Social Mobilization and Politics in Argentina: Peak and Crisis of the Left Turn

ANA NATALUCCI

Socio-Political Dynamics within the Crisis of the Left Turn: Argentina and Brazil

Rowman and Littlefiel International

Lugar: London; Año: 2019; p. 65 - 94

In December 2015, Kirchnerism?s electoral coalition Frente para la Victoria (FPV) lost the national elections and the right-wing coalition Cambiemos won by narrow margins (51.40% to 48.60%). This result has been interpreted as the end of the left turn in Argentina that had begun in 2003. The aim of this chapter is to shed light on Argentina?s political dynamics with particular attention on actors and social mobilization. Kirchnerism was a cycle of 12 years which comprised three different temporalities: constitution (2003- 2005), consolidation (2005- 2011) and crisis (2011-2015). Although this analysis will focus on the last temporality, some historization will be necessary for a better understanding of the process.Our main argument is that Kirchnerism was part of the left turn in Latin America, sharing three major characteristics with other governments in the region: a consumption pact (internal market), an inclusion pact (social policies) and a sovereignty pact (autonomy from the United States and new international alignments) (Stefanoni, 2016). These policies promoted a ?second incorporation? of popular sectors in the political arena (Silva, 2017). However, the configuration of new social subjects and new forms and levels of institutionalization generated new problems that the government was not able to solve. This had two important consequences: First, Kirchnerism showed signs of exhaustion regarding policy innovation and articulation power. Second, emerging alternative organizations ?from below? expressed a new complexity of demands which the government was not able to reabsorb. Both consequences created conditions for a new cycle of protests which rather than following a Kirchnerist / anti-Kirchnerist or Republic / Populism dichotomous logic (Ferrero, 2016), followed a logic of heterogeneization. In relation to this argument and considering the results of our mixed research ?The end of the left turn in Latin America? New actors and discourses shaping the political arena of the post-transition?, this chapter will be organized into three sections: In the first section, we will broadly describe Kirchnerism in terms of political movement and left-turn government, arguing that this political force emerged as both a response and caesura to the 2001 crisis. Thus, Kirchnerism encouraged high popular mobilization, produced policy innovation and built articulation capacity in order to restore the political and economic order. In short, Kirchnerism was capable of building a new hegemony. However, this hegemony was questioned between 2008 and 2009 when the conflict between the government and the rural sector, and the international crisis put an end to the ?win-win? situation between capital classes and workers. In face of this problem, the government neither took radical measures nor introduced structural changes. Instead, their strategy was to manage the crisis, which raised strong demands within Kirchnerism. Nevertheless, Néstor Kirchner?s death in 2010 and a slight recovery in the economy led Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to be re-elected in 2011.In the second section, we will focus on the last temporality of Kirchnerism (2011-2015) with special attention on the actors, demands and repertories involved in the heterogeneous social mobilizations: on the one hand, the emergence of an anti-Kirchnerist space with political demands (against the government, the constitutional reform and corruption) which created conditions for a new opposition party; on the other hand, the demands from contingent and formal workers within Kirchnerism who questioned the weak institutionalization of the implemented changes; finally, some subjects with previous traditions as youth and women which re-emerged in the political arena. As these particular cases will be analyzed in depth in other chapters, we aim here to provide a general understanding of the political dynamics of mobilization. In the last section, we will focus on the intersections between social mobilization and Kirchnerism?s loss of policy innovation and articulation power. In addition, we will analyze the effects of this cycle on the political culture, in order to discuss if, rather than ?an end of the left turn?, we can describe it as ?a crisis not yet resolved?. To summarize, this chapter will analyze the main transformations occurred in times of the left turn in Argentina in order to trace the effects of that ?second incorporation? of popular sectors into the political arena, in a current context where the neoconservative turn in the region is still discussed. Since Cambiemos came into power in 2015, they have reverted many of the changes introduced by Kirchnerism. However, despite their efforts, they have not been able to build a national consensus around neoliberalism as the one that prevailed during the nineties. Therefore, as the conservative turn has met strong resistance and increased mobilization, there is still a process of contested hegemony.