Social Movements and State Power

Examines the phenomenal success of left-wing radical leaders in Latin America Asks how much they can really achieve - can they really offer radical economic reform? How closely can they work with radical social movements? Ideal book for students of Latin American politics, and critics of globalisation Authors are leading academics in the field The 2003 electoral victory of Lucio Gutierrez in Ecuador was met with the same sense of optimism that greeted the election of Ignacio 'Lula' da Silva in Brazil, and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Gutierrez's victory was viewed as a major advance for the country in its 500 year-long struggle for freedom and democracy. In Bolivia, Evo Morales similarly came within an electoral whisker of achieving state power in 2002, and in 2003 Nestor Kirchner became President of Argentina. This means that some of the largest countries in Latin America are now led by left-wing radicals. They came to power on the promise of delivering a fundamental change of direction that would steer their countries away from neo-liberal economic policies, and towards socialism. Their success awakened major hopes on the Left for a new dawn in Latin American politics. This book explores whether these hopes are realistic. Are these victories simply a sign of the decline of US power in the region? The authors examine each leader's rise to power and their individual political significance. Latin America is unique in that it has experienced two decades of popular resistance to neo-liberal policies: each of the four countries examined here has a rich history of diverse indigenous and working class movements coming together to agitate for radical political change. The authors examine the political dynamic between the state, with its new agenda, and the strategy of mass mobilisation preferred by social movements. They explore to what extent social movements will be able to participate in electoral politics, and how they will continue to mobilise the forces of resistance and opposition.