One of the most important stories in Latin American studies today is the emergence of left-leaning social movements sweeping across Latin America includes the mobilization of militant indigenous politics. Formed in 1995 in Ecuador to advance the interests of a variety of people’s organizations and to serve as an alternative to the country’s traditional political parties, Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement (Pachakutik) is an indigenist-based movement and political party. In this critical work, Kenneth J. Mijeski and Scott H. Beck evaluate the successes and failures experienced by Ecuador’s Indians in their quest to transform the state into a participative democracy that would address the needs of the country’s long-ignored and impoverished majority, both indigenous and nonindigenous. Using a powerful statistical technique and in-depth interviews with political activists, the authors show that the political election game failed to advance the cause of either Ecuador’s poor majority or the movement’s own indigenous base. Pachakutik and the Rise and Decline of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement is an extraordinarily valuable case study that examines the birth, development, and in this case, waning of Ecuador’s indigenous movement.

This authoritative book provides a deeply informed overview of contemporary Indigenous movements in Ecuador. Leading scholar Marc Becker traces the growing influence of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) in the wake of a 1990 uprising, the launch of a new political movement called Pachakutik in 1995, and the election of Rafael Correa in 2006. Even though CONAIE, Pachakutik, and Correa shared similar concerns for social justice, they soon came into conflict with each other. Becker examines the competing strategies and philosophies that emerge when social movements and political parties embrace comparable visions but follow different paths to realize their objectives. In exploring the multiple and conflictive strategies that Indigenous movements have followed over the past twenty years, he definitively charts the trajectory of one of the Americas' most powerful and best organized social movements.

The South American country of Ecuador provides a fascinating case study for understanding the construction and emergence of race and ethnic identities. While themes of ethnic identities, indigeneity, and race relations are commonly examined in our respective disciplines, it is less common to bring together essays with from scholars from such a broad variety of disciplines. The papers collected in this volume provide an opportunity to explore indigeneity in comparative perspective with the rest of the region, as well as to highlight the historically important but understudied Afro-Ecuadorian perspectives. The essays in this volume break out of the common tropes and themes that scholars typically employ in their studies of race and ethnicity in Ecuador. In examining Afro-Ecuadorians and Indigenous peoples through the lens of politics, culture, religion, gender, and environmental concerns, we come to a better understanding of the problems and promises facing this country. These essays convey a large diversity of perspectives, disciplines, and issues that reflect the richness and complexities of the social processes that are present in Ecuador.

Explores why indigenous movements have recently won elections for the first time in the history of Latin America.

Ecuador’s “Good Living”: Crises, Discourse, and Law by Gallegos-Anda, presents a critical approach towards the concept of Buen Vivir that was included in Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution, presenting new inductive theories that analyse the context and power relations that forged it.

For over thirty years, Latin American Politics and Development has kept instructors and students abreast of current affairs and changes in Latin America. Now in its ninth edition, this definitive text has been updated throughout and features contributions from experts in the field, including twenty new and revised chapters on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. The fully updated foundational section includes new chapters on political economy and U.S.-Latin American relations and covers the changing context of Latin American politics, the pattern of historical development, political culture, interest groups and political parties, government machinery, the role of the state and public policy, and the struggle for democracy. In addition to detailed country-by-country chapters, Latin American Politics and Development provides a comprehensive regional overview.

The Rise of Ethnic Politics in Latin America explores why indigenous movements have recently won elections for the first time in the history of the region. Raúl L. Madrid argues that some indigenous parties have won by using inclusive populist appeals to reach out to whites and mestizos. Indigenous parties have managed to win support across ethnic lines because the long history of racial mixing in Latin America blurred ethnic boundaries and reduced ethnic polarization. The appeals of the indigenous parties have especially resonated in the Andean countries because of widespread disenchantment with the region's traditional parties. The book contains up-to-date qualitative and quantitative analyses of parties in seven countries, including detailed case studies of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.