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Papers by Jeffery R Webber

Latin American Perspectives, 2024

Spectre , 2024

The immediacy of the Russian invasion of Ukraine alongside the emergence of China as a potential ... more The immediacy of the Russian invasion of Ukraine alongside the emergence of China as a potential global power has changed the debate on imperialism. Theories premised on the deepening integration of global capitalism under the unrivalled dominance of the United States have become increasingly untenable. This perspective, exempli ed in Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin's Deutscher-prize winning The Making of Global Capitalism, has enjoyed considerable esteem across the broad left over the last few decades. Meanwhile, the more recent prestige of campist celebrations of multipolarity represent a sort of distorted mirror-image of the same premises of a singular American imperium. The distinction in the latter is that the imperium is now in jeopardy, not because of interimperial rivalry, but rather due to the emergence of a bloc of states in con ict with the United States and, by that fact, to be understood as anti-imperialist entities irrespective of their social-structural or political makeup. Despite their contrasting estimations of the enduring strength of US supremacy, the two perspectives increasingly converge politically, as in their common apologia for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which both streams tend to view as merely a response to US overreach.

NACLA Report on the Americas, 2022

For the latest wave of the Left in power sweeping the region, the challenges are steep. radical p... more For the latest wave of the Left in power sweeping the region, the challenges are steep. radical politics will continue to emerge from the streets.

American Anthropologist, 2022

Bret Gustafson has been conducting important research on the Chaco region of southeastern Bolivia... more Bret Gustafson has been conducting important research on the Chaco region of southeastern Bolivia for over twenty years, working closely with the Guarani Indigenous people. Bolivia in the Age of Gas, his second book, explores the social, ecological, and political dynamics of oil and natural gas extraction in Bolivia, stretching from the early twenti

Spectre, 2021

In equal measure an accounting of the enormous objective forces unfolding a colonial nightmare ac... more In equal measure an accounting of the enormous objective forces unfolding a colonial nightmare across the Mediterranean from France, and a portrayal of the depths of characters’ intimate subjectivities – themselves imbricated with and mediating the parts of that social whole – Andras’s novel reaches for imaginative inner connections and syntheses across scale and time. He is no stranger to sociological contradiction, nor to psychological complexity. His fiction never reduces to a merely didactic idiom. At the same time, Andras circumnavigates, and at a wide berth, the varied formulae of literary liberal-humanism, whether it be the sentimental humanitarian mode, or, alternatively, the mode of moral pragmaticism and apoliticism attached to certain expressions of ironical cynicism.

Spectre, 2021

In 1872, José Hernández published an epic poem, Martín Fierro, the eponymous story of an outlaw A... more In 1872, José Hernández published an epic poem, Martín Fierro, the eponymous story of an outlaw Argentine gaucho, or cowboy. The text was canonized over the years, seen as a special window into the nineteenth-century national soul of Argentina. In form and content, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s short novel, Las aventuras de la China Iron – originally published in 2017, translated into English in 2019, and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize the same year – is a radically subversive encounter with Martín Fierro. Cabezón, born in Buenos Aires in 1968, has several acclaimed novels under her belt, and was a founding member of the feminist collective Ni Una Menos.

Marxist Left Review, 2020

A survey of the socio-economic and political dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America.

Marxist Left Review, 2020

A survey of the socio-economic and political dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America.

Spectre, 2020

Review essay of Marian E. Schlotterbeck, Beyond the Vanguard: Everyday Revolutionaries in Allende... more Review essay of Marian E. Schlotterbeck, Beyond the Vanguard: Everyday Revolutionaries in Allende's Chile (University of California Press, 2018).

Rethinking Marxism, 2020

Serious reflection on the regime of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil requires considering renewed theoret... more Serious reflection on the regime of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil requires considering renewed theoretical and historical debates on fascism. This essay explores recent contributions by Perry Anderson, Dylan Riley, Enzo Traverso, Atilio Borón, and Armando Boito Jr., putting each in conversation with present political and socioeconomic dynamics in Brazil and focusing on the state form and the power bloc, with an excursus on the local militia state in Rio de Janeiro. The essay argues that Bolsonaro is unlikely to establish a fascist dictatorship, given the political paralysis of his regime’s first several months and the difficulties of sustaining a political project rooted in a heterogeneous social base within a context of persistent world-market stagnation and ongoing Brazilian economic contraction. Still, the essay insists that the most compelling theoretical, historical, and political work on the prospects of twenty-first-century fascism in Brazil and elsewhere comes from those who do not rule out the possibility of its success.

Historical Materialism, 2020

This editorial perspective attempts to explain the recent rise of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidenc... more This editorial perspective attempts to explain the recent rise of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency in Brazil and to characterise, at least in a preliminary fashion, the nature of the new regime one year into Bolsonaro's rule. The core argument is that Bolsonaro represents a weak and internally-fragmented far-right regime, with unenthusiastic and declining popular support. Dominant sections of international and domestic capital operating in Brazil lent Bolsonaro electoral backing as a last way out of economic and political crisis, but so far, the new government has failed in sufficiently guaranteeing their most important interests and the markets are withdrawing approval. Themes covered include the political paralysis of the new regime, the social bases of Bolsonarismo, the nature of the current state-capital relation, and the role of evangelical Pentecostalism in far-right Brazilian politics today. A biographical portrait of Bolsonaro is provided, alongside a mapping of the dominant factions of the new administration. Finally, an assessment of the economic outlook in Brazil is developed, together with speculation as to the likely political consequences in the short-to medium-term future.

Science and Society, 2020

Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has... more Scholarly debate on territorialized geopolitics and internationalized capitalist accumulation has reached an impasse. Advocates of empire and transnational class and state formation underestimate the staying power of nation–states in the contemporary global order and extend theoretical claims beyond what the evidence allows. State-centric theorists of U. S. supremacy, meanwhile, fail to appreciate the subordination of all states to the law of value, operating in and through the uneven, hierarchical, and hypercomplex world market. Finally, theorists of “dual logics” cannot grasp the dialectical integration of state and capital. A way out of the impasse lies through the notion of a complexly stratified world system, which stresses capitalist specificity, capitalist totality, the multiplicity of states and capitals, and the ordering of the world in an imperialist chain. Understanding the world as complexly stratified in this way has serious implications for the conceptualization of contemporary imperialism.

Historical Materialism, 2019

This introduction situates the work of Zavaleta in the field of Bolivian intellectual history, La... more This introduction situates the work of Zavaleta in the field of Bolivian intellectual history, Latin American Studies, and Latin American Marxism. It also explains the objectives of the symposium and the logic underlying its constituent parts.

Historical Materialism, 2019

The coming to office of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil has brought to the fore the need to understand t... more The coming to office of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil has brought to the fore the need to understand the rise of the far right and to come to terms with the conflicted legacies of more than a decade of rule under the Workers' Party. This forum brings together six leading intellectuals from different traditions on the left and introduces their reflections on the contradictions and complexities of the Workers' Party, the 2008 crisis, the June 2013 protests, the weakness of the Brazilian left, corruption, and on how to char-acterise Bolsonaro's regime. Their interventions offer crucial insights that are relevant today not just to Brazil, or even Latin America, but to the politics of the left worldwide.

Historical Materialism, 2019

This 'editorial perspective' offers reflection on Marxist theory in the narrow domain of social m... more This 'editorial perspective' offers reflection on Marxist theory in the narrow domain of social movements and social-movement studies. It offers a brief survey of international class struggles over the last few decades to situate the discussion. It then focuses on the problem of capitalism for social-movement studies, and the particular issue of capitalist totality. It argues that an expansive, processual, historical and temporal conception of class struggle needs to be at the centre of any adequate Marxist approach to social movements, and shows why and how this is so by delving into some contemporary debates over dominant forms of collective action-strike and riot. It also highlights the dialectical relations between production, reproduction and social reproduction, and how the latest revivals of Marxist feminism might guide us through the morass. Finally, it suggests that struggles across these interrelated domains can be linked through an 'infrastructure of dissent' .

Return of the Strike: A Forum on the Teachers’ Rebellion in the United States, 2018

Bringing together leading observers of the 2018 teachers' strikes in the United States, this foru... more Bringing together leading observers of the 2018 teachers' strikes in the United States, this forum surveys the origins, character, and trajectory of the rebellion as a whole. We examine the relations between union bureaucracies and the rank and file, the wider political context of the United States, the geography of the strike, immediate and longer-term grievances in the public-education sector, spontaneity and organisation, local cultural contexts and labour histories, strategies and tactics, social reproduction and gender, race and racism, and the potentialities and obstacles facing the movement in the near future.

The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship that understands Canada a... more The last several years have witnessed a renewal of critical scholarship that understands Canada as a secondary imperialist power. While conceptualizations of Canada as a dependency of the United States have lost intellectual ground in the Canadian political economy literature, the rejection of the notion that Canada is imperialist has more recently drawn on the transnationalization thesis found in, inter alia, Robinson and Sklair. This article refutes these central premises. It argues, first, that Canadian capital can be measured as “Canadian.” In turn, because there is a Canadian capitalist class we need to theorize its relationship with the Canadian state. Second, this Canadian capitalist class pursues its interests abroad, with the support of the Canadian state, as a secondary imperialist power within the hierarchical world system. Third, expansion of identifiably Canadian capital abroad is exemplified in Canadian investment trends in mining and finance in Latin America in recent decades.

Latin American Perspectives, 2024

Spectre , 2024

NACLA Report on the Americas, 2022

American Anthropologist, 2022

Spectre, 2021

Marxist Left Review, 2020

A survey of the socio-economic and political dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America.

Marxist Left Review, 2020

A survey of the socio-economic and political dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America.

Spectre, 2020

Rethinking Marxism, 2020

Historical Materialism, 2020

Science and Society, 2020

Historical Materialism, 2019

Return of the Strike: A Forum on the Teachers’ Rebellion in the United States, 2018

A talk at the Havens Center for Social Justice, University of Wisconsin, Madison, April 4, 2018.

Talk at the Havens Center for Social Justice, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Tuesday, April 3,... more Talk at the Havens Center for Social Justice, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Tuesday, April 3, 2018.

Talk in London - October 2017

A discussion of themes from the book, The Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of the Same. ... more A discussion of themes from the book, The Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of the Same. Central London, March 2017.

Presentación del libro a la UNAM – febrero 2017

The interview addresses the economics and politics of the rise and current crisis of the Left tur... more The interview addresses the economics and politics of the rise and current crisis of the Left turn in Latin America.

“At a time when most scholars of contentious politics have abandoned political economy, Jeffery W... more “At a time when most scholars of contentious politics have abandoned political economy, Jeffery Webber's latest book is a breath of fresh air. He shows how the rise of the new Latin American Left was linked to a regional crisis of neoliberal capitalism at the turn of the millennium. And he shows how the delayed effects of the global economic crisis of 2007-2008 pushed Left and Center-Left governments to adopt a politics of austerity, creating new opportunities for the Right. Webber's analysis is also sensitive to the class and other struggles within and between Left parties and movements, struggles which shaped how these formations would react to changing material circumstances. In all, this is simply the best book we have on the rise and current crisis of the new Latin American Left. It's also a model for how to analyze contentious politics.”

- Jeff Goodwin, New York University

"If you have ever wondered what happened to the beacon of hope that was, until recently, Latin America, this is the book to turn to. With supreme grasp of the continent’s politics, Jeffrey R. Webber unpacks the contradictions of the Left governments that once inspired dreams of a twenty-first century socialism. Most importantly, he shows how they banked on extracting natural resources for the global market and then distributing the crumbs to the masses – and how dismally that strategy failed. Weaving together GDP data and traditions of anticolonial resistance, individual biographies and debates in Marxist theory, always with a pulse of street movements running through the text, this is concrete analysis of the conjuncture as it should be done."

- Andreas Malm, author of Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming

“Combining Marxist and decolonial theoretical frameworks, Webber brings us much more than a study on economic policies: an insightful assessment of class struggles against the capitalist oligarchies and the market dictatorship in Latin America. In a brilliant discussion of José Carlos Mariátegui, he brings to the fore the relevance, for the present popular, peasant, and indigenous rebellions, of a utopian-revolutionary dialectic between the precapitalist past and the socialist future.”

- Michael Löwy, author of Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe

“A lucid, incisive and indispensable contribution for understanding the rise and fall of left and center-left governments associated with Latin America’s ‘pink tide.’ Webber validates the superiority of a critical Marxian and decolonial approach for slicing through the thick layers of the center-left’s self-serving rhetoric and for clearly identifying the tactical and strategic tasks popular movements have confronted in recent years. In the context of a fleeting commodities boom, the center-left’s embrace of extractivism, compensatory state politics, as well as its penchant for servicing the interests of domestic and foreign capital while demobilizing social movements, lie at the core of its ultimate defeat. His meticulously-crafted analysis examines the ebb and flow social movements in diverse Latin American countries, and spans the critical years that opened up with Venezuela’s 1989 Caracazo and are seemingly being brought to a close by right-wing resurgence evidenced most clearly in the 2016 institutional coup against Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff. The end of the cycle of progressive governments poses new historical challenges. If they are to be successfully navigated, Latin American scholars (and societies) must overcome the stultifying effects of prevailing liberal conceptions about democracy, markets, capitalism and the root causes of inequality; Jeffery Webber’s book unflinchingly and brilliantly shows us ‘why’ but also ‘how’ to begin doing so.”

- Fernando Leiva, author of Latin American Neostructuralism: The Contradictions of Post-Neoliberal Development.

Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried ... more Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried out throughout Latin America, Blood of Extraction examines the increasing presence of Canadian mining companies in Latin America and the environmental and human rights abuses that have occurred as a result. By following the money, Gordon and Webber illustrate the myriad ways Canadian-based multinational corporations, backed by the Canadian state, have developed extensive economic interests in Latin America over the last two decades at the expense of Latin American people and the environment.

Latin American communities affected by Canadian resource extraction are now organized into hundreds of opposition movements, from Mexico to Argentina, and the authors illustrate the strategies used by the Canadian state to silence this resistance and advance corporate interests.

“This careful and comprehensive analysis of Canada’s economic policies and political interference in Latin America demonstrates in brutal detail the predatory and destructive role of a secondary imperialist power operating within the overarching system of subordination of the Global South to the demands of northern wealth and power. It also reveals clearly the responsibility of citizens of Canada and other dominant societies to join in the resistance of the victims to the shameful and sordid practices exposed graphically here.”
— Noam Chomsky

“Gordon and Webber expertly show Canada’s role in supporting the rise of new, brutal forms of accumulation.”
— Bhaskar Sunkara, Editor of Jacobin

“A vital new resource on a subject Canadians cannot ignore. Drawing on interviews, case studies and in-depth documentary research, this book is sure to become a key tool for activists, researchers and readers seeking to understand Canada’s evolving role in Central and South America.”
— Dawn Paley, author of Drug War Capitalism

"This book will define new debates on Latin American political economy. It superbly delivers fine... more "This book will define new debates on Latin American political economy. It superbly delivers fine-grained empirical commentary on the composition of working class politics across the region (in Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil), as well as theoretical exposure of the specificities of states and markets within the uneven and combined development of capitalism shaping Latin America. With leading political economists at the helm, this whopper of a book truly brings fresh radical perspectives to bear on the struggles against capitalist power within Latin America. Ignore it at your peril."
—Adam David Morton, University of Sydney and author of Revolution and State in Modern Mexico: The Political Economy of Uneven Development

"Crisis and Contradiction: Marxist Perspectives on Latin America in the Global Economy is the indispensable source for students, academics and activists interested in the transition to neoliberalism in Latin America. If Latin America is the region in which, perhaps more than any other, the left needs urgently to take an interest, the contributors to this volume have taken up the challenge. They offer a vast, detailed and richly informative survey of recent political and economic developments in Bolivia, Venezuala, Argentina, and elsewhere, and have produced a volume which will serve both as a testament to the vitality of the left in Latin America, and a proof of the excellence of Marxist scholarship on the region. Susan Spronk's and Jeffery R. Webber's book is the finest example of its kind to date."
—Alfredo Saad-Filho, SOAS, University of London and author of The Value of Marx

This volume provides a valuable focus on intraleft dynamics—the ever-shifting relations between p... more This volume provides a valuable focus on intraleft dynamics—the ever-shifting relations between party leaders and their allies in civil society. As a whole, the essays provide informed and in-depth analysis of such dynamics. . . .Overall, the book’s focus, critical stance, and extensive coverage make it a good candidate for classroom adoption. For instructors seeking to make contemporary Latin American politics come to life, the ground-level perspective of these essays provides a good start.
— Latin American Politics and Society

This is a densely argued text demonstrating high-quality research. . . . Many of the contributors provide valuable historical backgrounds, making it a highly useful teaching aid.
— Bulletin of Latin American Research

The resurgence of the Left in Latin America has shifted the entire political landscape in the hemisphere and, indeed, worldwide. The new Latin American Left has challenged the neoliberal order and placed socialism back on the agenda. In the process, it has raised fundamental questions over political struggle and social change in this age of global capitalism. Webber and Carr have assembled an expert interdisciplinary team on the theory and practice of the twenty-first-century Latin American Left. The contributions take up a variety of theoretical issues, ranging from political strategy to neoliberal class formation and the prospects of revolution, as well as cutting-edge case studies, among them the burgeoning social movements of the indigenous, the landless, workers and the poor, to Argentina's experience, the Mexican Left, and Venezuela's experiment in twenty-first-century socialism. This volume is must reading for all those who wish to understand the political thunder emanating from Latin America and the insights it offers for transformative possibilities around the world in this new century.

— William I. Robinson, University of California, Santa Barbara; author of Latin America and Global Capitalism

This important book systematically and thoroughly addresses the question of just how left are the leftist governments that have come to power in Latin America at the outset of the twenty-first century. Individual chapters offer different assessments. The chapters on Venezuela and Nicaragua recognize significant breakthroughs even while the governments of both nations face considerable problems, some of their own making. At the other extreme, Chile and Argentina are characterized as 'the authorized Left' in that they fail to break in any significant way with the established structures and are therefore accepted by Washington policymakers as legitimate. The conclusions challenge the simplistic thesis of the 'good Left' (e.g., Lula) and the 'bad Left' (e.g., Chávez). Extending the debate regarding the twenty-first-century Left to new territory, this groundbreaking collection thus represents a welcome contribution to the study of contemporary Latin American politics.

— Steve Ellner, author of Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chávez Phenomenon

“Jeffery Webber has become one of the shrewdest chroniclers of political developments in Latin Am... more “Jeffery Webber has become one of the shrewdest chroniclers of political developments in Latin America. In this exciting new book, Webber looks at the history of the political movements in Bolivia over the last decade, and in particular the MAS movement of President Evo Morales. As the Left attempts to find escape routes from neoliberalism, there is a need for sober assessments of what is being accomplished. This book does just that for Bolivia, and makes an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the new Andean Left.”

Gregory Albo, Professor of Political Economy, York University, Toronto. Co-author with Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch of In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives (2010)

“From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia offers a critical examination of complex political processes in Bolivia since 2000 and challenges existing views of Evo Morales’ government. The analysis is characterized by exceptional rigor and clarity. Amidst widespread romanticism and ideological confusion, this book is a welcomed expression of sincere and realistic critique from the Left – an excellent example of constructive solidarity with anti-imperialist, socialist, and indigenous liberationist struggles. Webber offers a comprehensive, nuanced, and provocative account of the economic agenda, political reforms, foreign policy, intellectual currents, and social movement activity under the Morales administration. It is a valuable book for those who want to understand the contradictions within what has been described as the ‘Left tide’ in Latin America.”

Jasmin Hristov, author of Blood and Capital: The Paramilitarization of Colombia

“Webber’s book cuts bravely against the grain of the fashionable left-wing romanticizing of Evo Morales and the Bolivian process. It meticulously documents the extent to which neoliberalism still shapes Morales’s economic policies, and it successfully theorizes the contradictions of attempting to overlay an older model of state-led development—ECLAC’s structuralism, or import substitution—on top of an intact neoliberal foundation dominated by the export of non-value-added raw materials. The result is a ground-breaking expansion and application of the concept of ‘neostructuralism’ to the Bolivian experience, an analysis that also has implications for Venezuela and Brazil.”

Tom Lewis, co-author with Oscar Olivera of ¡Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia.

“For a decade now, social movements in Bolivia have been in the forefront of struggles for global justice, and no commentator has more perceptively mapped this process than Jeffery Webber. In this exciting new study, Webber brings together his deep knowledge, critical powers and social justice commitments to provide a stunning overview of Bolivia’s movement from rebellion to reform. Everyone concerned with contemporary social movements and class struggles urgently needs this book. Not only does From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia bring us up to speed about what is happening in the heart of the Bolivian struggle — it also offers enormous lessons for struggles for global justice across the planet.”

David McNally, Professor of Political Science, York University

“Jeff Webber’s striking critique from the left of Evo Morales’s MAS government is a position that needs to be heard and absorbed. In a spirit of politically engaged analysis, Webber ably and admirably exposes the difficult contradictions that must be grappled with if what Bolivians call the ‘process of change’ — the effort to move beyond the neoliberal regime of domination — is to advance.”

Sinclair Thomson, History Department, New York University

“Webber’s study focuses on the mass movements ‘from below’ of 2000–2005 and how these have been canalised into parliamentary reform by Evo Morales’ MAS government. Where the general strikes and mass demonstrations of the first half of the decade displayed an epic degree of participation, radicalism and popular empowerment, the Morales government has been marked by cautious change initiated by the state apparatus alone… a major strength of the book is that the author punctures the myth that Morales’ critics are mere ‘armchair revolutionaries’. He portrays a vibrant and continuing movement from below, for instance the Huanuni miners’ struggles, and the mass resistance to the oligarchs’ September 2008 coup attempt at a time when the government merely preached ‘calm’.”

David Broder, Red Pepper (UK)

“To Webber, it was the influx of mestizo intellectuals (personified by current Vice-President Álvaro García Linera) into the party after the unexpectedly strong showing in the 2002 elections that led to the transformation of the MAS into a reformist party bent on the achievement of a ‘re-constituted neo-liberalism’—due to the class interest that it serves. Much of his book is taken up with an unabashed Marxist critique of the MAS government for its ‘new’ reformist course; for failing even to reduce appreciably the acute levels of poverty among indigenous people at a time of high national income from gas exports; and for allowing the ‘re-articulation of rightwing forces’…. [Of the three books under review] Webber offers the most informative account of the confrontations of 2008, which many observers at the time predicted would lead either to secession or to civil war.”

Philip Chrimes, International Affairs

“Jeffery Webber makes a provocative argument about contemporary Bolivian political economy. He says that, despite all its anti-neoliberalism rhetoric, Evo Morales’ government has continued many of the features of Bolivia’s neoliberal past, instituting what he calls ‘reconstituted neoliberalism’. The liberatory potential of the early 2000’s, when indigenous and radical Left forces combined in mass mobilisations to overcome both racial and class exploitation, has been lost as Morales’ MAS party has moved away from mass politics to electoral politics. Webber catalogues a disappointing slide to reformism, arguing that the ‘revolutionary epoch’ did not produce a true social revolution, but rather a ‘neo-structuralist’ development model that reinforces existing class and capitalist structures…. Webber is aware that his interpretation of events in Bolivia will go against the grain for many on the Left, who hoped Morales would bring about the ‘cultural and democratic revolution’ he promised. Yet he argues forcefully for a reading that goes beyond discourse and rhetoric to a careful accounting of what the Morales government has actually done…. This book will be a significant intervention to the ongoing scholarly discussion about post-neoliberalism…. Clearly, the Morales revolution is being contested at every level. Webber’s book gives us more to think about as we observe this fascinating political process.”

Nancy Postero and Devin Beaulieu, Journal of Latin American Studies

“The advantage of a focus on contemporary El Alto… is that this is an ongoing struggle, and therefore open to continuous political interrogation and analysis. There already exist some excellent contemporary studies upon which to base interim conclusions. Jeffery Webber, for example, provides a compelling interpretation of events in Bolivia over the last decade or so. He views the years 2000–05 as a genuinely revolutionary epoch in a situation of deep cleavage between elite and popular classes. Popular rejection of neoliberal policies with respect to the use of treasured natural resources on the part of a state ruled by a traditional elite (and backed by the forces of international capital) fused with a long-standing struggle for liberation from racial repression by an indigenous, largely peasant population. The violence of the neoliberal regime provoked uprisings that led to Morales’s election in 2005…. While Morales’s political strategy after his election has helped to consolidate the power of the indigenous movements, according to Webber he effectively abandoned the class-based revolutionary perspective that emerged in 2000-05 in favor of a negotiated and constitutional compromise with landed and capitalist elites (as wells as accommodation to outside imperial pressures). The result, Webber argues, has been a ‘reconstituted neoliberalism’ (with ‘Andean characteristics’) after 2005, rather than any movement towards an anti-capitalist transition. The idea of a socialist transition has been postponed many years into the future.”

David Harvey, in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (London: Verso, 2012)

“Jeffery Webber’s Red October provides an invaluable guide to our generation’s 1848: Bolivia’s re... more “Jeffery Webber’s Red October provides an invaluable guide to our generation’s 1848: Bolivia’s resource wars of the early twenty-first century, when indigenous and union activists joined together to take back their country’s water and gas from foreign corporations – and in so doing, led the first sustained and successful assault on neoliberalism. Like what Karl Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire did for 1848, Webber astutely analyzes the alliances and ideologies of a powerful social movement that, while drawing its poetry from the past, is pointing the world to a different future, one with newer, fuller conceptions of democracy. In so doing, Webber provides the most innovative update of social movement theory yet available.”
—Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University, and author of Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, and Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, among other books.

“A number of studies … have been published [on Bolivia] in recent years. However, none of these books comes close to the breadth and depth of analysis provided by Red October, or matches its theoretical contributions in regard to social movement dynamics and political developments. Red October is without doubt the most solidly researched study and theoretically framed analysis of the popular movement in contemporary times that I have read. It will be read carefully by scholars and students of social movements and political development in various disciplines, but particularly those who favour or are attuned to an analysis of social movements from a political economy perspective.”
—Henry Veltmeyer, Professor of International Development Studies at St. Mary’s University Canada and the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Mexico. He is the co-author of over thirty books, including most recently, Illusions and Opportunities: Civil Society and the Quest for Social Change (2007) and, with James Petras, What’s Left in Latin America? (2009).

“Combining political sociology and ethnography, Red October is the most exhaustive, in-depth study available of the revolutionary conjuncture in Bolivia in 2000-2005, which brought Evo Morales and his party, Movement toward Socialism, to power. Red October is essential reading for anyone looking to understand how Bolivia’s radical political traditions—one connected to trade unions and revolutionary Left parties in the twentieth century, the other to Indian community insurgency in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—have combined and overlapped to such powerful effect. This book highlights the legacy that titanic Left-labor struggles of the twentieth century bequeathed to Bolivian radicals in the twenty-first century, and puts paid to the notion that neoliberalism and new social movements buried old New Left class politics and identities. Most importantly, Red October provides us with a well-rounded portrait of anti-imperialist, working-class consciousness in El Alto, shot through with memories of past struggles against the legacies of colonialism and racial-ethnic forms of discrimination and domination.”
– Forrest Hylton, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, author of Evil Hour in Colombia, and co-author with Sinclair Thomson of Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Polit

Contretemps, 2019

En poste depuis 2006, Evo Morales, le premier président indigène de Bolivie, a été renversé par u... more En poste depuis 2006, Evo Morales, le premier président indigène de Bolivie, a été renversé par un coup d’État. Des débats sur la manière dont cela est arrivé et ce que cela signifie ont proliféré dans la gauche à l’échelle internationale. Ashley Smith a discuté avec Jeffery R. Webber et Forrest Hylton, deux observateurs de longue date de la Bolivie, pour mieux comprendre les problématiques en jeu.

Cet entretien initialement publié sur le blog des éditions Verso et a été traduit par Sophie Coudray.