Struggles for the control of rural municipal governments have become an important new element of indigenous and peasant political activism throughout the Andean region. An analysis based on field research in rural Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru conducted between 1999 and 2006 reveals that the control of rural municipal power is an important mechanism for enhancing indigenous and peasant political autonomy, improving rural infrastructure and social services, and fostering a sense of citizenship among historically excluded populations. It is also an important element in the production of administratively competent and politically experienced indigenous and peasant leaders. Indigenous and peasant struggles for municipal political power are not simply products of recent decentralization reforms but have deep historical roots in broader struggles for political autonomy and territorial control. While indigenous and peasant control of municipal power represents an important scaling-up of rural struggles in many locales, it carries with it serious dangers of bureaucratization, co-optation, and the fragmentation of indigenous and peasant struggles.
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