A Review of  Now We Are in Power: The Politics of a Passive Revolution in Twenty-First Century Bolivia

Now We Are in Power: The Politics of a Passive Revolution in Twenty-First Century Bolivia by Angus McNelly (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023, 240 pp.)

In Now We Are in Power, Angus McNelly provides an incisive examination of Bolivia’s complex political trajectory under Evo Morales, analyzing it through the lens of Antonio Gramsci’s seminal concept of “passive revolution.” McNelly closely scrutinizes Morales’ improbable rise from his initial 2005 election victory as Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, through his polarizing tenure’s conclusion in 2019 after dominating the nation’s political arena for nearly 14 years. While beyond the scope of McNelly’s narrative, I think that Luis Arce’s decisive 2020 comeback election that reinstated Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party complicates notions that the preceding era represented a fragmented “passive revolution” mired in unresolved tensions between the MAS elite and its largely Indigenous peasant base.

McNelly adeptly employs Gramsci’s passive revolution framework to illuminate the paradoxes of Morales’ ascent as a champion of the marginalized and his later consolidation of power. The book provides an incisive political sociology of Bolivia’s unfinished revolutionary process, utilizing Gramsci to probe the complexities behind Morales’ initial cathartic rise and subsequent co-optation of radical energies. His analysis grapples with the contradictions of protest, populism and state formation in 21st-century Bolivia.

Drawing on the work of Mexican political scientist Massimo Modonesi, McNelly portrays how Morales’ “progressive Caesarism” allowed him to rise to power through grassroots Indigenous movements, while gradually co-opting and demobilizing the same social forces. Though politically cathartic, Morales’ passive revolution ultimately failed to fulfill the radical economic and social vision of its Indigenous base. McNelly provides a nuanced critique of how Morales’ populism in the context of the Latin American Pink Tide, contained rather than fully unleashed the revolutionary energies of Bolivia’s marginalized classes: “[F]ollowing the zenith of the moment of catharsis…movement leaders, along with their central demands, were incorporated into the state, thus turning movements from offensive actors pushing for change, to defenders of the Left in state power.” (pg.13)

McNelly argues that while Morales strategically rode the massive social upheavals of the early 2000s into elected office by promising radical systemic change favoring the marginalized classes, his administration later worked to successfully co-opt, pacify and ultimately neutralize the same militant peasant and proletarian forces. This included the rural cocalero farmers’ unions and the Bartolina Sisa Indigenous women’s federations operating in urban peripheries that had thrust him into leadership of one of Latin America’s most impoverished countries.

Through extensive and sensitive interviews with scores of formerly fervent MAS supporters who later became deeply disillusioned, McNelly documents a prevailing sense of resignation and betrayal illuminating his nuanced, contextualized portrait of Morales’ gradual political evolution from an ardent revolutionary trade unionist vowing sweeping/comprehensive/radical socioeconomic transformation to a cautious, pragmatic moderate reformer dedicated to stability and continuity above all. By applying Gramsci’s sophisticated passive revolution model to analyze Morales’ complex trajectory in power, McNelly provides a compelling conceptual framework that helps explain the seeming contradictions of the Morales era’s unfinished revolutionary legacy.

To develop this intricate, multidimensional theoretical analysis of Bolivia’s open-ended political revolution and transformation under Morales’ lengthy tenure, McNelly adopts a neo-Gramscian assessment that passive revolutions must emphasize their fundamentally contingent nature. They are fluid processes intrinsically shaped by the unleashing and subsequent attempted recuperation of insurgent class energies. In his work on the Mexican Revolution, Adam David Morton stresses that passive revolutions involve highly uneven, unstable relational dynamics between regressive dominant and ascendant subaltern classes across contested socio-political formations, as the multidirectional intersections between these complex forces dynamically clash and collude to continually shape unfolding processes of class struggle and contested state formation.

Situating Evo Morales and Bolivia’s turbulent experience within this sophisticated neo-Marxist theoretical tradition, McNelly argues the Morales government ultimately succeeded through co-optation in cautiously channeling the initial unruly revolutionary passions expressed during the 2003 “Gas War” protests and earlier regional unrest into a stratified set of relatively modest reforms.  These measures ameliorated some social grievances without fundamentally threatening Bolivia’s underlying capitalist political-economic order or genuinely empowering the nation’s structurally marginalized indigenous peasant-proletarian classes over the long run, McNelly asserts.

Further expanding his conceptual repertoire, he insightfully invokes Bolivian sociologist René Zavaleta Mercado’s notion of “abigarramiento”—denoting the diverse heterogeneity within Bolivian society and throughout its history— to argue the Morales regime similarly failed to construct any durable, hegemonic cultural and ideological unity capable of syncing the nation’s manifold indigenous identities and forms of social organization into a singular “national-popular” political project under authoritative MAS party tutelage.

Much of McNelly’s extensive field research occurred in core MAS strongholds like the sprawling Aymara city of El Alto adjacent to La Paz, where he conducted months of intensive interviews with scores of former Indigenous peasant activists and other grassroots militants. Their trenchant first-hand testimonies reveal the evident practical and theoretical limits of Morales’ incomplete political-cultural revolution at the grassroots level. McNelly also did fieldwork among urban migrants in Plan 3000, Santa Cruz, further documenting grassroots disillusionment.

From this fusion of thorough on-the-ground investigation with sophisticated neo-Marxist theoretical analysis, McNelly ultimately portrays Morales as a deeply contradictory figure who harnessed Indigenous social movements to gain power yet in office gradually transformed into a cautious reformist passive revolutionary. He asserts that the Morales government could be understood “as a form of Caesarism whereby the catastrophic equilibrium between neoliberal governments and radical social movements was resolved by the figure of Morales himself.”(p. 108)  However, this came at the cost of ultimately wielding only tenuous political control over the more radical grassroots popular classes he originally championed.

While McNelly conducted extensive interviews primarily in the Aymara region to document disillusionment with Morales, his analysis would have been enriched by similar fieldwork among Morales’ core support base in Cochabamba and the Chapare. Interviews with various Bartolina Indigenous women leaders, who were instrumental in bringing Morales to power, could have provided vital on-the-ground perspectives from his movement’s strongholds. A fuller understanding of sentiments in the Chapare coca-growing region that remained loyal to Morales may have further illuminated the complexities behind his gradual political evolution that McNelly thoughtfully chronicles.

Expanding his fieldwork could have also shed light on the MAS party’s return to power under Luis Arce’s leadership, illuminating the shifts and ruptures since Morales’ ouster. Additional interviews in MAS strongholds could help explain the current divide between those who support Arce’s more socialist vision versus those backing Morales’ continued Indigenous movement leadership. Broadening the geographic scope beyond highland urban centers and the diversity of interview subjects would have lent further nuance to McNelly’s insightful examination of Morales’ unfinished revolutionary legacy. A fuller ethnographic engagement with rural bases of MAS support could have enriched McNelly’s analysis of the complex, enduring impacts of Bolivia’s recent revolutionary period and the multifaceted reasons for the party’s continued resilience despite leadership changes.

Though his presidency faced mounting protests, even from some Indigenous sectors that had originally supported his candidacy, these measurable interventions challenged longstanding socioeconomic inequalities and exploitative development patterns deeply ingrained since the colonial era. While falling short of revolutionary transformation of the economic model, the reforms under Morales made notable strides in addressing entrenched issues of poverty and economic injustice that have marginalized Indigenous peoples since the colonial period.

More significantly, Morales upended the social fabric of the country in enduring ways through recognizing Indigenous identity, elevating native languages, and empowering marginalized groups both politically and culturally. This wider societal metamorphosis invoked a new decolonized narrative for the nation that affirmed the pride and place of the Indigenous majority. Though incomplete, his regime profoundly shook the foundations of internal colonialism in areas beyond just the economic realm. The book does not manage to reflect these achievements.

Indeed, the enduring sociocultural and class transformations intentionally set in motion across indigenous identities, institutional power relations and national political symbols by Morales and allied social movements collectively reveal his complex, multifaceted legacy to encompass far more than the truncated outcomes associated with a stalled “passive revolution.” The tangible material achievements and awakening of indigenous pride and identity under Bolivia’s first Indigenous president suggest a need to move beyond Eurocentric schemas evolved to understand 20th-century European dynamics to fully appreciate the novel complexities of Latin America’s contemporary indigenous revitalization from below.

Unfortunately, Gramsci’s passive revolution framework may have limited applicability for understanding Bolivia’s unique context defined by centuries of indigenous resistance and mobilization, given the nation’s stark differences from European countries. Applying a model developed from European historical analysis to Bolivia risks obscuring local complexities and perpetuating a colonial academic gaze that sidelines the perspectives of Bolivia’s own indigenous intellectuals and activists analyzing the unfinished revolutionary process from within. Bolivia’s distinctive Indigenous majority and long history of native resistance require analysis rooted in Bolivian thinkers and experience, not just external Eurocentric paradigms.

The 1952 Bolivian revolution was regarded as a profound social revolution centered on Indigenous rights and land reform. Evo Morales took Indigenous grievances and demands to an entirely new level starting in 2006. As such, McNelly’s neo-Gramscian lens should spark scholarly debate on its applicability for understanding Bolivia’s unfinished revolutionary process under Morales. Overall, McNelly’s study comes at a pivotal moment when divisions in the MAS between Luis Arce’s socialist lens and Evo Morales’ Indigenous lens, combined with China’s growing geopolitical role in the region, are likely to bring new critiques of the Latin American Left, the role of populism and passive revolutions.

Nonetheless, despite the limitations stated above, McNelly skillfully synthesizes sophisticated neo-Marxist frameworks to detail Morales’ complex political project and unfulfilled aspirations. His juxtaposition of Morales’ early decolonial discourse against his later pragmatic governance provides valuable comparative insights. Both experts and new progressive thinkers will gain insight from McNelly’s analysis of how radical visions confront complex 21st century realities. His expansive neo-Gramscian framework applied to Bolivia will catalyze extensive scholarly discussion not only in the Bolivian context but throughout Latin America at this pivotal juncture.

Gratzia Villarroel is an associate professor of political science and international relations at St. Norbert College. She was the 2007-2008 Santo Domingo Visiting Scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard.