New Social Movements in Latin America and the Changing Socio-political Matrix

Abstract

Abstract During the 1970s and 1980s, collective action showed several new traits that generated a debate on studying social movements. These are the distance that social movements were having with the political system, the importance of normative claims and non-material demands, the middle-class social composition, and the centrality of identity. Around these characteristics emerged the concept and study of “New Social Movements” (NSMs), and the attempts not only to understand their ways of action, but also the changes in society that could explain their emergence in contraposition to “traditional movements.” In Latin America, the NSMs concept was due to a new political context, mainly explained by the rise of dictatorships and new links that developed between state and society. The latter describes a different cause than that which started the discussion in Europe and North America. During the 1980s, when the debates started in the region, there were no signs of change in the economic or class structure as it seemed to have happened in the First World. Instead, the decomposition of the socio-political matrix and traditional developmentalist state is more relevant to explain the emergence of NSMs in Latin America. Because of the latter, understanding these movements’ nature draws the attention to certain specificities of the societies in which they unfold, and how movements defy them.