The rise and fall of political outsiders: Political opportunity structure and (de-)mobilization in Paraguay (2008–2012)

Abstract

Unlike left outsiders in contexts of steadfast traditional opposition in Latin America, Fernando Lugo refrained from intensifying the conflict with the political establishment and mobilizing subaltern groups to push through progressive policies after winning the 2008 elections. Ultimately, conservative interests pushed through impeachment proceedings and forced him out of office prematurely, and Lugo yielded to their will instead of using the interbranch stalemate to instigate popular resistance. For their part, the popular sectors did not mobilize to pressure the Lugo government, nor did they stand firmly against the president’s impeachment. The article aims to answer why Lugo flopped as a political broker and why Paraguayans did not mobilize to Lugo’s defense by developing a two-level argument that combines the institutional supply side that determines the actors’ mobilization capacity and the demand side of movement issue-framing that conditions actors’ willingness to mobilize. First, the organizational and representative pathologies of the left parties persisted into Lugo’s reign and curtailed the capacity of the mobilization brokers to forge ties between otherwise separate organizations in society and to serve as a veto gate in power centers. Second, community leaders and social actors did not engage in active issue-framing processes to construct new meanings to orient their collective action. The article draws on interview data, public opinion polls, and archival works to substantiate the argument and contributes to social movement literature by highlighting the role of political leadership’s strategic choices and its interactions with opponents and allies (inside and outside power centers) in realizing favorable political opportunity and remolding clientelistic ties to mobilize social constituencies.