Green Academy: Tipping Points
Organized by: Institute for Political Ecology (IPE, Institut za političku ekologiju)
Module A - Commons
Location: Kulturni centar Ivan Vitić, Komiža, Vis, Croatia
Date: 21th August 2016
Speaker: Pablo Solón
Moderated by: Tomislav Tomašević (Institute for Political Ecology, Croatia)
Logic of State Power: The Example of Bolivia
(talk from 3:03)
What has happened with the process of change in Bolivia? Why has a government that began with proclaiming the need to overcome export-oriented extractivism and respecting nature has ended up reinforcing extractivism and left the rights of mother earth to pure rhetoric?
Progressive movements and leaders wanted to take state power structures to transform society and state power itself. But State power is not a space that can be reshaped according to the will of those that capture power.
Contemporary state power structures have their own logic, their own dynamic that transcend its origins from left or right wing forces. Power as capital is a process that requires constant expansion to reproduce itself. The logic of power and the logic of capital tend to grow without limits, controlling more and new spheres within state structures and society.
Different revolutionary and progressive processes during the last century have been the result of varied forms of transformation (war, insurrections, armed struggles, electoral vote, social mobilization, negotiations, etc.) and their achievements have been significant in many cases (independence, overthrowing of dictatorships, nationalizations, agrarian reforms, expansion of civil and political rights to black and indigenous peoples, constitutional reforms, etc.). However, all the governments that emerged from these experiences - after a period of confrontation with reactionary forces - have been captured by the logic of power that puts in the first place the continuation in power rather than the deepening of the process of transformation at all levels.
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Pablo Solón is a social activist, an analyst and a researcher on the issues of systemic alternatives, climate change, water, the rights of Mother Earth, trade agreements and integration processes.
Pablo Solón served as Ambassador of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations from January 2009 to June 2011. As Ambassador to the UN, Solón spearheaded successful resolutions on the Human Right to Water, International Mother Earth Day and Harmony with Nature. He was the chief negotiator for Climate Change of Bolivia and helped organize the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights in 2010.
Between 2002 and 2008 he was Ambassador for issues concerning Integration and Trade. He was Secretary Pro Tempore of UNASUR [Union of South American Nations] during Bolivia’s Pro Temporary presidency (December 2006 - May 2008).
He was the Executive Director of Focus on the Global South in Asia and currently is the Executive Director of Fundacion Solon, an institution was created to preserve and promote the artwork and thoughts of his father, Walter Solón Romero, a renowned Bolivian muralist and social artist.
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