Latin American Social Movements and a New Left Consensus: State and Civil Society Challenges to Neoliberal Globalization

Abstract

This article explores the shift to the left in Latin America within the context of understanding power relations among, within, and between social movements and the state. We examine the emergence and development of social movement resistance to neoliberal globalization in Latin America over the past two decades, as well as how charismatic leaders of the left have captured state power. Through an analysis of the Zapatista and Appista Movements in Mexico, the Piqueteros and workers' movements in Argentina, the Chavistas in Venezuela, and the Aymara coca-growers and indigenous movements in Bolivia, as well as an examination of presidential behavior and state power in these countries, this article describes and enumerates the alternative models of power in use in Latin America today, arguing that a combination of strategies working both with and autonomously from the state works best to achieve leftist ends. The social movements associated with the shift to the left in Latin America today are adopting not one but a combination of approaches or meshworks in relation to the state and capital, and they seem to fall within two general patterns: (1) reformist and autonomous approaches toward the state and capital (Zapatistas and Appistas in Mexico and Piqueteros and workers' movements in Argentina); (2) autonomous and evolutionary approaches toward the state and capital (Aymara Nation in Bolivia and Chavismo in Venezuela). This article is an interpretative analysis of the dialectical relationship between social movement and state power in Latin America using examples from six movements in four countries which help us to elucidate the models of power we see emerging. We conclude that controlling state power and working autonomously from the state, in tandem, is the most effective strategy to achieve leftist ends.