Disobedient Markets: Street Vendors, Enforcement, and State Intervention in Collective Action

Abstract

AcknowledgmentsHundreds of people helped with this project and I am deeply indebted to all of them. First, this project only exists because of the incredible women and men who work on the streets and put in extra hours to organize their colleagues and demand a better life. I am grateful to the dozens of street vendors in Bolivia and Brazil who decided to trust me, talk with me, and teach me. I am especially grateful to the women and men who took the time to explain how the markets work, how to sell in them, and how to interact with officials as a vendor. I regret that I can't thank people by name for confidentiality reasons, but from the bottom of my heart, thank you G.for teaching me how to set up a stall and be a vendor, and I hope we have many more conversations about politics over api. Thank you to the champañeras for making me an honorary sister and for letting me spend so many happy hours with all of you in the plaza. Thank you R. for being my sócio, teaching me how to set up and protect a stall, and sharing all of your stories with me; let's plan for many more. Thank you to everyone at the Federation and the Markets Office for your patience, your stories, and your advice. In addition to the vendors that are part of this project, the project would not have gone very far without the help of Cecilia Salazar, Luciana Molina

Bribery Cartels: Collusive Corruption in Bolivian Street Markets

“…In La Paz's street markets, tens of thousands of street vendors want licenses and could potentially bribe bureaucrats (Hummel 2017). A handful of bureaucrats at the Markets Office control licensing decisions and can use their position to demand rents from these tens of thousands of potential bribers.…”

“…Streets creep up all sides of the valley, supplying the city's main markets on its west side, working-class neighborhoods to the north and east, and affluent settlements in the south. La Paz has hundreds of open-air street markets, where fifty to sixty thousand of the city's one million residents work (Hummel 2017). The center of the city hosts the most profitable markets while new vendors regularly create new and less profitable markets in the city's expanding peripheral neighborhoods.…”

“…The city licenses 31,906 street vendors, and the rest work without documentation, typically as roving ambulante vendors (GAMLP 2015). La Paz's street vendors organize more than most, globally speaking (Bhowmik 2010): 75 percent belong to a street vendor association or union (Hummel 2017). Associations and unions organize geographically, representing several blocks or a market, and affiliate with one of four citywide street vendor federations.…”

“…These are rough estimates based on fieldwork. The city has 31,906 licensed vendors(GAMLP 2015), and officials and leaders estimate that another 20,000-30,000 work without licenses(Hummel 2017). Fewer than a dozen bureaucrats control licensing decisions, as stated in the city's internal documentation.…”

Economic Vulnerability and Partisanship in Latin America

“…The erosion of ideological linkages between parties and economically vulnerable citizens does not preclude alternative ways of political engagement. Informal workers in specific occupations (such as street vending) and locations (such as those living in urban slums) have traditionally developed strategies to negotiate the use of the public space to continue their economic activities (Singerman 1996;Cross 1998;Hummel 2017; Crossa Niell 2018) and to demand public goods and services for particular locales (Perlman 2010; Agarwala 2013). 3 Moreover, economic and livelihood vulnerability might make short-term private benefits more attractive than uncertain policy proposals.…”