In The Reform of the Bolivian State: Domestic Politics in the Context of Globalization, Andreas Tsolakis draws on an array of secondary sources as well as interviews and archives to offer an original contribution to our understanding of how Bolivian state reform has been driven by liberalisation, internationalisation and depoliticisation. By the numbers alone, this is an impressive piece of scholarship: 24 interviews, 48 tables and figures, a 37-page bibliography, a list of 87 acronyms, and 344 substantive footnotes; only the eight-page index seems thin.

Tsolakis focuses on 1985–2009, and in each period domestic actors take centre stage – explicitly capitalist leadership in 1985–2000, cascades of grassroots resistance in 2000–5, and the first chapter of the Evo Morales period in 2006–9. Of Tsolakis’ key concepts it is internationalisation that receives the most attention, which is notable for a book focused on the agency of domestic players. Tsolakis aligns his argument with scholars who have tired of focusing on empire's victims and instead redirects our attention to empire's partners among the elites of peripheral economies (p. 105).

Specifically, Tsolakis argues that the ‘internationalisation of the Bolivian state was not superimposed upon an endogenous process of political and economic liberalisation by external forces; rather, by consolidating a transnationalised elite fraction in Bolivia and the depoliticisation of economic management, the internationalisation of the state sustained polyarchy after the hyperinflationary crisis of 1985’ (p. 6). In Tsolakis’ narrative, well-financed and savvy domestic elites reached out to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) and built lasting partnerships that enabled power consolidation while posing as ideology-free depoliticised technocrats that preached minimalist democracy. The book is jargon-heavy, often requiring some effort to decode who belongs to this decade-spanning coalition, but the excellent ‘Appendix 3: Prominent Businessmen and Technocrats: The Transnational Bloc in Bolivia’ provides a veritable rogues’ gallery of 12 key players (pp. 333–45). I only wish we saw additional portraits of the other key actors in Tsolakis’ story, particularly the movers and shakers from the IMF and WB with whom these transnational technocrats lunched and plotted, as well as indigenous leaders within the Morales administration who sustained connections with multilateral development institutions.

The volume begins with an overview of Bolivia's political trajectory (chapter 1) and then analyses the process of internationalisation in the context of the 1952 Bolivian National Revolution and more recent decades of global restructuring (chapters 2–4). Here Tsolakis enters the debate over who is to blame for Bolivia's 1985 hyperinflation. Unlike observers who let the IMF and WB off the hook because of their disengagement from Bolivia during its military and leftist periods in 1980–5, Tsolakis argues that the IMF and WB's refusal to help stabilise a plummeting economy deepened the crisis, effectively aiding the disloyal opposition that preferred to destroy the regime rather than tolerate a leftist government (pp. 88–90).

Chapter 5 offers a four-bloc conceptualisation of the 1985–2005 political arena. These actors included transnationalised (right-wing) elites, domestic (right-wing) elites, the urban Left, and rural indigenous groups. In 1985–7, the urban Left diminished and transnationalised elites used coercion to grow dominant while the rural indigenous bloc became more diffuse, penetrating urban areas and gradually extending its reach (pp. 252–3). Key to the ascent of transnational technocrats was their ‘equal’ partnership with the IMF and WB (p. 198). Under technocrat guidance, the Bolivian state actively sought out multilateral development funds, opening easy avenues for the IMF and WB to demand structural adjustment (p. 200). Thus, Tsolakis rejects both the classic empire tale – Bolivia victimised by the Bretton Woods institutions – and the loan shark story – Bolivia borrowed cash but got in too deep – instead hewing to a tale of coalition-building over multiple adminstrations. It is an intriguing argument that invites a second look; it requires that we quit scapegoating the IMF and WB for everything while also inviting familiarity with a complex and perhaps more sinister story. Interestingly, it fits with arguments that the IMF and WB are bad institutions led by good people. At multiple points, Tsolakis alerts us to observations that the people who make up the IMF and WB demonstrated ‘profound awareness’ about instability and ‘genuine concern’ for social impact (p. 118). Yet IMF and WB leaders cannot be pleased with the crimes for which Tsolakis finds them culpable, such as condoning corruption and entrenching impunity among Bolivia's old guard (p. 200).

In Chapter 6, Tsolakis covers many dimensions of the initial years of the Morales presidency – polarisation, intra-party conflict, the new Constitution, land reform, nationalisation and US interference – but with less detail and in a less argument-driven fashion. We see the recurrent contrast he draws between the United States and multilateral development institutions. Tsolakis argues that ‘the Morales government has retained its authority in part thanks to the transcendence of its bilateral relationship with the U. S. government, its engagement of [multilateral development institutions] and the necessary transformation of imperialistic relations within the Latin American space’ (pp. 265–6). In essence, he asserts that Morales’ engagement of the IMF and WB has partially sheltered Bolivia from the meddling of the US State Department and Drug Enforcement Agency. I was not convinced – I credit Bush/Cheney's myopic focus on other wars for their half-hearted, reactive and failed Latin America policy – but the argument held my attention given Tsolakis’ criticism of US intervention: for example, ‘The destabilising tactics employed by the opposition received systematic technical and financial support by the US government, which took the dangerous path of fuelling still less predictable racist movements and autonomist discourses advocating civil war’ (p. 304). Flatly noting the US embassy's attempts to destroy the Morales government, Tsolakis concludes that the ‘institutional interlocking of [multilateral development institutions] with key Central Government Ministries (in particular the Finance, Commerce and Planning Ministries), the Bolivian Central Bank, and depoliticised regulatory agencies has persisted and provided a much-needed buffer against US-promoted subversion’ (pp. 304–5).

The Reform of the Bolivian State offers a great deal on which to reflect. It made me think and re-think, though I was not always convinced. I felt that the book would be particularly worthwhile for Bolivia experts already familiar with the case.