Tracing Bolivia's Swing of the Pendulum : Tracing the process of popular resistance in Bolivia.

Sammanfattning: Policy regime shift through popular societal resistance in developing countries, advocating a state-regulated economic model, has been a frequent occurrence in the 21st century, during a period where neoliberalism has dominated the world market. Scholars have brought up the framework of double movement to explain these social, economic, and political changes from free-market regimes to state-controlled regimes, claiming that it is a societal reaction to the commodification of land, labor, and money. This research poses the question of how political change can be interpreted through the lens of the concept of double movement even though a government can show positive social and economic development records, where a left-wing state-regulated market has ruled the economy. Bolivia underwent political turmoil in 2019, where the former president Evo Morales, who had brought high socioeconomic development through a state-regulated economy, was ousted by a nationwide protest. An interim conservative government took office, imposing a harsh neoliberal agenda with authoritarian features, handing over the presidency to Morales’ former party only a year later, as the party won the election. Looking at the case of Bolivia through the lens of the double movement, this research found that commodification of land, labor, and money can explain popular societal resistance in Bolivia during Morales's presidency. However, the case also proved that commodification was not the only, and potentially not even the main, reason for the overthrow of Morales. Political motives and actions, clientelism, social cleavages, respect for democratic principles, and more theoretical perspectives need to be considered to comprehend regime change by popular resistance further.