Introduction: Social Movements in Latin America, Part 2

• Date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Kyla Sankey,Ronaldo Munck
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20944392
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Subject Matter: Introduction

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20944392

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 234, Vol. 47 No. 5, September 2020, 4–8

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20944392

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

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Introduction

Social Movements in Latin America, Part 2

by

Ronaldo Munck and Kyla Sankey

In Part 1 of this double issue on social movements (Latin American Perspectives

47 [4], July 2020), we emphasized that during the preceding two decades, as a

variety of progressive governments gained and lost power, new forms of polit-

ical participation and organization by social movements took shape. The arti-

cles in that issue examined how they fared in the shifting political terrain and

what we can learn from their experiences. Rejecting mechanistic concepts of

“cycles” to explain movement achievements and setbacks, we highlighted the

complex interplay of political and social struggles that we briefly recap here.

The neoliberal hegemony of the early 1990s was challenged by popular

revolts led by indigenous and peasant movements and the emergence of urban

mass movements such as those in Argentina and Bolivia. These represented a

diverse and complex panorama of dissent that united broad coalitions of anti-

neoliberal forces. Some of these social forces directed their action toward the

state and were fundamental to bringing anti-neoliberal governments to power,

whether through an alliance-building process that created “social movement

parties” (e.g., the Movimiento al Socialismo [MAS] in Bolivia, the Frente Amplio

in Uruguay, the Partido dos Trabalhadores [PT] in Brazil, and the Frente

Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional in El Salvador) or as a result of

more crisis-generated coalitions (e.g., Chavismo developing from the 1989

Caracazo and Kirchnerismo following the Argentine collapse of 2001). Part 1

explored the alternative visions, innovations, and strategies that emerged as

social movements engaged with left-leaning governments.

Other movements such as the Zapatistas and piqueteros privileged autonomy

over the struggle for state power and sought to create noncapitalist social rela-

tions through everyday practices, new horizontal relationships, and popular

democratic capacities. The Zapatistas’ juntas de buen gobierno, the Bolivian ayl-

lus, the recovered factories and popular assemblies in Argentina, and participa-

tory budgeting in Porto Alegre exemplify the multiplicity of counterpractices

that arose.

The articles in Part 1 examined the shifting relationships between move-

ments and parties in power and the tensions involved in working both inside

Ronaldo Munck, a participating editor of Latin American Perspectives, teaches at Dublin City

University (Ireland) and the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (Ecuador). His most recent

book is Social Movements in Latin America: Mapping the Mosaic (2020). Kyla Sankey has conducted

research on peasant social movements in Colombia and is currently teaching at Queen Mary

University in London. She has published in Latin American Perspectives, the Journal of Developing

Societies, among other journals. The collective thanks them for organizing this issue.

944392LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20944392Latin American PerspectivesMunck and Sankey / Introduction

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