Theorizing the Revolutionary Political Action of Social Movements during the Pink Tide

• Author: Anthony Petros Spanakos,Mishella Romo Rivas
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20930215
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20930215

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 233, Vol. 47 No. 4, July 2020, 250–254

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20930215

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

250

Book Review

Theorizing the Revolutionary Political Action of Social

Movements during the Pink Tide

by

Anthony Petros Spanakos and

Mishella Romo Rivas

Dario N. Azzellini Communes and Workers’ Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century

Socialism from Below. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2018.

Anthony Pahnke Brazil’s Long Revolution: Radical Achievements of the Landless Workers

Movement. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018.

The centrality of the state in leading political change is a recurring theme in the lit-

erature on social change, especially in Latin America. During the pink tide, considerable

attention was given to what left-leaning governments and parties did to promote such

change and how leftist movements faced the “dilemma of the state”—working with an

“allied government” (Azzellini, 2018: 6; Pahnke, 2018: 157; Spanakos and Pantoulas,

2016). This was particularly acute among groups that were zealous of establishing and

defending local autonomy such as the groups associated with the Movimiento

Bolivariano (Bolivarian Movement) in Venezuela and the Movimento dos Trabalhadores

Rurais Sem Terra (Landless Workers’ Movement, led by the MST) in Brazil (see

Fernandes, 2010; Mészáros, 2013; Wolford, 2010). Recent books by Dario Azzellini and

Anthony Pahnke examine tensions between movement, political action, and govern-

ment in these two movements.

Azzellini’s Communes and Workers’ Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century Socialism

from Below examines historical accounts of numerous radical groups and posits that the

Proceso (the Bolivarian Revolutionary ‘Process’) is “complex and contradictory, entail-

ing both cooperation and conflict,” and should be “characterized by a two-track con-

struction: from below (constituent power) and from above (constituted power)” (6). The

Proceso aims “to redefine the state from below and proposes a renewed concept of

popular power.” It “draws its power from its diversity, and does not seek homogeniza-

tion.” This diversity includes different contentious actors (such as urban barrio resi-

dents, peasant and indigenous communities, and workers’ factories [Angosto-Ferrández,

2015; Smilde and Hellinger, 2011]), economic actors (state capitalists, state employees,

informal workers, and communes), and people across the partisan and ideological spec-

trum. Whereas other accounts see the drawing together of such diverse groups through

populism and charismatic figures, Azzellini highlights a shared effort to awaken, build,

and use constituent power so that people in communities have more decision-making

power over local affairs.

Anthony Petros Spanakos is chair of the Department of Political Science and Law at Montclair

State University. Mishella Romo Rivas is a graduate student in political science at New York

University.

930215LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20930215Latin American PerspectivesSpanakos and Romo / Book Review

book-review2020