Clientelism, Public Workfare and the Emergence of the Piqueteros in Argentina

LUCAS RONCONI; IGNACIO FRANCESCHELLI

Political Institutions and Development: Failed Expectations and Renewed Hopes

Edward Elgar

Año: 2007; p. 228 - 252

This chapter studies the emergence and growth of organizations of poor, unemployed and previously unorganized people that occurred in Argentina since the mid-nineties. We argue that the emergence and growth of the movement was triggered and fueled by the implementation of temporary public works programs (public workfare) in the early nineties and the clientelistic manner in which the programs were administered by the government. Workfare fostered networking among aggrieved individuals and provided selective incentives and external resources allowing these incipient organizations to become the most active social actor in the country. We empirically evaluate this hypothesis and competing theories of social movements. Both anecdotal and statistical evidence, at the micro, organization and macro level, suggest that workfare benefits, an excludable good, provided material selective incentives to overcome free riding barriers and the resources to collectively organize.