A Review of Susan Helen Ellison, Domesticating Democracy: The Politics of Conflict Resolution in Bolivia. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018, XIII+281 pp.

Abstract

The monograph under review explores how the programs of democratic development sponsored by international foundations in Bolivia are implemented at the grassroots level and how the discourse of new citizenship is assimilated by local inhabitants. The author builds her work upon her own experience of work in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) organizations which assist vulnerable social groups in El Alto. The civil institutions under study are considered by Ellison not only as an alternative to state institutions but also as a basis for the development of new forms of civil subjectivity in the conditions of the political crisis and the influence of global capitalism. That said, while covering a broad picture of the socio-political life of Bolivia, the author views the locals only through the prism of these institutions.