The Uncertain Construction of Multinational State and Participative Democracy in Ecuador: Risk and Resistance

This paper analyzes the most important grounds of the progressive implementation of collective rights and some of the elements of institutional multiculturalism, but also the limits of the constitutional and political change which has been occurring since the nineties. First, it deals with the incorporation of Indian claims into the political debate, with the support of non Indian stakeholders who share similar purposes: the reform of the state and the strengthening of democracy. Then it emphasizes more specifically the relationship of the Indian movement with power and institutions, and the repercussions of the participation of Pachakutik in Gutierrez’s government in 2003 on Indian social and political mobilization. In such a context, Indian claims were incorporated into the 1998 and 2008 constitutions. Thus, the Ecuadorian case reveals some of the limits of institutional multiculturalism, as well as the persistent decline of one of the most promising Indian social movement in Latin America.