Roberts 2012

• 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
• 
  

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)

Silva 2012

Silva, Eduardo. 2012. "Exchange Rising? Karl Polanyi and Contentious Politics in Contemporary Latin America". Latin American Politics and Society. 54 (3): 1-32.

• Introduction
• organized workers and their capacity for mobilization were a key nonparty political societal source of advocacy and defense of protections [from capitalism in the 20th century]" (1)
• But deindustrialization, privatizaion, deregulation, and business-friendly labor codes debilitated the workplace as the locus from which to organize effective societal countermovement [against neoliberalism]"
• so what now? who will stand up against capitalism?
• Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador suggest that Polanyi's theory may still be useful (2)
• that is, that the circuits of exchange in capitalism, the commodification of labor, land, and money, can be sources of mobilization and resistance
• this article seeks to anchor Polanyi in real events
• thsi article also needs an explanation for how social movements reocgnized the common threat of recommodification and then formed horizontal linkages to fight it (3)
• goes for contentious politics literature, using threat, framing, and brokerage
• this article combines this idea with Poanyi's circuits of exchaage
• NOTE: defnesive reactiosn to recommodification were also mized with identity, organization, and disruptive action, NOR DID LABOR DISAPPEAR FROM THE SCENE
• labor was important before neoliberalism, and likely led the charge against reforms initially, but in many places there is a new "head" organization in current contentious politics, and it tends to not be labor (4)
• Two Sources of Societal Countermovement to Free-Market Captialism: Production and Exchange
• Marx focused on point of production (4-5)
• concentration of workers created shared identities (5)
• large-scale industrial owrkplace provided place for uniosn to organize
• power depended on ability of unions to disrupt production
• Polanyi had a different persepective
• what's important are the attempts to subordinate market economics to SOCIAL RELATIONS
• people demadn some stability and reciprocity, but te market is to volatile to give it to them (6)
• ressistance to free-market (in Polanyi's view) can come from more places than just the industrial proleriat
• Polanyi predicts blacklash against the free-market, McAdam explains the nuts and bolts of how the movements are created (7)
• Market Reforms, National Populism, and Organized Labor
• "National populism was Latin America's version of the social democratic compromise that evolved in Europe during the long 20th century (8)
• a coalition of urban labor, middle classes, and domestic market oriented bourgeoisie, mediated by the state, supported ISI
• labor in Latin America was not as powerful as labor in Europe, which is why they had to rely on a coalition with the middle class and labor-friendly parties (9)
• labor led the popular sectors, most of the others got a decent deal, but not as good as labor (8-9)
• first and second stage structural (neoliberal) reforms intensified the commodification of labor , land, and money
• first stage was liberalizing the economy, shrinking the economic reach of hte state (10)
• second stage extended market logic to education, healthcare, other government services
• labor protested, but was too weakened by reforms to stop them
• Exchange, threat, and Contentious Politics
• new social movements arose from territories, social categories, identity politics because the point of production was no longer a relevant reference (11)
• but they operated alongside class-based groups, ie unions
• Many of the grievances sought by these groups were based around the commodificiation of land, labor, or money (12)
• peasants wanted land reforms, issues that were often intertwined with indigenous identity movements
• downside is that these movements tended to be a bit more heterogeneous that old union movements, since new movements were mobilized around multiple issues, not just at the point of production (like labor of old)
• but the weakness of labor also meant these movemetns had a chance to be of more central importance to the resistance against capitalism
• Argentina
• Unemployed movements showed up first in small towns in the interior (13)
• because they were unemployed, locus of fight was communities, not the workplace
• successful unemployed and underemployed movements in the WOrkers' Party in the late1990s (14)
• piqueteros, asembleas populares also happening
• these community-based movements linked up with the CTA
• the main CGT never hooked up with these movements, was mainly fighting rear-guard actions to control its own downsizing (15)
• Bolivia
• COB national union was powerful in Bolivia, but was massively weakened by privatization of tin mines and radical downsizing of the satate (16)
• coca federations, other peasant groups rose up in their place
• coca sindicatos were targeted for eradication by the US and Bolivian authorities in counternarcotics raids
• the CSUTCB union joined up with the cocaleros, framed the movement as anti-imperialism, neogtiated coca laws with the federal government (17)
• intertwining of material and indigenous culture strengthened the movement
• when the government took on indigenous rights and customs, the movement further consolidated itself and fought off this challenge
• also, water wars (18) and gas wars, demanding water access and use of money from gas mining to benefit the nation
• Ecuador
• urban labor movements mobilized against the reforms, but were weak and easily coopted (19)
• organized indigenous peoples became the main opposition to neoliberalism
• CONAIE, combined movement of highland and lowland indigenous movements, blocked land liberalization
• Exchange and the Repertoire of Contention
• direct action in the form of roadblocks, takeovers, and other disruptions to daily business overtook strikes on production as the most important form of direct action (19-21)
• Exchange and Framing
• exchange-based framing allowed individuals to unite despite the fact that they were in different locations in the structure of production (22)
• neoliberalism became an important frame
• it came to stand for loss of sovereignty to foreign governments, international institutions, and transnational capital
• corruption by government officials and helping foreign creditors and/or foreign banks was framed as theft
• moral indignation rallied people (22-23)
• life became an encompassing frame as well
• neoliberalism became an assault on life
• such big terms, frames allowed groups to make many horizontal linkages, more than just class-based ideas (23)
• (23-24) in Argentina many people experienced unemployment, precarity, or new forms of employment which they attributed to neoliberalism
• many differently situated people recognized themselves as part of the world of work, and saw neoliberal reforms as a worsening of their work lives (24)
• some dissident unions began proclaiming "the neighborhood is the new factory"
• this shifted the center of resistance away fro teh factory and into popular sector neighborhoods
• the demand for state intervention brought in other groups as well, environmentalists, gender, human rights, as they saw the state as the only actor who could protect them from the market
• Conclusions
• in practical matters, this means that movements need to be more broadly cooperative and coordinate with each other (26)
• but it also brings a challenge to the left in Latin America, who will be expected to agglomerate and channel these movements into real political power