What Happens to Social Movements When They Succeed: The Case of the 4 Percent for Education in the Dominican Republic

• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20924367
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Author: Emelio Betances
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20924367

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 233, Vol. 47 No. 233, July 2020, 223–237

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20924367

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

223

What Happens to Social Movements When They Succeed

The Case of the 4 Percent for Education

in the Dominican Republic

by

Emelio Betances

A political opportunity structure that emerged in the Dominican Republic between

2009 and 2012 facilitated the victory of a movement that forced the government to begin

spending 4 percent of the gross domestic product on preuniversity education, but the

movement was unable to develop a social base that would ensure the effective implementa-

tion of its demand. This case suggests that a movement’s success in reaching its formal

goal is just the first stage in a struggle whose second stage is continued pressure on the

state to ensure that demands are implemented.

La estructura de oportunidad política surgida en la República Dominicana entre 2009

y 2012 facilitó la victoria de un movimiento que obligó al gobierno a comenzar a gastar el

4 por ciento del producto interno bruto en la educación preuniversitaria. Sin embargo,

dicho movimiento no pudo desarrollar una base social que asegurara la implementación

efectiva de sus demandas. Este caso sugiere que el éxito de un movimiento en torno al

cumplimiento formal de sus metas es sólo la primera etapa en una lucha cuya segunda

etapa exige presión continua sobre el estado para asegurar que se implementen los cambios

deseados.

Keywords: Political opportunity structure, Social movements, NGOs, Social base

This article is a case study of a social movement that emerged in the

Dominican Republic between 2009 and 2012 organized around demands that

the government enforce Law 66-97, which had been passed by the Congress in

1997 but never implemented (Congreso Nacional, 1997). Although the move-

ment was moderately successful and the government began to enforce the law

in 2013, the implementation of the latter was fraught with difficulties. The arti-

cle uses the framework of the political opportunity structure to explain the

movement’s relative success. A contradictory dynamic emerged after the state

agreed to implement the demands—a significant reduction of the movement

and the effective control of the implementation process by the private sector

and the Catholic Church. In what follows I argue that this development may be

the result of contradictory goals among the movement’s leaders and its allies

Emelio Betances teaches sociology at Gettysburg College. His publications include State and

Society in the Dominican Republic (1995), The Catholic Church and Power Politics in Latin America: The

Dominican Case in Comparative Perspective (2007), and En busca de la ciudadanía: Los movimientos

sociales y la democratización en la República Dominicana (2016).

924367LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20924367Latin American PerspectivesBetances / The 4 Percent for Education in the Dominican Republic

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