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Bolivien – Bericht zur Hauptexkursion 2014
Abstract and Figures
Die Hauptexkursion verfolgte das übergeordnete Ziel, neben physiologischen, ökologischen, kulturellen und sozialen insbesondere raumwirtschaftliche Muster und Strukturen des Plurinationalen Staates Bolivien auf zahlreichen Maßstabsebenen aufzuzeigen, zu beschreiben, zu erklären und im besten Falle bewerten zu können.
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Tropical South America is one of the three main centers of the global, zonal overturning circulation of the equatorial atmosphere (generally termed the “Walker” circulation). Although this area plays a key role in global climate cycles, little is known about South American climate history. Here we describe sediment cores and down-hole logging results of deep drilling in the Salar de Uyuni, on the Bolivian Altiplano, located in the tropical Andes. We demonstrate that during the past 50,000 years the Altiplano underwent important changes in effective moisture at both orbital (20,000-year) and millennial timescales. Long-duration wet periods, such as the Last Glacial Maximum— marked in the drill core by continuous deposition of lacustrine sediments— appear to have occurred in phase with summer insolation maxima produced by the Earth’s precessional cycle. Short-duration, millennial events correlate well with North Atlantic cold events, including Heinrich events 1 and 2, as well as the Younger Dryas episode. At both millennial and orbital timescales, cold sea surface temperatures in the high-latitude North Atlantic were coeval with wet conditions in tropical South America, suggesting a common forcing.
The northeastern edge of the Bolivian Eastern Cordillera is an example of a tectonically active plateau margin where orographically enhanced precipitation facilitates very high rates of erosion. The topography of the steepest part of the margin exhibits the classic signature of high erosion rates consisting of high-relief V-shaped valleys where landsliding is the dominant process of hillslope erosion and bedrock rivers are incising into the landscape. The authors mapped landslide scars on multitemporal aerial photographs to estimate hillslope erosion rates. Field surveys of landslide scars are used to calibrate a landslide volume versus area relationship. The mapped area of landsliding, in combination with an estimate of the time for landslide scars to revegetate, leads to an erosion rate estimate. The estimated revegetation time, 10-35 yr, is based on analysis of multitemporal aerial photographs and tree rings. About 4%-6% of two watersheds in the region considered were affected by landslides over the last 10-35 yr. This result implies an erosion rate of 9 +/- 5 mm yr(-1) assuming that 90% of a single landslide reaches the river on average. Classified Landsat Thematic Mapper images show that landslides are occurring at approximately the same rate all across an approximately 40-km-wide swath within the high-relief zones of the cordillera.
This paper reviews the energy strategy and oil and natural gas fiscal systems of eight major oil or natural gas producing countries which have either adopted a variation of a service contract or have shown interest in this framework as an alternative to production sharing contracts over the period 1990–2014. In particular, we look at each country's variation of service contract, and examine how these variations of service contracts are different from each other. A service contract is a long-term contractual framework that is used by some host governments to acquire the international oil companies' expertise and capital without having to hand over the field and production ownership rights to them. Our review suggests that the new interest in service contracts might be explained partially by heightened sovereignty concerns and the political environment on one hand, and the need for international oil companies' capital and know-how in developing oil and natural gas fields in the host countries on the other. In our review, we also explore some of the drawbacks of service contracts including the potential for economically inefficient outcomes. In addition, we look at some possible solutions for improving the economic efficiency of service contracts.
Bolivien galt Mitte der 1990er Jahre in der internationalen Entwicklungsdiskussion als eines der Paradebeispiele für eine
gelungene demokratische Transition. Nachdem das Land seit 1964 unter der Herrschaft wechselnder Diktaturen gelitten hatte,
zog sich das Militär 1982 in die Kasernen zurück, womit die Rückkehr zu demokratischer Herrschaft möglich war. In der Folgezeit
überwanden die politischen Eliten das traditionelle Verständnis von Politik als erbarmungsloser Auseinandersetzung politischer
wie persönlicher Gegner im Sinne einer „Logik des Krieges“ (lógica de guerra) und fanden zu einer allseits gelobten „neuen Konsensfähigkeit“, in deren Rahmen es zu unterschiedlichen Koalitionen ehemals
hoffnungslos verfeindeter politischer Parteien kam. Die bolivianische Entwicklung schien derart bemerkenswert, dass dem Land
im Jahr 2001 der Bertelsmann Transformationspreis in der Kategorie „Herausragende Entwicklungsleistungen“ verliehen wurde.
Die am 6. August 1825 proklamierte Unabhängigkeit Boliviens darf nicht mit der Schaffung politischer Stabilität verwechselt
werden. Die Geschichte Boliviens ist, bis Anfang der 80er Jahre des 20. Jahrhunderts, geprägt vom Wechsel demokratisch gewählter
Regierungen und, nicht selten unterstützt durch politische Parteien, sich an die Macht putschender Militärs. Politische Instabilität,
die nach wirtschaftlicher Stagnation auch durch den Aufschwung des Silberbergbaus im 19. Jahrhunderts nicht erreicht werden
konnte, kennzeichnet den Prozess des über lange Zeit vom „caudillismo“ geprägten „nationbuilding“.
When the indigenous coca grower Evo Morales was elected president in Bolivia in 2005, he promised to fundamentally change 25 years of the U.S.-funded and dictated “drug war.” The new policy values the coca leaf and relies on local organizations to control coca production within limits set by the government. A review of its successes and limitations to date suggests that Bolivia’s experience may offer lessons for drug control in other parts of the hemisphere.
Evo Morales assumed office in January 2006 with a resounding mandate from marginalized indigenous peoples to reinvent Bolivia. Five hundred years of colonial and republican rule, combined with 20 years of neoliberal economic policy in this poorly consolidated democracy, constrained his ability to reshape the country during his first term in office. Morales still faces the fundamental challenges of (1) national oligarchies, (2) limited administrative capacity, (3) rent seeking and institutionalized corruption, (4) social movements, and (5) transnational actors. Rather than being distinct, these challenges are overdetermined: the economic challenges of transforming an extractive economy are intertwined with the lack of government capacity that is the legacy of exclusionary social and political processes since the Spanish conquest. Armed with the firm political will embodied in the new constitution, he has consolidated his support, and this has allowed his government to begin its second administration in a better position than almost all its predecessors as it attempts to create a more equitable society.
Benjamin Kohl and Rosalind Bresnahan focus on the national agenda, regional challenges, and the struggle for hegemony in Bolivia. Bebbington and Bebbington highlight the role of resource grievances in their examination of the regionalist movement in Tarija. They argue that historical patterns of resource extraction have created grievances at both departmental and interdepartmental levels. They compare the plan's goals with its implementation and find, not surprisingly, mixed results. There has been greater progress in changing the structural pattern of development than in bringing about structural transformation, with economic diversification presenting a greater challenge than reinserting the state into economic activities. Implementation is more or less on target with goals in some areas, whereas other objectives remain more aspirational than material. The electoral law passed in April 2009 guaranteed an increase in the number of women serving in the legislature as well. Sixteen of the 36 senators and 30 of the 130 representatives in the lower house are women.