Bolivia

 

Most Serene Republic of Bolivia Serenísima República de Bolivia
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: "National Anthem of Bolivia"
Capital	La Paz
Largest city	Santa Cruz de la Sierra
Official languages	Spanish
Recognised regional languages	Quechua Aymara Guarani
Ethnic groups	70% Mestizo 20% Native American 10% other
Religion	89% Christianity 10% no religion 1% other religions
Demonym(s)	Bolivian
Government	Unitary presidential constitutional republic
• President	Mauricio Hernández (MAS)
• Vice President	Antonio Oliva (PCB)
• President of the Senate	Victor Hugo Prudencio (MNR)
Legislature	National Congress
• Upper house	Chamber of Senators
• Lower house	Chamber of Deputies
Independence  from Spain
• Declared	August 6, 1825
• Recognized	July 21, 1847
• Current constitution	February 7, 1997
Area
• Total	1,098,581 km2 (424,164 sq mi)
Population
• 2021 estimate	12,054,379
GDP (PPP)	estimate
• Total	KS$
GDP (nominal)	estimate
• Total	KS$
Currency	Boliviano (BOB)
Time zone	UTC–4
Date format	dd/mm/yyyy (AD)
Driving side	right
ISO 3166 code	BO
Internet TLD	.bo

Bolivia, officially the Most Serene Republic of Bolivia (Spanish: Serenísima República de Bolivia) and also sometimes called the Republic of Bolivia (Spanish: República de Bolivia), is a country in South America. It borders Brazil to the northeast, the United People's Committees to the northwest and west, the United Provinces to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Bolivia has a population of about 12 million people and is geographically divided between a high plateau in the western one-third of the country, part of the Andes mountain range, and an eastern tropical lowland of rainforests that covers the other two-thirds of its territory. La Paz is the capital city and seat of government, while other major cities include Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the largest city in the country and also its business and financial center.

The earliest civilization on the territory of modern Bolivia was the Tiwanaku Empire, named after its largest megalithic site and former capital Tiwanaku. Later on the western region of Bolivia was part of the Inca Empire while the eastern portion was inhabited by independent tribes for centuries. Spanish colonization occurred in the 16th century, and the Spanish Empire would be partially financed by the silver that was mined in Bolivia. There were growing calls for independence from Spain after the instability caused to it by the Napoleonic Wars, and nearly two decades of war were waged before Bolivia was granted its independence in 1825. The new state was named after Simón Bolívar, the Latin American revolutionary leader that played a leading role in the independence movement against Spain in South America.

As a sovereign republic (hence its official name "Most Serene Republic") Bolivia had a turbulent history in the 19th and early 20th centuries, losing territory, including its only coastline on the Pacific Ocean, after three disastrous wars against Brazil and the United Provinces between 1879 and 1935. Mining for tin and other minerals became the largest sector of the economy and was the main source of revenue for the Bolivian state, but the funds mostly went to a small number of corporations owned by a wealthy ruling class. The majority of the Bolivian population was left impoverished and illiterate. These conditions, along with the defeat in the Chaco War of the early 1930s, led to the rise of a revolutionary socialist movement led by the Socialist and Katarist Party. Their support came from miners, junior officers in the army, and peasants in the lowlands, the latter of which included the Native American population, which had been discriminated against by the Bolivian financial oligarchy. The Katarist platform was a combination of nationalizing the mining industry to improve economic conditions for workers and Roman Catholic social doctrines, along with improving the rights of indigenous people. The Katarists seized control of the government from the previous oligarchy in 1948 and began nationalizing mines and railways, along with breaking up large agricultural estates to turn them into small farms owned by the farmers themselves.

The socialist government in Bolivia was left isolated as it was surrounded by neighbors with capitalist systems. Despite this it was offered economic assistance by Sierra in the 1950s in an attempt to prevent Bolivia from turning into the first ally of the United Commonwealth in South America. As a result, the economy stabilized by 1960 after the initial shock of the 1948 socialist takeover, and Bolivia remained neutral in the early part of the Cold War. But the Andean War led to the near breakdown of diplomatic relations with Sierra as the Katarist-led government provided assistance to the Andean revolutionaries. The United People's Committees became the closest partner of Bolivia after the mid-1970s and provided the country with economic access to their ports. After that Bolivia became aligned with the ICCMO and also received economic investment from the China. But by the 1990s the previous decade of economic stagnation led to instability and calls for democracy, led by the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR). Protests in Bolivia nearly ended violently when the Katarist leadership deployed army units, but after a tense standoff and negotiations, the socialist government agreed to reform the state and hold elections. The country has experienced its own "opening and reform" policies since 1998, with increased economic ties to Conference of American States countries, but the Movement for Socialism (MAS) has won the majority of elections since 2001, while the MNR has been the second-largest party.

In the 21st century Bolivia is a constitutional presidential republic and a member of the League of Nations, OMEAD, the ICCMO, the Lima Pact, and the World Trade Organization, among other international bodies. It is considered to be a middle-income economy by the World Bank that relies on commodity trading, especially mining, natural gas, and agriculture. Bolivia has experienced rapid economic growth since 2000, with large increases in the average life expectancy and average wage, as well as infrastructure renovation projects, attributed in part to the discovery and increasing development of its natural gas reserves. The country also provides free education and healthcare. The CAS, the United Commonwealth, and the United People's Committees have traditionally been its main trade partners, but in recent years China has become increasingly important.

Etymology

Bolivia is named after Simón Bolívar, a Venezuelan leader in the Spanish American wars of independence. The leader of Venezuela, Antonio José de Sucre, had been given the option by Bolívar to either unite Charcas (present-day Bolivia) with the newly formed Republic of Peru, to unite with the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, or to formally declare its independence from Spain as a wholly independent state. Sucre opted to create a brand new state and on 6 August 1825, with local support, named it in honor of Simón Bolívar.

Over the next several months after August 1825, Chamber of Deputies speaker Manuel Martín Cruz proposed: "If from Romulus, Rome, then from Bolívar, Bolivia" (Spanish: Si de Rómulo, Roma; de Bolívar, Bolivia). To emphasize the nature of the Bolivian state as a sovereign republic, the first Constitution of Bolivia described the country as "the Most Serene Republic of Bolivia," following the tradition of several states that had previously existed in Europe, and also unofficially used at the time by San Marino, the world's oldest republic. That name was kept by future governments, including by the Socialist and Katarist Party, which saw it as part of Bolivian heritage and refused calls among some party leaders to change the name to "Socialist Republic" or "People's Republic," who considered the original constitution to be associated with the previous state-capitalist oligarchy. After the Socialist and Katarist Party lost its domination of the state in 1996, the current constitution, promulgated by the National Congress in February 1997, also describes Bolivia as the "Most Serene Republic."

Government and politics

Mauricio Hernández
President of Bolivia

Antonio Oliva
Vice President of Bolivia

Bolivia is a unitary constitutional presidential republic that functions as a multiparty democracy, since the adoption of its current constitution in 1997. Prior to that the country had still been theoretically governed as a constitutional presidential republic, but under a de facto one-party dictatorship of the Socialist and Katarist Party from 1948 to 1996. During the socialist period the Katarists did not adopt the dual state-party parallel structure model used frequently in other Marxist–Landonist countries, but they did dominate the Bolivian state, with managed elections and limited civil rights. The 1995–96 Bolivian protests led to the Katarists agreeing to give up their control of the government and the party was dissolved in late 1996, and many former Katarists became part of the new Movement for Socialism (MAS). The 1997 National Congress elections and the presidential election were won by the opposition Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR), a center-right party, which restructured the state away from one-party rule towards a multiparty democracy.

Since 1997 there have been reforms to achieve a true division of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The judiciary has also been restructured to better investigate corruption in the state and audit the civil service. The National Congress consists of the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Senators, the former being elected in electoral districts while the latter are elected on the basis of the nine Bolivian departments, two senators from each department. The MNR won the majority of congressional seats in the elections of 1997 and 2013, while the MAS won the majority or plurality (in a coalition with other leftist parties) in 2001, 2005, 2009, 2017, and 2021. The Senate has been more evenly divided over the past two decades, and often had to mediate when the president and the National Congress, sometimes members of different parties, were divided over an issue.

In 2021 the Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit described Bolivia as a "flawed democracy" due to nepotism in the state, loyalty among judges to individual parties and the procedures by which judges are appointed, and a lack of independence among the institutions of the state from the political parties.

Military

A Bolivian National Defense Forces volunteer during a training exercise with Andean and Mexican troops.

The Bolivian Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas de Bolivia) consist of the Army (Ejército), Navy (Armada), the Air Force (Fuerza Aérea), and the National Defense Force (Fuerza de Defensa Nacional, FDN). Despite being a landlocked country, Bolivia has many large rivers and lakes, so it established a brown-water navy. The main objective of the Armed Forces is to guarantee and preserve the continued sovereignty and independence of Bolivia, defend the borders of the country, and assist in stopping international organized crime. Because Bolivia is mostly surrounded by traditionally hostile neighbors with a larger combined population, and especially after the major defeats in wars between 1879 and 1935, the Armed Forces are structured around the principle of a reserve force, in which the primary component is a trained reserve that can be quickly mobilized in the event of a war, along with a smaller active component that trains the reservists and has an integrated structure with the reserves.

The peacetime strength of the Bolivian Armed Forces is 37,900 active personnel and 216,000 reserve personnel. The latter can be divided between 60,000 active reservists in the National Defense Force and 156,000 secondary reservists. Bolivia has conscription for men between the ages of 21 and 27, lasting one year, also depending on their education and the needs of the military each year. Former conscripts that left the service are considered to be the "secondary reserve," only to be mobilized in the event of war, while the "active reserve" consists of those who chose to continue to participate in military training on a part time basis as members of the National Defense Force.

The National Defense Force (FDN) is a separate structure from the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and trains its members regularly so that they could contribute to military operations and be integrated with the regular armed forces. National defense volunteers train closely with the active-duty Army for interoperability in the event of a mobilization and with foreign troops in military exercises. The National Defense Force can also be mobilized by the central government to also assist with humanitarian emergencies or other extreme events.

As a member state of the Lima Pact, Bolivia trains regularly with the armed forces of the United People's Committees, Mexico, and other members of the defense alliance.

Foreign relations

Bolivia has diplomatic relations with nearly every League of Nations member state. The country itself is a member of OMEAD and the Lima Pact, formally aligning it with the United Commonwealth, the United People's Committees, Mexico, and other socialist countries in North America. Despite this, in the 21st century Bolivia has significantly increased its ties with members of the Conference of American States, including Sierra, Superior, Manitoba, Brazoria, and others, as part of the "opening and reform" of the country. In the Pacific, China, Japan, and Tondo are considered to be trade partners of Bolivia that have been growing in importance for the Bolivian economy.