State-Repression, Contentious Politics And Power In The Educational Field In Argentina (1997- 2007).

GONZALEZ VAILLANT GABRIELA; FERNANDA PAGE POMA

Washington DC

Congreso; XXXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association May 30 - June 1, 2013, Washington, DC; 2013

LASA

Student movements in Latin America have historically played a crucial role in triggering major social and political transformations, being at the forefront of democratization and progressive social action. This paper seeks to understand state-led protest control against students and their movements in Argentina in the last decades (1997-2007). By drawing on a database of contentious politics events in Argentina using newspaper data, analysis of secondary sources, and in-depth interviews to actors--it closely examines when, why, where, and how the state contains student protests and how the power relations between them and the state unfolds over time. A main finding underlying this study is that the nature of state repression of students is related to a) the tactics being used; b) the demands being made; c) the actors that are protesting alongside them; and d) the political party in power. The paper shows how the associational ties between students, teacher movements, political parties and other movements change during moments of economic crisis and political shifts in government, and how this, in turn, results in changes in state control. Against common sense understandings, we find that changes towards more politically ?progressive? governments do not necessarily imply less amount of repression even though the nature of state control changes.