Melina Selverston-Scher's new book focuses on the use of culture—in this case, Indian identity—as a basis for political mobilization in Ecuador. On the basis of interviews with Indian leaders at local, regional, and national levels, as well as with government officials, Selverston-Scher argues that Indian mobilization has pressured the Ecuadorian state to open channels for popular participation where few existed in the past. Indian mobilization is good for democracy, Selverston-Scher claims, because it illustrates that movements based on cultural diversity and pluralism do not have to be violent but can advance democratic values.

In this book, the author's central concern is the connection between indigenous political mobilization and democracy. The claims she makes concerning this relationship are considerable. In the book's last chapter, Selverston-Scher argues that indigenous participation at the local level was on the increase in the regions she studied and that “clientelistic practices have begun to be replaced by representation in decision-making offices” (p. 123). She goes on to say that the benefits of this increased participation are not limited to Indian communities but extend to the rest of the country as well: “In promoting political participation for their constituents, ethnic organizations can create openings for the participation of all of civil society” (p. 123).

Selverston-Scher's optimism about the democratic effects of Indian mobilization is based on a definition of democracy limited to participation—not formal political participation, such as voting, but on informal participation, such as marches and public protests. The Ecuadorian Indian movement is not unique in its use of public mobilization and protest, although, of all Indian movements in Latin America, it may employ these strategies most effectively. The author is on firm ground when she describes the historical origins and political development of the Ecuadorian Indian movement over the last 30 years in chapters on “Indigenous-State Relations in Ecuador” (Chapter 3), “The 1990 Indigenous Uprising” (Chapter 4), and “The Politics of Identity Reconstruction” (Chapter 5). In Chapter 3, she examines governmental policies that influenced Indian organization, focusing specifically on land reform and bilingual education. In Chapter 4, she extends this analysis of statemovement interaction to include the relationship between Indian organizations and civil society. In Chapter 5, she discusses how indigenous class-based organizations of the 1970s and 1980s gave way to identity-based organizations in the 1990s. This historical descriptive material, however, cannot support the book's larger claims that ethnic or cultural mobilization leads to democracy, and it ultimately fails to convince that democratic norms are being created in Ecuador as a result.

Selverston-Scher makes two main arguments related to Indian mobilization in Ecuador: that it has changed Indians’ political behavior (thus strengthening democratic norms) and that it has put significant pressure on the state. Because the Ecuadorian state is weak and aspires to be homogeneous (even though, as she notes, a homogeneous nationstate has not been consolidated in Ecuador), it is threatened by Indian mobilization and demands, particularly the concept of a plurinational state (p. 51). Indians’ political mobilization, she argues, “can shatter the myth of a homogeneous nation-state” (p. 18). This may well be true, but more information about the concrete policy changes that have been enacted in Ecuador concerning Indian rights and the role of Indian mobilization (relative to other factors) in effecting these changes is needed. Other authors writing about Indian mobilization in Latin America have presented additional conditions to explain policy changes in the area of Indian rights and cultural politics. Donna Lee Van Cott, for instance, has recently argued that legislative changes concerning Indian rights occur either in moments of constitutional crisis or in the context of armed uprising (“Explaining Ethnic Autonomy Regimes in Latin America,” Studies in Comparative International Development 35, no. 4 [2001]: 30–58).

In the 1990s, several Latin American nations, including Colombia, Mexico, Bolivia, and Venezuela, made constitutional changes to reflect their nations’ multicultural composition. In these countries, some level of Indian organization and mobilization is also present. The intensity and strength of this mobilization, however, varies greatly. The Mexican case may be instructive here. In 1992, President Carlos Salinas pushed Congress to amend Article 4 of the Mexican constitution to state that Mexico was a multicultural polity. During the same year Article 27 was also amended, allowing ejido or communal land, to be bought and sold on the private market. If we view the changes to Article 4 as a result of Indian mobilization (which existed prior to the 1992 quincentenary countercelebrations), we divert our attention away from the ways in which the Mexican state uses cultural politics to achieve very different ends from those of Indian organizations. My point is a simple one: When Latin American states engage in cultural politics that appear to advance ethnic/cultural pluralism, we must be careful in attributing those changes to popular mobilization. While Selverston-Scher is correct in saying that there has been a shift from class to cultural politics in Latin America, it is less certain whether we can read that shift as an unequivocal victory for Indian organizations.

All that said, Selverston-Scher has written a highly readable book that serves as an introduction to contemporary Indian politics in Ecuador. It also counterbalances the literature on democratization in political science that deemphasizes popular mobilization in favor of institutional analysis. In Ethnopolitics in Ecuador Selverston-Scher has provided us with a view of Ecuadorian politics from the ground up.