The concept of “Decolonization” is actively debated not only among IR scholars or political elites; this is a principal topic of socio-political discourse in Bolivian society. This paper aims to explore the dual nature of the decolonial discourse in Bolivia, where attempts to address the pre-colonial philosophical legacy are combined with traditional leftist rhetoric. The paper thus focuses on different interpretations of the concept of “vivir bien”, as it is advanced by the current political elites and the social group called “indigenous bourgeois”. This analysis gives an opportunity to discuss the influence of the local myth on the debate about the possibility to formulate a new counter-hegemonic trend in the Third World. The paper is based on deep interviews conducted in December 2014 in Cochabamba and La Paz.
