The dilemas in the practice of plurinational and intercultural States: rhetoric versus action around community democracies

Abstract

In this article, we examine how the recognition of communitarian democracy exercised ancestrally by indigenous nationalities has worked in practice in light of Ecuador's plurinational and intercultural state. This study aims to analyze the social and symbolic elements involved in this communal form of exercising democracy, what it implies and what connotations it has on the organization of the indigenous community. However, some conceptualizations about this term are reviewed, as well as some elements that the plurinational State of Bolivia has introduced into the debate around communitarian democracy. This was accomplished through a case study that was based upon an ethnographic survey, a literature review, and an understanding of the technical-political dynamics of the bureaucratic system in a state recognized as plurinational and intercultural under the Constitution. Lastly, the conclusions focus on the work that the Ecuadorian State and, particularly, the electoral function must do to ensure the full recognition of community democracy.