Other Domains of Democratic Theory: Space, Power, and the Politics of Democratization

Abstract

Located in the analysis of spatial power and democratic politics, this paper brings together three guiding questions. First, given the fact that inside the West much theorization of power and social relations has assumed a geohistorical context that is intrinsically Western, to what extent and in what ways does this particularity constrain the conceptual and thematic effectiveness of the perspectives employed and especially in relation to the politics of democratization? Second, as it is most appropriate to argue that power shapes social identities, and that democratic politics cannot dispense with power, a key question becomes how to generate relations of power that are compatible with democratic values and opposed to ethnocentric privilege. Third, how can we open up a discussion of democratic politics so that the geographies of democratization can be explored in a way that might broaden our vision of power and geopolitics? These questions are pursued in the context of the coloniality of power and an exploration of the territoriality of democratization in the Peruvian and Bolivian cases. The overall objective is to go beyond the limits of a Euro—Americanist frame and open up the analysis of the complex and dynamic geographies of democracy.

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