Resumo Este artigo examina um elemento essencial para a operacionalização das relações de poder que sustentam a política internacional, a saber, a colonialidade. Ele delineia a colonialidade da política internacional e elucida, por um lado, os aspectos fundamentais de sua operacionalização e, por outro lado, a sua cristalização no cenário internacional. O artigo está estruturado em três seções. Em primeiro lugar, ele explora o significado de colonialidade e esboça suas características fundamentais. Em seguida, ele delineia um elemento operativo crucial da colonialidade, a ideia de raça, e o duplo movimento através do qual a colonialidade se torna operacional – a colonização do tempo e do espaço. Finalmente, o artigo analisa duas problematizações estruturantes que foram fundamentais para a cristalização da colonialidade na política internacional - os pensamentos de Francisco de Vitoria e o Debate de Valladolid. O artigo argumenta que o próprio modo como estas problematizações enquadraram a relação entre o Eu Europeu e o Outro absoluto da modernidade ocidental – os povos indígenas das Américas – cristalizou a colonialidade na política internacional.

Abstract This article examines a key element of the power relations underpinning international politics, namely coloniality. It delineates the coloniality of international politics, and elucidates the fundamental aspects of its operationalisation on the one hand, and its crystallisation into international politics on the other. The article is structured into three sections. First, it explores the meaning of coloniality, and outlines its fundamental characteristics. Next, it delineates a crucial operative element of coloniality, the idea of race, and the double movement through which coloniality is rendered operational – the colonisation of time and space. Finally, the article analyses two structuring problematisations that were fundamental to the crystallisation of coloniality in international politics – the work of Francisco de Vitoria, and the Valladolid Debate. It argues that the way in which these problematisations framed the relationship between the European Self and the ultimate Other of Western modernity – the indigenous peoples in the Americas – crystallised the pervasive role of coloniality in international politics.

Abstract Soon after the formation of the Plurinational State of Bolivia in 2009, the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) became the epicentre of a conflict over the construction of a road, initiated by Evo Morales’s administration, that would run through the park. Initially undertaken by the Brazilian company OAS, and funded by the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), the project was justified on the grounds that it would link the departments of Beni and Cochabamba, and bring development to an isolated locality. However, indigenous peoples from the lowlands opposed the scheme, and, together with their counterparts in the Andean region, organised a march that was violently dispersed by the Bolivian armed forces. In this article, I analyse the political processes in this Andean country, notably the reconfiguration of power from 2011 onwards, in parallel with economic measures adopted by the government. I conclude with observations about the relation between the national and regional spheres, arguing that indigenous repression forms part of a new developmentalist agenda.