Suchergebnisse

In Latin America, new social movements are vigorously and creatively engaging in grassroots organization and local and national mobilizations. Social movements in Bolivia, Brazil, and elsewhere have challenged the conduct of politics in their countries and the region. Their growth and militancy have generated whole new repertoires of action. Indeed, they raise the possibility of at least some form of "rule from below." They have left the traditional twentieth-century parties far behind to create a nonauthoritarian, participatory political culture. Using existing political space to maximum effect, they are substantially strengthening participatory democratic practice and significantly altering political life. Less clear is whether they are, as Gramsci might conclude, coming together in a new cycle of subaltern actions that can break down the hegemony historically exercised by Latin America's ruling classes.

This article examines the emergence of new, highly politicized social movements in Latin America as a response to deteriorating economic and social conditions and the related growth of neoliberal economic policies advocated by International Financial Institutions like the IMF and the World Bank and by national political elites. It argues that the decline of bureaucratic authoritarianism and the growing democratization in the region have helped to move the struggle for more equitable societies and the empowerment of popular sectors away from armed struggle toward new repertoires of action conducted in civil society by new social and political movements. An overview of the phenomenon, examines the Zapatistas in Mexico, the National Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the breakdown of traditional parties and the rise of the Chávez movement in Venezuela, recent political movements in Bolivia, the rise of neo-populism in Peru, and the political and economic crisis that delegitimized governments and politics in Argentina and led to popular assemblies and demonstrations that removed successive governments from power in 2001 and 2002. Finally, a case study of the Landless movement in Brazil (the MST) is offered as an example of how such movements develop and contest power.