McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001

McAdam, D., Tarrow, S. G, & Tilly, C. 2001. Dynamics of contention. New York: Cambridge University Press.


Chapter 1:

• contentious politics: episodic, public, collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects when (a) at least one government is a claimant, and object of claims, or a party to the claims, and (b) the claims would, if resolved, affect the interests of as least one of the claimants  (5)
• episodic is key to this being contentious politics, and not just "normal" politics
• this definition is broad to combat the fact that the study of institutional/non-institutional politics has gotten too narrow, and often politics (contentious or otherwise) can go in and out of institutional realm (6)
• contained versus transgressive contention: (govt is involved in both in some way)
• contained contention
• cases of contention in which all parties are previously established actors employing established means of claim making (7)
• transgressive contention:
• at least some of the actors involved are newly self-identified political actors AND/OR at least some parties employ innovative collective action (7-8)
• "many instances of transgressive contention grow out of episodes of contained contention" (8)
• "substantial short-term political and social change more often emerges from transgressive contention than from contained contention", contained contention often just reifies existing regimes (8)
• "insted of seeking to identify necessary and sufficient conditions for mobilization, action, or certain trajectories, we search out recurrent causal mechanisms and regularities in their concatenation (13)
• seem to be looking for similarities across different cases
• pursuing "partial parallels" (13-14)
• four overlapping and competing lines fof explanation of contention (20)
• (21) structural analysis -- interests + capacities = action or not
• rationalist analysis -- individuals are rational and decide
• phenomenological analysis -- plumbing states of awareness for explanations of involvement in contentious politics
• cultural approaches -- norms, beliefs, and symbols that affect/create contention
• mechanism: a delimited class of events that alter relations among specifified sets of elements in identical or closely similar ways over a variety of situations (24)
• types:
• environmental mechanisms (25): extnerally generated changes to social conditions, ie resource depletion
• cognitive mechanisms (26): alterations of individual and collective perceptions
•  relational mechanisms (26): alter connections among people, groups, and interpersonal networks
• processes: regular sequences of mechanisms that produce similar transformations (24)
• families of processes:
• mobilizations
• political identity formation
• the family of repression, diffusion, and radicalization (28)
• episodes: continuous streams of contention including collective claims-making (24)
• combine all these things above
• 
  

Garay 2011

in Collier and handlin 2011

Focuses on GROUPS and ASSOCIATIONS, not people/participants

·         Union-linked associations are more likely to coordinate with other associations (262, )

o   Meaning associations linked to unions in Arg and Chile tend to be central in mobilizing associations and creating linkages across them

·         Party association linkages

o   Parties see these associations as possible electoral support (262,)

o   Associations tend to seek issue-based interactions with parties, meaning associations try to get things from parties

§  Arg and chile associatiosn support parties, peru supports candidates, and venzuela is multifaceted

·         Associations tend to not have links with corp unions, more with social movement orgs like CTA, and often (in Peru, Chile, and Arg) with public sectors unions (267)

·         Union connection makes little to no difference on the use of state resources, though union-linked associations are more likely to gain access to state resources (271-272)

·         Popular assocaitions and political parties:

o   Parties seek help during elections (276)

o   Associations have three types of connections, issue-based (one issue), candidate based (connected to candidate) or multifaceted (work with a party in multiple was in multiple arenas) (276-280) countries see a mix of these (278)

o   Overall suggests assocaitions weakness to clientelism MAY be overstated (I don’t buy it)

·         Arg and Chile show some continuity between old and new interest regimes (288)

Palomino 2005

• Introduction:
• social movements existed before 2001, came from the social de-structuring brought on by neoliberalism, not by the crisis of 2001 (20)
• The construction of the social ties of the movements
• the context
• the 1990s saw increased precarity in teh popular classes, but also reached up to the middle classes, who became the "new poor" (20)
• early demands of teh movements were about necessities of subsistence
• the barter clubs and big flea markets in the BA acted as a way to link the middle and lower classes, as everyone shopped there (21)
• origins of the movements also came from the erosion of social integration policies, like retirement, current retirees were "sacrificied" to create new privatized systems
• many of the movements were attempts for the disconnected members of society to make social and labor demands
• but they did so as they also experimented with new ways of organizing themselves! (21-22)
• the cycles of protest and the crisis of the neoliberal model
•  first rounds of protest, in the interior mostly, against the negative outcomes of adjustment (22)
• second round of protest comes in when the promises of the adjustment aren't borne out
• often attached to previous human rights movements
• but included piquteros and workers who were recupterating closed businesses
• crisis was a big third cycle, with asambleas barriales joining other movements
• also, the breakdown of national political institutions allowed for new forms of political represenation, like direct democracy in neighbrohood assemblies (23)
• the movements created conditions for the development of new forms of social integration
• CTA very involved in this, became an umbrella group as they welcomed in groups of informal workers, unemployed, and social movements
• the implementation or new values
• one common charatersistic of the new movements in their focus on organizational form and governance, as well as organizational norms (23)
• their openness was a response to tradiational movements, that often ended up as clientelistic groups (24)
• list of autonomy goals, including from the state, from hierarchy, etc.
• but there were differences, too
• piqueteros relied on the state to privde for them, even as they protested the state
• piqueteros had minor demands (subsistence) but did major actions (blocked roads)
• asambleas barriales had major demands (reform democracy) but did minor actions (local soup kitchens, job posting in neighborhoods, etc)
• the workers in recuperated plants, despite being a small minority, showed that they could have a major affect on the discussion of work at the national level (25)
•  new identities are being created, not just revitalizing old ones
• it is possible that these movements' future depends on changing the whole of society, but it is also not necessary to think that these movements need to make obvious change, but could think of changing the minds of the people rather than gaining political power
• Autogestion and social economy
• two parts of autogestión: (26)
• a dimension of public ownership but not state-ownership
• solidarity and reciprocity, not a market relationship, as the basis of work
• an attempt to fix the situations which liberal economics cannot fix, like the high open unemployment
• authors admit is it a bit utopian, but for those facing unemployment it seems like it could work, and certianly work better than waiting on a state/economy that can't provide for them (27)
• The movement of workers in recuperated businesses
• Intro:
• started by workers with little other option for work (28)
• challenges private property rights and traditional division between capitalist and worker
• these actually started in the late 1990s, but this looks at 2002 and after
• Diversity of the movement
• most of the closings preceded by breaking contracts, lowering wages, etc (29)
• not all workers want to be part of the movement, but they all want the recuperated factory to stay open (31)
• but there is usually a nucleus that seeks out, forms connections with other factories, movements, and the neighborhood
• after December 2001 recuperadas got the help of piqueteros and asambleas barriales (32)
• at first unions had varied responses, some helped, some were passive, some sided with employers (32)
• but eventually as the movement grew, all the big unions at least started talking about adding these groups to their organizations
• employer groups have (to 2005) been pretty silent about these things (33)
• but the threat of recuperating a business that might close has been a bargaining tool for workers
• the universe of recuperated businesses
• some have been recuperated, some are headed there, and others have been fighting to recuperate (34)
• legally workers in a cooperative are redefined and need to remake ties with union, even if union is involved in recuperation of a business
• about 98 (see page 34-35 for some numbers, breakdown of biz)
• these are esepcially powerful because they make the strike weapon stronger, in that bankruptcy is not necessarily a bad thing for the workers, so the company can't threaten it (36)
• The conflicts that precede recuperation
• three phases: conflict between workers and management, takeover, and either reopening or ensuring continuation of business (37)
• first thing to usually go is payment of salaries
• call of creditors to close the business tends to radicalize workers
• before  takeover, demands in labor courts are about back wages, after demands are more genreally about the owners ability to run the firm (38)
• sometimes workers are able to generalize their demands, get help from lots of different (other0 social movements (39)
• "lucha, resistencia, solidaridad" is the motto
•  The role of unions
• individual supporters came out with these recuperated enterprises... (40)
• but only one union immediately offered institutional support (the cnfiteros, pasteleros, pizzeros, alfajoreros, y afines)
• most swung between ambiguity and abandoning these locals
• two studies cases:
• in Rosario a union struggled against the closing of a supermarket, helped create a community market in its place
• UOM was against one at IMPA, but some dissidents helped make it happen (40-41)
• but some uniosn abandoned their locals, and we see traditional uniosn relying on old tactics when faced with something news (41)
• but without unions workers find themselves with only weak and fragile access to social services, as thse services are often teh basis of their union identity (42)
• Some legal aspects
• 42-44
• How it all works
• to get supplies, workers suggest old owner defaulted, but they won't, or seeks solidarity loans from other groups (44)
• the key is whether their clients stick around or not (44-45)
• sometimes other groups, movements, or parties help supply startup funding (45)
• usually these businesses end up running below their total possible production, do just in time of day-order work, because they can't find workers, workers work slower, or can't find clients for their products
• most of the money is spent mostly trying to keep production going, meaning wages tend to be at a subsistence level, meaning its hard to find new workers (46)
• workers are paid using what the company has made, and usually only weekly, meaning workers sometimes have to carry debt from week to week
• skilled workers are not paid more (47)
• workers try lots of new forms of organization, often very democratic ones see page 48-49
• New identities
• still tend to define themselves as workers (49)
• but at the same time, there is also a belief that there is something different, that new employees need a "education" on cooperatives and that they should be connected to larger society as well (50)
• paternal practices of old boss are replaced by a "family relation" among cooperative workers
• these are examples of CREATED collective identity, both between workers and between businesses and community (51)

Benclowicz 2011

Benclowicz, José. 2011. "Continuities, Scope, and Limitations of the Argentine Piquetero Movement". Latin American Perspectives. 38 (1): 74-87.

• Introduction
• looking at Tartagal and Mosconi in Salta province (74)
• piquetero movement became the reference point for the area's working class, even displacing official unions
• Piquetes, workers, and the unemployed
• despite the fact that piqeuteros came fro many different classes, the term became closely identified with the unemployed movements (76)
• Three types of groups
• autonomous groups such as the UTD
• those connected with left-wing parties, such as the CTD, and MTL
• those linked to unions, like the FTV
• but also interlocking groups
• CCC is a workers and unemployed group with ties to communist party
• Leaders and Followers
• UTD (Mosconi)
• started in 1996 by an ex-YPF union militant (77)
• started presenting its own initiatives to the municipal government, and took controla of social assistance programs after a big roadblock in 1999
• questioned for allowing one of its memebrs to be part of governmet (78)
• CTD (Tartagal) created and led by a Polo Obrero leader (77)
• gained control of planes trabajar in 2000 (78)
•  this created distance between leaders and rank and file
• Simliarities
• leaders were usually ex state employees with union experience
• grassroots components were usually unemployed without much union experience
• "government wouldn't listen, so we block the roads"
• Piquetero Associations as union-social organizations
• these groups took over militant functions, like demanding wage increase on public works,  not taken up by the official unions (81)
• eventually some of the piquetero groups gained control of hiring on public projects, which is a big change from normal capitalist relations
• employers had to start negotiating with piqutero organizations to get labor (82)
• the official unions were subordinated to political power, so by gaining power on their own piquetero organizations usually forced unions out of the way, took the place they should have had
• Coordination
• UTD and CTD convened congress in 2000, set seven demands (including control of hiring, wage levels, set level of plaes funds, etc) (82-83)
• activists and leaders suffered harsh repression in June 2001 (83)
• The Coordination became a nucleus for the regrouping of unemployed and the labor movement allowed for joint actions, before it was crushed in summer of 2001
• meaning this movement seemed to present a real threat to the social and poltiical order...
• but failed to transcend in regional definition, and thus unable to survive state repression (84)

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)

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?
• 
  

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)

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)

Cochabamba 2004

Olivera, Oscar, and Tom Lewis. 2004. Cochabamba!: water war in Bolivia. Cambridge, Mass: South End Press.


Oscar Oliveira  "Privatization" 7-24

• (11-12) "we were--and still are--tremendously worried by the fact that the Bolivian government evidently prefers to follow the dictates of the World Bank instead of taking into account what the population views as in its best interests"
• disconnenct between government and people, either in reality or in perception..."why don't they (the government" listen to us, help us??
• (14) describes selling mineral rights as "stripped of our material inheritance"
• (15) external debt was contacted "undemocratically--in our name, but without our consent"...and now Bolivia is hostage to its external debt, resulting in terrible conditions for the people
• (16) external debt is "a complete loss of sovereignty

Oscar Oliveira "Organizing" 24-32

• (27 28) offered office of the union for the Coordinaria en Defensa del Agua y de la Vida
•  a group formed by the union and a previous civil society org. interested in water issues (27)
• the Coordinaria spoke in the name of the people who felt ignored (28)
• hoped that the water issue would unite disparate factions, urban and country, etc etc, and it worked (30)
• in one protest Oliveira and Morales snared traffic, busted windows, were repressed by police when government promised (and failed to show up to) negotiations (31)

Raul Gutiérrez-Aguilar 2004 "The Coordinaria: One Year after the Water War" (53-64)

• the coordinaria movement differed from trade-union movements in the past in that it focused on basic, universal needs, not just individual proposals (55)
• the coordinaria used assembly-style poolitics, not internal institutions (56)
•  the coordinaria assembly became a place for other civil groups to discuss with each other more specfici problems, neighborhood to neighborhood, as well as a mass-mobilizing movement
• the coordinaria has had toruble in times of calm due to "the atomized society" and stretching of the social farbic by neoliberalism (58) -- people are lazy
• coordinaria hopes to poltiicize the people, and the working class, who have been under-political since the demise of the trade unions (64)

 
Álvaro García Linera 2004 "The 'Multitude'" 65-86

• 
  
• idea that unoins are being replaced by political parties as the means of negotiation between the state and society...is this surprising? (69)
•  this has looked more like clientelism, in this authors view
• "union" form of collective organizing is being replaced (in Bolivia) with the "Multitude" form (70-71)
• since the unified workplace has been diffused (often ino the niehgborhoods and homes), geographic groups and collective action organizations are more important now (71-73)
• Coordinaria members are uniting under an identity created through the struggle, but it is vauge, something like "ordinary working people" (78)  <<The breadth of this identity is an important weakness of it>>
• 
  
•  

Kingstone, Young, Aubrey 2013

Kingstone, Peter, Joseph K. Young, and Rebecca Aubrey. 2013. "Resistance to Privatization: Why Protest Movements Succeed and Fail in Latin America". Latin American Politics and Society. 55 (3): 93-116

• Introduction
• Broad Defense in Peru, coalition of many civil society organizations, was able to block privatization in 2002 (93-94)
• Article focuses on privatization because it fidrectly affest jobs and consumers, and national industries can be symbolic (94)
• Argument: protest tend to succeed under two conditions
• when protesters engage in "brokerage" across multiple sectors of society (94-95)
• (95) protests are most successful when civil rights are protected but political representation is weak
• this model accounts well for failure, but not so well for success...will discuss example of Bolivia and Uruguay to play this out
• Privatization in Latin America
• Privatization can have diffuse and uneven effects, improving the experience of some while decreasing jobs and increasing prices as well (96)
• the perception of corruption can increase hostility to privatization
• this is likely due to or increased by lack of transparency and public scrutiny in these privatizations (97)
• authors identify 104 protest cases in 18 countries between 1990 and 2000
• 25 successfully reversed the sale
• protests were frequent in Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil, though few succeeded in any of these places, and were less frequent but more successful in Costa Rica and Uruguay
• Successful Resistance
• political opportunity
• hypothesis 1: and open civil rights climate is associated with greater likelihood of success for protest (99)
• hypothesis 2: the level of political rights is negatively associated with success of protest movements
• assume that high political representation will result in grievances going through "proper channels"
• brokerage
• occurs when previously unconnected groups cooperate in seeking a common goal
• hypothesis 3: brokerage increases probability of protest success (100)
• alternative explanations
• protest became more frequent and successful later in period as neoliberal project lost steam
• no trend in this direction in data
• certain sectors are more likely to generate protest
• protest were more successful and had more linkages if a public utlity
• but suggest that overall success is high enough that this doesn't really pan out in data either.
• could make argument they're making a molehill out of a mountain here!
• Research Design:  uses a bunch of third party measures (101-103). tests political, economic, and brokerage variables
•  Results
• all hypotheses proven (103), economic variables hard to gauge, and their seem to be some country effects as well (104) (through discussion on 106)
• Democracy, Neoliberalism, and Protest
• the modal case of a successful protest is one where civil rights are protected but political representation is weak enough to demand groups use outside channels (106)
• Bolivian Water War
• 107-109
• privatization of water company done without consultation of the polity (108)
• Earlier protests against privatization had failed, in Cochabamba there was brokerage
• protesters barricaded, took over parts of city when government failed to negotiate
• police leveraged this situation for a pay raise...is this significant to success?
• importantly, the political exclusion of indigenous people led to this successful mobilization (109)
• Protecting ANTEL in Uruguay
• ultimately the protest was channeled through a national plebiscite (109)
• generally the country is seen as politically open, but Elite parties were losing groudn to Frente Amplio at this point
• notes brokerage between PIT-CNT union confedration and the Frente Amplio's civil society org (110)
• does this really count as two civil society orgs?!
• protesters took advantage of national plebiscite rule in Constitution (110-111)
• Conclusions
• privatization, especailly when its done undemocratically, may tap into deeper, already held feelings of political exclusion (111)
• this political exclusion may predate privatization effort, and even neoliberalism for that matter (though likely not the latter)
• high success in Costa Rica and Uruguay occured because of brokerage between CSOs, unions, and political parties (111-112)...protests are eventually channeled into political institutions
• these stand in contrast to Ecuador, Bolivia, and Mexico where protest has taken place almost entirely outside of formal political institutions  (112)

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

Stronk 2013

Webber, Jeffery R., and Barry Carr, eds. 2013. The new Latin American left: cracks in the empire.

"Neoliberal Class Formation(s): The Informal Porletariat and "new" Workers' Organizations in Latin America" Susan Spronk 75-94

• Applies EP Thomspons "class struggle without class" ideas
• notes other authors (murillo 2001) saying that unions just tried to surivive, not fight enoliberalism
• But during the neoliberal period the locus of class struggle has moved out of the factory and into the streets/communities (82)
  partially because many people are employed informally/self-employed
• the focus of class strgugle has shifted from demands over wages to demands for basic subsistence
• piqueteros born of those who weren't represented by traditional unions
• at first hey were very radical, non-hierarchical, etc. etc.
• but then they were coopted by employment plans from Kirchner (except for more radical splinter) (83-84)
• Oscar Olivera and gas war people: start with everyday struggle, get imporved conditions, and then work towards socialism (85)
• but actual gains in both cases have been minimal
• CRITIQUE OF BOTH these organizations arises from an argument about "treating the symptoms versus treating the cause"
• (86-88) plant takeovers in Argentina and Venezuela face issues with government and with (previous) business owners
• but even outside of these issues, cooperativism doesn't undo the bad social relations, it just makes the workers their own bosses
• 
  

Peruzzotti 2005

"Demanding Accountable Government: Citizens, Politicians, and the Perils of Representative Democracy in Argentina" Enrique Peruzzotti, p.229-249

in Levitsky, Steven, and Maria Victoria Murillo. 2005. Argentine democracy: the politics of institutional weakness. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press.

• Introduction
• in the past 20 years a more sophisticated and demanding citizenry has emerged, demanding representation and accountability from Argentine politicians (229-230)
• and important actor was the rise of the human rights movement in response to the dictatorship (230)
• Menem's disregard of demands for greater accountability also spured the citizenry
• Redefinition of Representation
• Argentine citizenry switched from  "authorization" view of representation, which is connected to populism, to demanding accountability of representatives as in liberal democracy (Pitkin 1972) (231)
• populist leaders were given authorization to act in the interests of the people
• now citizens demand politicians be directly accountable
• this pivoted thanks in part to the emergence of the human rights movement in the 1980s and their demands against the military (231-232)
• there is no longer a direct relationship between constituents and representatives...this relationship is mediated by institutions (233)
• this is a change driven by leveling off of high expectations for politicians and a new trust in institutions
• The partial dissolution of captive electorates has led to more fluid and unpredictable electoral behavior (235)
• footnote: the PJ has been able to keep hold of its lower class constituents through clientelism
• The Politics of Social Accountability
• three main actors
• NGOs and advocacy organizations (236-237)
• Social movements (237)
• watchdog journalism (237-238)
• threefold contribution
• signalling to population, "what's happening, why its bad" (238-239)
• social initiatives can activate a network of horizontal agencies of accountability, gets a movement going (239-240)
• establishment of permanent watchdog groups/agencies (240)
• 2001 buildup and Accountability politics
• Alianza promised to renew ties, not be corrupt (241)
• then the Senate scandal (241-242)
•  the scandal cast doubts n the electoral arena as a place where accountability could be found (243)
• the bribes went to the very heart of the state's electoral institutions
• Alianza was slow to respond, and had a tepid response
• this led to electoral protest/null ballots in 2001 (244-245)...
• ...and mobilizations against leaders, que se vayan todos, (245-246)
• and local, representative, unofficial neighborhood "governments" called asambleas sprung up (246-248)
• these eventually ran out of steam in 2002 and most were gone by 2003 (248)
• Conclusion
• shared concern of the quality of democratic institutions connects the politics of social accountability, the cacerolazos (pot banging protests), and the asambleas (249)
• importantly, though, these mobilizations were triggered by the spread of frustration that the government wasn't listening/wasn't accountable

Turner and Cornfield 2007

Turner, Lowell, and Daniel B. Cornfield. 2007. Labor in the New Urban Battlegrounds: Local Solidarity in a Global Economy. Ithaca: ILR Press/Cornell University Press.

Introduction:  Turner

1. urban labor movements, why some work and some don’t
1. agency
2. political opportunity structure
1. institutional openings, and
2. social institutions
2. AFL-CIO and member unions provided half of protesters in Battle for Seattle
1. unprecedented alliance between environmental groups and labor
2. local labor movements spearheaded the drive to get other unions to Seattle
3. Focus on labor-inclusive urban social movements
1. circumstances under which they emerge and are/not sustained
2. relative success
4. Institutional openings:
1. duh
5. Societal context
1. urban environment and social networks
2. identity politics
3. support beyond the workplace
6. opportunity structure in this text is at local/regional level, includes societal shifts (demographics, etc.)
7. ‘frontier towns’ have open opportunity structure, but don’t have same results
1. LA versus Houston
2. ME: probably a few confounding things there, maybe not giving enough credence to right to work?
8. union towns
1. some entrenched unions block societal coalitions
1. NY and Boston
2. others innovate
1. Buffalo and Seattle

Conclusion:  Cornfield

1. this third moment in institutional history of the labor movement as a time to institutionalize the “new strategy for organizing and representing workers that resonates in a structure of opportunity characterized by new work identities and emerging organizational forms of economic production.” (237)
1. first two moments were craft and industrial unionism
2. third is ‘social’, signaled by creation of Change to Win (oops!)
2. focus is on nonunion ‘have-nots’ in the service sector
1. focus here on economic needs
2. AND on identity needs (immigration, sexual orientation, etc.)
3. Urban areas as decisive flashpoints of new union movement/organizing/etc.
1. chief area of services, so where all the service sector workers are!