Álvaro García Linera: Portrait of a Bolivian ideologue

Abstract

This article discusses Álvaro Garcia Linera—the former-guerrilla-turned-vice-president-of-Bolivia, Indianist activist, and communist sociologist inspired by Marx, Reinaga, and Bourdieu. It presents the path of this far-left intellectual of little renown in Europe and France, his Marxist-Leninist frame of reference, his role in the building of the plurinational state, his tendency to shout down his opponents, his rejection of ethnic mixing, and his political ambitions.