During the 1980s and 1990s many Latin American nations embraced decentralisation, allowing for the direct election of mayors and city councils. These reforms aimed to make local government more accountable and responsive. In Ecuador and Bolivia decentralisation coincided with the growing political strength of indigenous and peasant movements. Across the rural Andes, these reforms opened spaces for indigenous peasants to vie for the first time for control of local governance. To what degree have decentralisation and the incursion of new actors into municipal politics led to a deepening of democracy, greater accountability, and participation at the local level? These are key questions addressed in Struggles for Local Democracy in the Andes. Cameron tackles them through a comparative study of six ‘model’ municipalities, singled out for their innovative administrations: two in each of three Andean nations, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. He analyses the factors that led to their ascent to local power and critically assesses the degree to which they live up to their reputations as models of participatory democracy.

Ethnographic field research in each municipality is complemented by extensive use of secondary sources to fill out their historical development. The result is a richly detailed and fascinating account of six unique sites of struggle. The core chapters (one on each municipality) are framed by introductory and concluding chapters that synthesise common themes and draw out generalisable conclusions. The inductive approach produces a balanced assessment, not only of the accomplishments, but also of the limitations and fragility of these experiments, and in so doing, provides a wealth of testable hypotheses for further comparative work.

Cameron develops a ‘relative power approach’ that focuses analytical attention on the impact of ‘long-term historical changes in economic and social structures’ (p. 11). He finds that the crucial precondition for rural democratisation was the breakdown of feudal relations and the erosion of local elite power that resulted from agrarian reform, the spread of market economies, and increased access to education. But these changes, which spread across the Andes during the twentieth century, encountered diverse local realities, producing variation in the new configurations of local power that resulted. Cameron concludes, therefore, that it is not possible to identify a ‘single path or pattern of power relations that leads towards the democratization of rural municipal governments’ (p. 310); broad forces can be identified, but their impact must be examined in light of the unique structural realities in each locale. For this and other reasons, institutional innovation cannot be legislated successfully from above. The most innovative and enduring institutional initiatives were developed at the local level with buy-in by indigenous and peasant organisations. By contrast, the initiatives handed down from the state or conceived of by NGOs did not take root in an enduring way: examples include Limatambo in Peru and Mizque in Bolivia. Thus a key finding is that strong indigenous and peasant organisations are crucial to the success of efforts to democratise local politics.

However, even in those cases where the initiatives were led by indigenous leaders embedded in strong organisations, there were still unexpected pitfalls. The chapter on Jesús de Machaca in Bolivia provides a trenchant analysis of the difficulties of incorporating traditional indigenous practices into a municipal administration. This chapter is relevant to current efforts to structure autonomous indigenous municipalities in Bolivia, as well as to the emerging comparative literature on usos y costumbres. In other cases, under the veneer of participatory models, patterns of patronage and clientelism persisted, albeit in new forms and without the same degree of unequal power and social control. In Guamote in Ecuador strong indigenous leadership eventually played the role of a new local elite that produced new versions of old clientelistic practices. In other cases, leaders expressed frustration that citizens played passive roles in ‘participatory’ councils and assemblies. Generations of poverty, marginalisation and lack of education are disempowering, and simply creating new institutions and giving people the opportunity to take part does not guarantee that they will become Robert Putnam's engaged and empowered democratic citizens. In addition to the shortfalls in terms of democratic participation, Cameron points to the limitations of rural democratisation in addressing poverty. He finds only modest improvements in poverty and human development, even in cases such as Cotacachi in Ecuador or Mizque in Bolivia, where mayors succeeded in attracting significant outside resources to their municipalities (p. 334). This is certainly disheartening, and Cameron correctly concludes that municipal innovation alone is insufficient to overcome larger structural forces and policies at work nationally and internationally, which disadvantage the rural poor and impact negatively on their livelihoods.

Cameron's use of a historical-structural framework is a welcome antidote to a more narrow focus on political institutions. However, the role of political culture might also be considered in explaining the persistence of ‘deeply rooted convictions’ (p. 331) and expectations that reinforce and reproduce clientelistic patterns rather then participatory engagement. Likewise, reference to the Brazilian experience of participatory local governance models would have been useful for discerning more generalisable conclusions from the Andean cases.

While this study reveals that control of municipal institutions by the historically marginalised has not produced perfect participatory democracy nor proved a panacea for rural development, what has been accomplished must not be discounted. Most important has been the attainment of a sense of dignity, as spaces historically controlled by elites have been opened up and filled by those from below. The permanent end to a time when Indians were barred from entering the town hall is no small feat and, as Cameron attests, it is one of the things most highly valued by the communities that have struggled for control of municipal power. Overall, this meticulously researched study represents a significant contribution to our knowledge and understanding of indigenous and peasant efforts at rural democratisation. It offers a window into remarkable changes in local power relations, as it reveals the potholes in the road to rural democracy, and the long distance still to be traversed by the rural poor in their quest for dignity, economic justice and self-determination.