Abstract( ! The Pragmatics of Hope: Class, Elections and Political Management in Contemporary Colombia. by María L. Vidart-Delgado This dissertation examines the recent introduction of U.S.-style, image-based political management techniques into Colombian politics, a phenomenon facilitated by the comprehensive market and political reforms of the 1990s. The Colombian elites who favored these reforms hoped to dismantle the clientelistic networks of private interests that, in their view, perpetuated a corrupt, ineffective, and at times, collusive two-party system. They hoped that a multi-party system would provide Colombian voters with real political choice. However, despite these efforts, clientelism continues to thrive under the new regime. With party/faction loyalty no longer the dominant driver in elections, campaigns now hire political managers to guide voters’ choices based on individual candidates’ appeal. Ironically, these practices have created “electoral industries,” networks of voters organized around political figures as opposed to party platforms. These electoral industries have easily adapted to existing clientelistic networks, the very networks the reforms were meant to dismantle. Meanwhile, through the language of market segmentation, political elites have publicly moralized clientelism’s resilience, characterizing it as a persistent, anti-modern behavior that can be objectively correlated with lower class voters. Their portrait of clientelism stands in stark contrast to the liberal political subjectivity (grounded in individual choice) that they attribute to urban middle and upper classes.! According! to! these! ideas,! political! managers! mobilize! specific! technologies!meant!to!more!effectively!manage!each!kind!of!vote.!While!lower!class! voters! are! managed! through! face=to=face! networks! and! informal! channels! of! communication,! middle! and! upper! class! voters! are! reached! through! broadcast! media!and!web=based!social!media.!By!looking!at!the!institutional!platforms,!expert! knowledge,! political! technologies! and! normative! political! ideas! at! work! in! the! organization!of!these!environments!for!political!participation,!my!work!explores!the! features!of!liberalism!that!allow!clientelism!and!media=based!politics!to!coexist,!and! even!thrive,!under!a!single!system.!Specifically,!I!trace!the!emergence!of!a!form!of! “strategic!citizenship,”!to!borrow!Partha!Chatterjee’s!term,!that!I!argue!is!the!latest! guise!that!the!transactional!dimensions!of!liberalism!has!taken.!! ( ( ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Acknowledgements(( When receiving the Nobel Prize in 1954, Ernest Hemingway wrote in his acceptance speech: “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.” The trope of the lonely writer is familiar to Anthropologists. We are storytellers, and sometimes we feel isolated when telling the stories of our remote trips to distant lands -- lands that take many forms, from physical space to systems of thought. But, this dissertation and my experience of writing it, rather than a lonely quest has been a collaborative effort. The different conversations I’ve had with mentors, informants, colleagues, family and friends have shaped the lens through which I understand Colombian politics and global liberalism. I’m deeply grateful for the immense generosity that I found at the Anthropology Department and at Rice University at large. I’m greatly indebted to my mentors, Dominic Boyer and James Faubion, whose patient and brilliant comments throughout made the process of writing this dissertation a truly formative, and very enjoyable, experience. I am also indebted to Chris Kelty and Mark Jones who offered valuable insight to make this project richer. I extend this feeling of gratitude to the faculty and staff members of the Anthropology Department whose commitment to mentorship and pedagogy make the Department a very special place. I cherish the comments and support that Andrea Ballestero, Jeff Fleisher, Nia Georges, Cymene Howe and Susan Macintosh offered at several points in my PhD education, as well as the informal conversations and laughs that we shared on many occasions. I deeply thank Carole Speranza whose memory I keep in a special place in my heart. I also want to thank the Humanities Research Center and the Lodieska Stockbridge Vaughn fellowship for the support they offered to complete this project. ! V! At Rice University I have cultivated wonderful friendships that have greatly enriched me as a person and also professionally. I’m deeply grateful to Lina Dib who is an ever-giving source of inspiration. I treasure in my heart the many surreal moments we’ve shared and the cosmological conversations we’ve had. I was lucky to be part of the same cohort with Nikki Carelock and Stacey Pereira whose friendship, sense of humor and thoughtful comments made my life as a PhD student immensely happy. I also thank Brian Clark, the token archaeologist in our cohort, for the funny conversations and the amazing support in these six and a half years of knowing each other. Dan White, Angela Rivas, Nahal Naficy, Laura Jones, Ala Alazzeh, Valerie Olson, Elise McCarthy, Michael Kriz, and Elitza Ranova provided generous advice and unrestricted friendship upon my arrival to Houston and throughout the PhD. I thank Cap Bendixsen, Timothy Chryssikos, Vibha Gokhale, Laura Resendez, Abidemi!Babatunde!Babalola,!Trevor!Durbin,!Jessica! Lockrem,!Elizabeth! Marks,! Becky! Gimbel,! Marcel! LaFlamme,! Ereich! Empey,! Than! Vlachos,! Ian! Lowrie,! Nessette! Falu,! Camille! Barnett,! Ethan! WilenskyGLanford,! and! Jing! Wang! for! carrying! along! that! tradition! of! camaraderie! and! friendship! among! students,!and!welcoming!me!so!warmly!after!my!fieldwork!year!away.!I also want to thank the Visual and Dramatics Art Department where more than a student job, I found a network of friends. Rachel Boyle, Charles Dove, and Tish Stringer made my hours back in the projection booth among my most cherished memories of grad school. ! Throughout the years, I’ve been lucky to experience Houston’s cosmopolitanism. This city has given me the opportunity to meet very good friends with very different outlooks on the world that have challenged my preconceptions and broadened the boundaries of my intellectual world. For their friendship and for very fun times together I ! VI! want to thank Mike Griffiths, Josh Kitching, Amelia Scholtz, Andrew Spiegelman, Steven Dicker, Pamela Bozzo, Natalia Pietrosemoli, Pedro Miguel Duarte, Liz León, Fermín Ibañez, Sol Canny, Alex Valle, José Castro, Maricruz Miranda, Víctor del Carpio Neira, Rachel Vlachos, Jessica Tsao, Susie Silbert, Jeff Toohig, Sagnuk Tarsilar, María Fernanda Páramo, Bret Baccus, Helen Currier, Sara Henderson, Emily Lee, Zackq Lockrem, Harbeer Sandhu, Ratheesh Radhakrishnan and TX/RX Labs. I also want to thank my friends at Social Agency Lab for showing me around the wonderful world of city planning and urban design. I could have not completed this project without the support and generosity of those friends who helped fieldwork happen. Special thanks to Camilo Rojas, Francisco Ortiz, Andrés Cubides, Antonio Morales, Miguel Silva, Donaldo Casado, Natalia Antequera, Laura Rico, Andrea Ardila, Danilo Arias, Danielle Lafaurie, Catalina Lobo- Guerrero, Austin Zeiderman, Paula Juana Durán, Felipe Gaitán-Amman, Pablo Cárdenas, Suzanne D’Anglejan and Camilo Molano. I’m also deeply indebted to my friends at MOE, whose courage and work ethic I admire and respect. Many thanks to Alejandra Barrios, Claudia López, Andrea Lopera, Carlos Santana, Adriana Peña, Sonia Triana, Felipe Jiménez, Camilo Mancera and Nicolás Montoya for patiently and joyfully sharing with me the ropes of their work. Last, the support of my family and their constant feedback throughout the process of writing this dissertation were crucial for its completion. Their patience and understanding provided a safe space for creativity and productivity. Maria Sanmartín, Luis Sanmartín, Martín Vidart and Daniela Vidart endured years of monothematic conversations. Rex Baker III, Cindi Baker and Catherine Baker offered unrestricted !VII! support and love. My partner in life, Rex Baker IV, provided moral support and brilliant comments that have enriched this dissertation greatly. Without the conversations sitting out in the back, this dissertation would have not been the same. Our dogs Hazel and Mosey kept me grounded and happy during the writing process. ! ! Table!of!Contents! INTRODUCTION) 2! CHAPTER)1)))DISSECTING)ELECTIONS) 23! CHAPTER)2)))LOCAL)UNIVERSALISMS) 43! CHAPTER)3)))THE)DIVISION)OF)ELECTORAL)LABOR)OR)THE)LOCATION)OF)POLITICS) 73! CHAPTER)4)))STRATEGIC)PUBLIC)WORLDS) 111! PART!1! 113! PART!2! 136! CHAPTER)5)))UNRELENTING)HOPE:)INVOKING)DEMOCRACY)IN)A)“FAILED”)STATE) 157) CONCLUSION) 185! BIBLIOGRAPHY) 191! 2 Introduction* The Colombian congressional and presidential elections in 2010 were the first elections in which web based social media were used for campaigning purposes. The introduction of these new technologies in electoral politics revived long-standing debates in Colombian public culture about the pragmatics and ideals of politics in a country marked by social exclusion and war. During these elections, the different spaces used for political campaigning embodied a widespread sense that class radically fractures Colombia. Political campaigners, political analysts and the broader public saw the use of the new social media spaces and other media as the natural environment of a middle and upper class urban vote, commonly known