Studying the Gas War with the ideal of Rosa Luxemburg - An ideal type analysis on the case study of Bolivia

Abstract: This thesis investigates the ideal type analysis drafted from Rosa Luxemburg’s ideas in the case of the Gas War events in Bolivia. The ideal type has been created from the ideas of mass strike, the works of reform and revolution. The aim of the ideal is to show how close the Bolivian case comes to the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg. In the year 2003 the Gas War broke out in Bolivia in what was first considered to be a question of the natural resources and its exploitation. Soon roads were blocked, hunger strikes were started and after a couple of days a general strike was declared. The president had to resign and shortly after the very first Indigenous president of the country was elected, Evo Morales. This thesis shows that the events in 2003 and its aftermath are a very complex composition. In some aspects they come close to the created ideal type but all-over the Bolivian context is too complex to analyze in mere conceptions such as revolution or mass strike. The ideas of Rosa Luxemburg should though not be rejected since they are a product of her own time and social context.