Bellinger and Arce 2011

Bellinger,, Paul T., and Moisés Arce. 2011. "Protest and Democracy in Latin America's Market Era". Political Research Quarterly. 64 (3): 688-704.

• Introduction
• LA has seen a generalized rise in protests (688)
• collective actors in LA are highly responsive to changes in economic policy, and democracy ahs given them room to move
• central question:  do economic reofrms in teh context of democracy demobilize political actors, or RE-mobilize them?
• literature notes discord between neoliberlal society and democratic protest
• paper is to test and see which effect is greater, demobilization associated with neoliberalism or re-mobilization associated with democracy (689)
• Literature review
• demobilization literature
• increase in poverty, decrease in equality, higher levels of unemployment, and lower standards of living all create "anomie" (Zermeño 1990)
• but this literature has trouble explaining the revival of protests in Latin America
• in this literature, market policies erode democracy (690)
• and state diminishes, leaving it an unhelpful target of economic grievances
• Repoliticization literature (690-691)
•  traditional class-based actors are protesting (labor)
• NEW actors are protesting (unemployed, indigenous, regional groups)
• elaborating the repoliticization argument (691)
• neoliberal turn:
• heightened economic insecurities
• offered a master frame for protest
• democracy enhanced opportunity for collective activity
• authors believe regime type is a core component of the political opportunity for collective mobilization
• Data and Method
• data from 1970-2003 (692)
• dependent variable: collective protest
• independent variables: economic liberalization, democracy, semi-democracy, autocracy, and interactions between these two categories
• Controls include the level of regional protest to account for cyclical, demonstration effect (693)
• Results
• economic liberalization x democracy and economic liberalization x semi-democracy interaction terms are positive, support repoliticization argument (695)
• econ lib x autocracy supports demobilization argument IN AUTHORITARIAN SETTINGS
• also protest is shown to be regionally cyclical (697)
• index of civil liberties shows that the political opportunities provided by democracy, outside of simple elections, are actually driving remobilization
• Conclusion
• authors cast doubt on demobilization perspective (699)
• Latin American citizens do not seem to be passive, atomized