Federico M Rossi

ENDORSEMENTS:

--- DONATELLA DELLA PORTA (Centre on Social Movement Studies): “The wave of anti-austerity protest that spread globally in response to exclusionary neoliberal policies in the 2010s had, in Latin American social movements, a major source of inspiration which calls for more scientific reflection. Theoretically original and empirically rich, this volume provides a most valuable contribution in this direction, bridging social movement studies and historical institutionalism, through a critical conceptualization of contentious politics as a relational phenomenon.”

--- KENNETH M. ROBERTS (Cornell University): “Federico M. Rossi’s study of the unemployed workers’ movement in Argentina sheds new light on the patterns of social mobilization that lie behind the political reincorporation of popular sectors following neoliberal reform in Latin America. Rossi explains how historical patterns of class-based corporatist representation have given way to new kinds of social actors, more territorial forms of collective action, and new repertoires of contentious politics. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how Argentina’s piqueteros and other grass-roots actors have reshaped state-society relations and constructed new forms of social citizenship that challenge market orthodoxy.”

--- PAUL D. ALMEDIA (University of California): “The Poor’s Struggle for Political Incorporation provides a refreshing new framework on how popular movements struggle within historical pendulums swaying between social exclusion and institutional access. Focusing on arguably one of the most potent social movements in contemporary Latin America, the unemployed workers’ movement, Rossi passionately demonstrates how economically marginalized groups negotiate the treacherous path toward inclusion through assertive and strategic interactions with the state, political parties, and ossifying corporatist structures. In short, The Poor’s Struggle offers a fascinating new model on how to understand the complex terrain of social movement mobilizations in the age of free market driven globalization.”

REVIEWS:

-- TOMÁS GOLD (JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEM RESEARCH): ‘The main concepts used to construct this macro-historical narrative … makes a remarkable contribution to social movement studies by defining the notions of “repertoire of strategies” and “stock of legacies.” Constructed around blind spots in Charles Tilly’s traditional notion of repertoire, these concepts are presented as crucial means by which to avoid a teleological perspective when looking at reincorporation processes. … By emphasizing the process whereby social movements rely on the sedimentation of past struggles and their results, Rossi manages to dissipate the structuralist foundation of Tilly’s original concept.’

-- JUAN PABLO FERRERO (LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY): ‘This important book makes an original contribution to answering the fundamental question of how we can understand the relationship between processes of mobiliza¬tion and sociopolitical change. While the author studies this relationship in the con¬text of Argentina, its lessons also apply to other Latin American countries.’

-- CYNTHIA WILLIAMS (MOBILIZATION): ‘Rossi’s book provides an excellent and detailed account of Argentina’s piquetero movement, and is recommended for any scholar or individual interested in Argentina’s recent political history. The work and analysis that went into sketching out each stage of the movement is extraordinary and interesting, and provides an example of a successful poor people’s movement … The consideration of the historical roots of strategies is appreciated and needed in social movement literature.’

-- SAM HALVORSEN (ANTIPODE: A RADICAL JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY): ‘The Poor’s Struggle for Political Incorporation is a landmark text for those studying social movements in Latin America. It revisits and updates Collier and Collier’s (1991) classic study of the incorporation of labour movements by the state and parties in the mid 20th century … Rossi argues that early 21st century Latin America witnessed a second wave of incorporation following the disincorporation of labour movements under neoliberal regimes. Of key interest to geographers is Rossi’s argument that this second wave was primarily territorially based, rather than a labour based process.’

-- RAY BROMLEY (LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES): ‘Rossi’s monograph is of considerable interest, providing a large body of information on political organization and social mobilization … emphasizing how important political mobilization against neoliberal policies was in securing some limited but broad-based government services and income transfers to retirees, the unemployed, and low-income households.’

-- LORENZA FONTANA (INTERNATIONAL SOCIOLOGY): ‘One of this book’s main values, therefore, is its refreshing elements of theoretical innovation, which appear to be widely applicable beyond a specific case study. The non-teleological or normative perspective on incorporation is an effective framework for analysing contemporary Latin American macropolitical shifts. At the same time, the concepts of the repertoire of strategies and stock of legacies offer concrete tools that scholars of contentious politics, even beyond Latin America, will find useful in their own work. Another merit of the book is that it refrains from reading the Argentine case through the often-abused lenses of exceptionalism, instead situating the Piquetero movement in the context of broader transformations and macroprocesses of sociopolitical change.’

-- PABLO LAPEGNA (SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES): ‘I would recommend this book to anyone interested in one of the more vibrant and influential movements in recent Latin American politics, and to scholars seeking to understand the complex relationship between social movements, political actors, social policies, and the incorporation of marginalized actors into the political process.’

--- BOOK DESCRIPTION:

How has the sociopolitical arena expanded to include the interests of the poor and the excluded strata of society? Putting poor people's movements into the long-term perspective of societal transformations produced by neoliberalism, this books studies unemployed people's struggle for their reincorporation into society as citizens and workers in Argentina.

--- ABSTRACT:

This book offers an innovative perspective on the ever-widening gap between the poor and the state in Latin American politics. It presents a comprehensive analysis of the main social movement that mobilized the poor and unemployed people of Argentina to end neoliberalism and to attain incorporation into a more inclusive and equal society. The piquetero (picketer) movement is the largest movement of unemployed people in the world. This movement has transformed Argentine politics to the extent of becoming part of the governing coalition for more than a decade. Rossi argues that the movement has been part of a long-term struggle by the poor for socio-political participation in the polity after having been excluded by authoritarian regimes and neoliberal reforms. He conceptualizes this process as a wave of incorporation, exploring the characteristics of this major redefinition of politics in Latin America.

Market affirming economic, social, and political reforms in the last quarter of the 20th century reopened the "social question" in Latin America as expanding waves of popular sectors resistance to their exclusionary effects gripped the region. The resurgence of the left pushed the issue to the forefront. How were politically activated popular sectors to be reincorporated in the political arena? Following Rossi´s approach elaborated in The Poor´s Struggle for Political Incorporation (Cambridge University Press), this volume examines the question of the role played in the second wave of incorporation by political parties, trade unions and social movements in five paradigmatic cases: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The book analyzes the various forms of incorporation and posits the emergence of different types of popular sector interest intermediation between state and society.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1.
Introduction: Reshaping the Political Arena in Latin America
Federico M. Rossi and Eduardo Silva

PART I: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Chapter 2.
Introduction to Part I: Social Movements and the Second Wave of
(Territorial) Incorporation in Latin America
Federico M. Rossi

Chapter 3.
Social Movements and the Second Incorporation in Bolivia
and Ecuador
Eduardo Silva

Chapter 4.
The Incorporation of Popular Sectors and Social Movements in Venezuelan
Twenty-First-Century Socialism
María Pilar García-Guadilla

Chapter 5.
Social Movements, the New “Social Question,” and the Second Incorporation
of the Popular Sectors in Argentina and Brazil
Federico M. Rossi
PART II: TRADE UNIONS

Chapter 6.
Introduction to Part II: Labor Unions in Latin America: Incorporation and
Reincorporation under the New Left
Ruth Berins Collier

Chapter 7.
Socialism without Workers? Trade Unions and the New Left in Bolivia
and Ecuador
Jorge León Trujillo and Susan Spronk

Chapter 8.
Conflicting Currents within the Pro-Chávez Labor Movement and
the Dynamics of Decision Making
Steve Ellner

Chapter 9.
The Labor Movement and the Erosion of Neoliberal Hegemony:
Brazil and Argentina
Julián Gindin and Adalberto Cardoso

PART III: POLITICAL PARTIES

Chapter 10. Introduction to Part III: Political Parties in Latin America’s
Second Wave of Incorporation
Kenneth M. Roberts

Chapter 11. From Movements to Governments: Comparing Bolivia’s MAS
and Ecuador’s PAIS
Catherine Conaghan

Chapter 12. The Second Wave of Incorporation and Political Parties in
the Venezuelan Petrostate
Daniel Hellinger

Chapter 13. The Politics of Incorporation: Party Systems, Political Leaders,
and the State in Argentina and Brazil
Pierre Ostiguy and Aaron Schneider

CONCLUSION

Chapter 14. Conclusion: Reflections on the Second Wave of Popular
Incorporation for a Post-Neoliberal Era
Eduardo Silva

¿Qué activa políticamente con más frecuencia a los jóvenes en la actualidad? ¿Cómo participan los jóvenes hoy? ¿Existe algún tipo de organización que los atraiga más? La condición juvenil contemporánea obliga a una redefinición de nuestro entendimiento sobre las formas de participación política. Desde la inclusión de mujeres jóvenes en la estructura internacional de la YWCA hasta la participación en una sociedad rural de clanes en Papúa Nueva Guinea, este libro estudia la complejidad que subyace a las causas de la activación política y las formas de participación que en la actualidad despliegan las juventudes. El autor presenta un análisis de las dimensiones individuales, organizacionales y societales de la participación política de los jóvenes en estudios de casos micro y macro con el fin de encontrar patrones comunes que ayuden a su comprensión teórica y a la generación de políticas públicas. Sin perder rigor académico, se presenta un análisis de las nuevas formas y espacios de participación de, para y con jóvenes en un lenguaje claro para el público no especializado.

DOCUMENTOS ADJUNTOS:

1. Reseña en Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad Cátólica del Uruguay (volumen 2, año 2, 2011).

2. Reseña en Revista Mexicana de Sociología (año 72, número 4, 2010).

3. Fe de erratas de páginas 63 y 99.

4. Tapa y contrapa del libro.

"How to understand political and social transformation in Latin American politics after the arrival of left-wing governments? And what has been the role of movements of the poor in effecting those transformations? These are the two main questions that guide the work of Federico Rossi in this book, and they are addressed through analysis of the role of the piquetero (picketer) movement in the key transformations of the social and political arena in Argentina over the last 25 years. The analysis spans three large sections: a theoretical proposal regarding the repertoires of social movements, empirical analysis of the piqueteros, and a preliminary comparison of the Argentine case with Bolivian and Brazilian processes." Carolina Cepeda Másmela, Journal of Latin American Studies

"La obra de Federico Rossi muestra en profundidad el desarrollo y activación del movimiento piquetero en Argentina y cómo su impacto supuso un proceso de incorporación de un sector social antes excluido en el régimen político argentino, y lo compara con otras movilizaciones acontecidas en otros países de la región." Salvador Martí i Puig, Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals

'Federico M. Rossi’s The Poor’s Struggle for Political Incorporation: The Piquetero Movement in Argentina is an ambitious, creative, and significant piece of scholarship, particularly because of its theoretical and empirical contributions.' Anthony Pahnke, Perspectives on Politics

'El libro de Federico Rossi da cuenta del movimiento de desempleados más importante de América Latina de fines del siglo xx y de las movilizaciones que impulsó desde su creación hasta el primer lustro del xxi, cuando se convirtió en un interlocutor fundamental del gobierno peronista de Néstor Kirchner. Sin embargo, el libro de Rossi no es “un libro más” sobre el fenómeno piquetero. La pretensión de la obra reseñada no se limita a estudiar en profundidad un movimiento, ni establecer un diálogo con los teóricos de la acción colectiva, sino que va mucho más allá. (…)El resultado es un libro de referencia que recomiendo a todos aquellos que quieran ahondar tanto en el estudio de los movimientos sociales como en los procesos históricos de transformación de regímenes. En definitiva, se trata de una pieza de orfebrería académica que deseo que pronto sea traducida al castellano.' Salvador Martí i Puig - América Latina Hoy

‘This is an impressive book that will appeal to scholars interested in great political transformations in Latin America and wherever else socioeconomic and political exclusion might generate movements and struggles for rights and citizenship.’ Renata Motta, Contemporary Sociology

‘I would recommend this book to anyone interested in one of the more vibrant and influential movements in recent Latin American politics, and to scholars seeking to understand the complex relationship between social movements, political actors, social policies, and the incorporation of marginalized actors into the political process.’ Pablo Lapegna, Social Movement Studies

‘One of this book’s main values, therefore, is its refreshing elements of theoretical innovation, which appear to be widely applicable beyond a specific case study. The non-teleological or normative perspective on incorporation is an effective framework for analysing contemporary Latin American macropolitical shifts. At the same time, the concepts of the repertoire of strategies and stock of legacies offer concrete tools that scholars of contentious politics, even beyond Latin America, will find useful in their own work. Another merit of the book is that it refrains from reading the Argentine case through the often-abused lenses of exceptionalism, instead situating the Piquetero movement in the context of broader transformations and macroprocesses of sociopolitical change.’ Lorenza Fontana, International Sociology

‘This important book makes an original contribution to answering the fundamental question of how we can understand the relationship between processes of mobilization and sociopolitical change. While the author studies this relationship in the context of Argentina, its lessons also apply to other Latin American countries.’ Juan Pablo Ferrero, Latin American Politics and Society

'Rossi’s book provides an excellent and detailed account of Argentina’s piquetero movement, and is recommended for any scholar or individual interested in Argentina’s recent political history. The work and analysis that went into sketching out each stage of the movement is extraordinary and interesting, and provides an example of a successful poor people’s movement … The consideration of the historical roots of strategies is appreciated and needed in social movement literature.' Cynthia Williams, Mobilization

‘The Poor’s Struggle for Political Incorporation is a landmark text for those studying social movements in Latin America. It revisits and updates Collier and Collier’s (1991) classic study of the incorporation of labour movements by the state and parties in the mid 20th century … Rossi argues that early 21st century Latin America witnessed a second wave of incorporation following the disincorporation of labour movements under neoliberal regimes. Of key interest to geographers is Rossi’s argument that this second wave was primarily territorially based, rather than a labour based process.’ Sam Halvorsen, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography

'El aporte del libro de Federico Rossi se observa, a mi juicio, en la recuperación de un esquema analítico que resultó muy pertinente para pensar los procesos sociopolíticos de las sociedades latinoamericanas en la década de 1940, que dieron por resultado dispares procesos de incorporación social y política de las clases trabajadoras. Las olas de incorporación —dice Rossi— representan grandes y prolongados procesos históricos de lucha entre grupos socioeconómicos y políticos por la expansión o reducción de la arena política. Reapropiándose del modelo de R. Collier y D. Collier, el libro se propone analizar una segunda ola de incorporación de los sectores populares a largo de los últimos quince años, como contracara de las sociedades excluyentes que se forjaron en la región al calor de la implementación de sucesivas reformas de mercado.' Sebastián Pereyra, Revista de la SAAP

‘The main concepts used to construct this macro-historical narrative … makes a remarkable contribution to social movement studies by defining the notions of 'repertoire of strategies' and 'stock of legacies'. Constructed around blind spots in Charles Tilly’s traditional notion of repertoire, these concepts are presented as crucial means by which to avoid a teleological perspective when looking at re-incorporation processes. … By emphasizing the process whereby social movements rely on the sedimentation of past struggles and their results, Rossi manages to dissipate the structuralist foundation of Tilly’s original concept.’ Tomás Gold, Journal of World-System Research

'Rossi’s monograph is of considerable interest, providing a large body of information on political organization and social mobilization. Its conclusions parallel those of other researchers whose work is included in this issue of Latin American Perspectives, emphasizing how important political mobilization against neoliberal policies was in securing some limited but broad-based government services and income transfers to retirees, the unemployed, and low-income households.' Ray Bromley, Latin American Perspectives

El proceso histórico en el que se inserta el movimiento piquetero y su disputa política es uno de lucha por la reincorporación sociopolítica de los sectores populares. Este enfoque nos lleva a insertar el movimiento piquetero en una mirada macrohistórica del rol de los sectores populares organizados en la política, reconectando así el capitalismo –y su funcionamiento cíclico– con las luchas sociales en una propuesta de economía política de los movimientos sociales. Reflexiones acerca del artículo de Juan Carlos Torre en Desarrollo Económico.

The territorialisation of politics is a crucial transformation in state-society relations that has implications on how contemporary politics works. Defined here as the dispute for the physical control of space, be it a municipality, province or portion of land, within one or more politically constituted entities. It does not mean the emergence of a new regime type, but the process through which the territory re-emerges as a new cleavage after neoliberal reforms and authoritarian regimes have weakened/dissolved neo-corporatist arrangements for the resolution of socio-political conflicts in society. It is a cleavage because central political divisions are produced as a result of the physical encounter of or distance between political actors and of the dispute for the control of a territory for sociopolitical goals and causes that are not always territorially defined. Departing from this definition, I also raise potential explanatory hypotheses for the transformations that favoured this transformation in Argentina.

The article reveals and explains the workings of generally ignored mechanism of state-movement interaction proposed by Charles Tilly, namely the compulsion mechanism. Specifically, two types of compulsion mechanisms will be defined: compulsive support and compulsive control. In both types, without using physical repression, the state's institutions reinforce the movement's identity while also prompting it to adapt its repertoire of strategies to the state institutions' requirements. Empirically, this article focuses on the interaction of the assembly movement with the state in the City of Buenos Aires. This movement emerged as a result of the socioeconomic and political crises of 2001-2002 in Argentina. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, the purpose is to unpack how the assembly movement's identities and strategies were built and how its interaction with the state evolved.

Between 1996 and 2009, a process of struggle for and (after 2002) partial achievement of the second incorporation of the popular sectors took place in Argentina. This process involved a combination of routine and contentious political dynamics that reformulated state-society relations in the postcorporatist period. As a continuation of the first incorporation (1943–55), the second incorporation displayed some similar features; other attributes were specific to this second process, mainly that it was not corporatist but territorial and that the central agents of transformation were not trade unions but the disincorporated popular sectors, which were territorially organized into a “reincorporation movement.” This article conceptualizes these dynamics and analyzes the role played by the main political actor related to this historical process, the piquetero (picketer) movement.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Argentina suffered one of the quickest and most extreme processes of neoliberal state reforms in the world, leading to the closure of numerous factories. To resist the increased unemployment produced by neoliberalism, workers started to organize in a movement aimed at defending their only source of income: their labor. In this article, I analyze the main characteristics of the movement of worker-managed factories in Argentina by exploring how factories were occupied, what motivated the workers' decision to create co-operatives, what made the factories economically viable, how they were legitimated by the community, which legal reforms workers achieved to support their struggle, and how they manage their factories.

En el contexto de la globalización neoliberal, el Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas (ALCA) fue el acuerdo internacio­nal más ambicioso promovido para reducir o eliminar las barreras comerciales internacio­nales en las Américas. Las consecuencias pre­vistas del ALCA provocaron la movilización de los movimientos sociales y los sindicatos en todo el continente. Después de una déca­da de resistencia al ALCA, se podría soste­ner que estos movimientos y sindicatos son parcialmente los responsables de su fracaso en 2005. El papel de los sindicatos plantea una interesante pregunta teórica sobre cómo la participación transnacional de organiza­ciones nacionales influye en su activismo a escala nacional. Este artículo analiza cómo entre 2002 y 2010 un importante sindicato, la Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina (CTA), organiza su acción en varias escalas y cómo estas se interrelacionan.

Social conflicts tend to take different forms. This article compares three demonstrations on issues of social justice in Italy: a traditional Labor Day demonstration, a march supporting a general strike called by the largest trade union CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, Italian General Confederation of Labour), and the EuroMayDay parade, representing a "new" type of movement. Focusing on conceptions of democracy among activists, the article stresses that the economic crisis is a crisis of representative democracy as well. Protestors on social justice and labor rights expressed extremely low levels of trust in government, parliament, and political parties; the lowest levels were found among younger participants. At the same time, this lack of trust is coupled with confidence in the capacity of the citizens— especially if organized at the international level—to take the world into their hands. Despite high levels of distrust, demonstrators believe that one must strengthen all levels of government to be able to address social inequality—politics must regain control over the market.

Young people express an increasing rejection of institutional politics and its classic actors, which has led to the assertion that youth are apathetic. This article intends to show why this affirmation is partial and does not reflect the underlying complexity of what motivates political participation in young people. The hypothesis is that since young people interpret the youth condition as transitory, they do not consider youth political participation an end in itself. While the youth condition does not structure political participation or constitute actors and political projects, there are specificities of youth political participation that need to be identified. For the purpose of identifying what motivates youth to participate -- and how and where do they tend to do so -- three cases of political involvement are presented: ATTAC Argentina, the Klampun Community of Papua New Guinea and the World YWCA. The theoretical sections rest on a broadly based research study suggest a reformulation of the common adult perception on youth political participation.

"""ESPAÑOL: La crisis Argentina del 2001 fue un estallido social dirigido a las autoridades nacionales que generó un impasse particular debido a la incapacidad de las élites políticas para reequilibrar el sistema político. Dada la demora en el Reequilibramiento institucional, surgieron oportunidades políticas para la constitución de una forma organizativa e identitaria de ‘emergencia’, donde la deliberación asamblearia es su fundamento constitutivo. Por medio del estudio del contexto de emergencia del movimiento social asambleario se responde a la pregunta: ¿por qué el estallido social de diciembre de 2001 en Buenos Aires favoreció la constitución de un movimiento social?

ENGLISH: The Argentinean crisis of 2001 was a social explosion directed toward those national authorities that had produced a singular impasse due to the incapacity of the political elites to rebalance the political system. Because of the delay on the institutional reequilibrium, political opportunities arose to allow the constitution of an ‘emergency’ form of organization and identity where deliberation by assembly is its fundamental constituent. By studying the emergence context of the assembly’s social movement, we respond to the following question: Why did the social explosion of December 2001 in Buenos Aires favour the formation of a social movement?"""

"ESPAÑOL: La crisis argentina del 2001 abrió las oportunidades políticas para el surgimiento de un nuevo actor político: el “movimiento social asambleario”. Este artículo se basa en la observación etnográfica de varios casos de asambleas en la ciudad de Buenos Aires durante el periodo 2002-2003, pero tomando como ejemplos paradigmáticos de los grupos que se constituirían respectivamente como ala moderada y ala radical a la Asamblea Vecinal de Palermo Viejo y a la Asamblea Popular Cid Campeador. El estudio empírico de sus estructuras de movilización nos permitirá concluir afirmando que nos encontramos frente a un movimiento social reticulado, segmentado y descentralizado.

ENGLISH: The 2001 Argentinean crisis opened up political opportunities for the emergence of a new political actor: the “assembly social movement”. This article is based on the ethnographic observation of several cases of assemblies in Buenos Aires from 2002 to 2003, but using as paradigmatic examples the groups that would constitute themselves as the moderate and radical wings, respectively, the Palermo Viejo Neighborhood Assembly and the El Cid Popular Assembly. This empirical study of mobilization structures allows us to conclude saying that this is a networked, segmented, decentralized social movement."

"Los días 19 y 20 de diciembre de 2001 se produjo la protesta social más importante que ha vivido la Argentina democrática reciente. La irresolución del reequilibramiento
institucional durante los primeros meses del estallido abre las oportunidades políticas para la conformación de un nuevo actor político, el movimiento asambleario, el cual será central hasta el reacomodamiento del sistema institucional con la elección presidencial de abril de 2003. El objetivo es estudiar desde su origen las novedosas características que asumirá este movimiento en toda su complejidad. Para ello, se analizará el estudio etnográfico realizado de enero de 2002 a febrero de 2003 en dos casos, la Asamblea Vecinal de Palermo Viejo y la Asamblea Popular Cid Campeador; los cuales se presentan como representativos de los dos grupos que conformarán al movimiento, y que definirán su identidad, estructura de organización, así como los repertorios de acción colectiva."

The history of Latin America cannot be understood without analyzing the role played by labor movements in organizing formal and informal workers across urban and rural contexts.This chapter analyzes the history of labor movements in Latin America from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. After debating the distinction between "working class" and "popular sectors," the chapter proposes that labor movements encompass more than trade unions. The history of labor movements is analyzed through the dynam ics of globalization, incorporation waves, revolutions, authoritarian breakdowns, and de mocratization. Taking a relational approach, these macro-dynamics are studied in connec tion with the main revolutionary and reformist strategic disputes of the Latin American labor movements.

¿Cómo dar cuenta de los acontecimientos vividos por la región en los últimos 20 años con una perspectiva de largo plazo histórico? Se propone una explicación para el proceso de transformación detrás del “giro a la izquierda” latinoamericano: la segunda ola de incorporación de los sectores populares. Las olas de incorporación son procesos históricos de prolongada lucha entre grupos socioeconómicos y políticos por la expansión o reducción de la arena sociopolítica. La primera incorporación fue un proceso corporativista que involucró la movilización de sindicatos o campesinos (1930s-1950s). La segunda incorporación se desarrolló a partir de las instituciones heredadas y actores de la primera incorporación. Pero, esta segunda ola fue de tipo territorial ya que la desincorporación neoliberal disolvió o debilitó los mecanismos corporativos de arreglo de interés y el principal actor que emergió para movilizar las reivindicaciones de reincorporación fueron los movimientos territoriales de pobres excluidos (1990s-2010s). Esta perspectiva se aplica al estudio histórico relacional del papel del principal movimiento luchando por la reincorporación sociopolítica en Argentina: el movimiento piquetero.

[Spanish translation of my article in Latin American Politics and Society (2015) about my concept of "second wave of incorporation" and its application to Latin American politics.]

En este capítulo sostengo que las dimensiones que se basan en lo colectivo son elementos explicativos más contundentes del sendero tomado por los piqueteros que las explicaciones individuales basadas en la interacción Estado-piqueteros. Mientras que en algunos casos esto puede implicar un intercambio de recursos por apoyo o alguna otra clase de “bienes”, la relación no es entre individuos atomizados, sino antes bien entre grupos organizados que se disputan el distrito electoral y los recursos en un territorio sujeto a la tensión entre la gobernabilidad y la disrupción. En otras palabras, cuando la unidad de análisis es el movimiento social, no estamos tratando con individuos atomizados sino con grupos organizados. Por esta razón, la relación entre el Estado y los pobres urbanos, si se organizaron en un movimiento, puede ser vista como un compuesto poliádico en lugar de un vínculo diádico, con subdivisiones internas que son cruciales, siendo reductivas las interpretaciones sobre el clientelismo.

1990’larda ve 2000’lerde Arjantin, çok sayıda fabrikanın kapanmasına yol açan, dünyadaki en hızlı ve en uç neo¬liberal reformlar süreçlerinden birini yaşamıştır. İşçiler, neoliberalizmin bir sonucu olarak giderek artan işsizliğe karşı ko¬yabilmek ve tek gelir kaynakları olan işlerini savunabilmek için bir toplumsal hareket örgütlemeye başladılar. Arjantin’de işçi yöneti¬mindeki fabrikalar hareketini konu alan bu makalede; fabrikaların nasıl işgal edildiğini, işçilerin kooperatifleri kurma kararının arka¬sındaki motivasyonun ne olduğunu, fabrikaları ekonomik olarak başarılı kılan şeyin ne olduğunu, fabrikaların topluluk tarafından nasıl meşrulaştırıldığını; işçilerin, mücadelelerini desteklemek için hangi yasal reformları başarıya ulaştırdıklarını ve fabrikalarını na¬sıl idare ettiklerini araştırıyorum.

In this chapter, I propose two concepts with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of historically rooted and collective processes of strategy making and performing that transcend the overemphasis of the specialized literature on contentious and public action (Goldstone 2003; Abers and Tatagiba, this volume). These concepts are repertoire of strategies and stock of legacies. I propose these concepts in this chapter as a complement to Charles Tilly’s “repertoire of contention.” The implications of incorporating a focus on strategies are central for social movement studies because they lead us to pay attention to actors and their intentions, and the interactions among the intentions of a variety of deliberate actors (Jasper 2012, p. 30). Moreover, with these concepts I aim to recover Machiavelli’s analysis of strategies through a historical understanding of the construction of strategies.
In this chapter I claim that when studying the interaction of any social movement with the state, allies, and antagonists, the public performances identified by a “repertoire of contention” approach is just part of the story. There are many other activities performed by social movements that are part of their strategic quest for influencing political decisions that are neither contentious nor public. However, I do not propose as an alternative reducing analysis to the study of micro-tactics. The complete story is built by the multiple and simultaneous strategies that guide and give meaning to each tactical action performed by the collectives that constitute a movement.

The piqueteros, Argentina’s unemployed workers’ movement, emerged in 1996. Since then it has been one of the main contentious actors in the resistance to neoliberal reforms and in the struggle for the reincorporation of the popular sectors in Argentina’s sociopolitical arena for almost two decades. The name piqueteros (picketers) is based on the type of protest action that brought the movement to the public’s awareness: the picketing/blocking of the country’s main roads in their demand for jobs, unemployment subsidies, food, etc. In their struggle, the piqueteros needed to deal with a wide array of actors, such as elected and appointed public officials, informal party and union brokers, the police, churches, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The purpose of this chapter is to present the basic features of the piqueteros’ relationship with state institutions. I first show the limitations of the clientelism-based explanation of the interactions between the piqueteros and state institutions. I then propose an alternative logic for the pattern of interaction in question, which is based on two elements: the evolution of public policies and the territorially based dispute between the movement and other political actors. I also briefly analyze the strategic interaction between the state and the main piquetero social movement organizations (SMO)s.

In this chapter we review the main perspectives on democratization and then propose an analytic organization of the different roles that social movements, trade unions, advocacy networks, churches, and cycles of protest play in the dynamic, contingent, and contentious shaping of democracy. In doing this, we are of course not pleading for an exclusive focus on democratization “from below”; we are convinced that the path and speed of democratization processes are influenced by the strength and characteristics of several social and political actors. The combination of protest and consensus is in fact a main challenge for democratization processes. We suggest, however, that social movements are often important actors in all stages of democratization. In our discussion of these topics, we draw examples especially from Latin America, Southern Europe, and Eastern Europe.

"The economic dimension of neoliberal globalization implies an increased interdependence of national economies. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), despite its failure, was the most ambitious international agreement promoted for the reduction or elimination of international trade barriers in the Americas. The anticipated economic and social consequences of the FTAA produced the mobilization of social movements and trade unions across the continent. After a decade of resistance to the FTAA, social movements and trade unions can––arguably––be considered partially responsible for the FTAA’s failure in 2005. The role of trade unions in their resistance to this agreement opens an interesting theoretical question about how the transnational participation of domestic organizations affects their activism on the national scale (cf. Rossi 2008; Silva 2010). One could reason that the success of labor movements in Latin America could have been the result of trade unions’ scale shift toward the transnational level of action. Moreover, the internationalist rhetoric of some labor movements might lead us to interpret their participation in this continent-wide campaign against the FTAA as an observable result of the increased cosmopolitanism of Latin American unions’ leadership.
In this chapter, I will show how these expectations are not met by the case of Argentina. The purpose of this chapter is to narrate and analyze how an important union organizes its action across multiple levels, and how these levels do or do not influence each other. In order to do so, I will analyze the process of coordination in Argentina that occurred in resistance to the FTAA and its aftermath from 2002 to 2010. This will be done through the study of the role played by the main national coalition created for precisely this resistance and, in particular, through analysis of the role played by the central actor in this coalition: the Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina (CTA, Argentine Workers Union). I will show how the CTA has participated in national, continental, and international resistance to neoliberalism and provide an explanation for the “parallel agendas” that it employed on these different levels for almost a decade.
The CTA has been a very important actor in the resistance to neoliberal reforms on the national level. At the same time, it also participated in the main continental campaign against the FTAA. However, despite the coincidence of these activities, the two agendas simply ran parallel to each other, and the CTA’s transnational activism did not have any significant influence on their domestic strategies. In other words––as I will show in this chapter––despite the fact that this trade union actively participated in the continental campaigns against neoliberal globalization, its participation in these campaigns was the result of a nationally focused agenda. It is worth noting that since the 1990s, the CTA’s only program of action at the international level has been targeted at the Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur, Common Market of the South) and has not been affected significantly by the CTA’s participation in the campaigns against the FTAA. The case of the CTA shows that “not all activism that is relevant to transnational politics takes place in the international arena. Relevant processes are found within domestic politics in the transitions from the domestic to the international level, and between states and within and around international institutions” (Tarrow 2005, 30). The goal of this chapter is to analyze the reasons for the CTA’s application of three simultaneous parallel agendas in attempt to assess the influence of transnational activism on national contentious actors during the period of resistance to neoliberalism in Latin America. Moreover, I will show how, despite the multiplicity of these agendas, they did not redefine the CTA’s domestically centered cognitive frame. In brief, the CTA is a paradigmatic case of a national actor involved in transnational activism against neoliberalism operating with an exclusively domestic logic.
This chapter profits from some of the results of research done on the Autoconvocatoria No al ALCA, No a la Deuda, No a la Militarización y No a la Pobreza (Self-Convocation Against the FTAA, Against Debt Payment, Against Militarization and Against Poverty) (Rossi 2006; Bidaseca and Rossi 2008) and is based on interviews conducted by the author in 2005 with the main members of the Autoconvocatoria, as well as the CTA representatives in it. In 2010, this research was expanded through interviews with former and then-current CTA secretaries of international relations, covering the 1992–2010 period. Additionally, the main documents produced by the CTA and the Autoconvocatoria about the FTAA, Mercosur, and continental neoliberal processes have also been used. Finally, the author carried out direct observations of activities and meetings of the Autoconvocatoria from 2004 to 2005 in Buenos Aires, as well as conducting ethnographic observations of protests, public gatherings, and private meetings during the Third People’s Summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in November 2005."

How to account for the events experienced in the region over the last twenty years from a long-term historical perspective? The most common definition has been that a “left turn” has occurred across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. But this concept only highlights a vague connection between diverse leftist governments, leaving many political and economic dynamics unexplained. To comprehend the major transformative processes behind the South American left turn, we need to return to Latin America’s long history of cyclical redistributive conflicts and analyse what I term “incorporation waves”.

El gobierno de Macri comenzó con una imposición del poder ejecutivo sin precedentes, siendo el primero desde 1983 que no convoca a sesiones extraordinarias al asumir. Esta combinación de aceleradas decisiones están relacionadas al intento de Macri por imponer un ciclo de reducción de derechos sociales y cívicos que nos llevaría a una “democradura”, un tipo de democracia de baja intensidad que funciona de forma no republicana. Esta combinación de la reducción del papel social del Estado que la Argentina experimentó en el pasado, en combinación con una violación a los procedimientos democráticos republicanos es una receta explosiva para una democracia joven como la Argentina.

Macri's government started with an unprecedented pressing by the Executive Branch: it is the first government since 1983 that has not convened the customary special sessions at the National Assembly. Lacking a majority in both chambers of parliament, he took the decision to impose a winner-takes-all logic. This mix of fast decisions has to do with Macri’s attempt to impose a reduction cycle of social and civic rights leading to a democradura (democratorship), a sort of low-intensity democracy functioning in a non-republican way. This reduction of the social role of the State - which the country has already experienced in the past - combined with a violation of the democratic procedures of the Republic is an explosive recipe for a young democracy like Argentina.

Con el balotaje en la mira, el radicalismo y el PRO dividen tareas: uno ofrece presencia territorial, el otro compite por los cargos ejecutivos. Aunque la receta parezca novedosa, no lo es. Como explica el politólogo Federico Rossi, hace dos décadas que la UCR sabe que no le alcanza con su propio caudal para ganar en las urnas. Desde entonces, se convirtió en un partido que alquila su estructura ante la promesa de un gobierno de coalición. - See more at: http://www.revistaanfibia.com/ensayo/gobernar-no-es-ganar/#sthash.n8lYPtXs.dpuf

Lo que llevó a la izquierda a gobernar en esta parte del mundo debe entenderse como parte de un proceso de exclusión de la arena sociopolítica de las capas pobres de la sociedad.
Link: https://www.opendemocracy.net/federico-mrossi/el-futuro-de-am%C3%A9rica-latina-mirada-largo-plazo

Traducción del artículo por gentileza de OpenDemocacy.net (original en inglés: https://www.opendemocracy.net/federico-mrossi/back-to-future-in-south-america)

What took the left to government in this part of the world should be understood as part of a process of exclusion of the poor strata of society from the socio-political arena.
Link: https://www.opendemocracy.net/federico-mrossi/back-to-future-in-south-america

Como explicar os eventos experimentados na região nos ultimos vinte anos a partir de uma perspectiva histórica de longo prazo? A definição mais comum é de que ocorreu uma “guinada à esquerda” na Argentina, na Bolívia, no Brasil, no Equador e na Venezuela. Mas este conceito apenas destaca uma conexão vaga entre diversos governos de esquerda, deixando sem explicações diversas dinâmicas políticas e econômicas. Para compreender os principais processos transformadores por trás da virada à esquerda sul-americana, precisamos retornar à história de conflitos redistributivos e analisar o que eu chamo de “ondas de inclusão”

Los efectos negativos de una fuerte devaluación son una brusca caída de la demanda (salario, inversión y consumo) y de la oferta agregada (sector industrial). El objetivo político de esa medida es bajar el salario real, aumentando la desocupación y depreciando el salario en dólares. Adelantar una devaluación, como ha hecho Mauricio Macri y su equipo de economistas, sería tildado de irresponsable en casi todos los países del mundo. La regla sagrada de las devaluaciones dice que, si se hacen, nunca se anticipan. La devaluación no es un acontecimiento natural. Es provocada por Macri con la intención de construir una sensación de crisis que justifique políticas de austeridad. ¿Cómo es posible que un candidato que promete devaluar gane una elección?

ما أتى باليسار إلى الحكم في هذا الجانب من العالم ينبغي رؤيته كجزء من عملية إقصاء الطبقات الفقيرة بالمجتمع من المجال ااجتماعي السياسي.

Link: http://www.madamasr.com/ar/opinion/politics/%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AF%D9%89-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%A8%D9%84-%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%83%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9

Paul Almeida's new book is a welcome addition to scholarship on Central American politics. He presents a cross-national comparative analysis of more than 30 years of anti-neoliberal protest in Central America. Mobilizing Democracy is a convincing study of the role of national campaigns in the resistance to economic liberalization, privatization , and regional free-trade agreements. Adopting a historical and dynamic approach to the political economy and ecology of protest, Almeida examines the campaigns against austerity policies in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras. The book starts with a compelling theoretical framework for understanding cross-national variation in Central America. Communities' mobilization against neoliberal-ism depends on how and when democratization happened (understood as the achievement of polyarchy [12–13]), the kind of economic threat faced by the population, and the availability of state and community infrastructure. In each country these features are combined with the particular national trajectory of state-led development before neoliberalism, a dimension that gives Mobilizing Democracy a much-needed long-term historical perspective on neoliberalism and the campaigns resisting it. Almeida argues that Costa Rica is the pioneer Central American country in this kind of campaign because it was the first to democratize and to enter into the 1980s debt crisis. This made it a sort of model that was later reproduced by the rest of the countries of the isthmus. The forerunner position of this country leads Almeida to explore the early-twentieth-century development of its party system and the emergence of the first campaigns in the 1970s to understand the characteristics of contemporary anti-austerity campaigns. An element of his explanation that is particularly interesting is the significance he attributes to the geographic course of the Pan-American Highway and the locations of university campuses across the country. The geography of conflict is a crucial element in the argument of this book. Almeida introduces the concept of " state infrastructures that support protest campaigns " (19) to explain where and how protest campaigns emerged and evolved. State infrastructure is composed of the administrative, transportation, and higher-education elements of the state that favor mobilization. The administrative component is the location of state agencies as a central interlocutor of protests, while the " transportation routes offer protesters a place to gather and apply disruption " (20)