The Buen vivir Postdevelopmentalist Paradigm under Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution Governments (2007–2017): An Appraisal

• Author: Francisco Javier Ullán de la Rosa,Patricio Carpio Benalcázar
• Date: 01 May 2021
• Published date: 01 May 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211004910
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211004910

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 238, Vol. 48 No. 3, May 2021, 152–171

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211004910

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

152

The Buen vivir Postdevelopmentalist Paradigm

under Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution Governments

(2007–2017)

An Appraisal

by

Patricio Carpio Benalcázar and Francisco Javier Ullán de la Rosa

Buen vivir (good living) is an alternative postcapitalist and postdevelopmentalist

paradigm born in Latin America whose concepts were incorporated into the 2008

Ecuadorian Constitution. An appraisal of the divergence between the paradigm, its legal

projection, and the public policies undertaken by the so-called Citizens’ Revolution gov-

ernments (2007–2017) under President Rafael Correa concludes that the structural

transformations in the economic, political, social, and cultural realms envisaged by the

buen vivir paradigm never took place. What Ecuadorian governments implemented dur-

ing the decade was actually a capitalist neo-developmentalist scheme with some social-

welfare policies of a social-democratic nature.

El “buen vivir” es un paradigma postcapitalista y postdesarrollodista alternativo nac-

ido en América Latina cuyos conceptos fueron incorporados a la Constitución ecuatoriana

del 2008. Un análisis de la divergencia entre el paradigma, su proyección legal y las

políticas públicas emprendidas por los llamados gobiernos de la Revolución Ciudadana

(2007–2017) bajo el presidente Rafael Correa muestra que las transformaciones estruc-

turales en los ámbitos económico, político, social y cultural previstas por el paradigma del

buen vivir nunca se llevaron a cabo. Lo que implementaron los gobiernos ecuatorianos

durante la década fue en realidad un esquema neo-desarrollista capitalista con algunas

políticas de bienestar social de carácter socialdemócrata.

Keywords: Buen vivir, Sumak kawsay, Ecuador, Citizens’ Revolution, Rafael Correa,

Twenty-first-century socialism

Buen vivir (good living) emerged as a process of collective social innovation

aimed at finding an alternative model to the policies that had plunged

Ecuador into a deep economic crisis and social unrest in the last decade of the

twentieth century. Cubillo, Hidalgo-Capitán, and Domínguez-Gómez (2014)

have identified two main currents that developed somewhat in parallel,

Patricio Carpio Benalcázar is a professor of sociology at the University of Cuenca, director of its

Master’s program in local development, and director of the OFIS Foundation (an Ecuadorian

nongovernmental organization specializing in local development). He is a collaborator of Alberto

Acosta, one of the main exponents of the buen vivir paradigm. Francisco Javier Ullán de la Rosa is

an associate professor at the University of Alicante specializing in ethnicity and political, cultural,

and social processes among indigenous peoples. He is also a specialist on indigenous peoples

with the Electoral Observation Missions of the Organization of American States.

1004910LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211004910Latin American PerspectivesCarpio and Ullán de la Rosa / BUEN VIVIR UNDER THE CITIZENS’ REVOLUTION

research-article2021

Carpio and Ullán de la Rosa / Buen ViVir UNDER THE CITIZENS’ REVOLUTION 153

although influencing each other: the indigenous one (known as sumak kawsay

and systematized for the first time by the Kichwa intellectual Carlos Viteri

[2003]), which draws from the indigenous communitarian worldview, and

the white/mestizo one stemming from the Latin American school of post-

Marxist leftist scholars, among whom Alberto Acosta (2000) stands out. The

2008 Constitution sanctioned an institutional version of buen vivir that

merged and reinterpreted these two currents.

This article assesses to what extent buen vivir was actually implemented by

public policies during the administrations of Rafael Correa, leader of the

Alianza PAIS (Proud and Soverign Homeland Alliance—AP), a period known

as the Citizens’ Revolution (2007–2017). The analysis contrasts the institutional

version reflected in the constitution and the National Buen Vivir Plans of 2009–

2013 and 2013–2017 with secondary legislation, sectoral policies, and govern-

ment projects to assess the achievements, tensions, contradictions, and

shortcomings of the concept’s implementation. Although buen vivir is a sys-

temic paradigm and most of its concepts are interdependent or overlap in many

areas, the analysis divides the paradigm into seven thematic axes (Carpio,

2019): the intercultural and plurinational state, participatory democracy and

social accountability, the rights of nature, decentralization, the social economy,

economic sovereignty and the change of the production model, and the sover-

eignty of the body.

ApprAising Axis 1: The inTerculTurAl

And plurinATionAl sTATe

Buen vivir takes a step beyond the multicultural policies of the previous

governments toward the building of an intercultural and plurinational state,

moving from the mere acceptance of cultural differences to actively promoting

horizontal interaction and cross-pollination between cultures and the partici-

pation of all in the governance of public institutions. It is a mechanism aimed

at ending internal colonialism, recognizing subaltern ethnic groups as equal

political actors and as nations within the nation. A plurinational state is, accord-

ing to its advocates, “a state that recognizes the social and political forms of

organization of indigenous peoples . . . and establishes a coordinated system of

competences and functions between them and the state structures” (Maldonado,

2014: 214). Furthermore, it promotes a process of inverse (partial) acculturation

of white/mestizo society into the values and practices of the subaltern cultures.

This is made explicit in the goals of the 2009 national plan: “Incorporate the

different worldviews into the design and implementation of public policies and

. . . development programs (SENPLADES, 2009: 300). The construction of the

plurinational state involves four main dimensions: intercultural education,

intercultural health, indigenous justice, and political autonomy.

inTerculTurAl educATion

The Ecuadorian state is mandated to “strengthen the bilingual intercul-

tural education system . . . from kindergarten to higher education . . . for the