hucker, LL.B. Chalmers on Bills of Exchange. Thirteenth edition. By David A. L. Smout. Carver's Carriage by Sea. Eleventh edition. By Raoul P. Colinvaux. Scrutton on Charter Parties and Bills of Lading. Seventeenth edition. By Sir W. L. McNair, Sir A. Mocatta and M. J. Mustill. Developments in the Law of the Sea, 1958–1964. The British Institute of International and Comparative Law: International Law Series No. 3. Linje-Konferanser og Kartell-Lovgivning. (With summary in English.) By Arvid Frihagen. The Sources of the Law of International Trade, with Special Reference to East-West Trade. Edited by Clive M. Schmitthoff. The Changing Structure of International Law. By Wolfgang Friedmann. Protection of Human Rights under the Law. By Gaius Ezejiofor. Conflict of Interests. International Law in a Divided World. By Rosalyn Higgins. The Law of Delict. Sixth edition. By R. G. McKerron. [Cape Town: Juta & Co. Ltd. Stocked and distributed in the United Kingdom An Outline of the Constitutional Development of Malta under British Rule. By Professor the hon. J. J. Cremona, LL. D., B. A. (Malta), B. A. (Lond), PH. D. (Lond.), D. Litt.(Rome), F. R. Hist. S., Attorney-General and Member of the Consultative Council, Malta.     

The Cold War culture of the French and communist parties

This study is a comparative essay about the ‘Cold War culture’ of the two main communist parties of Western Europe, the French and the Italian, during the tense period of 1947–53. Both parties had a common Marxist ideology and used similar elements of propaganda: anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, defence of ‘national independence’, defence of the Soviet Union, and the struggle for peace. However, while the French communist ideology was completely focused on the Soviet position, the Italians tried to maintain a limited autonomy for their parliamentary activity and their reactions to national issues. The reception and use of communist ideology and propaganda by some social categories of population, especially among the working classes, is then examined. The essay concludes with a reflexion on the notion of the ‘culture of war’ in France and Italy.