Struggles for Sustainable Urban Development in Cochabamba, Bolivia

5. CONCLUSION
Popular protest movements in Cochabamba do not occur for only one reason. Often they
are conjunctions of different ideas that open up past disputes, combined with the new ones.
It seems that special interest groups with old demands utilise any controversial new
government decision as an opportunity to launch demonstrations. Joining forces this way
gives more weight to the demands of the movement. In this way people who feel weak as
individuals and unable to influence the city’s development find a channel to address their
interests and make an impact. People might feel that it is a far more efficient way of
influencing government decisions than using the elections. The movements are often directly
related to people’s livelihoods and defence of them. From the government point of view,
new policies usually change the livelihood patterns of the city and are thus likely to face
opposition from one group or the other. Since these common confrontations tend to get
violent quite easily and also harm the government’s legitimacy, the planners need to find
solutions that are less likely to create civil unrest. This can severely undermine policy
initiatives and their effectiveness. If a decision brings social unrest the government is often
forced to back down on its decisions. In a conflict situation, solving the original problem
often gives way to solving the conflict in decision-making. This can lead to short-term
solutions that are far from sustainable and tend to postpone the problem, only to emerge
again sooner or later. The government legitimacy can also be weakened by public defiance
against the set regulations. Due to weak enforcement of regulations it is easy to defy them.
Thus the government needs people’s support for new regulations to have better hopes of
compliance.
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