Tulane University

Please join us Friday, September 18th, for the Tulane University Political Science Seminar, sponsored by CIPR. Our speaker will be Tulia Falleti (University of Pennsylvania) who will present a paper entitled: “Endogenous Participation: Prior Consultation in Extractive Economies.” The talk will occur at 2:00 PM in the Greenleaf Conference Room, 100A Jones Hall.

Talk Abstract
Recent experimental studies on participatory institutions have treated them as exogenous to the policy-making process. While much is learned from the isolation of a participatory institution as a cause, we show that the effects of these institutions are conditional on the historic process of their creation and institutionalization. We propose an endogenous theory of participation and, engaging recent work in historical institutionalism, argue that the capacity of participatory institutions to channel conflict results from the conditions of their adoption and evolution. To make our argument, we comparatively study prior consultation (or consulta previa) in Bolivia and Ecuador, from the early 1990s until the present. Prior consultation is the collective right of indigenous communities whose environment could be potentially affected by resource extraction or mega infrastructure projects to be consulted before projects begin. This institution is highly relevant and contentious in Latin America, particularly as countries in the region intensify the extraction of non-renewable resources. We show that different institutionalization trajectories have been consequential for the effectiveness of prior consultation in channeling overt conflict between state and indigenous movements in each country. Moreover, our findings shed light on the tensions between participatory democracy and resource extraction in Latin America and have important implications for the study of participatory institutions worldwide.

For more information please contact Virginia Oliveros (volivero@tulane.edu).

Sponsored by Tulane’s Political Science Department and CIPR.