The role of social movements in the ‘second incorporation’ of popular sectors in Bolivia and Argentina

Abstract

Latin American ‘Pink Tide’ has been functionally interpreted as a ‘second wave of incorporation’ of the popular sectors in the polity domain after their ‘disincorporation’ and/or exclusion by authoritarian regimes and/or neoliberal reforms. This contribution proposes a comparative analysis of the roles played by social movements in Bolivian and Argentinean “second incorporations”, by relying on fifty in-depth interviews with partisan and movement leaders in both countries, in order to assess the different characteristics and consequences of the processes of “second incorporation” in the two countries. The paper argues that the extent to which such actors provide an encompassing representation of ‘excluded sectors’ is key to understand how different forms of political incorporation shaped different ‘social blocs’ either supporting or contrasting progressive political projects in power, and eventually created the conditions, in the medium term, for the electoral rise of right-wing opponents.