Neoliberal Workfare and the Battle for Grassroots Control in Argentina

• Author: Steven Araujo
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17736314
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Date: 01 November 2018
• Subject Matter: ArticlesWorkers’ Struggles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 223, Vol. 45 No. 6, November 2018, 81–96

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17736314

© 2017 Latin American Perspectives

81

Neoliberal Workfare and the Battle for Grassroots Control

in Argentina

by

Steven Araujo

While the vast majority of the academic literature on the popular classes and social

programs in Argentina revolves around the concept of clientelism, it has largely ignored

organizations that administer these programs without participating in clientelist net-

works and thus giving up their political autonomy. The struggle for grassroots control of

an Argentine unemployed workers’ movement known as the Frente de Organizaciones en

Lucha depends on the use of neoliberal workfare programs. Its ability to take resources

from the state and administer them according to its own principles and priorities chal-

lenges the inference that receiving social programs necessarily leads to co-optation.

La mayor parte de la literatura académica sobre las clases populares y los planes sociales

en Argentina gira en torno al concepto del clientelismo. Se han ignorado, sin embargo y en

gran medida, las organizaciones que administran estos programas sin participar en dichas

redes ni renunciar a su autonomía política. La lucha por la autogestión del Frente de

Organizaciones en Lucha, un movimiento de trabajadores desocupados, depende del uso de

programas de contraprestación laboral (workfare) neoliberales. Su capacidad de tomar

recursos del estado y administrarlos según sus principios y prioridades desafía la idea de que

recibir la ayuda otorgada por planes sociales inevitablemente lleva a la cooptación.

Keywords: Social movements, Piqueteros, Grassroots control, Neoliberalism,

Clientelism

A song set to the tune of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising”

that is heard at all the marches of the Frente de Organizaciones en Lucha (Front

of Organizations in Struggle— FOL), a national unemployed workers’ or

piquetero movement located mostly in the Greater Buenos Aires area, expresses

the way the movement constructs its militant collective identity:

I come from the 20th of December

I come from the Pueyrredón Bridge

Steven Araujo is the son of two undocumented, working-class immigrants from Argentina. He is

currently a lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He thanks Megan Thomas, Kent

Eaton, Deborah Gould, Miriam Greenberg, and Claudia Lopez, as well as William Robinson,

Kristi Wilson, Steve Ellner, and Ronaldo Munck, for their comments on previous versions of this

article. He is indebted to the members of the Frente de Organizaciones en Lucha who generously

opened up their movement to him as he conducted his ethnography. He is also grateful to En La

Vuelta (enlavuelta.org) for allowing him to use one of its photographs. All translations in the

article are his.

736314LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X17736314Latin American PerspectivesAraujo / Neoliberal Workfare and Grassroots Control in Argentina

research-article2017

82 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

We are the independent left

Fighting for the revolution

Because we are going to struggle

We are going to organize

Against all the brokers of the Kirchners

With popular power

Resisting in the streets

Constructing from below and to the left.

It begins with December 20, 2001, the day of the popular uprising that ousted

President Fernando de la Rúa in 2001, and June 26, 2002, the day of the massive

piquetero march at the Pueyrredón Bridge when Darío Santillán and

Maximiliano Kosteki were assassinated. It goes on to describe what it means to

be a part of the “independent left” today: constructing popular power from

below and against all of the Kirchners’ power brokers. This oppositional stance

against the self-described “progressive” Kirchner government is puzzling in

view of the fact that the FOL uses government resources to fund its projects.

The state resources in question, referred to as planes sociales (social programs),

are most often mandatory work programs for welfare recipients also known as

“workfare.” I understand these social programs as neoliberal forms of govern-

ance that seek to facilitate clientelistic relationships between the government

and the popular classes.1 I contend that the FOL takes these resources without

pledging loyalty to any politician or political party and thus without participat-

ing in clientelist networks. Through its implementation of the social programs

at the local level, it provides a glimpse of grassroots control or self-management 2

even as it struggles to achieve the democratic and participatory demands of

this ideal.

In this paper I analyze the way the FOL is able to obtain and use state

resources while maintaining its political independence and its militant and

oppositional identity. The key element that allows it to do this is militant direct

action—regular marches that are aimed at particular government agencies at

the municipal, provincial, and national levels and often involve militant tactics

such as roadblocks, encampments, and occupations. Through the force of

mobilization and the finesse of negotiation, the FOL earns state resources that

it uses in its neighborhood projects. Crucially, this involves resignifying the

social programs. Rather than associating them with clientelist exchanges, mem-

bers of the FOL emphasize the militant collective action required to earn them.

In this way, they replace the stigma of the programs with their own militant

identity.

The material for this paper comes from 12 months of ethnographic field-

work that I conducted with the FOL in 2013. This fieldwork involved partici-

pating in all aspects of the movement including marches, meetings, and

neighborhood projects. In the process, I attended countless assemblies where

members debated and discussed strategies. My involvement in the neighbor-

hood projects included working for several months with a construction crew