Driving Development from Below: The Advantages and Limitations of Vernacular Politics in the Bolivian Altiplano
| Author | Rachel Godfrey‐Wood,Graciela Mamani‐Vargas |
| Date | 01 October 2016 |
| Published date | 01 October 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1763 |
DRIVING DEVELOPMENT FROM BELOW: THE ADVANTAGES AND
LIMITATIONS OF VERNACULAR POLITICS IN THE BOLIVIAN
ALTIPLANO
RACHEL GODFREY-WOOD
1
*AND GRACIELA MAMANI-VARGAS
2
1
Institute of Development Studies, UK
2
Fundacion ‘Jacha Uru’, Bolivia
SUMMARY
Anthropologists studying the Andean community politics have increasingly emphasised the role of pragmatic, informal
‘vernacular’political strategies in achieving material and political empowerment of the poor. However, while the concept of
vernacular politics marks an advancement over binary and often polarised discussions of the role of local communities in
development processes, studies have not fully explored the full range of implications of vernacular strategies on development
processes. While researchers have demonstrated the substantial agency that local community actors have to influence develop-
ment processes, the extent to which this influence effectively resists or reinforces the logic of public policy implementation has
not been studied. This article explores the techniques used by rural communities in their interactions with public institutions in
rural Bolivia. It shows that community organisations' vernacular political strategies have mixed outcomes: on the one hand, they
allow the rural poor to assert their own agendas vis-à-vis the state so that they can benefit from public spending, while on the
other hand, their tactics have the potential to entrench the influence of local power brokers and perpetuate inefficient uses of
public funds. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words—vernacular politics; community politics; participation; decentralisation; Bolivia; political capabilities
INTRODUCTION
Since the New Deal in the USA in the 1930s, debates have raged about the role of local communities in develop-
ment processes (Immerwahr, 2015). While advocates argue that local community organisations are better placed to
decide upon development priorities than central government and are therefore more likely to spend public resources
on endeavours that benefit the poor (Chambers, 1983; World Bank, 1992; World Bank, 2004), critics have claimed
that community participation can facilitate the capture of public resources by local elites, as well as entrench
patronage politics at the local level (Bardhan and Mookherjee, 2006; Mansuri and Rao, 2012). While these
discussions have advanced understanding regarding the advantages and disadvantages of decentralisation and
participation initiatives, there is growing agreement that they require complementing with analysis of the ways
in which poor people view the state and engage with it on a regular basis (Corbridge et al., 2005). This has led
to growing interest in the informal, pragmatic forms of politics that poor people often engage in to secure material
and political advancement, which are often described as ‘vernacular’modes of politics (Dove and Kammen, 2001;
Colloredo-Mansfeld, 2009; Vincent, 2014; Hughes, 2015). Vernacular political and development strategies often
differ significantly from formal discourses about how communities are ‘supposed’to interact with the state and
generally utilise combinations of formal and informal techniques to appropriate externally driven programmes or
policies on their own terms (Dove and Kammen, 2001; Colloredo-Mansfeld, 2009; Vincent, 2014; Hughes,
2015). As Dove and Kammen (2001, 621) note, the concept of vernacular modes of development is useful because
*Correspondence to: R. Godfrey-Wood, Institute of Development Studies, 140 Fairbridge Road, London N19 3HU, UK. E-mail:
rachelgodfreywood@yahoo.co.uk
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 36, 239–249 (2016)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1763
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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