The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
Tapajos River highlighted. Wikicommons/Kmusser. Some rights reserved.In Latin America, much is said about the democratic improvements brought about by participatory practices in government. But there are considerable constraints both to participation and its effectiveness when it comes to transforming hegemonic models, vested interests and political power, as exemplified by projects associated with the increased exploitation of natural resources.
These projects shed light on the limits of liberal representative democracies and also of recent extra-electoral institutional participation initiatives: such models do not guarantee political legitimacy to projects impacting on the local sphere, many of which affect groups who are ethnically different and who do not feel represented by the political entities of the state.
