7907 words - including references
We would like to thank the British Council for funding this research. Fieldwork conducted in December 1996 was based on in-depth interviews with key members of the water industry and related government, business and NGO institutions in Cochabamba and La Paz, as well as an analysis of regional and national newspaper archives. We appreciate the continued support of our colleague María Ester Pozo and her team at CESU (the social science research centre associated with the University of San Simón) and we are grateful to the workers in SEMAPA, the municipality, FIS, central government and consumers associations who agreed to be interviewed during the research. We also acknowledge the work of the Centro de Documentación e información - Bolivia (CEDIB) whose painstaking documentation of newspaper cuttings has made rigorous archive analysis possible. We thank Ann Rooke for drawing the maps. Finally, we owe a special debt of thanks to Maggie Anderson-Torico and Bernardo Torrico for their particular insights into the Misicuni dream and for providing accommodation, and arranging interviews in Cochabamba.
This paper draws on current debates about globalisation and examines the relationship between globalisation and neo-liberalism in the Andes. It attempts to depart from analyses which emphasise the ways in which globalisation 'impacts' upon 'the local' and erases cultures, by asking whether, in certain contexts, the nexus between globalisation and neo-liberalism can promote 'progressive' agendas. The paper examines the privatisation of the water industry in Bolivia and charts how, in this industry, neo-liberalism and globalisation are coming together in new ways and are creating new, and sometimes conflicting, institutional and geographical contexts through which water resources must now be viewed. These issues are examined through the example of Misicuni, a big dam project in the province of Cochabamba. The debates around this project raise a series of questions: What roles do cultural understandings of water play in contemporary regional and national constructions of 'modernisation' in Bolivia? Are processes of globalisation and privatisation in the water industry strengthening or weakening marginalised regional identities in the Andes? Is neo-liberal hegemony being promoted in the region as a result of privatisation or is the restructuring of the water industry facilitating the emergence of alternative development discourses of resistance?
Since the emergence of the globalisation phenomenon in the late 1970s debates have raged about its nature, its extent, and the speed with which it has gathered force and acquired new spheres of influence both across the globe and within diverse sectors of life. In particular, its emphasis on the commodification of cultural, technical and economic resources has raised questions about the extent to which processes of globalisation (and the theorisation of these processes) are inherently gendered, racist and ethnocentric (Harvey, 1996; Marchand, 1994; Helwege, 1995; Landau, 1996; Richards, 1997; Turner, 1996; Vergara, 1996). Such debates, coinciding with the re-drawing of the geo-political map in the post-cold war period and the emergence of new economic trading blocks and political superstructures, have led many to question whether globalisation is causing the decline of 'the state' as the most important site of politicking.
Recently, such arguments have become polarised. On the one hand globalisation is seen to have a logic all of its own, out-with the particular stages of capitalism in which we are living. On the other hand globalisation itself is now seen as a redundant term, a myth or what Sayer (1984) would call a 'chaotic conception'. It is within the context of these current debates that some people are beginning to suggest that globalisation, however problematic a term, be conceptually recast as an opportunity for the promotion of progressive political agendas (Swyngedouw, 1997). We would like to extend this question and ask whether the relationship between globalisation and neo-liberalism can be seen as an opportunity to promote ‘progressive’ action.
In the globalisation debate ‘progressive’ agendas are most frequently identified as political actions geared towards resisting the global assertion of neo-liberal hegemony (see for example Albo, 1996; Millaman, 1996; NACLA 1996a, 1996b; Pacari, 1996). However, as we shall see later, in Latin America such forms of resistance are not always in direct opposition to neo-liberal paradigms because they commonly espouse the promotion of social equity initiatives and ‘democratisation’ alongside market led growth (Vergara, 1996). Consequently, Zamora (1996) has suggested that in Latin America a new ‘strategy of resistance’ needs to be forged. Such a strategy seeks to emphasise issues of regional integration and to form alliances between diverse sectors of capital endangered by the opening up of the world market. In keeping with such a definition of resistance, this paper will analyse the assertion of regional autonomy in Bolivia within the context of the recent incorporation of social equity initiatives into Bolivian and Latin American neo-liberalisms. Specifically, the paper examines globalisation and neo-liberalism in the context of public utilities. It analyses the current privatisation of the Bolivian water industry and, via a case study of the Misicuni dam project, questions the influence that restructuring has had on the strength of centralised state power, constructions of regional identity and definitions of development and modernisation.
The paper is divided into four parts. First, it argues that the nexus between globalisation and neo-liberalism in Bolivia has been used by the state to negotiate a ‘third way’ with international funding agencies. Second, it focuses on the water industry in Bolivia and analyses water 'problems' by concentrating on demand and supply issues in the Cochabamba province of southern Bolivia. This reviews the different facets of privatisation in the water industry and shows how privatisation has introduced other water options. Third, the paper introduces different ways of seeing water which conceptualise the water industry as a cultural resource and as a key element in regional politics that seek to assert regional autonomy and construct 'modern' identities for provincial, non-metropolitan regions of Bolivia. Finally, the conclusion examines the implications of the experience of the Bolivian water industry for understanding the potential for re negotiating development within the context of neo-liberalism.
Neo-liberalism is not new in Latin America. With the military coup in Chile (1973) Pinochet and his ‘Chicago Boys’ advisors introduced neo-liberal re-structuring more than ten years prior to its popularity under Thatcherism or Reaganomics. What is new, in this current 'global era' however, is the wholesale adoption of neo-liberalism throughout the continent in the 1990s. Although neo-liberalism (the set of economic, social and political measures introduced to support market-led development models) should not be conflated with globalisation (Amin 1997) it is important to recognise that globalisation is playing an important role in the spread of neo-liberalism in Latin America. Global networks are facilitating the dissemination of information and ideas about neo-liberal strategies. International donor organisations are sponsoring social programs designed to cope with the supposedly short-term social costs of 'shock 'economics in order to facilitate what the World Bank calls 'adjustment with a human face' (Laurie, 1997; NACLA, 1996c, Stahl, 1996). And increasingly, global companies are buying into newly privatised industries. Such multinational and transnational enterprises are not merely reaffirming old informal imperial ties into primary industry production such as mining, forestry and petroleum in Latin America but are also expressing newer interests in utilities (water and electricity) as well as telecommunications (Ochoa, M, 1996; Idelovitch and Ringskog, 1995). With this internationalisation has come local opposition as some interest groups claim that international capitalists are acquiring shares at the expense of local investors and are benefiting from 'international networks' which create an unfair advantage for global enterprises. These same local opposition groups are also using international networks to resist particular forms of global liberalisation. Perhaps the most well known example of such progressivist appropriation of globalisation is the Zapatista's manipulation of international telecommunications and global electronic networks to oppose Mexico's entry into NAFTA in 1994 (Castells 1997, Landau, 1996).
While globalisation is important to the spread of neo-liberalism in Latin America, and global technologies and global thinking can be used to promote alliances of resistance within and beyond continental boundaries, it is also important to recognise that globalisation also provides the context for the international policing of neo-liberalism. Global institutions such as The IMF, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank may fund regional and local projects but they promote 'global answers' to what they see as 'global problems'. These organisations espouse an international free market on one hand and yet, on the other hand, impose sanctions and withhold funding for individual countries to fund regional and local projects if adjustment measures are not followed to the letter. The policing of the neo-liberal package is therefore global even though its consequences are experienced at national, regional and local levels. Currently therefore, all states in Latin America, (with the exception of Cuba), are undergoing what Green (1995) has called 'The Silent Revolution' comprising several if not all of the following neo-liberal strategies: privatisation, public sector cut-backs, production for export and a general need to 'roll back the state'.
Development strategies in Bolivia raise some interesting issues about the assumed uniformity of neo-liberalism and the imposition of 'the global' in Latin America. In 1993 President Sanchez de Losada became the first president in the country (and the continent) to be voted in on openly neo-liberal platform. For the first time since the Spanish conquest the fact that this man had grown up outside the country and spoke with an accent was, by consensus, seen as an advantage. The fact that he spent his childhood in the USA and speaks with a 'gringo' accent says much about 'these global times' in Latin America. It is in the context of the contemporary 'global shift' towards neo-liberalism that old nationalisms are reworked and new national and regional imaginations are developed. In Bolivia this entails grafting new global economic realities onto existing territorial frictions and constructions of collective identities.
The series of reforms introduced by the Sanchez government became known as Bolivia La Nueva: The New Bolivia. This trajectory involved linking 'growth with equity' - a phrase which has become increasingly common in neo-liberal speak in Latin America in recent years (Green, 1995). In Bolivia the notion of 'growth with equity' was used to rethink policies of decentralisation and privatisation. When it was launched Bolivia la Nueva had three key elements: an interventionist approach towards privatisation whereby the state retains significant control in a number of privatised companies; together with a type of decentralisation, called 'Participación Popular': (Popular Participation), and education reform intended to improve access to opportunities and decision making for the large numbers of Bolivia's poor and marginalised (in 1991 according to Green [1995] 80.1% of Bolivians lived below the poverty line). The education and Popular Participation strategies were mainly targeted at improving the position of the indigenous and mestizo (mixed 'race') populations living in rural areas, and the rural to urban migrants who have settled in Cochabamba, La Paz and Santa Cruz over recent years. The collapse of the tin mining industry and the increases in extreme levels of rural poverty in much of Bolivia has meant that in-migration has caused these three cities to increase almost three fold in the last decade (Unidad de Politica de Población, 1992).
The Bolivia la Nueva package specifically stated that key public companies in the country would not be privatised. Instead, the Bolivian government said that key industries would be 'capitalised'. Capitalisation involves the state entering into partnership with national and international private capital. The state retains 49% of the shares, while a consortium of national and international investors bid to buy the remaining 51%. The idea being that the partners bring technology and efficient administration and that resources are generated for the government to invest in job creation, education, health and infrastructure provision. The key companies first named in the Bolivia la Nueva law (decree 21060) were YPFB (National Oil Co.), ENTEL (National telephone Co.), ENDE (National Electricity Co.), ENAF (National Mineral Foundry), LAB (National Airlines) and ENFE (National Railways Co.). However, while the idea of capitalisation was for the role of the state to be reduced from one of protagonist, the major controversy concerning this law has related to the way in which capitalisation transfers control over revenue from the region to the central state.
Prior to capitalisation the revenue paid to regional administrations by the key industries located in their region (for example the oil industry in the Chapare area of Cochabamba), generated important funds for regional coffers and financed regional infrastructure and social investment. This revenue was managed regionally and locally and was therefore outside the direct control of the La Paz -based government. Since the selling of public utilities under capitalisation, however, this revenue has been lost. What is more, the money earned from capitalisation has largely been seen by central government as a national rather than as a regional resource. This has been particularly controversial because potentially, capitalisation clashes with Popular Participation (the second arm of the Bolivia la Nueva package) which focuses on distributing power to regional, and smaller sized institutions known as OTB (Grass roots Territorial Organisations) comprising various social groups including class-based and indigenous (pre-colonial) forms of organisation. Consequently, while Popular Participation tries to promote regional autonomy, capitalisation appears to be taking away regional and local control. Regional tensions are therefore implicit within the Bolivia la Nueva model.
The Bolivian water industry comprises a series of regional companies with municipally-based management strategies in the three largest cities of La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. Historically, many of the city-based companies have been partly dependent on ENDE the electricity company (mainly composed of HEP installations) for water sources.
While the water companies were not in the first round of industries identified for capitalisation under decree 20160, there have been recent calls for the privatisation of water once the more attractive and less contentious industries had been deposed of. International interest in these calls has been generated by the recent globalisation of the water industry following privatisation in countries of 'the North'. Consequently, newly established international water companies have recently been taking an interest in the emerging Latin America stock market.
At a national and regional scale the initial debate in the Bolivian water industry focused on whether the three companies, Cochabamba (SEMAPA), La Paz (SAMAPA) and Santa Cruz (SAGUAPAC), should be privatised, capitalised or given in concession. Initially, most negotiation focused on the case of Cochabamba and only latterly began to look towards La Paz and Santa Cruz. From the point of view of this paper the Cochabamba case is the most interesting because here water has become intimately linked to issues of regional identity and privatisation has highlighted struggles against governmental influence in La Paz.
These tensions are the result of three factors. Firstly, and most importantly, water scarcity has always been a regional problem in the area (Vera Varela 1995). In the post glacial period the valley (and its two neighbours) were lakes. Now however, the groundwater supplies, which were left once these lakes drained away, have been overexploited due to a combination of population growth and agricultural use. Consequently, the main sources of further water supply lie to the north of the city but most of the watersheds in this area drain away from the valley, so large scale engineering schemes are needed if water is to be re-directed south. Currently, SEMAPA produce water at a rate of 650 litres/second and there is insufficient water provision to meet existing levels of demand which are estimated at 900 litres/second. SEMAPA also estimate that water losses are 30% (although other figures suggests that this is an underestimate). These loses, together with forecasts of future population increases, mean that new sources of supply need to be developed.
As a result of this water scarcity, since the era of the big dam, techno-fix solutions to development in the 1950s, the city has dreamt of the Misicuni Solution, its own, multiple, large-dam construction designed to bring water from the mountains, over the divide and into the city (see figure 1). Secondly, the valley of Cochabamba has always been seen as the oasis of Bolivia, a place to retire to, a verdant agricultural valley with a temperate climate, providing an escape from the altitude of La Paz and the heat of Santa Cruz. Finally, in recent years, this rural tranquillity and agricultural lifestyle have been threatened by central government re-location policies following the nation-wide closure of the tin mines. These policies, coming from La Paz, resulted in a huge influx of migrants to Cochabamba.
The Misicuni solution is an integrated water supply and HEP generating project that, if built, would solve the region’s water supply and irrigation needs well in to the next century. Its big-dam solution embodies the ideas of modernisation and progress, expressed through plentiful supplies of water and cheap energy and in recent years it has been seen as an important way of promoting regional development in the area (Opinión 1996a). This project has been in conception, and has held the popular imagination in Cochabamba, for the last four decades. Since the 1950s local engineers and politicians have sought both to establish the technical feasibility of the project and build a powerful local constituency that links the achievement of Misicuni with the modernisation of the Cochabamban region (see Vera Varela 1995).
At several points during the last 40 years the state and/or the region have been on the verge of negotiating national and international finance for the project. External circumstances, however, have always intervened and have prevented Misicuni from coming to fruition. In the early 1970s the government was on the point of implementing Misicuni when the dictator Banzar seized power and promoted the growth of Santa Cruz, a petroleum producing area, over Cochabamba. Consequently, central state support for Misicuni was withdrawn. In 1984 regional supporters of Misicuni drew up an agreement with the Inter-American Bank to fund the feasibility study. Future plans based on the study had to be cancelled however when central government could no longer meet national debt repayments owed to international banks. As a result, international finance for the project was withdrawn.
Interest was rekindled in Misicuni in 1992 when the Sanchez government came to power. It was hoped that the Bolivia la Nueva package, with its promise of promoting regional autonomy and generating new funds via privatisation, would secure the development of Misicuni. These hopes were confirmed in December 1996, when after nearly 40 years of planning and waiting, the construction of a short 30 meter tunnel heralded the first phase of Misicuni’s implementation. With construction underway the Cochabamba community believed that, at last, its regional dream, the Misicuni solution, was going to be realised. Under Bolivia la Nueva the Misicuni company would be privatised, outside funding would be sought to fund subsequent phases of construction and the completed integrated project would bring development to the region. However, dreams seldom come true so easily and recently the wider ramifications of the national privatisation program have impeded the development of Misicuni.
The blip in the dream
Prior to construction of the Misicuni tunnel, the privatisation of SEMAPA came onto the national political agenda as part of Bolivia la Nueva. Debates about the need to privatise SEMAPA largely focused on the need to improve efficiency and increase connection rates as urban connection rates in poor areas are notoriously low in Latin America (Swyngedouw 1995). Currently, the Cochabamba network only covers 64% of the city's population missing 36% who are mainly in marginal areas. Only 320,000 out of a population of 500,000 are serviced and even then water is often rationed, and only available during limited hours. Connection to the sewerage network is also limited to only about 40% of all households.
Both SEMAPA and the government publicly accept that it has not been possible to increase the ratio of connections per household in the city over the last ten years. While they link this failure, in part, to population increase they also justify the need for privatisation by blaming the overall inefficiency on managerial rather than technical failure. In the view of central government it is assumed that privatisation will avoid problems of managerial corruption and the failure to use foreign aid and investment efficiently. Specifically, privatisation will curtail the current politicisation of the company caused by local politicians occupying key positions within the management hierarchy and on the board of directors. Politicisation was a particular problem for Sanchez’s government because at times the local politicians on the board, including the mayor, were drawn from opposition parties. However, as a result of the proposal to privatise SEMAPA, serious regional doubts have arisen about future of Misicuni - would a privatised SEMAPA need Misicuni? In a newspaper interview the Mayor of Cochabamba recognised these doubts, he said:
"The legal position must be sorted out viz a viz SEMAPA so that once Misicuni starts producing water a buyer for that water will be guaranteed. The fear is that once SEMAPA is privatised the new owner will have interests that make Misicuni marginal" (Opinión 1996b).
The Mayor's comments centred on a series of fears. Any threat to the Misicuni project challenged the hope that Cochabamba could solve its water supply problem through local independent solutions. Such threats appeared to undermine local control of water and promote reliance on 'external sources'. In this scenario 'external sources' are defined in fiercely territorial terms, meaning using any water which does not fall within the Cochabamba valley catchment. Threats to the Misicuni solution also implied threats to regional autonomy over what is seen as regional revenue for local projects. In particular, the Misicuni company believe that the revenue from petroleum drilled in the Cochabamba province, together with the profits from the capitalisation of local ENDE plants, should stay in the region and be designated to fund Misicuni rather than be diverted into central coffers.
At this point an important argument was made by the Mayor. He claimed that, if a supply agreement were to be signed by both parties (SEMAPA and Misicuni), the privatisation of SEMAPA would secure the privatisation of Misicuni. It was because of this argument that he authorised the allocation of local funds to the initial phase of Misicuni's construction and the completion of the 30 metre tunnel (Opinión, 1996b). The stage seemed set for the implementation of Misicuni under Bolivia la Nueva. The region would be satisfied because Misicuni had been secured and the central government would be satisfied because SEMAPA would be sold to private interests. However, the water debate was further complicated by the interest of the recently capitalised CORANI company (a HEP installation previously owned by ENDE).
CORANI (Figure 2) was initially developed in the early 1960s as a HEP scheme by the state owned electricity company ENDE and, for the next 30 years, the socio-technical logic of CORANI was driven by electricity. Prior to capitalisation, even though the CORANI installations were located close to Cochabamba, ENDE saw its water only as a by-product of electricity generation which was taken North, away from Cochabamba. With the capitalisation of ENDE, the water resources started to be seen in a different way. The new CORANI company, composed of a US and Bolivian consortium, was interested in generating new income streams and, as a regionally based company, it started to look for new institutional linkages within the local area. At the same time, central government was interested in obtaining secure water supplies for the Cochabamba water utility in order to ensure that a buyer could be found for SEMAPA. Consequently, central government encouraged CORANI to look at the possibility of taking water to Cochabamba. In the view of the state, as Misicuni was going to take much longer to develop and its financial position was in some question, CORANI could provide the water supplies that would help make SEMAPA look like a much more attractive and viable purchase in the immediate term.
New, externally driven forces and ideas have re-shaped the development of what was previously a largely local and regional water debate. Central government's privatisation/capitalisation program therefore played a key role in the shift in thinking about CORANI as a resource and as a result, in 1996, CORANI started talks with SEMAPA. State-led privatisation thereby created the context for two water supply options in the Cochabamba region. The first, the Misicuni dream requires the construction of major infrastructure in three phases over a number of years, where as the CORANI option requires the extension of existing infrastructure to bring water over the divide via a proposed new construction, the 'proyecto sacaba', comprising a series of small tunnels (See Figure 2). However, the World Bank (with its support of Bolivia's particular form of neo-liberalism) and central government have created a context in which new investment must take place through privatisation, even though privatisation itself undermines the case for Misicuni by creating a new context for CORANI. The main way the state has dealt with this contradiction has been the creation of a scenario in which the state is seen to support both schemes while ‘market rationality’ decides which one will be implemented.
The state, SEMAPA and CORANI now argue that the water trading option is not in competition with the Misicuni project. SEMAPA say they could use CORANI production in the short-term for 3 years, and then, in 5 years time, there could be sufficient demand for water from Misicuni. Central government's rhetoric also argues that both schemes are complimentary. In a televised debate in Cochabamba in September 1995 the president attempted to convince the Cochabamba community that Misicuni was not under threat from CORANI. He said "the problem is not CORANI or Misicuni, it is SEMAPA". During this debate the president gave the official go ahead for both projects (which resulted in work being started on the 30 meter Misicuni tunnel). At the end of the debate the rector of San Simon University in Cochabamba said "as from today, we (Cochabambinos) have become fans of both projects and we will have to take the risks involved" (Los Tiempos, 1995).
The risks of the dual approach are clear, despite claims that the two projects can be advanced together. If CORANI is able to produce the volume claimed (4000 litres/second), Misicuni would not be needed to meet additional water demands until the year 2020. Even our interviews with SEMAPA engineers, who are loath to condemn Misicuni, indicated that they recognise that if CORANI were to sign a contract with SEMAPA then it would be very difficult to develop Misicuni in a parallel fashion. It would also be difficult to generate interest among buyers for Misicuni as currently, the project still needs to secure funding for the completion of the full tunnel (13.5 km) before the next phase can commence. Also, both SEMAPA engineers and Misicuni personnel recognise that Misicuni needs to invest in a rigorous study to produce a realistic estimate of the water price the company could deliver in the future.
Consequently, even with the government saying it supports Misicuni, in the light of the water trading offer from CORANI, there are too many uncertainties for Misicuni to sign a contract with SEMAPA prior to SEMAPA's own privatisation. CORANI on the other hand already has the money in the bank from its capitalisation to finance their scheme. This scenario of doom for Misicuni raises some important questions: If market prices suggest that there will be no demand for Misicuni in the short or medium term why is a dual approach still being espoused by SEMAPA, the state and CORANI? Why is Misicuni still on regional and national political agendas? The answer to these questions lies in the role that Misicuni plays as a cultural resource within regional politics.
The national and regional debate about the Misicuni and CORANI options has not only focused on cost and technical complexity but has also been influenced by Cochabamba’s struggle for regional autonomy and independence from the influence of the La Paz based state. For Cochabambinos Misicuni had become emblematic of the region's identity and hopes for the future. By questioning the need for the large integrated dam project, CORANI is challenging the particular autonomous definition of development and modernisation that mega projects often come to embody for a particular region. Most importantly in the case of Cochabamba, the CORANI challenge occurred just at the point when, with the 30 meter tunnel complete, 'the Misicuni dream' was finally beginning to seem achievable.
Support for the Misicuni project itself and the rhetoric of SEMAPA, CORANI and the state concerning a dual approach, therefore can only be understood in the context of the important role that Misicuni has played in the construction of a regional identity in Cochabamba. The citizens of Cochabamba believe that Misicuni is the solution to their water problems because, for 40 years, prior to each election every politician has promised to build this project in order to solve Cochabamba's water problem. Therefore, any politician in Cochabamba who says s/he is against Misicuni becomes a political outcast. Thus, the implementation of Misicuni is strongly associated with a wider cultural and political project signalling the modernisation of the Cochabamban people and their region.
While Misicuni has been linked to a technocentric definition of modernisation, at different points, the project has been able to re-invent itself to appeal to the particular development ideology of the time by shifting from an emphasis on an integrated project to a focus on electricity and then to concern with drinking water. So now in the 1990s, in the face of the neo-liberal challenge of water trading, Misicuni is attempting to re-invent itself again, this time as a cultural resource. This resource projects a particular pathway to 'modern' development for Cochabamba and support for such a regional project helps mark the region's autonomy and its independence from La Paz. In the context of the privatisation - Popular Participation tension inherent in Bolivia la Nueva, the state has been paying attention to Misicuni's re-invention precisely because of its strong, popular, regional support.
During the last five years, three developments have kept the project alive at a point when outside financing has been scarce. Firstly, restructuring of the Misicuni association took place to include more local political representatives, thereby securing local support. Secondly, to ensure that the state could not intervene in local issues, the mayor (who is from the party in opposition to central government) provided a cash injection to fund development work on Misicuni (Los Tiempos 1996). Finally, a new approach to the technical development of the project was established, which developed a less ambitious core scheme - the Trasvase Titri - rather than focusing on the project as a whole (see Figure 3).
During 1996, in the face of severe competition from CORANI and water trading, two other related arguments developed in support of Misicuni. These arguments draw almost exclusively on regional politics and efforts to resist the centralising influences of the state. The first is a renewed call for Misicuni to be implemented for purposes of irrigation which, it is argued, would help stop the rapid urbanisation of the Cochabamba valley. The second argument, clearly located within the contemporary 'growth with equity' development paradigm, claims that central government owes a social debt to Cochabamba. This debt is owed for the impact that central government's neo-liberal restructuring (expressed in the closure of the mines and the subsequent resettling of people in Cochabamba) has had on the environment of the valley. It is argued that 'reparations' should be paid in the form of the 'the Misicuni debt' - whereby the state compensates Cochabamba for the environmental damage it has suffered by funding the Misicuni dream. The former director of SEMAPA summarised this position in an interview:
"15 years ago Cochabamba was the second city now it is in third place because of the growth of Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz received extraordinary amounts of state funding. It is not disputed that Santa Cruz has huge economic potential because of oil, but Cochabamba has not received any compensation for its suffering and taking on this urban growth which has had a huge effect on Cochabamba's life". (Former SEMAPA director).
In a speech on 11th June 1996 the president recognised that Cochabamba was under threat from desertification and urbanisation but he tried to resist such an appeal for compensation by saying that Misicuni should not become politicised (Opinión 1996c). At this stage in the debate however, when Misicuni, CORANI and SEMAPA had become highly controversial topics because of state-led privatisation and capitalisation, predictably, his comments were not well received in Cochabamba.
Undoubtedly, the lack of outside funding for Misicuni in the 1990s largely reflects a shift in international thinking about 'mega projects' and a rejection of the big dam solution (see World Bank 1995 and Serageldin 1994). In Bolivia, however, approaches which suggest that big dam projects like Misicuni are too large, too expensive, environmentally damaging and are derived from a different era co-exist with powerful regional ideas about central government owing compensation to Cochabamba for the ways in which the region has been marginalised. Evoking ideas of social compensation can be interpreted in two ways.
It could be argued that claiming compensation from the state really marks the end of the Misicuni dream because it constructs Misicuni as a 'social debt' rather than linking the water project to the sorts of developmental arguments made by the mayor in 1995 when he claimed that Misicuni would be a vehicle for regional development. Similarly, appeals to the 'Misicuni debt' distances the 'Misicuni dream' from its 1950s origins as an integrated development project designed to modernise agriculture and provide drinking water rather than the containment of 'modern' urban growth. The idea of debt then, could appear as a last ditch attempt to salvage Misicuni when no rational case can be made to support it and when all other re-inventions of the dream have failed.
Alternatively, it can also be argued that, when seen in the wider national and international contexts, appeals for social compensation in the 1990s are not so irrational. In a country which pioneered both national debt for nature swaps with international donors and emergency work as national social compensation for relocated miners (Graham 1992), social cushions for economic shocks and innovative ways of paying debt have become part of the continental-wide 'growth with equity' paradigm. In the context of globally imposed adjustment and recent moves towards 'adjustment with a human face' pleas for regional as well as national compensation do not seem not so illogical. Instead, attempts to secure Misicuni are reconstructed as a desire for regional, social justice, for compensation and for 'reparations' from the state. Whether or not this appeal constitutes a new, negotiated development or a 'progressive' agenda are questions we shall return to shortly, however what comes across from the SEMAPA, Misicuni and CORANI story is that both the state and the Cochabamba region have attempted to frame the nature of the privatisation debate to ensure that wider social equity and participation objectives are built into the neo-liberal process. This approach has opened up the possibility for Misicuni to become a debt repayment and has given the region a bargaining tool to be used in the fight for autonomy and independence from central government.
The particular nexus of globalisation and neo-liberalism in Bolivia has allowed Misicuni to become an expression of regional identity and 'modernity' and to remain upon the political agenda via debates about privatisation. The privatisation of water has introduced ideas of private ownership while creating the space to dream regional imaginations and to negotiate different definitions of 'the modern'. Support for Misicuni from the region and the region's resistance towards state efforts to establish a water contract between SEMAPA and CORANI suggests that two clashing views of 'the modern' have emerged during the water debate. One view of the modern 'neo-liberal water-trading" has been supported by the state and the other view of the modern "the big dam" has been supported by the region. Even though large scale integrated technical solutions are illogical, and outdated in the context of the market economies of the 1990s Misicuni has become emblematic of a particular regional identity, a perceived pathway to 'modernisation' and the focus of a fight for independence. Therefore, privatisation and the particular nexus between globalisation and neo-liberalism in Bolivia has facilitated a dual approach towards these two clashing 'modern' logics of water.
Our analysis of the privatisation of the Bolivian water industry therefore implies that neo-liberalism does not merely 'impact' upon the local. Rather, we are arguing that in some cases neo-liberalism can provide the opportunity for certain regional identities to be created and maintained while demanding respect for irrational ideas which go against the outright logic of a liberalised economy. Such a conceptualisation of neo-liberalism helps the dichotomy of the 'traditional' and the 'modern' (fundamental to most modernisation development discourses) to be surpassed and the boundary between the two previous sides of the dichotomy to become an interesting space for negotiation about contested meanings of 'the modern'.
This in-between space, however, is fragile because it places the people of Cochabamba in an awkward position, they do not want to give up their Misicuni dream and yet neither do they want to be represented as the 'country hicks' rejecting the 'modern' Bolivia la Nueva. This tension was expressed in the national and local press coverage of the presidential televised debate in September 1995:
“Diputado (MP) Tito Hol de Vila expressed his concern about the images which the media were conveying about Cochabamba after yesterday” (Los Tiempos, 1995).
“Recently Cochabambinos have been complaining that the press has made them look like “testarudos” and “sentimentales” (stubborn and overly sentimental) when they have not for one moment said that they were opposed to CORANI. “We only said that we were not willing to renounce Misicuni” they said” (Ultima Hora, 1995).
Hence, such concerns about representation in the fight over the privatisation of SEMAPA suggest that the regional politics of resistance have needed to be very subtle. The privatisation of SEMAPA could not have been challenged on market grounds because that would have suggested that the Cochabamba community was 'anti-modern'. It could only have been contested by appealing to cultural factors and to the potential threat that the privatisation of SEMAPA (linked to securing water from CORANI) constituted for the Misicuni dream. Once the issue of SEMAPA's privatisation had been questioned in this way it then became possible for regional politicians to bring various arguments to bear on the situation. When it became clear that SEMAPA, with state backing, was more likely to sign a contract with CORANI (to secure SEMAPA's own future) than with Misicuni, regional actors needed to take action. This action took the form of a legal battle between the region and the state.
In early 1997 the Mayor of Cochabamba took out a court injunction against the Sanchez government claiming that it was unconstitutional for the central government to take decisions to privatise a municipal resource like SEMAPA. In speaking about the possibility of an injunction the Mayor said "If it (SEMAPA) belongs to the Cochabambinos then nobody or nothing can have sufficient authority to get rid of its "activos" for whatever reason" (Opinión 1996d). This step could not have been taken if popular consensus about the threat that the privatisation of SEMAPA posed to Misicuni had not been created among Cochabambinos. Evidence of the strength of this popular consensus is found in a recent interview conducted for a project with street children in Cochabamba. Just prior to the national elections in July 1997, in an interview focusing on political consciousness, a 12 year old street girl was asked what she thought about President Sanchez "Who is Sanchez?" She asked. "He's Goni" she was told,[1] "Oh yes Goni, he's the one who stole the water". She may not have known the president's real name, and only knew how to refer to him by his nick name but she did know that he was trying to steal Cochabamba's water and she knew that was bad[1].
In Bolivia, privatisation and neo-liberalism have become sites where global, regional, national and local agendas are played out in a variety of ways. As we have seen in the strength of the regional case for the Misicuni dream these agendas are not always worked out by hierarchical top down forms of politics. It would be naive however, to assume that the regional 'victory' over maintaining the Misicuni dream alive, and using water as a cultural resource to block SEMAPA's privatisation, automatically represents a progressive agenda within neo-liberalism. While it does represent a bid for regional autonomy and with that an appeal for social equity in the form of compensation, it would not be possible to establish the extent of the progressive nature of the Misicuni agenda without doing more detailed research. For example, in this paper we have not examined the diversity of local support for Misicuni, identified the conservative elements in the pro-Misicuni camp nor have we analysed the compromises and alliances made between various interest groups. At a national level, we have not attempted to discuss the importance of the pro-Misicuni - anti-government stance in the recent return of Banzar, the former right wing dictator, to power in July 1997.
Consequently, even if the Misicuni struggle does represent a negotiated development, an alternative to the neo-liberal logic of water trading, it is still a return to something which went before, to the big dam notion of progress which has been central to modernisation paradigms for many years. Therefore, while identifying regional resistance is an important step it still leaves open questions about the types of inclusions and exclusions that Misicuni-based resistance is setting up among different factions at the local, regional and national level. What this paper has argued however, is that the privatisation of water in Bolivia has created an opportunity for neo-liberal development trajectories to negotiate a pathway between shifting definitions of 'the modern' and for regional voices to be heard in that debate at national and international scales.
The example of the Bolivian water industry has lessons for our wider understanding of neo-liberalism. It indicates that once embarked upon, privatisation creates the context for subsequent, new phases of restructuring. It also suggests, however, that this independent logic is located within negotiated development and specific expressions of neo-liberalism. In countries of the so called 'South', such as Bolivia and the rest of Latin America where neo-liberalism is on the rise, the particular expression that neo-liberalism assumes is intimately linked to a colonised experience of late capitalism. Thus, neo-liberalism becomes structured by specific, and often contradictory, sets of international, national and regional relations and institutional networks which have been forged by a colonised history and internationally policed present. The case of Misicuni and the persistence of the dream indicates that, while the logic of international privatisation creates the conditions for the next phase of neo-liberalism, this logic does not automatically define what new neo-liberal spaces will look like. Despite its continued popularity with international donors and nation states in Latin America 'rational market logic' does not necessarily pre-determine the boundaries and scales of new neo-liberalisms, nor the particular configurations of social, political and geographical relations which will resist and/or sustain (and be sustained by) them.
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[1] "Goni" is the nickname of the president. We are grateful to Maggie Anderson-Torico for allowing us to use this material.