Contenidos
This article aims to analyze the relationship between social movements and political dynamics in Argentina. To this end, we first analyze the resistance actions of the movements during the neoliberal hegemony, then during the crisis period and finally in the “post-neoliberal” stage, where new conditions of historical action appear. A look at the political logics imbricated in the processes will allow us to contribute to the understanding of the scope of the social movements’ action in the configuration of the current political order in Argentina, as part of wider historical events taking place in Latin American countries.
This article aims to analyze the relationship between social movements and political dynamics in Argentina. It analyzes first the actions of resistance movements in the neoliberal hegemony, then during the crisis period and finally in the “post-neoliberal” phase where new conditions of historical action appear. The view over the political logics embedded in the processes will enable us to bring understanding of the scope of the action of social movements in shaping current political order in Argentina, as part of wider historical events that take place in countries of Latin America.
In the political field of the word, the term is used to refer to a transitory group of people that seeks the occasional defense of a principle, a thesis or a determined order of interests. This group is of a transitory nature and disappears once its objective has been achieved.[5]
Social movements as structures of social change arose historically as a consequence of different social crises and presented different ideological orientations: both revolutionary and reactionary, and all intermediate stages up to the marginalized, sometimes identified with a more or less concrete political camp, and at other times in an interclassist and multiparty form.[1]
Some examples of these movements are the feminist movement, environmental movement, labor movement, pacifist or antimilitarist movement, or, more recent in their emergence, the squatter movement and the anti-globalization movement.
The term was introduced by the sociologist Lorenz von Stein in 1846 (“History of French Social Movements from 1789 to the Present (1850)”). Stein understands a social movement basically as an aspiration of social sectors (classes) to achieve some influence over the state, due to economic inequalities. Thus, for example, the aspiration of the proletariat to achieve representation in government systems. The book has been translated into English (e.g., Bedminster Press in 1964) but not fully into Spanish.[7] The book has been translated into English (e.g., Bedminster Press in 1964) but not fully into Spanish.[7] The book has been translated into Spanish.
PhD in Political Science and Sociology. Researcher at the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas and the Universidad Nacional de San Martín. (Argentina) E-mail: [email protected]
In the 1990s, the constitutional reform took up these precedents and reinforced this pattern. Convened as a result of a pact between the traditional parties that imposed a large part of the contents of the reform, the initiative also enabled the incorporation of a set of inclusionist institutions to the constitutional plexus. The demands of social movements (women) and local organizations (indigenous, environmental, socialist, etc.) and, especially, of the human rights movement, were introduced into the Constitution by parties of the democratic left. Thus, new rights were expressly created,1
The catalog of rights was significantly expanded, as well as the jurisdictional space for claims, together with the no less important opening of local law to a new conceptualization of formerly recognized rights3 .
