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>>
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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)

1/8/14

Why compare Mexico and Argentina?

• The PJ and the PRI were both countries of parties that relied on mass-mobilization of labor
• Both the PJ and the PRI initiated  neoliberal reforms, in a sort of bait-and-switch maneuver
• Both are back in power, the PJ on a leftist bent and the PRI not so much
• Both Mexico and Argentina face an issue of inequality, and groups in both places have initiated resistance against neoliberalism specifically.
• Mexico in some sense has an outlet for unemployed workers, in that the US can be an option (or is at least understood as an option) for employment for Mexicans. Argentina does not quite have such an outlet...one might count Chile, but certainly the Chilean economy does not compare to the US economy in its ability to absorb workers.
• Labor unions in both places have been disarticulated from the labor-based party
• Mexico has competitive elections, while Argentina doesn't really, at this point
• where do the conservatives go? for whom do they vote?

1/6/13

Silva (2012): the old fomr of incorporation is gone, and movements/the popular sector are clamoring for greater incorporation, or reincorporation.

What does incorporation look like?  in Colliers (1991) it tends to start from elites, can be done either through party membership or electoral mobilization.  However, with the Colliers incorporation was due to the decline of the oligarchy.  One could suggest that the neoliberal turn is a similar decline in an oligarchy, but that oligarchy would include organized labor.  But even then, it's less that labor was part of the oligarchy and more than the elites could no longer use the old methods of incorporating labor, and by extension the popular classes.

Is there a need to incorporate the popular classes anymore?  Or does the state simply become something more like a whack-a-mole game.  Always shifting, not programmatic, but also not overwhelming?

What does incororation look like to people on the ground?
Do people feel "politically incorporated" in their everyday lives? What would this even mean?

Popular sectors face the demands of the everyday, and sometimes those demands are great enough that they cannot make do on their own.  The literature has a lot of reasons why a group would create a movement (relative deprivation, grievances, etc etc).  But ostensibly they interact with the government in hopes of improving their outcomes in society.  How do we understand the crusaders versus the coopted?

To what extent is a labor union or popular movement the result of leadership cultivation, and to what extent is it groundswell support?  Organic versus created?

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

Elbert 2010

Elbert, Rodolfo. 2010. "How Do Unions Respond to Nonstandard Work Arrangements? Relations between Core and Non-Core Workers in a Food Processing Factory (Argentina, 2005-2008)". Journal of Workplace Rights. 15 (3): 387-398.

•  Introduction
• Though the working class is increasingly fragmented, in Argentina  workers in formal labor movements are being a bit more militant now (387-388)
• This paper is about a successful case of non-standard and standard workers cooperating to improve the lives of non-standard wokers
• there are grassroots strategies that non-core workers developed in order to obtain the support of core workers (388)
• Nonstandard work arrangements and Union Strategies in the Global South
• labor protests can include both core and non-core workers, and these protests need to be analyzed in light of this fact (389)
• Context of the Factory Case Study:
• K-Foods
• Production
• two main sections, manufacturing and packaging (390)
• some gender division in labor
• Labor relations = conflictual
• workers say management is too demanding
• management says workers are ideologically set against them (391)
• there is more or less explicit competition between teh company and the union for workers' loyalty
• nonstandard work
• most nonstandard workers are not represented by the union
• union politics
• three main groups (392)
• core workers, aligned with national leaders
• core workers who are more militant
• non-core workers seeking solidarity and core jobs
• Core and Non-core workers during two Labor Conflicts
• Campaign against Labor Outsourcing
• there was labor outsourcing at one of the plants, but the union did not fight it until 2005 (393)
• before this the national union did not intitiate a fight, despite favorable conditions
• in 2005 some grassroots organization began with outsourced workers and activists (394)
• core workers showed solidarity, and eventually (2006) these nonstandard workers were hired as core workers
• Temporary workers win permanent contracts
• temp contracts or those hired through agencies (395), NOT outsourced labor
• some of these workers also joined the grassroots group
• these workers eventually blockaded a highway to get their demands (to be core workers, among others) to be met
• when temp workers were sent home, allegedly because their was no work to be done, WHOLE PLANT went on strike (395-396)
• shop floor union and activist group came together, finally, most temp workers got core contracts (396)
• Union Strategies that Confront Nonstandard work Arrangments
• non-croes workers campagins were grassroots
• involved rank and file, despite teh fact that the union rarely did so
• ruthless in the pursuit of the creation of solidarty across core/non-core
• ALL OF THIS CREATED SOLIDARITY, which won the day
• these actiosn reveresed trend of labor fragmentation
• ME: Where's the government in all this?  They blockaded a highway and nothing bad happened?

1/2/14

Roberts (1999, 2003) describes class cleavages without class identities.

Is this related to inequality in the US as well?  Different social circumstances, for sure, but some of the main deep causes and some of the main answers.

Who do I want to study?  What sorts of people should I be paying attention to?

To recognize a change would demand not only that leaders notice the need for this new strategy, but that the base constituents also see the necessity of this mission, no?

What are the impediments to cooperation between these new social movements?

I can study the CTA in Argentina, who has had some contacts and cooperation with the piqueteros, but that cooperation eventually fell apart.  Why?  What sends a movement to go off on its own and not stay with another movement?

Currently many of the issues facing the poor and workers seem based in the ability of capital to travel very easily around the globe.  This creates a context in which capital can flee, and the relative ease of trade has forced local capital to compete with global capital.  Why don’t managers in local companies see their workers/employees as allies in the fight against global competitors?  Similarly, why don’t workers and the unemployed seem themselves as allies against employers, global capital?

One could describe workers and the unemployed as part of the same broad class.  Do workers and the unemployed see themselves as the same class?  Do they see each other as allies? Do union leaders and leaders of the poor see each other as allies or competitors? Why?

Money might be scarce, but are political resources as well?  Can unions actually gain from joining unemployed movements, as opposed to vice versa?  If labor-based parties are moving away from their labor allies, and ostensibly towards some other group (or perhaps just to the media?), should labor start to look towards other groups as allies as well?