Collier and Handlin 2009

chapter 1,

·         Changes in economic models in the 1990s came along with important changes in the urban popular interest regime (4)

o   Labor unions used to be number one

o   Now new community based groups, NGOs, etc. are most likely actors

·         Shift from UP hub to A Net involves three main points on contrast

o   Base units different (unions versus associations) (5)

o   Role of parties different, as parties play a less central role

o   Structure/internal order: hierarchy under UPhub, Anet is less well define, less hierarchical

·         (18) many interests of the popular sectors have material basis, ie people need food shelter water, so popular sector interests could hardly be seen as “postmaterialist”

·         (21) their survery defines popular sectors as those who have not completed high school

Chatper 2

·         Analytics themes acorss chapters (37)

o   Individual problem solving repertoires (37-38)

o   Representational distortion (38) how does popular sector representation compare with middle class rep

o   Associational strategies

o   Scaling

o   State-association ties

Chapter 3, Logics of Collective Action, State Linkages, and Aggregate Traits: The UP-Hub versus the A-Net

• Comparing the UP-Hub (union-party hub) to A-Net (association net) to understand how they work in terms of problem solving and interest mediation for the popular sectors (61-63)
• comparing scope, scaling, access, and autonomy
• IMPORTANT: Comparison between individual collective action (people forming groups) and organizational collective action (groups forming larger groups) is the main difference here
•  two comparisons
• the patterns of collective action, individual (creating groups) and organizational (groups cooperating)
• UP-Hub is more likely to be able to do "organizational collective action", but bad at individual
• A-Net is more likely to be able to do "individual collective action", but bad at organizational
• the state reinforces these differences, but in a way that depends on the time period we are talking about (ISI government versus neoliberal government)
• nature of the relationship between popular organizations and the state
• close, extensive relations in UP-Hub
• slightly more arms length, but increasingly more institutionalized linkages as time passes
•  Logics of collective action
• Resources
• unions need lots of resources, since the strike is their main form of action (66-7)
• membership becomes formalized in order to gather resources
• means there are high barriers to form a union, but once one exists its easier to have organizational collective action (68)
• popular associations are usually resource poor, have trouble holding on to members since the cost of exit is low, but also don't need to coerce members usually (not sure I believe this...when they need members, they need them!)
• easier to form associations, but harder to have collective action because it's expensive (68)
• same relationship holds true in having a convergence of interests
• unions are hard to create consensus, but easier to have organizational collective action because issues are similar
• associations can gather people to work on a project, but its not easy to get cross-organizational action
• the effect of demands (types) on collective action is ambiguous
• 
  

Dinerstein 2010

Dinerstein, Ana Cecilia. 2010. "Autonomy in Latin America: between resistance and integration. Echoes from the Piqueteros experience". Community Development Journal. 45 (3): 356-366.

• Intro:
• new social movements have been reluctant to allow traditional left ideologies to frame their movements
• there is a contradiction in the way movemetns are depicted, either they are
• basis of wider collective action, changing the world without taking power (Holloway 2002), or
• dismissed as contributing to the problem of the World Banks efforts to reduce the role of the state and re-frame social policies in neoliberal terms (357)
• Argument: this is a false dilemma: autonomy from state, market is contested
• focus: how unemployed in Argentina navigated the tension between resistance and integration (357-358)
• focus is on Unemployed Workers' Unions (UTD)
• they maintain autonomy and independence from all political and labor organizations (358)
• created by a group of highly skilled ex-YPF workers
• had become a quasi-city council
• funded by money from state programs, by fighting for re-appropriation of these monies from the state, by mobilizing and receiving social spending (359)
• roadblocks
• State has tried to depoliticize the UTD and other organizations
• early on repression of roadblocks, now simply consistence harassment by the police against the UTD (360)
• government trying to force UTD to become an NGO
• UTD has become the bargainer for workers employed under social programs (361)
• UTD's strategy avoids identification with political power, but gets the state to comply through resistance
• importantly: has no connections to parties or labor unions
• creating new forms of solidarity among the unemployd (362)
• fights back against paternalism
• Downsides:
• women are the majority of members, but aren't in leadership
• has some personalism in leadership
• UTD is in danger of simply replacing politicians as head of client-patron relationship (363)
• also these groups have had trouble moving beyond their local context
• Conclusion
• important difference between accepting the state's invitation tto join social policies and inviting the state to accept their demands for social policy

Garay 2007

Garay, Candelaria. 2007. "Social Policy and Collective Action: Unemployed Workers, Community Associations, and Protest in Argentina". Politics & Society. 35 (2): 301-328.

• Introduction
•  unemployed and informal workers have traditionally been marginalized by labor unions, as they are a threat to formal workers (301)
• but in the 2000s the unemployed in Argentina engaged in an impressive amount of collective action (302)
• and political leaders began to want to integrate these groups into partisan politics
• Argument:  that Plan Trabajar, a national workfare program created in 1996, encouraged collective action among unemployed and informal poor workers (303), because it
• had a short supply of benefits relative to demand
• lack of clear rules to define beneficiaries
• funds were administered to community organizations
• The state responded to protests with more workfare provisions, which in turn brought on more protest!
• Challenges to Popular-Sector Collective Action (Lit Review)
• more informal employment, heterogeneity in people made organization difficult (304)
• belief that most social programs reduced collective action
• despite problem-solving groups being formed, most scholars thought these groups just got pulled into clientelistic networks (305)
• Explaining Collective Action: A Policy Centered Approach
• many of the collective identities of these unemployed only arose after or during protest of policy and state responses
• policies can generate new groups, coalitions, and/or constituencies in, around, and in response to these policies
• this is especially true if policies give money to organizations to disburse, as opposed to state disbursing them directly (306)
• Argument: the program design of Plan Trabajar favored the creation of collective action
• Program Design and Collective Action
• low supply of benefits + no transparency = grievances (306)
• funds disbursed to groups = creation of new collective organizations, and thus identities (307)
• some groups even disbursed benefits based on who showed up to protest
• horizontal linkages between these new groups also sprung up because divided they would lose benefits to more powerful, pre-existing client-machines
• State Responses to Collective action
• repression/confrontation backfired (thanks to democratic context) (308)
• negotiation
• this at first led to more protest, but eventually led to less
• unemployed groups become actors in negotiation with the state, not protesters demanding access
• Protests started before 2001, and by mid-1998 two of these unemployed groups had formed alliances with unions CTA and CCC (311)
• 2000 saw some austerity, limiting number of people who received Plan Trabajar benefits
• new associations emerged from this
• many new and old associations began coordinated nationwide protest (313)
• Duhalde increased beneficiaries despite crisis (313)
• created formal and informal negotiation spaces between state and unemployed
• broader access to benefits meant unemployed groups multiplied, but also fragmented the movement
• Effects of Collective Action
• redefined social policy
• coverage has expanded (314)
• get money instead of a basket of goods
• now you get it until you get a job
• national state came to control this budget and decision on disbursement of these funds 
• but the program seems unable to lift people out of poverty
• changed modes of interest mediation between popular sectors and the state
•  duh, new movement! (315)
• some groups community based, large
• other groups led by social militants
• still others organized from the top down (clientelistic?)
• challenged partisan machines
• popular organizations now have greater access to state resources, as opposed to trying to get them through machines (317)
• reversed normal distance between labor union and unemployed (see CTA alliance)
• created linkages between parties and unemployed groups
• PJ has gotten access to these unemployed, undermining Left parties (318)
• Kirchner tried to get these groups to be his popular sector support (successfully)
• Comparative Context
• Goes against lit, shows that in certain ways policies to alleviate poverty can cause protest, collective action, and increase in social spending (318-320)
• this is happening a bit in Brazil, too (319-320)
• these unemployed groups count as reconfiguration of the PJ (321)