Mobilization and Politics during Neoliberal and Posneoliberal Times

Is social change a result from politics? Is it an embedded property of society itself? Which is the role played on it by social mobilization? This paper aims to analyze these questions from a theoretical perspective, but illustrated by an empirical consideration of a case, namely the Argentinian events from 1989 to the present. What happened in Argentina during those years is quite a laboratory for social and political studies, as the consequence of neoliberal policies on the increase of unemployment, poverty and indigence rates. Due its complexity during that period, we are to state the mutual imbrication between political and social. Within social mobilization, empirical research shows how labor mobilization descends from 1993, being replaced, since 1996, by the unemployed. During 2001 and 2002 a huge economic crisis derived in social and political effects, including the mobilization of unemployed and urban middle classes. People questioned political institutions and society experienced a process of weakening of its structural patterns. Nonetheless, most citizens renewed their expectations on political system and during 2003 almost 80% of the authorized population voted in the elections. Since then, political order was rebuilt and social and economic indicators went better. Nevertheless, social mobilization did not decrease. We’ll try to explain why this happened, establishing the connections between social mobilization and political action, underlying the way in which social structural conditions and agency potential are mutually implied, including class, social mobilization and politics. We will focus on protest cycles during the period and consider both the possible connections between social mobilization and political participation of social movements on one hand and between the first and elections, on the other. Empirical basis is built upon secondary data taken from a data basis of social protest events from our own research group and other data from colleagues’ research writings.