Chapter 7: Citizens’ Revolution, 2006 to 2015: The Rise of the Paradoxical State
Summary:
Neoliberalism allowed room for citizen’s movements to invoke political change, including democratic changes. Socialist Rafael Correa became Ecuador’s president in 2006 and began his term in 2007 and with him a shift occurred in Ecuador. Venezuela initiated the shift away from neoliberalism to leftist viewpoints and more state intervention. This new era brought a decrease in poverty and debt and less reliance on foreign intervention through the redistribution of wealth. It also increased the role of the average citizen in political affairs. However, Ecuador’s activists continue to battle extractivism, now against the state. Organizations were formed to lessen Latin America’s reliance on the U.S. including ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America). Ecuador joined in and Correa enforced more trade with China and removed the U.S air force base among others, which distanced itself from the U.S.and other investors while lessening NGO and transnational involvement.
As the government grew stronger in decision making, more money and domestic decision making entered the environmental movement and as NGOs were dismantled, some members moved to work in the state. Cutting off international funding resulted in some instrumental and noteworthy NGOs ending, including Fundacion Natura. Roles, including local environmental maintenance, previously carried out by ecoentrepreneurial groups, were now jobs of the state. Ecoresisters were now in a battle with both the government and its extractive practices and the citizens over the prioritization of social development or environmentalism.
In 2008, the revised constitution gave legal rights to nature, the first of its kind. Several other points of the constitution focused on the environment and “buen vivir”, which encompasses quality of life and coexistence with nature. Correa created a national institution to carry out “buen vivir” and ensure a development that included sustainability, quality of life, and the environment. However, it is stated in the revised constitution that the state may decide, without consent, how land may be used if it falls in their best interests. The Yasuni-ITT Initiative of 2007 was supposed to protect oil reserves in Yasuni National Park if other countries donated half the profits they would have received from drilling there. However, the money was not raised and the park was open for drilling. Correa and his administration were violating environmental rights to make up for its domestic spending and to continue giving profits to the poor, thus making him popular among citizens but unpopular among environmental organizations and indigenous groups. As the mining sector grew, ecoresisters and others that protested were put down by Correa and denoted radical. The tide had turned as those that actively supported Correa were protesting his actions and being criminalized, even harassed and killed, for it. Decrees directed at NGOs and INGOs were created to put a stop to any resistance to extraction. Civil groups and organizations were quieted or threatened and democracy appeared to be dissipating.
Reflection:
This chapter truly demonstrated, in my eyes, that the “invasive” international influence that persisted in Ecuador during the 1990s certainly is not the sole contributor to the struggles that the country faced or continues to face. Even without foreign influence and under Correa and his hopeful promises, detrimental issues continued to plague the country. If anything, conditions (in terms of the environment) have worsened since his election as described:
...between 1980 and 2013 Ecuador has become a supplier not only of traditional raw materials but also of ‘virtual’ exports, through dedication of land to carbon sequestration and market-led biodiversity
conservation, and of locally costly, globally supplied luxury goods, such as shrimp and flowers (perhaps
soon also gold), that facilitate global capital accumulation at the expense of local environmental degradation (Latorre, Farrell, & Martínez-Alier, 2015, p. 66).
The market of environmental degradation has grown considerably under Correa, with minimal if any influence from outside countries and organizations. This demonstrates that perhaps the economic and environmental rivalry that exists in Ecuador cannot be leveled out through domestic interference only and that the country must learn to coexist with the help of international funders and essential NGOs in order to create a healthy living environment.
This chapter also raised the question if some of Correa’s actions were justified given the help he provided to citizens in terms of creating jobs, funding social welfare programs, and developing local cities. Correa did help citizens but in the long run, the health and well-being of the environment and the people coincide and therefore must support one another. As stated in an article on the citizen’s revolution, “Life continues to be devalued in strategic zones of energy logistics...while oil capital continues to circulate and reproduce both wealth and waste. This logic appears to deepen devaluation and dispossession of life selectively, where wealth moves with ease and accumulates for some but not all” (Valdivia, 2017, p. 435). Increased wealth as a result of Correa is indeed a positive aspect but its extent is limited and the means to achieve it extended well beyond that of his political power. This abuse of power and corruption has further trapped Ecuador in a battle between profit and sustainable development/environmentalism.
A middle ground must be reached in order to limit the extraction that occurs in Ecuador. As seen in the chapter, Ecuador drastically increased the percentage of revenue the country brought in through extraction. Perhaps some of this could be invested in different technologies such as solar and hydropower in order to initiate clean energy programs. With some power restored to NGOs, INGOs, and ecoentrepreneur organizations, I feel that a slow integration of more sustainable energy sources could occur. According to a source on renewable and sustainable energy, “Since 2007, new policies to promote energy efficiency technologies (EET), such as energy audits, in Ecuador have been added to the institutional framework” (Moya, Torres, & Stegan, 2016, p. 290). This demonstrates that the state recognizes the potential for sustainable energy though it might not have invested in its implementation. If the country patches the divide it finds itself in, organizations, the state, and its citizens could collaborate and invest to begin new, sustainable initiatives.
References:
Latorre, S., Farrell, K. N., & Martínez-Alier, J. (2015). The commodification of nature and
socio-environmental resistance in Ecuador: An inventory of accumulation by dispossession cases, 1980–
2013. Ecological Economics, 116, 58–69.
Moya, D., Torres, R., & Stegen, S. (2016). Analysis of the Ecuadorian energy audit practices: A
review of energy efficiency promotion. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 62, 289–296.
Valdivia, G. (2017). Oil Citizens of the Revolution. NACLA Report on the Americas, 49(4),
429–435.
Summary:
Neoliberalism allowed room for citizen’s movements to invoke political change, including democratic changes. Socialist Rafael Correa became Ecuador’s president in 2006 and began his term in 2007 and with him a shift occurred in Ecuador. Venezuela initiated the shift away from neoliberalism to leftist viewpoints and more state intervention. This new era brought a decrease in poverty and debt and less reliance on foreign intervention through the redistribution of wealth. It also increased the role of the average citizen in political affairs. However, Ecuador’s activists continue to battle extractivism, now against the state. Organizations were formed to lessen Latin America’s reliance on the U.S. including ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America). Ecuador joined in and Correa enforced more trade with China and removed the U.S air force base among others, which distanced itself from the U.S.and other investors while lessening NGO and transnational involvement.
As the government grew stronger in decision making, more money and domestic decision making entered the environmental movement and as NGOs were dismantled, some members moved to work in the state. Cutting off international funding resulted in some instrumental and noteworthy NGOs ending, including Fundacion Natura. Roles, including local environmental maintenance, previously carried out by ecoentrepreneurial groups, were now jobs of the state. Ecoresisters were now in a battle with both the government and its extractive practices and the citizens over the prioritization of social development or environmentalism.
In 2008, the revised constitution gave legal rights to nature, the first of its kind. Several other points of the constitution focused on the environment and “buen vivir”, which encompasses quality of life and coexistence with nature. Correa created a national institution to carry out “buen vivir” and ensure a development that included sustainability, quality of life, and the environment. However, it is stated in the revised constitution that the state may decide, without consent, how land may be used if it falls in their best interests. The Yasuni-ITT Initiative of 2007 was supposed to protect oil reserves in Yasuni National Park if other countries donated half the profits they would have received from drilling there. However, the money was not raised and the park was open for drilling. Correa and his administration were violating environmental rights to make up for its domestic spending and to continue giving profits to the poor, thus making him popular among citizens but unpopular among environmental organizations and indigenous groups. As the mining sector grew, ecoresisters and others that protested were put down by Correa and denoted radical. The tide had turned as those that actively supported Correa were protesting his actions and being criminalized, even harassed and killed, for it. Decrees directed at NGOs and INGOs were created to put a stop to any resistance to extraction. Civil groups and organizations were quieted or threatened and democracy appeared to be dissipating.
Reflection:
This chapter truly demonstrated, in my eyes, that the “invasive” international influence that persisted in Ecuador during the 1990s certainly is not the sole contributor to the struggles that the country faced or continues to face. Even without foreign influence and under Correa and his hopeful promises, detrimental issues continued to plague the country. If anything, conditions (in terms of the environment) have worsened since his election as described:
...between 1980 and 2013 Ecuador has become a supplier not only of traditional raw materials but also of ‘virtual’ exports, through dedication of land to carbon sequestration and market-led biodiversity
conservation, and of locally costly, globally supplied luxury goods, such as shrimp and flowers (perhaps
soon also gold), that facilitate global capital accumulation at the expense of local environmental degradation (Latorre, Farrell, & Martínez-Alier, 2015, p. 66).
The market of environmental degradation has grown considerably under Correa, with minimal if any influence from outside countries and organizations. This demonstrates that perhaps the economic and environmental rivalry that exists in Ecuador cannot be leveled out through domestic interference only and that the country must learn to coexist with the help of international funders and essential NGOs in order to create a healthy living environment.
This chapter also raised the question if some of Correa’s actions were justified given the help he provided to citizens in terms of creating jobs, funding social welfare programs, and developing local cities. Correa did help citizens but in the long run, the health and well-being of the environment and the people coincide and therefore must support one another. As stated in an article on the citizen’s revolution, “Life continues to be devalued in strategic zones of energy logistics...while oil capital continues to circulate and reproduce both wealth and waste. This logic appears to deepen devaluation and dispossession of life selectively, where wealth moves with ease and accumulates for some but not all” (Valdivia, 2017, p. 435). Increased wealth as a result of Correa is indeed a positive aspect but its extent is limited and the means to achieve it extended well beyond that of his political power. This abuse of power and corruption has further trapped Ecuador in a battle between profit and sustainable development/environmentalism.
A middle ground must be reached in order to limit the extraction that occurs in Ecuador. As seen in the chapter, Ecuador drastically increased the percentage of revenue the country brought in through extraction. Perhaps some of this could be invested in different technologies such as solar and hydropower in order to initiate clean energy programs. With some power restored to NGOs, INGOs, and ecoentrepreneur organizations, I feel that a slow integration of more sustainable energy sources could occur. According to a source on renewable and sustainable energy, “Since 2007, new policies to promote energy efficiency technologies (EET), such as energy audits, in Ecuador have been added to the institutional framework” (Moya, Torres, & Stegan, 2016, p. 290). This demonstrates that the state recognizes the potential for sustainable energy though it might not have invested in its implementation. If the country patches the divide it finds itself in, organizations, the state, and its citizens could collaborate and invest to begin new, sustainable initiatives.
References:
Latorre, S., Farrell, K. N., & Martínez-Alier, J. (2015). The commodification of nature and
socio-environmental resistance in Ecuador: An inventory of accumulation by dispossession cases, 1980–
2013. Ecological Economics, 116, 58–69.
Moya, D., Torres, R., & Stegen, S. (2016). Analysis of the Ecuadorian energy audit practices: A
review of energy efficiency promotion. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 62, 289–296.
Valdivia, G. (2017). Oil Citizens of the Revolution. NACLA Report on the Americas, 49(4),
429–435.