Bolivia's Restructuring Corporate Democracy Support the work of the Institute
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The cancelation of a contract with a French water company in January put the international oil companies on the defensive, fearing they may be next. Calls for secession of the state of Santa Cruz, the country's oil-rich region, began shortly after. Although two-thirds of Bolivia's population is indigenous and poor, the traditional oligarch-dominated political parties control Congress, making it difficult to make changes through the available democratic channels. Popular mobilizations have become the way to demand and achieve change. The US government has been unusually silent on the Bolivian crisis. Traditionally, the US has supported right-wing governments that followed US foreign policy objectives, like free market reforms and tough anti-drug policies. The World Bank financed Bolivia's neoliberal economic reforms in the mid-1990s. In addition, the World Bank and other US taxpayer-backed financi...