Political Class Formation Research Articles

Kritik der Klassenbildung

Abstract Critique of Class Formation. On Division, Inequality, and Class Theories We live in an age of multiple crises: Financial crisis, climate crisis, corona crisis, oil and gas price crisis, supply chain crisis, logistics crisis or inflation crisis. As heterogeneous and multifactorial as the causes of these forms of crisis may be, they all have at least one common effect: they reinforce social inequalities, since they never hit and affect everyone in the same way. Using the Covid 19 pandemic as an example, it became obvious that the inequalities begin with the possibilities of isolation, continue globally via vaccine distribution and finally result in significantly higher death rates, which are distributed along the gap between rich and poor. Against this background, the lecture takes the popular talk of a ›division of society‹ as an opportunity to redefine the concept of class. To this end, various developments and tendencies in inequality research will be discussed and finally theses on political class formation will be presented.

From survival to self‐governance: A comparison of two peasant autonomy struggles in Colombia's coffee and frontier regions

AbstractThis contribution explores processes of political class formation in peasant autonomy movements. The paper is based on a comparison of two peasant autonomy movements emerging from diverse agrarian structures and looks at how each movement emerged and developed. It argues that variations in class bases, cultural traditions and political histories shape the different ways autonomy is conceived and practised between peasant movements. The political expressions of autonomy struggles can be very diverse, ranging from poverty‐driven survival strategies to politicized socio‐territorial movements. The paper also highlights three main tensions in the question of autonomy for peasant movements: (1) struggles for autonomy do not involve a straightforward withdrawal from commodity markets, but also seek greater control over the terms of integration into markets; (2) states are still central focal points for the demands and tactics of autonomy struggles, and states still play an important role in allocating resources and co‐opting peasant movements; and (3) the strategy of autonomy alone is insufficient for building counter‐hegemonic movements. Leadership strategies are critical in shaping the political direction of autonomy movements.

Resistance to Canadian mining projects in Mexico: lessons from the lifecycle of the San Xavier Mine in San Luis Potosí

<p>This article analyses resistance movements to large-scale mining projects in Mexico, particularly the case of sustained organized resistance to the San Xavier Mine, in the central north state of San Luis Potosí. As one of the first struggles in Mexico against Canadian mining projects after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the leaders of this movement pioneered strategies of resistance on the legal front and were instrumental in building anti-mining alliances and networks on the national and international levels. Now that the excavation process has finished and the mine is closing down, this article seeks to draw on the case to illustrate the complementarity of three approaches for interpreting resistance to mining: class struggle, ecological distribution conflicts, and the clash of cultural valuations over territorial vocation. The argument is that these approaches are not mutually exclusive; they can be combined to explain the multiple dimensions of specific struggles, whose shifts in emphasis at different moments of the struggle are conditioned by – and condition – the phase of a mine's development. By contextualizing the case study in a broader analysis of social environmental conflicts around mining in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, the analysis seeks to illustrate the ways in which the struggle against the San Xavier Mine is representative of broader trends, as well as its peculiarities. On the local level, we find the struggle has more to do with defending conditions of social and cultural reproduction than protecting the means of production that sustain traditional livelihoods. This pertains, not just to a non-contaminated living environment and the availability of clean water for human consumption, but also to the conservation of natural and architectural patrimony with historic and cultural significance.</p><p><strong>Key words</strong>: Mining conflicts, Canadian imperialism, political class formation, ecological distribution, cultural valuations</p>

From Agraristas to Guerrilleros: The Jaramillista Movement in Morelos

From Agraristas to Guerrilleros: The Jaramillista Movement in Morelos

Farewell to the Peasantry? Political Class Formation in Rural Mexico. By Gerardo Otero. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. Pp. xiii+186. $60.00.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewFarewell to the Peasantry? Political Class Formation in Rural Mexico. By Gerardo Otero. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. Pp. xiii+186. $60.00.Michael J. WattsMichael J. WattsUniversity of California, Berkeley Search for more articles by this author University of California, BerkeleyPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 106, Number 4January 2001 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/320314 Views: 29Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Cristóbal Kay Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-first Century: Theories, Debates, Realities and PoliciesEdited by JulioBoltvinik and Susan ArcherMann. London: Zed Books, 2016. Pp. xvi + 456. £70.00 (hb), £24.99 (pb). ISBN: 978-1-78360-844-7 (hb), ISBN: 978-, Journal of Agrarian Change 18, no.11 (Dec 2017): 214–219.https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12236

Gerardo Otero, Farewell to the Peasantry? Political Class Formation in Rural Mexico (Boulder, CO, and Oxford: Westview Press, 1999), pp. xii+186, £46.50 hb.

Gerardo Otero, <i>Farewell to the Peasantry? Political Class Formation in Rural Mexico</i> (Boulder, CO, and Oxford: Westview Press, 1999), pp. xii+186, £46.50 hb.

Farewell to the Peasantry? Political Class Formation in Rural Mexico

List of Charts and Tables00 Preface 1. Political Class Formation in Rural Mexico 2. The Mexican Debate and Beyond: Class, State, and Culture 3. Agrarian Reform: Capitalism, the State, and Neoliberalism 4. Agrarian Transformations: Crisis and Social Differentiation 5. La Laguna: From Agricultural Workers to Semiproletariat 6. Atencingo: Peasant-Entrepreneurs and Social Differentiation 7. El Yaqui Valley: Toward Self-Managed, Democratic Production 8. Conclusions: Farewell to the Peasantry? Reference List About the Book and Author Index

Farewell to the peasantry?: political class formation in rural Mexico

Farewell to the peasantry?: political class formation in rural Mexico

Atencingo Revisited: Political Class Formation and Economic Restructuring in Mexico's Sugar Industry1

Abstract Sugarcane growers have had a close relationship to the state since the 1940s when a series of decrees established a heavy state intervention in the sugar industry, which then became highly regulated. Growers became loyal to the state in exchange for low but secure incomes and other social guarantees. After the introduction of economic liberalism in Mexico during the mid‐1980s (called "neoliberalism" in Mexico), the sugar industry became largely de‐regulated, and sugar mills were reprivatized. This article explores the process of political class formation in the sugarcane region of Atencingo, in the state of Puebla. Whether cane growers posit peasant, proletarian, or peasant‐entrepreneurial demands is examined, as is the character of organizations and alliances that direct producers have established since the 1930s (oppositional, popular‐democratic, or bourgeois‐hegemonic). This paper documents the emergence of a peasant‐entrepreneurial class and presents initial results from a survey questionnaire administered in 1995. Rather than offering an economic argument based on a narrowly defined class position, this explanation emphasizes the prevailing regional cultures, the forms of state intervention, and the types of leadership‐the crucial mediating determinations that explain political outcomes in Atencingo and other regions of rural Mexico.

The New Agrarian Movement

One of the most heated debates in Mexico during the 1970s was over its agrarian structure, peasant differentiation, and the character of struggles in the countryside. This issue has been in the forefront of Latin American discussions of the agrarian question. Scholars from other countries have frequently turned to the Mexican case for theoretical inspiration in pursuing analyses of agrarian classes and political processes in their respective homelands. The seeming paradox which ignited the debate is this: In some regions rural workers seem to behave as peasants while in other areas peasants seem to behave as workers.1 According to Leninist theory, workers are supposed to struggle for wages, better working conditions, unionization and, ultimately, for socialism. Authors in this tradition saw the need for a vanguard party to lead the workers in line with their class position in production relations. Others, inspired by Chayanov, thought that rural workers were really peasants by virtue of their general access to land. In Mexico the two positions have been labeled, respectively, proletarista (or descampesinista) and campesinista. Each tends to assign a central revolutionary role to either the agricultural proletariat (proletaristas) or to the peasantry (campesinistas). They stress either wage labor or access to land as the main determinants for the character of struggles -proletarian or peasant.2 My own interpretation of the process of political class formation is that the process of political class formation is mediated by prevailing forms of culture and state intervention in addition to the causal link with class positions in production relations. Morever, it is the agricultural semiproletariat which has been at the center of agrarian struggles rather than the proletariat or the peasantry themselves. It is the semiproletariat