Social Movements, the New "Social Question," and the Second Incorporation of the Popular Sectors in Argentina and Brazil

FEDERICO M. ROSSI

Reshaping the Political Arena in Latin America: From Resisting Neoliberalism to the Second Incorporation

University of Pittsburgh Press

Lugar: Pittsburgh; Año: 2018; p. 78 - 112

This chapter analyzes two paradigmatic examples of reincorporation struggles and movements in Latin America. These are the unemployed workers? movement in Argentina and the landless peasants? movement in Brazil. These movements have been struggling for the reincorporation of the popular sectors as wage earners (members of the socioeconomic society) as well as citizens (members of the political society). The aim is to understand how pressure from below built the conditions for the second incorporation of the popular sectors in Argentina and Brazil (see Rossi 2015, 2017).The transformation of socio-political arenas in Argentina and Brazil from import-substitution industrialization (ISI) to neoliberalism and beyond was a contentious process. In Argentina, the crisis of 2001?2003 produced a larger rupture with the neoliberal past than in Brazil. In the latter, the process was incremental, and mild if compared with the rest of the cases covered by this book. However, in Argentina and Brazil, a key social movement mobilized to resist the disincorporation consequences of neoliberal reforms and struggled to achieve the reincorporation of the popular sectors. In both countries, a new ?social question? emerged as a result of these struggles, and social policies and policing techniques were created or modified to deal with the popular sectors? organized unrest. Finally, both movements were incorporated into the coalition in government, though with a marginal influence in the policy-making process. Using a historical and comparative method, this chapter identifies the stages of this process of second incorporation.