Civic Engament in Argentina. From the Human Rights Movement to the Cacerolazos

PERUZZOTTI ENRIQUE

Columbia

Conferencia; -; 2002

Department of Political Science and Latin American Studies , Columbia University.

The angry outburst of protests initiated in December 2001 that forced the resignation of two presidents within a thirteen-day period inaugurated a new era of civic engagement in Argentina. What lies at the heart of the current situation is a crisis of representation of dramatic proportions in which all links between civil and political society seem to have been severed. A crisis so profound did not develop overnight but took many years and numerous scandals to develop.  It has been the product of the refusal of the country's political society to respond to civic outcry for legal accountability that has been present in Argentine society since the return of democracy in 1983. To make sense of today’s Argentina, it is therefore crucial to go beyond the immediate political and economic factors that precipitated the recent outburst of social unrest and civil society's intense rejection of politicians, and to establish some links between today’s civic activism and previous forms of civic engagement in the country.