Social Organisations and the State in Argentina and Bolivia

ALEJANDRA, RAMÍREZ; FLORENCIA, PARTENIO; ARIEL, WILKIS; MANUEL, DE LA FUENTE

Berna, Suiza

Conferencia; International Conference on Research for Development (ICRD 2008); 2008

National Centre of Competence in Research NCCR North-South, University of Bern, Switzerland

This paper presents a summary of research carried out in Bolivia and Argentina in the framework of the NCCR-Norte Sur. The question which forms the basis for the integration of both sets of research is how was the remaking of the socio-political configuration between social organizations and the State in both countries from the nineties onwards. Parallel follow-up of both processes – the implementation of decentralization in Bolivia since 1994 and the transformation of social policies in Argentina from the nineties onwards- enables us to respond to this question.The analysis of public policies undertaken in both countries share characteristics that enable us to compare and study them together:  In one hand the emergence of a process of decentralization of the state resources, were decisions and tasks are transferred to other levels of government (Bresser Pereyra, 1998) In the other hand, the social organizations become important actors in the circulation and distribution of the above mentioned resources. Hence, the analysis of the public policies undertaken, the characteristics of the social organizations and the new relationships interweaving among them and the State agents, constitute the variables that will taken into account in order to understand the similarities and peculiarities in both processes.The Bolivian research, carried out by a group of researchers from JACS-SAM and the Centro de Estudios Superiores Universitarios of the Universidad Mayor de San Simón (CESU-UMSS), concentrated on gaining knowledge of the impact of the decentralization processes on the new power relationships between Grass Root Territorial Organization (OTB), neighborhood councils, unions, associations and municipal Governments in three rural municipalities, one semi-urban and one metropolitan area of Cochabamba . In the other hand, researches carried out since 2004 by the CEIL-PIETTE team has focused on reconstructing the processes of organization and mobilization of organizations of unemployed workers, of the workers of the recuperated factories, "cartoneros" and "quemeros" , in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (AMBA).References:Bresser Pereira, Luiz C. (1998) “La reforma del Estado en los años noventa. Lógica y mecanismos de control”, en Desarrollo Económico Nº 150, Vol. 38: 517-550.