This is a meticulously conceptualized, designed, and implemented piece of comparative research, and it represents an important contribution to the comparative study of Latin American politics and the politics of democratization more generally. The book synthesizes, applies, and expands the growing theoretical literature on municipal reform and decentralization, or what Donna Lee Van Cott terms “democratic institutional innovation” (p. v). At the same time, it incorporates careful field research in two understudied countries, Bolivia and Ecuador. Most importantly, it sheds much light on the complex challenges of democratization, decentralization, institutional innovation, and municipal governance occasioned by the unprecedented mobilization of indigenous peoples and by formation of indigenous-based social movements and political parties in the Andes. Van Cott correctly observes that the triumphs and setbacks of these underrepresented Andean ethnic groups in their struggles to reduce economic deprivation and achieve political empowerment provide important lessons for effective grass roots organization and representation in the Americas and indeed elsewhere.

Central to Van Cott's study is the concept of “radical democracy,” a distinctive form of democracy based on a “free and dynamic civil society and formal representational institutions” that encourage policy debate and broad participation in government, recognize identity groups, and ensure equal rights and benefits to disadvantaged groups (p. 8). The term is used to describe expansive, participatory, and deliberative democratic reforms distinct from the radical socialist and Marxist revolutionary visions of economic redistribution. Thus, “radical democrats call for the institution of more participatory-deliberative mechanisms that give citizens a direct role in public decision making” and that “better promote equality by giving more authority to poor marginalized groups” (p. 9).

The author argues that while the voluntary and flexible constitutional reforms in Ecuador, despite flaws, helped to promote more effective democratic governance in the municipalities she studied, in Bolivia, the central government's inflexible and involuntary imposition of municipal reform and decentralization often impeded deliberative and representative democracy in the key municipalities studied. At the same time, she argues that, ironically, these defects may ultimately have resulted in greater opportunities for the mobilization and empowerment of Bolivia's indigenous groups.

The timing of decentralization and the emergence of indigenous political parties varied in the two cases. In Ecuador, a decade of decentralization reforms led to the formation of the Pachakutik United Plurinational Movement (Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik, MUPP or Pachakutik), an indigenous party initiated by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de Ecuador, CONAIE) in 1996. From this point forward, the deepening of institutional reform was primarily political-party instigated and driven in Ecuador “as Pachakutik controlled municipalities demanded greater autonomy and resources.” In Bolivia, by contrast, social movements, rather than political parties, were more instrumental in adapting municipal reforms to indigenous culture and needs (p. 48). After Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada's constitutional reforms of 1994 and 1995, grassroots and indigenous social movements emerged as the prime movers of decentralization reforms, and these in turn eventually gave rise to indigenous political parties.

In Bolivia, early indigenous parties primarily represented the Cochabamba coca growers' associations and the indigenous-campesino organizations and movements. The Assembly for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (Asamblea de la Soberanía de los Pueblos, ASP) was formed in 1995, and the Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (Instrumento Político para la Soberanía de los Pueblos, IPSP) in 1999. Eventually, the IPSP merged with and was superseded by the Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS), the party that Evo Morales, the leader of the coca growers' federation, headed and that ultimately brought him to the presidency in December 2005. A rival Aymara party formed in 2002, the Pachkuti Indigenous Movement (Movimiento Indígena Pachakuti, MIP), represented the highland indigenous-campesino movement (pp. 51–55). Nevertheless, despite “identical legal and political constraints,” the ability of “indigenous parties to take advantage of these opportunities varied” in the two cases, and one of Van Cott's central goals is to explain why (p. 57).

Overall, the author concludes that indigenous parties in Ecuador were the more successful in establishing effective, democratic, municipal governance. She argues that “mayoral leadership” was essential to “durable radical democratic institutional innovation” and argues that this factor is especially critical in indigenous cultures where leaders play a more decisive role (pp. 58, 60). In Ecuador, mayoral leadership was particularly successful because mayors had greater scope to initiate and sustain change and to mobilize “‘collaborative countervailing power’” (p. 92). She compares the context and effectiveness of mayoral leadership in five Ecuadorian and five Bolivian municipalities by scoring the 10 cases on six qualities of leadership: charisma, successful reelection, civil society support, presence in the community and interaction with constituents, ability to communicate and negotiate across ethnic lines, and the degree of autonomy from social movements and grassroots base (pp. 62, 92).

Bolivian municipalities did not score as well as their Ecuadorian counterparts, and in several Bolivian cases data was lacking altogether. Bolivian leaders generally lacked charisma, presence, ability to cross ethnic divide, and autonomy from social movements. Thus, in the Bolivian cases, the absence of “moderate political pluralism” resulted in hegemonic or fragmented and conflictive, rather than democratic and nonviolent, governance (pp. 88, 89–91). Also in these municipalities, women continued to face greater cultural barriers to public office than in the comparable Ecuadorian municipalities. Van Cott notes that the lack of variation in cases only permits her to speculate if mayoral leadership in Ecuador and Bolivia plays a greater role than parties because of the low level of party-system institutionalization in both Andean countries.

Indeed, the limitations of the 10 cases, the lack of variation within and among them, and the short time frame of the study raise some critical questions and concerns. For example, an important chapter, “Political Parties, Civil Society, and Democratic Institutional Innovation,” explores the intricate relationship among indigenous and grassroots social movements, political parties, and the state. In both countries, social movements have been at the forefront of radical reforms and have engaged in direct confrontation with the state. However, in Bolivia, social movements have been especially powerful and aggressive. Bolivia's so-called Water and Gas Wars were fundamentally social-movement driven, and the chronic unrest and violence ultimately derailed two Bolivian presidents in 2003 and 2005. Moreover, in Bolivia, the critical relationship among key actors (movements, parties, local government, and the state) appears to have shifted significantly since the December 2005 elections, which brought to power the indigenous heritage leader of the leftist party (MAS) and major coca growers' federation (perhaps rendering the Bolivian case somewhat exceptional?). Unfortunately, Van Cott's field research through mid-2005 largely predates these important changes in Bolivia, and subsequent comparative analysis does not take them sufficiently into account. One also wonders what impact the 2006 election of Rafael Correa had on indigenous activism and democratic innovation in Ecuador.

Nevertheless, the chapter (and the book as a whole) provides valuable and intriguing conclusions that invite further research and update, especially regarding the evolving Bolivian case. Van Cott's investigation of “the tensions among the competing goals and logics of social movements, the parties they sponsor, and the governments in which their militants participate” nicely explains democratic successes in Ecuador relative to Bolivia (p. 95), where narrow partisan behavior tended to alienate indigenous groups and movement militants (p. 103). She emphasizes that although parties are very effective “engines of radically democratic reform,” and “can best promote democratic institutional innovation,” ultimately a “competitive political environment,” rather than the one-party hegemony that characterized selected Bolivian municipalities, is essential (pp. 97–98). Thus, her scoring of the two countries along the “management of political-party-social-movement-local-government nexus,” finds the Bolivian cases more conflictual, fragmented, subordinated, volatile, and hostile than the Ecuadorian cases (p. 131).

In the final analysis, one wonders if Van Cott's overall assessment would still hold if more municipalities from both countries had been included in her original fieldwork and if her overall time frame had been longer and/or more current. Already in 2004, near the end of her fieldwork, constitutional reforms had altered the political playing field in Bolivia by allowing citizens' groupings and indigenous peoples to run candidates directly without party affiliation (pp. 104–5). Moreover, conditions in Bolivia radicalized further after 2005; and the new 2009 national constitution has provided even greater autonomy for indigenous peoples and social movements from political parties. Constitutional reforms in Ecuador after 2007 also changed the rules of the game there. Thus, an update and the inclusion of additional and more diverse municipalities in a follow-up investigation—in particular for the Bolivian cases where half of the municipalities originally studied were drawn from the somewhat distinctive coca-growing Chapare—would be very instructive. Indeed, the author herself noted that in Bolivia, “the case studies presented are somewhat lopsided owing to the varying availability of data” (p. 177).

Throughout her work, Van Cott maintains a guarded optimism regarding Andean indigenous movements and parties and their impact on democratic institutionalization. At the same time that she is sensitive to the importance of indigenous norms and cultural autonomy, she recognizes the divisive, sexist, and authoritarian tendencies to which indigenous organizations and governance are often subjected. In the case of Bolivia, her conclusion—that the “greater sense of empowerment and control” experienced by indigeneous and excluded groups may have come at too high a cost for democratic governance—may seem severe. Her description of undemocratic norms—violence, intimidation, power monopoly, oppression of women, enforced social conformity, and disrespect for minority rights—found in the Bolivian municipalities she studied may be due to the unrepresentative character of her sample (p. 208).

Additionally, Van Cott highlights an important problem—the division between racial and cultural identity and class-based identity that is very likely to increase and disrupt democratic governance in the Andean region in the years ahead. She is correct that for struggling, developing countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, greater improvement in “socioeconomic conditions such as literacy and poverty” will be essential to democratic success (p. 208). Bolivia's MAS party and Ecuador's Pachakutik may have narrowed or bridged this classic divide only temporarily. Time will reveal what kind of relationship indigenous social movements and affiliated parties will have in the long term, and what role hybrid indigenist-left parties will play in promoting a more fundamentally pluralistic and radical democracy in the Andes.