Troubled Collaboration: State-society Interaction and Municipal Waste Policy Change Process in Buenos Aires City

GUTIÉRREZ, RICARDO A.

Lima

Congreso; XXXV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association; 2017

LASA

In the City of Buenos Aires, cartoneros? organizations and Mauricio Macri?s Propuesta Republicana (PRO) are most unlikely partners. They hold opposing views on the economy and politically resent each other since ever. Nevertheless, they have been collaborating in an innovative program for recyclable waste collection started in 2012. In spite of the opposing views both parts hold and some PRO officials? attempts to reduce collaboration, the 2012 program is still in place. How was it possible that such unlikely partners ended up collaborating in the formalization and execution of a joint program? By tracing the cartoneros-city government interaction back to the beginning of the municipal waste policy change process in 2001, I argue that the formalization and continuation of a troubled collaboration between both parts was primarily due to cartoneros? persistent combination of two complementary tactics all along the process: contentious actions and participation in institutionalized mechanisms. Thanks to the persistence of those mixed tactics, cartoneros were able to change Macri and PRO?s policy towards their activities. This policy change was, in turn, favored by the divisions within PRO and a related ministerial change, under the ?Buenos Aires Green City? umbrella framework that included separate collection as a main component.