Social Movements and Political Power in Latin America

Abstract

This chapter presents an analytical aspect derived from my own observations and direct experience with social movements in the last twenty years. Two practical aspects of social and popular movements that have aroused great curiosity—and expectations—among scholars are: their duration in time and their expansion in territorial or sociogeographic space. Virtually all the early activities of social movements were carried on outside party structures or established organisms. The strong sociopolitical movements of the 1920s in Colombia were co-opted and otherwise neutralized by the rising Liberal party that acceded to power in 1930. The movements as such can continue to be political alternatives and to lead the way in the necessary search for new ways of doing politics. In Colombia, social movements underwent a process of growth that, in ten years, took them from micro activities to macro concerns—from protest to proposal—therefore evolving toward organized politics.