Changes in the Foreign Policy of Bolivia and Ecuador: Domestic and International Conditions

The aim of this paper is to assess the changes in the foreign policy of Bolivia and Ecuador during the administrations of Evo Morales (20062019) and Rafael Correa (2007-2017), taking into account the interaction between domestic and international factors in both countries. Our working hypothesis argues that the reorientation of the foreign policy of these countries was possible due to a connection between alterations observed in the domestic and international spheres starting in the middle of the 2000s. In the internal sphere, the greater political stability resulting from the restructuring of the party system; in the foreign policy environment, an international system more open to the progressive field, allowing a change in the orientation of Bolivian and Ecuadorian foreign policy, based on that moment on the diversification of partnerships with an anti-United States bias.

Starting from the perspective of foreign policy as a game with two levels (PUTNAM, 1988), our working hypothesis argues that the reorientation of Bolivian and Ecuadorian foreign policy reflects a connection between the alterations observed in the domestic and international spheres from the 2000s onwards. The election of progressive presidents, who were successful in forming parties or coalitions which became hegemonic, linked to a more open international system, allowed a change in Ecuadorian and Bolivian foreign policy, based on the diversification of partnerships and an anti-US discourse.
The article is divided into three main sections, in addition to this introduction: the first is concerned with Bolivia and the second with Ecuador, emphasizing the presidencies of Morales and Correa. In both cases, we introduce the respective sections with a brief overview of the main political events of the last 25 years to afterwards discuss Ecuadorian and Bolivian foreign policy, highlighting the alterations in conditions which allowed changes in programmatic orientation. The analysis of the trajectory of the two countries appears to suggest that the connection between elements of the two levels in the period in question has generated the necessary conditions for greater autonomization and the stabilization of the foreign policy. Finally, we finish the article with a recapitulation of the argument and brief final considerations about the new reorientations of foreign policy after the departures of Morales and Correa from their respective governments, despite this not being the focus of our article.

Bolivia in the last 25 years
Since its independence Bolivia's history has been marked by countless uprisings, coups d'état, and civil wars. The 1952 Revolution, which favored agrarian reform, the nationalization of mines, and the establishment of universal suffrage, was replaced in 1964 by a series of coups and military dictatorships, frequently unstable and with contradictory orientations. This dragged outinterspersed by occasional civilian governments -until the 1980s. After the return to democracy in 1982 and the turbulent and unstable first civilian government, in the five presidential elections held between 1985 and 2002 three parties took turns in power by forming coalition pacts in parliament which came to Changes in the Foreign Policy of Bolivia and Ecuador: Domestic and International Conditions (2020) 14 (3) e0008 -4/37 include an increasing number of partners among the smaller parties in the political system.
It should be highlighted that the Bolivian constitution at the time established that in the absence of an absolute majority for any candidate, the president was chosen by the elected legislature in an indirect second round among those most voted. Since in the period in question no candidates were elected directly in the first round, it became known as a 'Pacted Democracy' and was marked by a programmatic convergence related to market reforms and representative democracy, reaching a historically unprecedented presidential succession via elections five times in a row. However, stabilization came at the cost of the virtual shielding of the system against the inclusion of new demands and actors.
Programmatic convergence in relation to neoliberal policies among all the significant parties created growing discontent with the model, to the extent that the reforms were not only incapable of resolving the country's serious socioeconomic problems, but were also perceived by the population as having aggravated them. Despite this, they were nonetheless invariably maintained, irrespective of the government or the party in power (CUNHA FILHO, 2017;KOHL and FARTHING, 2006).
In part as an attempt to alleviate some of the democratic deficits of the model and in part seeking to create support for the market reforms implemented concomitantly, during Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada first term (1993 -97) important constitutional and political reforms were carried out which recognized for the first time, albeit in an incipient manner, the country as multicultural and pluri-ethnic. More than three hundred municipal prefectures were created for the first time with a judicially guaranteed budget in the vast rural zones. A the foundation for the shaping of 'anti-establishment' political instruments with a national scope (ALTMAN and LALANDER, 2003;CUNHA FILHO, 2018a, 2018bMOLINA, 2001;HAARSTAD and ANDERSSON, 2009;KOHL and FARTHING, 2006

The Morales administration
At the beginning of his administration Morales sought to meet the popular demands crystalized in the critical context of the Gas War through state intervention in and control of the gas industry -which guaranteed the government a substantial increase in revenue (KAUP, 2010;MIRANDA, 2008) -and by convening a Constituent Assembly for the first semester of 2006. However, the attempt to re-found the state and reverse the previous pro-market orientation triggered, at the same time, a strong reaction from the former political elites who had lost national power but who were entrenched in departmental governments, above all in the Northeastern region of the country, known as 'Media Luna' (Half Moon) and which concentrates the greatest part of agricultural and hydrocarbon production in the country.
In contrast to Ecuador, as will be discussed later in the article, the convocation of a Constituent Assembly did not imply the dissolution of the Legislature, with the existing Congress maintaining its functions all the time.
Regional opposition groups demanding departmental autonomy acted in a disloyal manner, seeking to block the approval of governmental projects in the Senatewhere they jointly had a majority -and also in the Constituent Assembly, where although they were in a minority they prevented the government from obtaining the two-thirds majority required to approve articles.  (GISBERT, 2006).

Bolivian foreign policy
In the Bolivian case, foreign policy was marked by the dialectic between internal factors and opportunities for international insertion. In other words, the history of political instability and institutional fragility of the country had a significant impact on its international capacity for action (CUNHA FILHO and VIANA, 2010;MAIRA, 2007), which combined with the tendencies and events of the international scenario as the conditioning factors of its foreign policy.
During the 1980s and 1990s Bolivia was marked by the chronic need to attract foreign resources to pay for its own budget and, as a consequence, its foreign policy was aligned with the market reform agenda defended by international financial institutions (KOHL and FARTHING, 2009) and governments from the capitalist center, above all the US, with whom the country came to significantly align itself, also due to anti-drug policies, strongly linked to the imperatives issued by that country. In parallel, it maintained its traditional diplomatic orientation as the "country of contacts" (BRUSLÉ, 2015), through which it sought to convert its geopolitical position -perceived as central on the continent -into a search for benefits and opportunities for national development.
Similarly, the country sought to position itself as the connection between the distinct projects of South American regional integration, adding to its position as a founding member of the Andean Pact (which became CAN Evo Morales' assumption of the presidency occurred in a new regional context associated with the rejection of the neoliberal project which contributed to the reorientation of Bolivian foreign policy and its international insertion (MAIRA, 2007; ROCHLIN, 2007). In this context, the new Bolivian foreign agenda went through a reorientation, moving away from a preferential relationship with the United States. Similar to Ecuador, central to this new direction of foreign policy was an emphasis on south-south cooperation and the strengthening of regional integration projects. It would also be marked by a preferential approximation with other leftwing Latin American governments, above all Venezuela (BIRNS and SANCHEZ, 2011;BONILLA and PÁEZ, 2006;CUNHA FILHO and DELGADO, 2010;DELGADO and CUNHA FILHO, 2016;ROJAS, 2014). Moreover, the country would seek to diversify its diplomatic relations among non-traditional partners in Africa and Asia, in order to reduce its dependence and increase its margins of autonomy, This affirmation of national sovereignty and respect for its cultural traditions would also justify an important redefinition of official policy in relation to coca leaf, notably the attempt for its international decriminalization within the UN (2020) 14 (3) e0008 -9/37 system (CUNHA FILHO and DELGADO, 2010). With the rejection of the initiative to remove the prohibition of the 'in natura' leaf from the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the country withdrew from the treaty in 2011 to request reentry with the exception of articles aimed at prohibiting the production of the leaf, which was approved in 2013 and celebrated in the country as an important diplomatic victory.

Regional integration projects
As in the Ecuadorian case, Bolivia also sought to become significantly closer As well as Alba, the country sought to adhere to and deepen its participation in all the regional mechanisms available, with the only exception being the Pacific currently in the adhesion process 1 . It should be highlighted that this decision was made for political motives, such as positioning itself as a pivot between the two largest and oldest South American integration blocs, and for direct economic interests (COSTOYA, 2011;LECHÍN, 2015), since its status as an associate member and the composition of its export agenda (concentrated fundamentally on gas, governed by its own treaties), already gave it sufficient access to market blocs.
Seeking to return and update the traditional diplomatic agenda and positioning itself as a 'country of contacts' on the continent, the country has been giving special emphasis to its potential to convert itself into a pivot of continental energetic integration (BRUSLÉ, 2015;CUNHA FILHO, 2015;FRANÇA, 2015), as well as the nodal points of Atlantic-Pacific road and rail routes.
However, integration with the neighbors has not been exempt from tensions. The state recuperation of the gas industry, which commenced in 2006, put Bolivia on a collision course with Brazil, the principal export market for the product which controlled the largest part of Bolivian production through Petrobras. The ideological and personal affinity between presidents Morales and Lula helped keep these tensions down to some extent, however, the belief that this guaranteed a tranquil and generous acceptance on the part of Brazil is, as Fuser (2014)  To the contrary of what was expected from Morales nationalist discourse, which led analysts to expect an immediate beginning of tensions with its historic rival, the political climate between Chile and Bolivia remained extremely positive during Bachelet's term and the two countries even came close to signing a treaty resolving the issue of Silala.
In this proposal, a bilateral scientific commission was to be established to determine the origin and nature of the waters 2 , with Chile committing itself to pay for half of the hydric volume used while the studies were being carried out and, after they finished, the accord was to be reassessed based on their results. The origin of the dispute is due to Chile considering that Silala is an international river whose waters it has the right to use, while Bolivia alleges that it is a water source artificially channeled to the territory of its neighbor and used for more than a century without any financial compensation. A secondary product of the bilateral crisis provoked by the maritime to be fundamentally aimed at this objective (AGUSTÍN, 2016;COSTOYA, 2011;LECHÍN, 2015).

Relations with the US
The

The history of recent instability of Ecuador
When looking at the twentieth century in Ecuador, Souza (2007b)  In 1998, Jamil Mahuad was elected president and managed to enact a new constitution for the country, after various attempts by previous governments. In this new constitution governability and the stability of the political system were its principal objectives, but in 2000 it would be the turn of Mahuad to be overthrown by the armed forces in the middle of protests by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE). According to Villa (2004): "The years between the triumph of Abdalá Bucaram (1996)  Acosta (2006, p. 170) also stated that without the approval of these institutions it was difficult for a country to receive foreign investment, as this approval had become a type of 'guarantee seal' for investors. Although it was not the main factor, the country's great economic dependence was reflected in the great volatility of ministers, chronic corruption, incapacity to form

Ecuadorian foreign policy
The period of strong political instability (SOUZA, 2013a(SOUZA, , 2013b(SOUZA, , 2007a(SOUZA, , 2007b which the country had faced since 1996 meant that many of the country's international actions followed a pattern which became known as 'reactive and inertial' (JARAMILLO, 2007). In addition, the political instability exposed the fragilities of the country to external shocks such as the 1997-99 financial crisis, US foreign policy post-September 11, and the failure of the Doha round negotiations (JARAMILLO, 2007).
Nevertheless, while the diagnostic of the period points to the low importance of Ecuadorian foreign policy in the 1990s, by tracing the constants in the international insertion of the country during this decade, three central points can be identified: 01. the commercial and strategic connection strongly associated with the United States; 02. the concentration of its international agenda on bilateral relations with Colombia and Peru; 03. the lack of clarity in relation to a Latin American and Andean regional integration project (BONILLA and PÁEZ, 2006;JARAMILLO, 2007;ZEPEDA, 2011;ZEPEDA and EGAS, 2011).
Bilateral relations with the United States, Colombia, and Peru -in this order of decreasing importance -acquired prominence in Ecuadorian foreign policy. The approximation with the first two occurred to a great extent due to commercial relations and with the latter to territorial questions and the Cenepa War.
Furthermore, the serious financial crisis faced by the country during the 1990s and the first half of the following decade demanded greater dialogue with the European Union, especially Spain, due to the large Ecuadorian emigration to this country during the two previous decades. In this context, the pattern of bilateral relations with the United States during the 1990s was based to a great extent on economic dependence which, consequently resulted in political alignment (JARAMILLO, 2007). In this context, Bonilla (2008) shows that the country never adopted an openly anti-US posture and its position towards the country could be ambivalent, varying between 'evasion and resistance'.
In this scenario its dependence was configured as follows 01. flows of fiscal credits from the IMF and the World Bank; 02. the maintenance of these flows demanded, to a certain extent, cooperation to form linkages maintaining the US as the relevant decision making actor within these institutions; 03. this cooperation resulted in joint actions in various areas, such as drug trafficking, terrorism, etc.
(JARAMILLO, 2007). Correa's assumption of the presidency imprinted new contours on foreign policy, as indicated by his administration's programmatic documents 7 (MALAMUD and ROSELL, 2009;ZEPEDA, 2011;ZEPEDA and EGAS, 2011 with the United States, but also regional integration projects, both for the Andean region and the whole of South America (AYLLÓN and DOLCETTI-MARCOLINI, 2016; ZEPEDA, 2011).

Regional integration projects
With Nations (UNASUR). Rafael Correa's administration also defended the full integration of Cuba in regional organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), but due to the growing divergences within the latter organization, it enthusiastically supported the creation of a substitute regional space that also excluded the United States which resulted in the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2010 (FREIDENBERG, 2012;MALAMUD and ROSELL, 2009;ZEPEDA, 2011;ZEPEDA and EGAS, 2011).

Extra-regional relations
In the context of the expansion of its international action, Ecuador was heading in the direction of expanding its economic and political dialogue with countries such as Russia, Iran, Syria, and China (FREIDENBERG, 2012;MALAMUD and ROSELL, 2009;POLGA-HECIMOVICH, 2013

Relations with United States
For Zepeda (2011), relations with actors from the Global North in the Correa administration increasingly lost space -at least in the official discourse. According to him, Ecuadorian diplomacy sought to distance itself, at least in the political sphere, from its principal commercial partner -the United States (ZEPEDA, 2011, p. 119). It should be noted that this strategy means that for the Ecuador-US relationship for the first time Washington had become a secondary target for the Ecuadorian government, even in commercial terms (JARAMILLO, 2007).
In this way, the renegotiation of the agreements identified as unequal and the maneuvers which aimed to find spaces of action other than traditional In summary, associated with the elements which characterized the international insertion of the country at this moment were: 01. the strengthening of South-South cooperation which would impact not only on the form of the country's relationship with the United States but also 02. regional integration projects both in the Andean region and South America as a whole (AYLLÓN and DOLCETTI-MARCOLINI, 2016;BONILLA and PÁEZ, 2006;FREIDENBERG, 2012;JARAMILLO, 2007;MALAMUD and ROSELL, 2009;ZEPEDA, 2011;ZEPEDA and EGAS, 2011).
In relation to foreign trade and exports in particular, the US remained Ecuador's main partner, and there was a significant increase of exports (mostly oil) during the 2000s, with two moments of decline. The first was in 2009 (due to the diplomatic conflicts between the two countries) and the second in 2014 (when there was a significant fall in the price of oil in the international scenario).
Also noteworthy is the increase in exports to China, practically irrelevant at the beginning of the 2000s, but after Correa reached the presidency these began to increase. In relation to imports from China, a significant increase can be observed in ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 9 It should be noted that the following year President Rafael Correa was the victim of an unsuccessful police mutiny organized by some leaders of the Ecuadorian national police. This moment also corresponded to the renegotiation of the Ecuadorian foreign debt in new terms and the period of a great rise in oil prices in the international market, leading to a significant increase in the country's foreign reserves until 2014, when, as mentioned above, there was a great downturn in oil prices. Also important here is the great increase in the volume of imports from China, which as stated in the last section of this article became one of Ecuador's main partners in the 2010s, almost drawing in first place with the US.

Final considerations
In this paper, our main objective was to make a brief comparison of the main political events that occurred in Bolivia and Ecuador in the last 25 years, with a special emphasis on the foreign policy itinerary in both countries, especially in relation to the contemporary period, led in Bolivia by Evo Morales and in Ecuador by Rafael Correa.
In the article we took into account the interaction between domestic and international factors in both countries, understanding that neither of the two dimensions should be understood as more important. Our hypothesis suggests a reorientation of foreign policy based on the rise to power of center-left presidents (Rafael Correa and Evo Morales), who were successful in forming parties or coalitions which became hegemonic, allowing the diversification of commercial partnerships and the advent of an anti-US tone in the foreign policy field.
Of importance in both countries is political instability and economic crises, especially in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. In this period, both Bolivia and more especially Ecuador went through traumatic overthrows of presidents, interfering to a great extent in the direction of foreign policy in these Andean countries due to the immense political instability, which resulted in a reactive orientation and foreign policy inertia, incapable of great strategic planning.
However, despite some wavering, the US remained the main foreign trade partner of both countries in the periods when the center-right was in power. After Evo Morales came to power in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador the scenario changed. Both countries sought to expand the number of commercial partners and encouraged south-south integration (with special importance for initiatives in the Latin American sphere), as well as the gradual distancing of US influence and a significant approximation with China.
However, this reorientation was only feasible thanks to the reorganization and stabilization of their respective party systems led by new presidents (SOUZA and SANTOS, 2017), operating as the necessary condition for new internal actors to be able to translate their programmatic preferences into the reorientation of public policies. Nevertheless, although this change (the rise of leftwing governments) originated in the domesti c sphere, the electoral victories of Morales and Correa occurred at a moment of the relative distancing from the US which was focused on its priorities in the Middle East and during the expansion of center-left governments in the region, positively influencing both presidents, who gained increased space for maneuvers in the international sphere.
We thus believe that greater political stability represents an INUS 10 condition ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 10 Acronym for 'Insufficient but Necessary parts of a condition which is itself Unnecessary but Sufficient'.

Changes in the Foreign Policy of Bolivia and Ecuador: Domestic and International Conditions
(2020) 14 (3) e0008 -30/37 (AMORIM NETO and RODRIGUEZ, 2016;MAHONEY and GOERTZ, 2006), resulting in a greater possibility for a planned foreign policy that is oriented to the mid-term at least and capable of taking better advantage of the expanded limits for the favorable foreign scenario.
Below we have prepared a Venn Diagram which organized the principal changes in the foreign policies of Bolivia and Ecuador, taking into account the interaction between the domestic and international spheres for the three variables analyzed in the article for each country: