Popular Organizations Research Articles

RADICAL CHRISTIANITY AMONG STUDENTS: THE STORY OF SUCA

The brith of the Student Union for Christian Action (SUCA) marks the beginning of an important chapter in the history of the student movement. By the late 1970s South Africa was still suffering the trauma of the after-effects of the 1976 riots. Political groups were regrouping to occupy the space created by the banning of popular organizations in 1977. There was a need to give direction to the massive anger and the quest for action against the brutality of the system. Society was fast becoming polarized. Towards the end of the proceedings of the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA), held in Pretoria in June 1979, the formation of a national union for Christian action was mooted. After much effort, discussion, tension and prayer, SUCA was born in June 1980 a national union for Christians from seventeen universities. To white students it provided a first encounter with black Christians and a better view of Christians from other races. One of them once said: as privileged whites our problem is that we simply do fully know nor understand what is happening in our country. For black students, SUCA 's birth was a dream-come-true and they saw it a vehicle through which to engage and challenge the apartheid system. The bulk of the SUCA constituency at its debut in 1980 were whites from the liberal and Afrikaner universities. SUCA had members from all Christian student groups in the country, namely the Student Christian Movement (SCM), the Student Christian Association (SCA), the Association of Christian Students (ACS) and the Afrikaanse Christen Studentevereniging (ACSV). Most SUCA leaders held national positions in these Christian structures and in the Student Representative Councils (SRCs) of their universities. Since SUCA was meant to be an organization but a movement, little attention was paid to action against building branches. It had members from all the major Christian traditions in the country, but one remarkable feature is that it adopted an evangelical basis of faith at its launching. The greatest problem SUCA faced at the beginning was the prospect of rejection by evangelicals for being too and by activists for not being enough, or for having a definite political line. Tension also existed from the beginning between black and white students based on their understanding of the South African reality and the action required to change it. Until 1982 provision was made for corporate affiliation by student structures. During 1982 SUCA's stand shifted towards practical action and a programme on relocations and squatters was adopted. …

Demilitarizing Community in Guatemala

AbstractOne of the most important struggles which has occurred in Guatemala during the last few years is the attempt by residents in highland villages to demilitarize their communities. Community members have bravely protested the presence of the military in their towns, demanding the end of the civil patrols and forced recruitment. This struggle is linked to other movements headed by Guatemalan Maya which seek to reshape Guatemalan society and politics in fundamental ways: broad-based popular organizations dominated by Maya and a Maya nationalist movement seeking a redefinition of the Guatemalan state.This article explores the development of these three movements over the last decade. Focusing primarily on community/military conflict it examines the nature of these growing demands for change. It suggests how these demands are linked to the failure both to develop a viable Guatemalan state and of certain aspects of the army's counter-insurgency campaign in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The article ends ...

How the vote will go: a survey of African potential voters in the Eastern Cape

ABSTRACT This article reports the results of a survey (conducted in August 1993) among African potential voters in the Eastern Cape. It was revealed that the overwhelming majority of support went to the two main liberation movements (ANC and PAC). Although the ANC emerged as the most popular organisation, the survey revealed important concentrations of PAC support in certain centres. Most respondents had a deep loyalty to the organisation they supported and would not consider voting for another. Surprisingly, little relationship emerged between attitudes towards key policy issues and support for the different political organisations. One of the major differences between supporters of the main political movements was over the question of violence, with the majority of ANC supporters favouring a peaceful negotiated settlement. Aspirations were high in the region, and the overwhelming majority of respondents believed that the elections would result in an immediate improvement in their economic situation. An ...

The mutual benefit movement in Chile from its origins to the present time (1853‐1992)

The mutual benefit movement in Chile first appeared with the beginnings of industrialization and urbanization from the 1830s onwards. The first associations of urban workers emerged in 1853: this was followed by an initial period of expansion of mutual benefit activities until 1890. Almost all the urban trades were represented. During this period the mutual benefit movement was the principal organizing force for popular demands. From the 1890s onwards mutual benefit — linked with the workers’movement — grew rapidly and entered on a process of unification. Encouraging the development of the trade union movement, it took a leading part in determining the shape of the people's movements and maintained this role until 1924: this period marked the high point of mutual benefit activities in Chile. Mutual benefit organizations defended workers’demands and the boundaries between mutual benefit and trade union organizations were quite fluid. But the adoption of the social legislation and the support offered by certain leaders of the mutual benefit movement to the military dictatorship marked the beginning of the movement's decline. Efforts were then made to extend its scope of activities and unify the mutual benefit movement in Chile and in Latin America as a whole. The results of this were limited and the crisis continued after the Second World War. The 1973 coup d'état aggravated the situation still further. Today, with the virtual destruction of social security and its replacement by a system of private insurance schemes, one needs to ask whether the Chilean mutual benefit movement, which at one time was the principal form of popular organization, has a future.

Decentralised popular planning: A strategy for change

Recent discussions have clearly revealed that among many nations the traditional concept of development is in the process of undergoing significant change. New concepts are now emerging and are being incorporated in the development vocabulary, including such ideas as sustainable development, capacity building and empowerment. It is readily apparent, however, that the development of strategies to attain this new approach to development is still at a very primitive stage. The object of this paper is to consider the role of what can be called decentralised popular planning within this emerging framework. Based upon research within the neighbourhoods of lower-income families in Brazil, it is evident that, if a new approach to development is to be pursued, a number of changes will be required in the way that planning is carried out. In particular, it will be seen that the exercise of planning practice must be shifted from governmental offices to popular organisations, from planners' hands to people's hands, to include people's control of the design of their neighbourhoods and of the activities which directly affect them. This represents a paradigmatic shift in planning theory and practice, and as a result in strategies for change. A pedagogical practice must develop, which will activate a process of popular appropriation and accumulation of knowledge to develop people's self-confidence and self-determination. Professional militancy is expected. In the process of genuine development (or process of change) to be established, cooperation and solidarity would replace values such as greed and competition.

Class, State, and Popular Organizations in Mozambique and Nicaragua

Much of the literature on revolutions in the periphery is concerned with either the domestic obstacles to the realization of socialism or the destabilization tactics employed by external actors against the new revolutionary governments. For example, Munslow (1986: 11-23) and Fagen, Deere, and Coraggio (1986: 15-20) point to a weak economy, a lack of political organization and consciousness among the peasantry and working class, and domestic opposition as major factors affecting the transition to socialism. There is a vast literature on the wars carried out by the United States against the Sandinistas and South Africa's war against the frontline states (see, e.g., Vanderlaan, 1986; Callaghy, 1983). Thus there has been growing consensus that domestic constraints are diffilcult although not impossible to overcome and that external destabilization is probably inevitable, even in Third World countries with clearly reformist political and economic agendas (e.g., Jamaica in the 1970s [Lewis, 1983]). The scarcity of foreign exchange and the exigencies of war place great pressure on the revolutionary leadership to emphasize centralization in economic planning and reduce popular involvement in political decision making. At the same time, nearly every Third World revolutionary movement has succeeded in overthrowing the old regime because of prior mobilization of the peasants and workers. Although, as Munslow (1986: 10-11) points out, protracted people's war ... is a rapidly depletable resource, whose effects can be negated over the medium term, it is both the strategy responsible for bringing the new government to power and a tradition to which it is accountable.

Testimony of Gloria Daysi Alonso Jaimes

The following written testimony was provided by Gloria Daysi Alonso Jaimes on June 14, 1989, to a delegation representing the Faculty Committee on Human Rights in El Salvador-Central America (FACHRES-CA). Daysi Alonso was the Secretary of the Comite de Despedidos y Desempleados de El Salvador (Committee of the Laid-Off and Unemployed of El Salvador CODYDES), and worked with its external relations commission and its women's committee (COFEDYDES). CODYDES was formed in August 1986 in the midst of an extended economic crisis that had first gripped El Salvador in the 1970s. The economic malaise of the country had deepened in January 1986 with the implementation by the government of Jose Napoleon Duarte of the paquetazo, a project consisting of deep monetarist budget cuts. The specific immediate cause for the founding of CODYDES was massive layoffs of workers from several large public and private enterprises in 1985 and 1986. The general objectives of CODYDES are to halt both selective and mass firings, to struggle against the closing of sources of employment, to fight for the creation of new sources of employment, and to contribute to the struggle for peace and social justice in El Salvador. An initial wave of popular organizing in El Salvador had resulted in a powerful and combative social movement by the end of the 1970s. The political space within which to organize and to operate was closed down, however, by the end of 1980, and many popular organizations were destroyed or driven underground. Their ranks were decimated by the brutal, unbridled repression unleashed by the Christian Democrat military junta; many of the survivors fled to the guerrilla zones to join the armed struggle (Zamora, 1991: 182-184). The CODYDES-led organizing of unemployed and underemployed workers since 1986 has been one manifestation of the resurrection of the popular

The Political Economy and Class Analytics of International Capital Flows: US Industrial Capital in the 1970s and 1980s

The weakening of working class and popular organisations that is often attributed to the growing power of transnational corporations is an aspect of a generalised restructuring of class relations in both core and periphery. With class, rather than power or wealth, as our theoretical entry point, it appears that the state retains influence over international flows of industrial and banking capital.

Les organisations populaires à Quito et Guayaquil : forces et faiblesses de ces "nouveaux" acteurs urbains

The popular organizations in Quito and in Guayaquil: strengths and weaknesses of these "new" urban actors. From 1972 — petroleum economy development and currency income increase — the state plays a more and more important part in the economical policy orientation; the drift from the land intensifies and the country population, forced to flee the country by an agrarian reform which is considered like a semi failure, add to the inhabitants of the towns. The deficient urban policy, the planification mistakes and the lack of state interest towards the most impoverished, explain the speedy extension of the popular districts. The inhabitants try to resolve, on their own, the most serious problems that the state cannot or don't want to resolve (urban land ownership, substructure realizations...). During the seventies, the districts organize themselves and pressed on the authorities to bring an answer to the daily problems. Theses transformations have important repercussions on the growth of the both agglomerations and on the emergence and then on the popular organizations reinforcement. It is a matter of assessing the actual situation of the popular organizations, emphasizing their strength and their weakness and then the comparative aspect: are Quito organizations as dynamic as Guayaquil one's? Are their objectives and strategies identical? What are their future prospects? These are some questions we shall try to bring a response.

Reform, repression and resistance in South Africa: a case study of Alexandra township, 1979–1989

This article is a case study of reform policy and popular opposition in Alexandra, a black township in the heart of Johannesburg and Sandton's wealthiest white suburbs. First, it examines the popular response to reformist policy in the early 1980s and the transformation to ‘people's power’. ‘People's power’ was informed by an insurrectionary strategy which gave rise to hasty organisation and was based on a limited conception of state power. The demise of ‘people's power’, it is suggested, was not solely due to a clamp‐down on popular organisation by the state. Second, the nature of current reform policy and the way in which it differs from the earlier reform package is discussed. Urbanisation policy, Regional Service Councils and Joint Management Centres are complementary aspects of the new urban reform strategy. It is argued that the current era of repression in the late Eighties was a period of managing reform policy within a new ideological and institutional framework rather than a desperate resort to maintain the status quo.

Popular/Mass Movement in the Community

Perhaps one of the central questions to raise about Palestinian people today is: how have the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories been capable of making and sustaining the uprising for so many months? The answer to this question is complicated and requires detailed analysis. There are many interrelated elements and factors that have contributed, and while there might be disagreement over them, the decisive role of the popular organizations in making and sustaining the intifada is unquestionable.

The limits and possibilities of local initiatives for change: the case for participatory planning

Abstract This article explores three possible avenues at the local level for political restructuring towards non‐racialism in South Africa. These are: government‐created multi‐racial bodies (like regional services councils), locally‐initiated negotiations between representative white local authorities and popular township organisations (like the East London case in 1986), and locally‐initiated participatory planning exercises (such as Pieter‐maritzburg 2000). The conclusions are nuanced, pointing at both possibilities and shortcomings in all three cases. Regional services councils do offer avenues to white leaders for reformist political action, but their government origin and racial premises obstruct a wider political credibility. Local political initiatives can address many important political issues, yet they run the risk of being unacceptable to the central government and white local voters. Participatory planning exercises at the local level would offer opportunities to focus on less overtly politici...

Understanding ‘Chipko’: the Himalayan people's movement for forest conservation

Chipko is a rural, non‐government, popular organisation devoted to forest conservation and rural development in Uttarakhand. Its main supporters are rural women who are worried about the decline of their agro‐ecosystem. This requires the preservation of an adequate balance between arable and forest land, which supplies fuel, fodder, and hence manure for the fields. Today, this balance is wrong, the forest land is being degraded and the arable land supplies little more than a half of the village's needs. Concern for such problems has been mobilised and focussed by the region's network of Gandhian social (sarvodaya) workers. Gandhian methods of protest have given the rural women a powerful political voice. In return, this has given the Gandhians a major platform for their vision of the sarvodaya society and an avenue for the implementation of some of their policies.

Popular protest and organization: The Thrane movement in pre‐industrial Norway, 1849–55*

Popular protest and organization: The Thrane movement in pre‐industrial Norway, 1849–55*

Alcohol policies fin de siècle

The article discusses the possibilities for rational and consistent alcohol policies towards the end of this century. It takes two countries, Finland and Sweden, as examples, and examines their experiences from a historical perspective. Finland and Sweden are countries that very early developed alcohol control systems that were aimed at eliminating private profit from all alcohol trade. Finland had a Prohibition whereas Sweden adopted the so called Bratt system. The latter consisted of a public monopoly on alcohol retail plus strict individual control of purchases. Although the historical experiences are thus different, the anti-alcohol sentiment was common to both countries in the end of the last century and in the first half of this century. In Sweden the temperance movement was stronger and independent, whereas in Finland it adopted the function of almost any kind of social movement (nationalist movement, political labour movement, women's movement, youth movement). Thus the Finnish temperance movement became integrated with the basic structures of the system of popular organizations. Towards the end of this century, it is to be expected that the political influence of the temperance movement will become essentially weaker, and especially so in Finland. In Sweden, it will partially be replaced by professional anti-alcohol movements (doctors, social workers etc.), whereas in Finland there is little sign of this either. On the contrary, new social meanings that are becoming attached to drinking in these countries (drinking as a sign of cultural competence, as a form of sociability etc.), are likely to arouse anti-control sentiments. Thus alcohol control policies will face a serious credibility problem, which it can only overcome by careful adjustments to local needs. It is essential that alcohol control serves a symbolic function as a remainder of the risks of drinking. This symbolic function should be underlined in all possible ways.

Organizing for innovation over an industry cycle

AbstractThe basic hypothesis in this paper is that a gap tends to develop over an industry's evolution between potential innovators in a company and the organizational mainstream. The innovative gap is a function of the type of innovation needed for longer‐run survival and the disposition of the mainstream organization towards innovation. This hypothesis is used to predict which of four popular organizations for innovation is most suited to each stage of an idealized industry's evolution. The predicted organization set is discussed in terms of well‐known cases, and tested in an exploratory manner using executive survey data.

The Transition to Mass Parties and Ideological Politics

The dominant views in the literature on the evolution of ideological mass-membership parties, which hold that these parties emerged with the entry of the masses into politics and as a result of prolonged electoral competition moderated their ideological stands to appeal to more centrist voters, cannot account for the case of a mass party which, after years of electoral competition, moves sharply to the left and maintains or increases its electoral base, as was the case for the People's National Party (PNP) under Michael Manley in Jamaica in the 1970s. One element of the political strategy of “Democratic Socialism” of the PNP under Manley was the organizational strengthening of the party and the adoption of a stronger ideological profile and a commitment to ideological education at both the elite and mass level. This article discusses the importance as well as the limitations of the process of party transformation. On the basis of two surveys of the Jamaican elite, one carried out in the summer of 1974 and one in 1982, it documents the dramatic effect of this process on the ideological alignments in the Jamaican elite. Drawing on Gramscian ideas, the article develops an explanation for the process of party transformation in Jamaica, which emphasizes the importance of the extent of popular organization and mobilization for the center of gravity of public opinion and thus for the ideological and electoral room for maneuver of mass parties.

Communism and pro‐soviet feeling among the Jews of East London, 1935–45

In the 1945 general election, a Communist was elected to Parliament from Mile End, Stepney, a constituency populated in large part by working‐class Jews of East European origin. Pro‐Soviet feeling in the preceding decade was strong, and was translated into ideological and political activity on behalf of the USSR by various East London branches of trade unions; friendly societies such as the Arbeter Ring (Workers’ Circle); Yiddishist groups, and popular front organizations such as the Jewish Fund for Soviet Russia. In late 1943 two prominent Soviet Jewish emissaries, Itzik Feffer and Shloime Mikhoels, visited England. Among their hosts were the Jewish organizations of Stepney. The effects of their tour, and the emotional intensity with which East London Jews followed the course of the Russo‐German war, were instrumental in creating the climate of opinion enabling the CP to post its 1945 victory.

Class structure and spatial polarization: an assessment of recent urban trends in Latin America.

"In this paper, we review those major trends characteristic of peripheral urbanization as they are reflected in the recent Latin American experience. Such trends include: urban primacy and the relative absence of secondary city systems, the character and dynamics of the informal sector, housing deficiencies and state housing policy, and the recent rise of popular organizations oriented toward self-sufficiency or militant demand-making. These trends are important because they represent the form in which continuity and change of peripheral class structures are reflected in space, both at the national and local levels....[The authors conclude that] the political economy of Latin American cities is one where the resolution to the plight of underdevelopment promised by accelerated capitalist industrialization has not materialized. Instead, the process has produced a more complex and more contradictory social fabric."

Nicaraguan debates on Agrarian structure and their implications for agricultural policy and the rural poor

Two models of Nicaragua's agrarian structure are examined, the capitalist agro‐export model and the peasant capitalism model. Their policy implications as to the role of state farms, harvest labour shortages, the class composition of popular organizations, and the role of large and medium‐sized producers are compared. The second model is shown to reflect better Nicaragua's agrarian structure. Neither model, however, has provided policies capable of resolving the problems of the majority of Nicaragua's semiproletarians, who continue to be largely marginalized from the policy process. The reasons for this outcome are discussed and some tentative recommendations proposed.