- Introduction
- one the one hand, democratic regimes from the 1980s have proven remarkably durable adn resilient to crises (2)
- On the other hand, party systems have been far less stable
- Paradoxically, democratic consolidation has coincided with a crisis of representation and general disillusionment with the political establishment
- but this crisis affects different countries differently
- Critical junctures:
- neoliberal turn (3)
- reactive sequences against neoliberalism!
- Modes of political representation based in ISI were undermined by its collapse, specficially among the popular classes
- and party systems varied widely in their ability to channel these issues
- Broadly, these critical junctures dealigned parties, made their programmatic promises seem less sincere (especially thanks to bait and switch)
- Argument:
- when a populist/mass-based party undertook economic reform
- it often made the transition more politically viable
- but also dealigned the party from its constituents (4)
- when a right party undertook economic reform
- left party was able to channel dissent through the insittuions
- party alignment was "reinforced"
- in both cases, parties that undertook reforms were vulnerable to leftist challenges
- The Puzzle of Party System Stability in Latin America
- Presidentialized party systems may result in parties with unaccountable elites, ambiguous programmatic stands, but it doesn't help explain the wide variation in strength and durability of party systems (5)
- electoral competition has not stabilized party systems or crystallized partisan identities
- During neoliberal transition programmatic differentiation was tough, since there were such acute constraints on policy options available (7)
- by contrast, the left turn helped realign some of these party systems
- "neoliberal critical junctures and teh reactive sequences they spawned dislodged and reconfigured historic party systems, altering their programmatic alignments in was that heavily conditioned the stability ot partisan competition in the aftermath period" (8)
- Market Liberalization and Part system alignments during neoliberal critical junctures
- Critical junctures are designed to explain why similar types of political or economic challenges produce different, path dependent patterns of institutional change across a range of cases
- suggest neoliberal critical juncture from 1973-1998 (Chavez ended it) (9)
- it altered:
- the character and purpose of state power
- the patterns of association in civil society
- the ways in which societal interests and claims were articulated and represented in the political arena (Collier and Handlin 2009, Yashar 2005)
- Party systems before market adjustment: (10)
- labor mobilizing
- elitist (with clientelistic relations to popular sectors)
- these preconditions weighed heavily on results of critic juncture, but did not define them entirely
- three basic requirements of programmatic structuring of party systems
- parties must adopt relatively coherent stands on salient issues that divide teh body politic (11)
- policies adopted in office must bear resemblance to election platform
- bait and switch severs relationship between electoral verdicts and the content of public policy (12)
- there must be meaningful differences/policy alternatives between the competing parties
- often not true during ISI crisis
- The regionwide transition undermined all three of these basic conditions (13)
- lots of policy switching, left/populist parties went along with reforms, or did bait and switch (13)
- created internal party dissension among leftish parties
- often meant that popular sector connections to parties were severd, replaced with clientelistic relations (14)
- BUT if a conservative party initiated transition, and left remained in opposition, no dealignment
- Three possible outcomes: table on page 16
- parties aligned (contested liberalism), outcome was a durable party system (15)
- Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Uruguay
- Mexico, thanks to creation of PRD which replaced PRI as left
- ambiguously Nicaragua (17)
- dealigned (bait and witch), or neutral (no real left to contest) results on part system (neoliberal convergence), outcome was not a durable part system
- dealigned: Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela
- Neutral: Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay
- contested liberalism allowed for dissent to be challenged through stable forms of electoral competition (17)
- neoliberal convergence resulted in systems susceptible to destabilizing reactive sequences
- 17-25 goes through cases and uses electoral data, etc to prove this story
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Roberts 2012
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Wolff 2007
Jonas Wolff. 2007. "(De-)Mobilising the Marginalised: A Comparison of
the Argentine Piqueteros and Ecuador's Indigenous Movement". Journal of Latin American Studies. 39 (1): 1-29.
- Compares the indigenous movement in Ecuador and the piqueteros in Argentina
- on the one hand, these movements have mobilized the marginalzied, which is unexpected
- but the state (in each case) has been able to subsequently demobilize and tame these movements without really giving into their lager demands (2)
- These movements were tamed because they coupled a NEGATIVE broad demand (anti-neoliberalism) with PRAGMATIC goals toward local and regional community needs (2-3) -- this allowed them to be coopted, essentially
- indigenous movement was coming from a historical exclusion, whereas the piqueteros emerged with the memory of inclusion that was lost during privatization (3)
- History of CONAIE in Ecuador (4-6), Piquteros (6-9)
- Movements commonalities (9-18)
- 1) both movements combined a negative macropolitical focus and a pragmatic stance toward local demands (work, food)
- but these same problems made groups fragmented (see Kurtz) 11-12)
- "Formally functioning but publicly delegtimised democracy presented a decisive opportunity structure to both movements" (12)
- the macro-political claims of both these movements were of a global rejection, a ardical negative stance, which was combine with a pragmatist desire to secure conrete micro-political gains (13)
- concrete, pragmatic claims were very much based on local level needs/desires
- the double transformation made people feel like political and social inclusion crpmises were largely unfulfilled (10-11)
- 2) specific territoriality
- indigenous have their villages, campo, and the piqueteros have the barrios
- 3) organization strategy that responded to the crisis of representation both in politics and in traditional representatives
- relied on participatory and consensus decision making (16-17)
- but as groups become nationalized, the old distance returns and participation becomes less-popular-based (17)
- 4) repertoire of contention: the roadblock (17-18)
- its effectiveness depends on public resonance: is it a legitimiate protest or just illegitimate troublemakers (18)
- The evolution of the movement
- these movements represent new (and enduring) facets of each country's social and political life, but at the moment they are limited to seeking/gaining regimes to make adjustments (19)
- how were these groups "tamed", why didn't they threaten the old political and economic elites to a greater extent?
- the state and state actors have acted to integrate teh voices f these movements into the political system, and these movements have accepted that offer (20)
- the movements enjoy some form(s) of veto power on questions concerning their vital interests
- concrete demands are being served (20-21)
- but at the macro-level, demands of these groups have not been met (21-22)
- the restabilization of these countries came from a combo of cooptation and marginalization, partial disarticulation and demobilization of the contentious protest alliances (22)
- the internal features that initially enabled mobilization also proved to be vulnerable to manipulation
- the negative stance was fine, but when it stalled groups fractured over figuring out a more positive stance (because they were so heterogeneous)
- absence of a program outside of an identity was a problem
- internal division grew
- leaders also drawn into political dialogues, away from their constituents (23)
- tension of quasi-corporatist demands from the state and participatory democracy from the rank and file
- piqueteros lost social support for their roadblocks once teh government was trying to integrate them (24)
- these intrinsic weaknesses in the movements reveals a remarkable capacity for democratic regimes to regain stable and pacific relations with civil society (26)
- combination of cooptation via ad hoc dialogues, quasi-corporatist negotiations, and clientelist and populist practices proved able to demobilize these groups by fixing their concrete needs while still ignoring their larger demands (26-27)
- Conclusion
- Ecuador's indigenous have gained political voice through social and political organizations
- piquteros mostly relying on singluar leaders who have gotten government office
- "What is new, however, is that such movements of marginalised people are the prime forces of contentious collective action in democratic politics. This directly follows the weakening of 'traditional' social and political organizations which represent the popular sectors that is associated with the double transformation in teh region" (28)
Monday, March 31, 2014
Alcañiz and Scheier 2007
Alcañiz, Isabella, and Melissa Scheier. 2007. "New Social Movements with Old Party Politics". Latin American Perspectives. 34 (2): 157-171.
- looking at how new social movements interact with old parties (157)
- three factions of piquteros
- groups that are more likely to enter into agreements with the state, the FTV and the CTA
- moderate groups with the CCC
- radical groups with the Movimiento Territorial de Liberacion (MTL) and the National Piqutero Bloque
- Bloque piquetero gets fewest subsidies (158)
- Argument: preexisting partisan networks (linking unemployed to institutional political forces) determined the specific development of piqutero coalitions, and these coalitions in turn limited the strategies available to movements and ther iability to persist over time
- second try: piquetero groups formed along lines of previous partisan networks, which subsequently meant these groups had varying access to parties
- while others have shown that clientelism is important, authors show that other mechanisms of political organization can replace the need for such links
- The piqueteros are coming
- piqueteros first appeared in oil towns, places with long and rich histories of social, political, and labor organization (159)
- first wave of piqueteros tended to be unemployed union workers
- second wave (2001) were independent of, and often vocally rejected the lead of Peronist unions
- Leaders in the first wave had been labor organizers, second wave were mostly from leftist political parties (160)...even those with prior union exerience rejected verticality of peronist unions
- Old partisan networks and new coalitions
- previous social networks among piqueteros shaped the way they saw the unemployment situation, which in turn shaped coalition strategies for piqutero groups
- MTL was specifically founded around rejection of neoliberalism, distrust of peronist politics (161)
- this precludes coalition/strategy that invloves the PJ or UCR
- The Political economy of the piquetero movement
- two important environmental variables help explain piquteros
- bad economy
- unions and PJ had been based on full-employment economy, so downturn in economy in 1990s resulted in piqueteros who weren't used to being unemployed, felt they were owed a job by society (more or less) (162)
- but unions were too weak to demand them, so they protested
- social policy was decentralized, making municipalities and non-state actors the coordinators/distributors of state resources (163)
- this prompted organization on the part of these unemployed, so their groups could get control of resources
- also promoted growth of clientelism
- importantly: piquetero organizations were a place where opposition parties could get an ally in the popular sector
- Piquetero cooperatives and the rise of the MTL
- the communist party helped found the CTA, which in turn got the PC involved in te unemployed movement (164)
- FTV head D'Elia endorsed a teachers protest in 1997, which got the FTV closer to the CTA, which got the PC involved with the FTV
- 1998 FTV officially joins CTA (165)
- in June 2001 MTL created because the communists don't like the soft line taken by the FTV
- "The issue of autonomy is a central concern of the MTL movement" (165)
- but how can the MTL stay autonomous and still have the funding necessary to help its people?
- through the IMFC, Institute for the Mobilization of Cooperative Funds)
- MTL got employment through the IMFC and financial autonomy for the MTL (166)
- IMFC is a buffer between the MTL and the PC, meaning MTL has real autonomy
- IMFC was created by PC in 1958 and formed a group of cooperative banks
- seems to be independent-ish of the PC
- MTL not initially excited about cooperatives idea, which was proposed by PC and the IMFC
- eventually all three collaborate to buy/operate a mineral processing plant in 2005 (expropriation not supported by government) (166-167)
- MTL also started a large housing project in BA, supported by loans from the city (167)
- city and the MTL consider this a pilot project for future housing projects developed by social movements and paid for by government (168)
- Concluding remarks
- MTL's association with the PC offered and alternative to traditional patterns of government-labor relations
- my take: but not really, as housing project shows, government still has biggest coffers
- odd coalition, between the horizontal MTL and the hierarchical PC, but these ties were based in historical ties
- MTL voters, of course, vote peronist (169)
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Auyero 2000
Auyero, Javier. 2000. "The Logic of Clientelism in Argentina: An Ethnographic Account". Latin American Research Review. 35 (3): 55-81.
- Story of Norma, who opens a unidad basica (grassroots Peronism center) and her relationshi pwith rising politician Gustavo Pedele
- Norma is the puntera, Pedele the referente
- at first Norma has minimal access to state resources
- "the important thing to know is the right person" (56) -- mobilize people and know the right person and you can get access to resources
- the "red peronista" operates a problem-solving network that institutes a web of material and symbolic resource distribution (57)
- Clientelism must be approached from its least known and least specatcular side: the everyday dealings, the practices and perspectives of clients, the problem solving network that links clients, brokers, and patrons (58)
- fieldwork from the 1990s
- Argument: as neoliberalism was decreasing the role of the state in providing for society, clientelism and political networks became increasingly important for gaining access...indeed, clientelist networks began to replace the functions that the state was abandoning (60)
- hyper-unemployment has drained the slum economy, causing informal reciprocal netowrks to bleed to death (62)
- in Villa ParaĆso survival strategies are increasingly embedded in political networks
- this is reinforced when there simply isn't a formal economy for these people to ever refill their private funds with
- political party has become the most reliable means of satisfying the poor's basic needs (63)
- the punteros similarly can't find resources outside of the party
- Brokers and their networks
- the punteros closest helpers stick around in hopes that the puntero may find them a job
- the inner circle does a lot of the legwork for solving everyday problems of the slum dwellers (66)
- the outer circle has contacts with the puntero, but they are looser (67)
- punteros function as gatekeepers between the municipal government and the people
- the differences in brokers stems from their control of resources from above
- sometimes brokers specifically give incorrect information to their clients in order to maintain their role as the only channel through which resources can be found (68)
- social workers, NGOs, and other community activists get angry with this (69)
- in neighborhoods where social organizations have disappeared (due to deep poverty), punteros become the only place to access information, thus becoming indispensable problem solvers for neighborhood dwellers
- punteros also work hard to reinforce their necessity in this regard
- The client's perspective
- punteros are sometimes seen as using the people, or corrupt politicians, especially by those who don't use their services (70)
- but to members of their inner circle, and those who rely on them as problem solvers, punteros are usually caring people who personally solve problems for others
- the punteros become the ones distributing the resources, not the state (71)
- elections are seen as times to solve problems...(we have to wait for an election) (72)
- but many others see assistance as a more consistent thing, not a part of "politics"
- norms of assistance and problem solving become understood...i get this, i go to a rally (73)
- brokers present their job as deriving from a passion for helping people...those in a broker's network agree, though those outside of a network suggest brokers are simply in it for themselves
- the tie between client and broker is only maintained as long as the broker seems/is able to deliver! (74)
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Lapegna 2013
Lapegna, Pablo. 2013. "Social Movements and Patronage Politics: Processes of Demobilization and Dual Pressure". Sociological Forum. 28 (4): 842-863.
- Monte Azul (Arg), 2003, herbicides dropped on families, results in protests by Movimiento Campesino de Formosa, MoCaFor (842-843)
- Monte Azul and Moreno, 2009, same thing, no protests!
- this in spite of the fact that administrations between 2003 and 2011 were generally nice to protest movements (843)
- Argument: processes of demobilization result from the pervasiveness of patronage/clientelism (uses interchangeably) and from a relational process of "dual pressure" on popular movements
- dual pressure: from below: poor participate in movements as a problem-solving mechanism (ie get money and food), so when they join movements they expect something in return
- from above: when movements finally make alliances with politicians, politicians expect movement to eschew collective actions (844)
- Article attempts to find the toolkit that keeps SMOs alive even when they aren't protesting
- Distribution of resources in LA is embedded in a long standing traditional expectation of reciprocity and mutual obligation -- author describes this as a "cultural" thing (845)
- "I focus here on the links between clientelism and social movements, because they offer a window to see how those symbolic aspects are connected to material grievances and expressed in quotidian interactions, while shedding light on the agentic aspects and strategic choices of popular actors.
- Contention, Patronage Politics, and Popular Demobilization in Argentina and Formosa
- After 2001, then 2003 and Kirchner, the relationship between the state and movements changed strikingly, and many movements demobilized (849)
- Argument: demobilization is less a function of cooptation and more of the dual pressures from members and the political allies of an SMO
- Popular movements and Patronage Politics
- public employment is a BIG driver in Formosa, which is driven by patronage
- welfare benefits + public employment is the main source of income for most Formosa residents (850)
- MoCaFor was created when a previous agrarian movement become an client/appendage of the provincial government in the 1990s
- in order to maintain themselves, they allied with the national FTV (851)
- When FTV joined Kirchner, MoCaFor found itself as an ally of the nattional government and enemy of the provincial government
- Demobilization as Dual Pressures
- Pressure from below
- people who join the movement expect something in return (852)
- as time goes on they specifically look for planes money
- MoCaFor becoming to look like a client machine itself (852-853)
- leaders feel like they are constantly trying to fix peoples problems (853)
- to get things from MoCaFor, people had to have individual meetings with leaders, a very clientelistic sort of relationship!
- Just as exchange of goods and services may eschew collective action, expectations of reciprocity may subdue internal dissent (854)
- Pressure from above
- MoCaFor planned a march that was cancelled when head of FTV (and memebr of K government) comes to help negotiations
- governor eventaully backs out of this deal, negotiates with FTV at national level rather than with MoCaFor (855)
- Mocafor are distributors of resources, but also recipients from their national olitical allies, so they have to follow the lead of those above them
- in the end, Mocafor is just like it sown members, it relies on funds from above and demobilizes at the behest of national allies (856-857)
- "if we (leaders) confront the government, then we just make our people suffer along with us"
- Clientelism in this case is a bit exploitative, but also a strategy to achieve the movements goals (857)
- Discussion
- Paradox: social movement leaders reject clientelism while inadvertently reproducing similar practices within their own organizations (858)
- important to note that Mocafor does what it does so that it can continue as a social movement organization...what good is ideals without money for food?
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Arnold and Samuels 2011
Jason Ross Arnold and and David J. Samuels 2011, "Evidence from Public Opinion" (31-51)
in Levitsky, Steven, and Kenneth M. Roberts. 2011. The resurgence of the Latin American left. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
in Levitsky, Steven, and Kenneth M. Roberts. 2011. The resurgence of the Latin American left. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Based on Latinobarimetro survey
- Big conclusions:
- No mass-level shift to the left of voters in LA (32)
- citizens see current wealth distribution as a problem, but also don't seem to be more unhappy with it than they ever have been before
- unhappy with performance of democracy, but not democracy itself (32-33)
- left vote is strongly correlated with anti-American sentiment (33)
- No region-wide leftward trend (35)
- voters did increasingly identify as left in Chile, El Salvador, Hoduras, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela
- Even after left came to power, roughly 75% of respondents in the region believe distribution of wealth was unfair (36-37)
- Democracy:
- everyone unhappy with performance of democracy
- though even that score has decreased slightly, it's still high (38)
- mostly people are unhappy with the institutions as they exist (40)
- generally LAs Ok with democracy as a form of government, but this is often based on incumbent performance (43)
- most Latin Americans seem tot define democracy along liberal-type lines, not populist lines (Mexico is a notable exception) (45)
- Conclusion: Left turn is a bit of a misnomer, as because surveys do not show mass ideological shifts to the left among LA voters
Friday, March 14, 2014
Roberts 2009
Kenneth M. Roberts, Chapter 1: Beyond Neoliberalism: Popoular Responses to Social Changes in Latin America ,1-13
Burdick, John, Philip Oxhorn, and Kenneth M. Roberts. 2009. Beyond neoliberalism in Latin America?: societies and politics at the crossroads. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- new era has seen the "repoliticization" of development (1-2)
- neoliberalism broke collective actors, but as labor unions declined new "popular subjects", like community-based organizations and indigenous movements, rejected com modification of their lives (2)
- this volume looks toward grassroots level to see uneven development, and uneven responses to market and societal change
- development conditions political and social change (see, e.g. neoliberalism and ISI, which both shaped society as well as the economy/development) (4-6)
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