Abstract
This chapter identifies key features that have characterized (socioeconomic) contention by marginalized groups in Latin American since the late 1970s. First, in some countries, the contentious collective action by grassroots organizations representing marginalized sectors as well as their participation in broader, multi-class protests contributed to the destabilization of authoritarian regimes, even if in a secondary role. Second, during the (contested) negotiation of regime change, marginalized groups generally played no significant role at all. Third, the dual transformation (political democratization and neoliberal restructuring) dramatically changed the structure of collective action among the popular sectors. These changes combined increasing diversity and less emphasis on classical—class-based—popular-sector claims, less hierarchical and centralized forms of organization and decreasing coordination, more emphasis on the local, community or grassroots level as well as on autonomy, self-help and self-organization, and less direct challenges to, and interaction with, the central state. Fourth, the combination of democracy and neoliberal reforms have enabled the emergence of broad anti-neoliberal protest alliances in which organizations and movements of marginalized groups played an important role and that facilitated the election of left-of-center governments in the early 2000s.
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Notes
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While the women who started the Argentine Madres de Plaza de Mayo in response to the forced disappearance of their children were mostly housewives “of working-class origin” (Navarro 1989, p. 249), the overall phenomenon represents “sources of grievances and targets of defiance independently of class- and market-rooted tensions” (Eckstein 1989, p. 27). In line with the broader human rights movement at that time, the Madres’ focus during the time of the military dictatorship was clearly and narrowly on basic civil human rights (or, strictly speaking, specifically on the demand that those who had been detained/had disappeared should reappear alive) and only much later expanded to include broader goals, including aims related to social justice (see Borland 2006; Pereyra 2015).
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Rueschemeyer et al. (1992, p. 213) also mention Peru as a case where “mobilization of urban and rural workers and of urban squatters greatly increased and provided the basis for forceful protests against the military government’s economic policies and for a return to democratic rule.”
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“Following 1987, when political events made a negotiated transition more possible, movement leaders began to re-evaluate their organizations’ strategies and objectives to conform with those of the major opposition parties with which they had ties and to reflect their commitment to democratic stability. The result has been more moderate, institutionalized tactics and goals” (Hipsher 1998, p. 162).
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With a civilian government in power (even if not democratically elected), popular social movements contracted significantly after 1985: This demobilization was jointly driven by political party competition, the turn of social movement activists to participation in national politics, as well as the reduction in support of popular collective action on the part of the Catholic Church (Sandoval 1998, p. 185). As a consequence, “despite the increased opportunities for mobilization, many popular movement organizations opted for collaboration with governmental and party elites, which resulted in a major demobilization” (Sandoval 1998, p. 188). For a quite sobering assessment of Brazil’s CEBs, see also Burdick (1992).
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As Hipsher argues, this trend, on the one hand, corresponded to popular-sector movements’ own strategic reasoning: As popular sectors had “suffered the brunt of repression under dictatorships in Latin America and southern Europe,” this had made “social movements and their members more likely to withhold demands, or to pursue strategies that will not threaten the democratic stability or the interests of authoritarian elites.” On the other hand, the political opportunities for contentious action narrowed considerably with “opposition elites’ decision to accept a limited democracy that, they believed, required protection from destabilizing forces” (Hipsher 1998, pp. 154–155).
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Even if with positive connotations, a prominent study edited by Arturo Escobar and Sonia Alvarez in the early 1990s also observed that since the 1980s, popular mobilization in Latin America has been increasingly characterized by a “mosaic of forms of collective action” and a “rich mosaic of identities” that has led the authors to doubt “whether a single label can encompass them all” (Escobar and Alvarez 1992, p. 2).
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Again, the international context has also played a role in this regard, namely, “a supportive post-cold war international environment characterized by a new global convergence on the promotion of civil society” (Collier and Handlin 2009b, p. 57).
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According to Chalmers et al. (1997, p. 551), the “twin processes” of economic restructuring and democratization, in an immediate sense, reinforced “the ongoing process of decomposition [of the traditional, populist-era structures of popular sector representation] […], as major elite-dominated economic and political changes left the popular sectors more distant and disengaged from political decision-making than they ever had been since the onset of incorporation.” From a long-term perspective, however, “the seeds for a new structure of popular representation were sown even in the midst of a terminal phase of decomposition of old structures.” As Collier and Handlin (2009b, pp. 55–56) add, the shifts in social policies that accompanied both democratization and economic restructuring (partial privatization, reliance on public-private partnerships, and civil society as service providers, decentralization) also contributed to the “rise of associationalism.”
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The “associative networks” that, according to Chalmers et al. (1997), have become the predominant type of popular representation in Latin America (largely replacing the “populist-corporatist” mode of popular sector incorporation) are clearly characterized by rather cooperative and deliberative modes of interaction between societal groups and the state (with a view to jointly shaping public policy in specific issue areas). The authors call this a “strong emphasis on […] cognitive politics, involving debate and discussion of preferences, understandings, and claims, in addition to—and potentially transforming—more conventional bargaining over demands and interests” (Chalmers et al. 1997, p. 567). Furthermore: “Many associative networks create a serious potential for the splintering of political issues—and hence of organizations—into arenas that become disconnected, depoliticized, and narrowly circumscribed” (Chalmers et al. 1997, p. 580). In Chalmers et al.’s analysis, therefore, protest, contentious politics, or social conflict does not figure as a relevant dimension of popular sector representation in times of “associative networks.”
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Almeida and Johnston (2006, p. 15) explicitly note: “Democratization seems to have a ‘lag effect’ on mass contention in the region.”
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This, in particular refers to the reduction in “state violence” (Almeida and Cordero Ulate 2015, p. 4) related to the incapacity of democratic regimes to rely on comprehensive political repression (Eckstein 1989, p. 46; Wolff 2009, pp. 1004–1005). Certainly, the repression of social protest in Latin America has remained an established state response also under democratic regimes, but research does not suggest that political repression, generally speaking, has been an effective means for preventing or quelling protests (see Ortiz 2015; Franklin 2009, 2015). Rather, violent state responses to protests have on many occasions provoked an escalation of protest (see Silva 2009; Wolff 2009).
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In this sense, Kurtz’s above-mentioned analysis of rural areas, which focuses on the cases of Chile and Mexico, has to be qualified by taking into account the experience of indigenous movements in countries such as Bolivia or Ecuador. In Brazil it was possible to observe a roughly similar dynamic, where democratization meant expanding opportunities for the organization and contentious collective action of marginalized sectors in rural areas, namely, with the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) (Bleil and Chabanet 2014; Carter 2010). But, apart from the indigenous movements, the Brazilian MST is really “an exception” to the overall trend; whereas, agrarian protests “were common in Latin America historically,” in recent times, “they have been confined, in the main, to localized uprisings” (Eckstein 2013, p. 84). This is what Wickham-Crowley and Eckstein (2015, pp. 32–34) describe as “cost-of-subsistence protests.”
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According to Eckstein (2013, p. 89), “[u]nder neoliberalism,” urban popular-sector protests in Latin America particularly “focused on anger with government cutbacks in subsidies that drove up the cost of everyday living.” For an overview, and empirical assessment, of the different types of grievances and claims that have characterized social protests and movements against neoliberalism and/or for social rights in Latin America, see Eckstein and Wickham-Crowley (2003) and Johnston and Almeida (2006).
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See also Bellinger and Arce 2011.
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A particularly successful example in this regard concerns one of the traditionally most highly marginalized sectors: the indigenous population. Starting in 1990—that is, well before the leftist turn—indigenous movements in countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador have been able to mobilize significant numbers of indigenous people and by doing so were able to achieve significant victories in terms of recognition (of indigenous peoples and their collective rights), political participation (via their own movement organizations and parties), and socioeconomic improvements (via economic development projects, social programs, and social services) (see Lucero 2012; Van Cott 2005; Yashar 2005; World Bank 2015).
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Wolff, J. (2020). Contention by Marginalized Groups and Political Change in Latin America: An Overview. In: Weipert-Fenner, I., Wolff, J. (eds) Socioeconomic Protests in MENA and Latin America. Middle East Today. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19621-9_7
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