Social Movements and Patronage Politics: Processes of Demobilization and Dual Pressure

Social Movements and Patronage Politics: Processes of

Demobilization and Dual Pressure1

Pablo Lapegna2

Why might social movements be highly contentious at one point in time and demobilize shortly after?

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines the dynamics of demobilization of popular move-

ments in a context of patronage politics. I argue that demobilization in these contexts results from rela-

tional processes creating a “dual pressure” stemming “from below” and “from above.” In social

environments where patronage is pervasive, poor people develop survival strategies relying on clientelistic

arrangements. They participate in a social movement organization (SMO) to voice their rights, but also

to address pressing survival needs by gaining access to resources. These expectations of constituents

create a pressure “from below” on leaders of an SMO, which respond by securing resources obtained

through alliances with national political actors. In turn, these alliances create a pressure “from above,”

because local leaders reciprocate this national support by eschewing the organization of collective

actions. Drawing on data culled from 12 months of fieldwork on an Argentine peasant movement, this

article inspects the interconnections between popular movements and patronage politics to refine our

understanding of demobilization processes; contribute to discussions regarding the role of culture on con-

tentious politics; and shed light on current demobilization trends in Latin America.

KEY WORDS: Argentina; culture; demobilization; patronage politics; political ethnography; socialmovements.

INTRODUCTION

In February 2003, herbicides used in soybean fields rented by agribusiness-men drifted from their attempted target and ravaged nearby crops grown bypeasant families in the rural communities of Monte Azul and Moreno, in the

1 I would like to thank Javier Auyero, James Coverdill, Becca Hanson, Patricia Richards, DavidSmilde, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on previous versions of this article. Ialso benefitted from the suggestions of participants at several venues: the meeting of the EasternSociological Society in New York (especially Charlotte Ryan and Sebasti�an Guzm�an), the GeorgiaWorkshop on Culture, Power, and History at the University of Georgia, and the InternationalSociological Association Forum in Buenos Aires. I am grateful for the support of the Tinker Foun-dation, the Social Science Research Council (Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship), andthe National Science Foundation (Award SES-0739217).

2 Department of Sociology and Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute, University ofGeorgia, Baldwin Hall Athens, GA 30602-1611; e-mail: [email protected].

Sociological Forum, Vol. 28, No. 4, December 2013

DOI: 10.1111/socf.12059

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© 2013 Eastern Sociological Society

northeastern Argentine province of Formosa.3 People felt feverish, experiencedheadaches and muscular pains, and had frequent episodes of nausea and vomit-ing. Victims of this toxic exposure reacted with disruptive collective actionsorganized by members of the Movimiento Campesino de Formosa (MoCaFor;Peasant Movement of Formosa). In Monte Azul, people affected by agrochemi-cals organized several roadblocks and filed suits against agribusinessmen,demanding reparation for damages to their farms. In Moreno, peasants andlocal inhabitants marched to the local airport, took over a fumigation airplane,occupied the local airport for a week, and did not leave until they were reassuredfumigations would cease.

Six years later, in February 2009, a very similar toxic exposure occurred. InMonte Azul, several families suffered the sudden death of animals on theirfarms, and people exhibited a series of ailments akin to those seen in 2003.Comparable events of contamination also took place in Moreno around thesame time. Nevertheless, unlike the response in 2003, no protests took place ineither of these communities in 2009. Why, when facing an environmentalonslaught, do people from the same communities first react by organizing con-tentious protests and later fail to engage in collective action? And, beyond thesespecific cases, why might social movements be highly contentious at one point intime and demobilize shortly after?

These cases are even more puzzling when seen in their political contexts.Between 2003 and 2011, two consecutive national administrations eschewedrepression of contentious events and nurtured close relationships with socialmovements by taking heed of their demands and distributing resources amongorganizations including MoCaFor. In short, MoCaFor (and many other socialmovement organizations in contemporary Argentina) has demobilized sharplyin spite of favorable political opportunities and access to resources, two condi-tions that established social movement theory deems as conducive tomobilization.

In this article, I draw on archival research and ethnographic fieldwork toilluminate processes of demobilization that, I argue, result from the pervasive-ness of patronage in popular politics and a relational process of “dual pressure”on popular movements.4 I propose the concept of dual pressure to encompassthe twofold pressures on social movement leaders, stemming “from below” and“from above.” In social contexts where patronage is pervasive, poor peopledevelop survival strategies relying on clientelistic arrangements based on expec-tations of reciprocity.5 Poor people participate in a social movement organiza-tion, volunteering their time in order to voice their rights, but also to addresspressing survival needs by gaining access to resources. In other words, they

3 The names of specific localities and people have been changed.4 Following recent literature, I use clientelism and patronage politics as interchangeable terms(Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007; Way and Levitsky 2007; cf. Hilgers 2011:575–576).

5 For classic statements on this point, see Eisentadt and Roniger 1984; Schmidt et al. 1977; Wolf1966. For contemporary Latin America see Auyero 2000; Auyero and Swistun 2009; Gay 1990;Shefner 2001.

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provide the movement valuable resources while expecting something in return.These expectations of constituents create pressure “from below” on leaders of asocial movement organization (SMO), which responds by securing and distribut-ing resources obtained through alliances with national political actors. In turn,these alliances create a pressure “from above” on local social movement organi-zations and leaders that ultimately create obstacles to contentious collectiveaction. When acting as brokers, local leaders reciprocate the support given bytheir national allies by eschewing the organization of collective actions.

This article inspects the interconnections between patronage politics andsocial movements to explain demobilization processes. I argue that attention tothese interconnections can move the conversation forward in four ways: first, itcan refine our understanding of demobilization processes; second, it can extendinsights about culture and contentious politics; third, it can contribute to discus-sions regarding the role of agency and strategy on clientelism; and finally, it canshed light on current demobilization trends in Latin America.

First, scholars of social movements have overwhelmingly focused theirattention on explaining mobilization and the emergence of social movements(Walder 2009). In comparison, processes and mechanisms of demobilization andsocial movements’ decline are much less understood. The social movement field,by and large, has paid much less attention to explaining why social movementscease to mobilize or why people choose tactics other than transgressive collectiveaction to address their grievances. Social movement scholars have addresseddemobilization processes by proposing a series of concepts: Piven and Cloward(1979) extended the classic thesis of Weber-Michels on the “iron law of oligar-chy” (Michels 1962), arguing that demobilization was a function of institutional-ization (cf. Clemens and Minkoff 2004; Voss 1996). Seminal studies argued thatelite support and a lack of indigenous resources could lead to the taming of asocial movement (McAdam 1982:55–56) and that “challenger groups” might beco-opted when recognized as legitimate actors by authorities but without gainingnew advantages (Gamson 1975).6 However, how can we explain the organiza-tional survival of SMOs when they are not institutionalized? What are the inter-vening mechanisms between elite support and demobilization? The mechanismscausing demobilization are little understood, and our theoretical toolkit aboutprocesses of demobilization dwindles in comparison to the availability and refine-ment of concepts explaining mobilization.7

Second, close attention to the connections between social movements andpatronage politics offer an opportunity to better understand the relationshipbetween contentious and routine politics and its cultural underpinnings in a

6 But see Heaney and Rojas 2011. Other concepts linked to demobilization processes include “abey-ance structures” (Sawyers and Meyer 1999; Taylor 1989) and “organizational mortality” (Edwardsand Marullo 1995). On co-optation and social movements, see also Coy and Hedeen 2005;McCarthy and Wolfson 1992; Murphree et al. 1996; Pellow 1999; Schwartz 1976; Trumpy 2008.On the institutional impact of social movements long after they demobilize, see Andrews 2006.

7 A connected problem, the lack of collective action, has long preoccupied social scientists (e.g.,Gaventa 1980; Moore 1978; Scott 1985). Yet in this article my interest lays on dynamics of demobi-lization—instead of the total absence of mobilization.

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variety of settings. Social movement scholars have recently sought to develop asynthetic theory of contentious politics by proposing mechanisms explaining notonly social movements but also other political phenomena like democratization,ethnic conflicts, and revolutions (McAdam et al. 2001). I seek to expand thispurview by examining the connections between contentious politics and patron-age politics. The distribution of resources and the political opportunities affor-ded to popular movements in Latin America are usually embedded in the logicof patronage politics and its associated ideas of reciprocity and mutual obliga-tions. An inspection of popular movements in Latin America can thus shed lighton how political opportunities and resources are inextricably intertwined withmeaning-making processes; in a word, with culture (Goodwin and Jasper 2004).In focusing on the connection between social movements and patronage politicsto explain demobilization, I seek to contribute to the literature arguing thatculture could function not only as an enabling but also as a constraining factorfor contentious collective action (Polletta, 2008; see also Armstrong and Bern-stein 2008; Eliasoph and Lichterman 2003; Meyer et al. 2002; Mische 2008).Considering that this line of research has overwhelmingly concentrated on theUnited States and Europe, more research investigating the enabling and con-straining role of culture in diverse social settings is needed (Davis 1999). SinceLatin American polities have been historically shaped by patronage politics andclientelism (e.g., Fox 1994; Hellman 1994; Roniger and G€unes-Ayata 1994;Shefner 2008), an analysis of demobilization processes in this region canstrengthen social movement theories by inspecting the ways in which its insightson the role of culture can be extended to the Global South.

Third, inspecting patronage arrangements from the point of view of socialmovements may contribute to discussions on the role of agency and strategy onclientelism. At its most basic, clientelist relationships involve the exchange ofresources or public employment (or its promise) for political support (usually asvotes or participation in rallies) (Schmidt et al. 1977). This view of clientelismhas been complemented by literature emphasizing its symbolic aspects (quotidianinteractions embedded in relations of reciprocity and affect, and the personalizeddimension of exchanges) (e.g., Auyero 2000; Roniger and G€unes-Ayata 1994).The study presented here contributes to this literature by analyzing differentstrategies deployed by social actors participating in social movements whileacting in clientelist contexts. I show that political support may also translate intoeschewing contention, and that subordinate actors may choose different strate-gies to address their grievances—staging protests at certain moments, obtainingand distributing resources at others. In doing so, I join the conversation initiatedby scholars of Latin American politics who pay attention to the strategic use ofpolitical networks among grassroots activists (Alvarez Rivadulla 2012; Hilgers2009; Lazar 2008). Adopting this perspective can also bridge the literature onclientelism with social movement studies, given its recent interest in strategicaction (Jasper 2004).

Last, I seek to illuminate recent processes of Latin American politics,namely, the demobilization of contentious actors following the ascendance of


anti-neoliberal governments in the region. During the last decade, democrati-cally elected governments in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua,Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela (in a process dubbed the “pink tide”)opposed the principles and institutions of neoliberal governance (Levitsky andRoberts 2011). Emerging after a phase of heightened mobilization, these govern-ments built alliances with social movements organizations (Hershberg andRosen 2006; Oliva Campos et al. 2012) and popular mobilization diminishedsharply. It is not clear, however, the processes and mechanisms by which socialmovement organizations in Latin America demobilized. Ideology and the appealof populist rhetoric certainly plays a role in these processes; I focus here on thelinks between clientelism and social movements, because they offer a window tosee how those symbolic aspects are connected to material grievances andexpressed in quotidian interactions, while shedding light on the agentic aspectsand strategic choices of popular actors.

The article is organized as follows. I first specify the methods and data ofthe study, and then provide an account of trends of contention, patronage poli-tics, and popular demobilization in recent Argentina. In the third section, I pre-sent the findings culled from my fieldwork in Argentina and dissect the conceptof dual pressure resulting in processes of demobilization. The discussion andconclusions summarize the main findings and limitations of the article whiledelineating its contributions and suggesting lines for future research.

METHODS AND DATA

My goal in this article is to draw our attention to a particular—but wide-spread—form that processes of demobilization can take, namely, the obstaclesposed to mobilization when social movements act in environments dominatedby patronage politics. Processes of demobilization still present challenges forsocial movement theory and beg for conceptual elaboration. Influential socialmovement scholars have long noticed this lacuna suggesting, for instance, thatresearch on collective action frames needs to investigate negative cases “as whenframings fail to stimulate collective action” (Benford 1997:412). McAdam,Tarrow, and Tilly (2008:325) also assert that “In searching for causal mecha-nisms that produce collective action, we should be as interested in cases wherenothing much happens as in those in which widespread action ensues.” Theseauthors argue that social movement scholarship has focused on the link betweenorganization and action by “selecting on the dependent variable,” that is, byonly paying attention to how organization leads to collective action, a line ofinquiry that “elide[s] the more numerous examples in which groups constrainaction” (McAdam et al. 2008:325).

The comparatively little attention paid to processes of demobilization in theliterature on social movements can be attributed to reasonable methodologicalstrategies. Research on social movements has mainly concentrated on discontin-uous, public, and collective claim making (Tilly 2006:49). These events leave a

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“paper trail” that can be traced, thus classic social movement studies (e.g.,McAdam 1982; Tilly 1978) have used newspaper data and archives to assembleevent catalogs in large data sets, a technique that has become common in recentyears (Earl et al. 2004). This strategy is nothing but logical when aiming to covera large time span (several decades or even centuries) or relatively vast geographi-cal areas (one or more nations) to identify relationships between significant vari-ables. However, certain correlations and their internal mechanisms (for instance,as Tilly [2006:49] points out, patron–client relations) may be hard to explainusing this technique only.

Social movement scholars have noted these issues and proposed the use ofethnography to capture certain mobilization mechanisms (McAdam et al. 2008).Considering that demobilization processes involve relationships that, by defini-tion, do not evolve into open confrontations with authorities (and thus hardlyleave “public records”), those processes can be best identified by an up-close andin situ observation of practices and in-depth interviews. Furthermore, partici-pant observation among social movements makes it possible to register the prac-tices and discourses of both leaders and constituencies, thus avoiding the pitfallsof the “elite bias” when apprehending meaning-making processes (Benford1997:421–422). Ethnography, thus, is especially well equipped to delve into whatMelucci (1985) calls the “submerged networks” of social movements, capturingthe cultural practices of both mobilized and demobilized constituencies (Burdick1995), and providing “a more genuine appreciation of the lived experience ofmovement participants and nonparticipants” (Edelman 2001:309). In short, eth-nography is particularly well equipped to capture the micro-level processes con-necting patronage and social movements, the meaning-making processesinvolved in those interactions, and their role in demobilization.

My fieldwork was developed in a province of northern Argentina, in twostrongholds of MoCaFor: the rural community of Monte Azul and the nearbytown of Curuz�u, and the semi-rural town of Moreno. Data were collectedbetween 2003 and 2010, totaling 12 months of fieldwork.8 I contacted the peas-ants of Monte Azul in 2003 when I visited the area with two colleagues. We pro-duced a documentary film about the cases of contamination, which I believehelped me to gain entrance in my ensuing visits. When I reinitiated fieldwork in2007, I wanted to further investigate the protests of 2003. In early 2009,I received an e-mail from members of MoCaFor telling me there had beenanother incident of agrochemical drift in Monte Azul. When I traveled to For-mosa some months later and found out that no protest had taken place follow-ing this environmental problem, I decided to focus my research on processes ofdemobilization.

I conducted 45 semistructured interviews with social movement leaders(N = 10), social movement members (N = 15), peasants and local inhabitants(N = 9), public officials (N = 4), agronomists (N = 2), lawyers (N = 3), and

8 I conducted fieldwork in June and July 2007, from September through December 2008, Aprilthrough June 2009, and in June and July 2010, beside 2-week visits in 2003, 2004, and 2011.


agribusinessmen (N = 2). In my interviews, I relied on “snowball” sampling andalso interviewed peasants by simply approaching their farms and asking them ifthey were willing to talk to me. I took part in activities held in MoCaFor officesin Curuz�u and Moreno, lived in the houses and on the farms of peasant familiesin Monte Azul, and participated in rallies and meetings held by MoCaFor lead-ers and members in Buenos Aires, all the while taking extensive notes on interac-tions and dialogues. I also reviewed three provincial newspapers for the period2003–2006, collecting 78 news stories about MoCaFor, and compiled documents(communiqu�es, bulletins, leaflets, pamphlets) produced by this SMO.

The number of interviews did not aim to obtain a “representative sample”in the statistical sense (see Small 2009), but rather followed the principles of the-oretical sampling, seeking to build up or contrast with emerging themes (Corbinand Strauss 1990; Hammersley and Atkinson 2007). The data were coded andanalyzed after each round of fieldwork, using open and focused coding (Emer-son et al. 1995), and provisional findings guided subsequent rounds of data col-lection. Focused coding aimed to reconstruct the grievances and contentiousevents outlined in the opening paragraphs of this article, the views of authoritiesand allies, and relationships between participants in the SMO. When codingthese last two dimensions, the pressures of members and allies on leadersemerged as an open code. Interviews, field notes, and documents where thenrecoded using instances of double pressure as a focused code.

CONTENTION, PATRONAGE POLITICS, AND POPULAR

DEMOBILIZATION IN ARGENTINA AND FORMOSA (1990s–2000s)

Argentina provides a good opportunity to examine the connections betweensocial movements and clientelistic practices and an ensuing demobilization ofcontentious actors. During the 1990s, the country went through a profound neo-liberalization that was matched with a twofold reaction of protest and accom-modation among popular sectors. While riots, road blockades, and massivedemonstrations were staged in opposition to the negative effects of neoliberaliza-tion policies (Auyero 2003; Cerrutti and Grimson 2004; Delamata 2004;Farinetti 2002; Giarracca 2001; Svampa and Pereyra 2003), marginalized popu-lations also adapted to the circumstances by resorting to patronage networksthat distributed welfare resources and provided access to public services andemployment (Auyero 2000; Brusco et al. 2004; Giraudy 2007; Levitsky 2003;Weitz-Shapiro 2006).

At the end of 2001, Argentina was submerged in a deep financial crisis thatresulted in lootings in several cities and a presidential resignation. In 2002, bothcollective actions and welfare expanded; the unemployed workers movementmaintained a high level of mobilization, factories were occupied by laid-offworkers and turned into cooperatives, and city neighbors created popularassemblies (Dinerstein 2003; Sitrin 2006; Villal�on 2007). At the same time, theprovisional government launched a vast welfare plan: the “Unemployed Head of

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Households Plan” (Plan Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados), reaching morethan 2 million households by 2003 (CELS 2003).

In 2003, the election of president N�estor Kirchner brought about a political“normalization” to Argentina (see Levitsky and Murillo 2008). During N�estorKirchner’s administration (2003–2007) and that of his wife Cristina Fern�andezde Kirchner (2007–2011, reelected for 2011–2015), social movement organiza-tions were allowed to administer their own welfare plans, a decision that recon-figured the functioning of social movements (Garay 2007). Furthermore, duringthe Kirchners’ administrations, several social movement organizations becamemore involved in welfare policies, and some leaders were appointed to publicoffices. Following this redefinition of the relationship between state and socialmovements, popular movements demobilized strikingly (Delamata 2004;Svampa and Pereyra 2004; Villal�on 2007; Wolff 2007).

The parallel growth of protest and clientelism in the 1990s suggests thatpatronage and mobilization are not necessarily opposed but can be intertwinedin the strategies developed by popular sectors addressing their grievances, some-thing noted by research in Argentina (Auyero et al. 2009; Quir�os 2006) andother Latin American countries (Alvarez Rivadulla 2012; Hilgers 2009; Lazar2008). In what follows, I zoom in on the province of Formosa to show that anSMO can demobilize in a context with strong clientelist practices because of therelational field in which social movement leaders and members are embedded. Inother words, I show that demobilization is less a function of co-optation (under-stood as leaders being “sellouts”) than the result of dual pressures from membersand political allies on a SMO.

Popular Movements and Patronage Politics in Formosa

Formosa, a northeast province of Argentina, is one of the poorer provincesof the country. In the early 2000s, 28% of the households had “unsatisfied basicneeds” (two times the national level).9 The province has the worst infant mortal-ity rate in Argentina: almost 29&, much higher than the 16& of the country asa whole. Although a high proportion of people in Formosa make a living fromagriculture (almost 68%), primary activities only represent 9% of the gross pro-vincial product (Novacovsky 2003). In contrast, 73% of the gross provincialproduct is represented by services, 45% of which are public services. This reflectsthe weight of public employment in Formosa, which is intertwined with thepatronage networks of the provincial government. Peronism has ruled Formosasince 1983; current governor Gildo Insfr�an has held office since 1995 (after beingvice-governor 1987–1991), and he was reelected for the 2011–2015 period,during which he will reach 20 years of uninterrupted government. A study of thequality of democracy in the 24 Argentine provinces during 1983–2006 ranked

9 In rural areas, 52% of the households had unsatisfied basic needs, well above the national level of32%. In 2001, the total population of the province was 486,559 inhabitants (INDEC 2002).


Formosa among the five undemocratic provinces in the nation, quoting it as anexample of a state with a patrimonial administration (Giraudy 2010:58, 62).Formosa, in short, is a clear example of a poor province ruled by a hierarchicalpolitical system.

Public employment and welfare benefits are the main source of income formost Formosan inhabitants, and the networks of the Justicialista (Peronist)Party manage the access to these resources. The following field note exemplifiesmany interactions and discourses I witnessed while doing fieldwork:

I am having breakfast in Monte Azul, in the house/farm of N�elida. I listen to a radio showalternating between local news, announcements, and music. In between two songs, the fol-lowing message is read: “Please, those people who requested a new pension, come get yourcertificates from the ANSeS [Social Security] at the headquarters of the Justicialista [Per-onist] Party! Congratulations to the newly retired people!” (July 12, 2007)

In 2004, Formosa received more than 51,000 unemployed subsidies throughthe Plan Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados that covered 18% of the Formosanpopulation over 18 years old (I~nigo Carrera 2008:149). Many of these subsidies,administered by the municipalities, nurtured the political machine of the provin-cial government.10 A vast majority of Formosans (particularly in rural areas)relies on patronage to make ends meet and looks to politicians for assistance(Gordillo 2008; Landini 2012).

The Movimiento Campesino de Formosa (MoCaFor) was created in themid-1990s and since then has struggled to maintain its independence from theprovincial government. MoCaFor emerged as an offshoot of the MovimientoAgrario de Formosa (MAF; Agrarian Movement of Formosa), a rural move-ment created in the democratization period of the early 1980s. When MAF lead-ers struck a pact with the provincial government in the mid-1990s, turning themovement into an appendage of the governor’s political machine, nearly a dozenleaders broke away and created MoCaFor. The movement’s participants areaware that, in the eyes of many in the province, they are “weird” or bothersome;as a member told me, “We are like a piece of meat stuck in your teeth (somoscomo carne en el diente). . . they don’t like us. Many people depend on publicemployment, the school, the municipality, the police, and they all answer to thegovernment that doesn’t want us to exist.”

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, MoCaFor organized a series of conten-tious collective actions to address the lack of access to land and the difficultytheir members were having trying to make a living. In January and July 1999MoCaFor organized roadblocks in different areas of the province, and in Juneand July two assemblies of the movement counted with the participation ofhundreds of people, where leaders delivered discourses highly critical of the pro-vincial government (see Sapkus 2002). In 2001 MoCaFor organized an occupa-tion of a neighborhood built by the provincial government in Moreno,

10 Almost three-quarters (72.3%) of the people receiving “Unemployment Plans” in Formosa wereaffiliated with a political party (at the national level, this proportion was 51.6%) (Savoia andCalvo 2005).

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denouncing that the public houses would be given to political brokers anddemanding a fair allocation of the houses.

To maintain autonomy from the provincial government, MoCaFor devel-oped a series of alliances and political networks that connected the movement toa national social movement and the national government, alliances that alsoprovided access to resources. Germane among these alliances is the connectionbetween MoCaFor and the Federaci�on de Tierra y Vivienda (FTV; Land andHouseholds Federation). MoCaFor was one of the grassroots organizations thatcontributed to the creation of FTV, and MoCaFor’s main leader occupied therole of vice-president for several years. By 1999 FTV was the biggest organiza-tion of unemployed workers and it went on to obtain thousands of unemploy-ment subsidies (Svampa and Pereyra 2003). Many of these welfare benefits andaccess to other subsidies were passed along to MoCaFor.

In 2003, when N�estor Kirchner took office as president, MoCaFor becameinvolved in a complex system of alliances. FTV supported Kirchner when heran for president (and won) as one of the candidates of the Peronist Party in the2003 election. The support for Kirchner’s administration (and that of his succes-sor, Cristina Fern�andez de Kirchner) from FTV and MoCaFor allowed bothorganizations access to welfare resources distributed by the national govern-ment, virtually turning the leaders of these social movements into “functionariesof the welfare state.” At the same time, Formosa’s governor has also been aconsistent ally of the Kirchners, both in Congress and within the internal strug-gles of the Peronist Party. These various political alliances ultimately putMoCaFor in a difficult position: MoCaFor opposes a provincial governmentthat, at the same time, is an ally of the national government that MoCaFor alsosupports.

In the introduction, I presented vignettes of events taking place in the samecommunities in 2003 and 2009, exemplifying the dynamics I want to tackle inthis article. The same people that in 2003 responded to an environmentalonslaught with widespread contention did not protest a very similar problem in2009. Why? I argue that this demobilization responds to a process of dual pres-sure developed between those two points in time. On the one hand, political alli-ances created “pressures from above” that posed obstacles for contentiouscollective action. On the other hand, and in a social context dominated bypatronage politics, the distribution of welfare resources created a “pressure frombelow” on leaders, coming from their constituents.

DEMOBILIZATION AS DUAL PRESSURE

Pressures From Below

In 2003, MoCaFor began to receive resources from the national govern-ment: unemployment benefits (planes in the jargon of popular movements),scholarships for youngsters attending high school, food, and agricultural


machinery for the cooperative created by MoCaFor in Moreno. In the adminis-tration and distribution of these resources, the relationships between MoCaForleaders and constituents began to resemble those of political brokers and“clients” of patronage networks. The administration and distribution of planesmade MoCaFor akin to a “problem-solving network,” blurring the linesbetween the practices of a social movement and those of patronage networks.

In the management of planes, MoCaFor not only distributes these benefitsamong their constituents, but also helps people to solve problems they encounterwhile being “beneficiaries” (payments in arrear, paperwork, etc.). The followingexcerpt exemplifies the kind of interactions between leaders and constituents cre-ated by the expansion of welfare benefits, showing how MoCaFor becomes asocial movement, but also a “problem-solving network.”

We are in N�elida’s house/farm, with her son Julio [also a MoCaFor leader]. An older manarrives asking about his son’s plan; he says he got paid but they hadn’t paid his son yet.[Julio explains how to solve a series of problems with the paperwork] and says that forsome people the paperwork goes through quickly, because of politics. The man thankshim several times and leaves. (June 19, 2009)

The next excerpt elaborates on the topic of MoCaFor as a problem-solvingnetwork, in this case, with a group of prospective MoCaFor members. On aSunday afternoon, a meeting was held between two MoCaFor leaders (Julio andIsidoro) and a dozen women in the office of MoCaFor in Curuz�u, a warehousein the outskirts of town. After the meeting, four young women stayed to talkwith Julio and Isidoro about the possibility of joining MoCaFor.

The women want to join the organization, so Julio begins to explain that they acquireplanes and distribute them “according to the needs of the people.”. . . They say they privi-lege those who participate more, “because sometimes you get a plan for the people, andthen they don’t come anymore, or they only appear when their plan gets cut, or their plangets cut and they don’t even show up then.” They ask for a contribution of 10 pesos forthose who get the plan, because that’s how they pay for the computer, internet, and the“costs of the paperwork, supplies, trips that have to be made, if we need to go to Formosafor something, if we need to go Buenos Aires, for the gas for the vehicle when we have togo to the rural communities to talk to people or have meetings.”. . . One of the womensays, “We want to participate, and if later there’s some plan, great, I hope you will keep usin mind.” Isidoro tells them to come to the meeting Tuesday and Wednesday [there is a 2-day meeting with peasant organizations of the northeast]. (October 26, 2008)

I quoted this passage at length because it encapsulates two dimensions: first,that people join the movement to “participate” but also, in a context dominatedby patronage, to eventually obtain something in return (“We want to partici-pate, and if later there’s some plan, great, I hope you will keep us in mind”); sec-ond, that the distribution of planes contributes to the organization’s survival(through the collection of “dues”) and recruitment efforts (“come to the meetingTuesday and Wednesday”).

Some of the quotidian practices I witnessed in the offices of MoCaFor inMoreno resembled the workings of a patronage network even more closely. InMoreno, MoCaFor is led by Benito Garc�ıa, who is surrounded by a group ofpeople that follow his orders closely. In the several days I spent in the warehouse

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that doubles as MoCaFor office in Moreno I witnessed a continuous processionof people coming from the poorest areas of town asking for mercader�ıa (food).MoCaFor members wrote down people’s information and gave them a bag withmilk, cacao, and peas. The resemblance between these practices and the ones ofa patronage network did not pass unnoticed to MoCaFor members. When Iasked Armando if a lot of people came to asking for mercader�ıa in the previousdays, he says, “No, but last time [they received and distributed food] it was aton. . . . It was like a political rally!”

The following excerpt shows how the role ofMoCaFor does not end with thedistribution of welfare benefits, but requires ongoing monitoring as MoCaForleaders are called upon to solve the day-to-day problems their constituents facewhile being “beneficiaries” of welfare. We were seated with Benito inside his officetoward the end of an interview, when I witnessed the following situation:

Someone knocks on the door, it’s Nelson [MoCaFor member]. He walks in and recounts aproblem he had in the mayor’s office (he’s presenting some projects there), and says thathe wants to present another letter. Benito tells him, “Bring what you’ve written tomorrowand we’ll look at it.” Two women enter the office and say that they went to Clorinda to gettheir scholarships from the Ministry of Education but couldn’t; they were told that theschool wasn’t registered. Benito says that’s not it; they get paid through MoCaFor andnot through the school. Two men enter and recount how they were not able to get paideither. Benito to Nilda [a kind of “secretary” for Benito]: “Give them 5 pesos to buybread. . .and the Spam in the kitchen. Because you didn’t eat anything today, right? Goand make breakfast. . . .” (November 11, 2008)

In casual conversation with me, some leaders complained about having topersonally attend to people’s demands continuously. Returning to MoCaForoffices after having dinner, Tito (who is in the offices day and night) bitterlycomplained that “people come asking for anything and everything: medicines,help with a legal issue, food. . . “As Benito told me, “People think you are thepriest, the police captain. . . . You end up in a personalized situation, when thematter should be collective.” In spite of this, the distribution of food in a contextdominated by patronage inevitably resembles the workings of clientelism, asArmando noticed in the quote above. In fact, MoCaFor leaders in Curuz�urefuse to distribute food because, as Julio told me, “that is asistencialismo [asynonym of clientelism]; that is what politicians do, we don’t want to do that.”Furthermore, the personalized way in which some goods were distributed inMoreno also suggested a clientelistic dynamic. During my fieldwork, I noticedthat when people wanted access to the tractor or the scholarships MoCaForreceived from the national authorities, they had to wait in line and have individ-ual meetings with a leader.

An SMO receiving and distributing resources does not necessarily translateinto a reproduction of clientelist practices. However, the type of resources, itspersonalized distribution, and the demands of constant “problem solving” havestrong parallels with patronage. An additional example underlines this point byshowing the expectations of reciprocity embedded in exchanges. During a longinterview on his farm, a grassroots member of MoCaFor told me that he wouldlike to criticize the organization’s leadership, but he keep his “mouth shut”


because his daughter is studying with a scholarship she received throughMoCaFor. Just as the exchange of goods and services may eschew collectivecontention (as we will see in the next section), expectations of reciprocity maysubdue internal dissent.

The ethnographic data presented so far illustrates the pervasiveness ofpatronage in Formosa and how the distribution of resources obtained byMoCaFor mimics certain clientelistic practices. MoCaFor fulfills the expecta-tions arising from the ubiquity of patronage in Formosa by addressing the press-ing material needs of its constituents. At the same time, the interactions involvedin those exchanges also tend to reproduce the pervasiveness of patronage politicsin the province. When MoCaFor leaders need to obtain resources, however, theymove from the role of distributors to the role of “clients” in a process of creating“pressures from above.”

Pressures From Above

A series of events taking place in 2004 shed light on how the allegiances andalliances in which MoCaFor became embedded during the Kirchners’ adminis-tration contributed to a process of demobilization. On June 15, 2004, MoCaForhad planned a march to Formosa’s capital to present a series of demands to theprovincial government. The day of the scheduled march, the head of FTV, LuisD’El�ıa, arrived in Formosa and arranged a meeting between Benito Garc�ıa(head of MoCaFor), Governor Insfr�an, and himself. During the meeting, it wasagreed that the provincial administration and MoCaFor would create a commis-sion to negotiate peasants’ demands.

As a result of the meeting, MoCaFor’s mobilization to Formosa was sus-pended. D’El�ıa expressed that the policies of the provincial government“strongly support the province’s development” and noted that “there was agood amount of dialogue and willingness from both sides, to initiate a new pha-se. . .and to try to support the project put forward by President N�estorKirchner.” The newspaper stated that “the leader highlighted that the nationalproject of President N�estor Kirchner is absolutely identified with the Formosangovernor.” Benito was quoted in the newspaper as saying that the meeting “wasan opportunity to begin a new phase between the province’s government and asector of organized society. It has been fruitful in terms of reaching an agree-ment to work together and beginning to look for effective solutions.”11

The signing of the agreement was scheduled for a month later, on July 16,2004. MoCaFor peasants mobilized en masse to the capital of Formosa to makesure their demands were addressed. However, at the moment of signing theagreement the minister of production declared that peasants’ demands wereexaggerated, that they would consume the province’s budget, and blamed thepeasant organization for not reaching an agreement. MoCaFor marched to

11 Quoted in the provincial newspaper La Ma~nana, June 15, 2004.

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Formosa’s capital demanding the signature of the agreement, but the officialresponse was that the governor was negotiating with D’El�ıa in Buenos Aires.MoCaFor rank and file then blockaded a road on the outskirts of Formosa’scapital, demanding that the governor receive them and accept the agreementreached in June. “As soon as we blocked the road, I got a call from D’El�ıa, tell-ing me we will be repressed, that we should stop the blockade. . .,” Benito toldme. In spite of the pressure of mobilizations, the provincial government neverfulfilled the promises reached in the agreement. MoCaFor leaders see theseevents as the moment when they broke any possible bridges with the provincialgovernment. Some months later, in September 2004, MoCaFor organized amarch when President Kirchner visited Formosa. The movement was consider-ing blocking a road, but D’El�ıa got in touch with them to ask them to reconsiderthe blockade and offered his support to negotiate MoCaFor’s demands.MoCaFor leaders then held a meeting with the president’s secretary, and fromthen on, they established new contacts with the national government.

The alliance between FTV and MoCaFor thus provided the latter withresources (welfare planes) to be distributed among their members and constitu-ents, besides networks with the national administration. These resources andconnections were necessary to ensure the organizations’ survival, in terms ofmaintaining their support base and independence from the provincial govern-ment. In the process, MoCaFor leaders become not only “distributors” ofresources among their constituents but also “receivers” of resources from thenational government. Accordingly, the reception of those resources created cer-tain (unspoken) obligations for them. For instance, MoCaFor participates inrallies in Buenos Aires supporting the president. They are not forced to do so,but rather feel the obligation to reciprocate the support of the national govern-ment by taking part in activities organized by the latter (very much likeMoCaFor members receiving planes are expected to participate in the activitiesorganized by MoCaFor in Formosa, as shown in the previous section). In short,obtaining and distributing resources creates a field of reciprocity with multiplepoints of reference and pressures that influence processes of demobilization.

During my fieldwork in Moreno, I interviewed Oscar, a middle-range leaderof MoCaFor. I asked him about the roadblocks of 2004 and the intermediationof D’El�ıa, and why they decided to suspend the mobilizations against the provin-cial government. Oscar’s answer clearly connects the mobilization of people withthe access to resources, in that instance and in MoCaFor actions in general:

Our concern was always to maintain the economic component. To sustain the people. Sothis was one of the factors affecting why we had to suspend the roadblocks. Because tomobilize the people from here to Formosa it’s 300 km [186 miles], from San Mart�ın it’s800 km [497 miles], and if you don’t have resources, how can you mobilize the people? Wealso had the issue of food. This was always a factor for our organization. Not just thattime [in 2004], in many roadblocks that we did, it was hard to sustain them, because of theeconomic component. Because most of us are poor, and when we were going to Formosa,we covered our transportation, round-trip, there were groups that made empanadas, soldraffle tickets, got some pesos together, and if there were peasants who wanted to go, wecovered the cost of the trip. That was our system. But we couldn’t sustain this for very


long; we didn’t have the resources. This was always the problem, resources. Not becausewe don’t work, but because of where we live, scarce resources, the crops we have aren’tworth much, there are large families. . . . There is a series of factors, that if you say “let’sgo, x days, on the road” it’s very difficult to sustain it.

In an interview with N�elida and Isidoro, two leaders of MoCaFor inCuruz�u, they elaborated on the association with FTV and the concomitantrestrictions posed to the movement. N�elida explained:

Lately, we have gotten closer to a politician that helped us, but also conditioned us, notdirectly, but we knew that that was his intention. We had to join the people from BuenosAires so that our mates [nuestros compa~neros] could have a bit more help. If no one givesus anything, the organization will crumble, it will fall down; people are not doing fine, andif they don’t get some help. . . . We realized that through the organization we could negoti-ate and obtain welfare planes for our compa~neros. . . . Lately, I’ve seen that if we don’t doanything and if we cannot give anything to our people. . .nothing at all can be done. Weare all poor and with some help, we are joined together; it’s not that much, but we arekeeping up and growing. Lately, many people have become [MoCaFor] members, now weare even bigger.

In the same interview, Isidoro nicely connected the need for externalresources in a context of economic crisis and how welfare benefits contribute tothe organization’s survival:

If the provincial or national government had given us the help that every small farmerdeserves, we would have been in better shape and the people of the organization wouldn’thave needed even one peso from anyone. Because the people need certain things to live. . . .We knew as leaders that the planes were not the solution, they weren’t what we were look-ing for. We were searching for something else. But we took these things to maintain theorganization.

Leaders of MoCaFor are aware that being an oppositional group in theprovince puts the movement in a difficult spot, since the provincial governmentcomplains to national authorities about their actions. Thus, MoCaFor leadersexpress concerns about alienating the support of the national government. AsBenito, the leader of MoCaFor in Moreno, told me:

It bothers Gildo [the governor] that the national government supports us. . . . The provin-cial government always tells the national government that they got 75% of the votes, andthat all those votes went to Cristina [Kirchner, the president and ally of the governor]. Sothey [the provincial government] tells them [the national government] “Don’t tell us whatwe ought to do in our province.”

A last interview excerpt from a conversation with Telma, a middle-rangeleader in Moreno, brings the process full circle, showing how MoCaFor leadersnavigate the complex field of alliances in which they are embedded, and howthey might privilege negotiations over contentious action, given the constraintsthe organization and poor people face:

The thing is we sometimes confront the government and we don’t obtain anything, but wejust make our people suffer. . . . We will try other means, for example, in this case present-ing projects to the [national] ministry, or working more at a national level than at the pro-vincial level. . . . Gildo [Formosa’s governor] won’t change his system, thus. . .I don’t wantto tell you with this that we’ve been defeated or that we’ve dropped our guard either. . . . Ithink we should avoid confronting the governor and try to find alternative means to get

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what we want, which is what we are negotiating with the national government. They areallowing more participation from the organizations, so. . .

What these voices suggest is that open, defiant, and disruptive contentionmay be one of the means of popular movements to achieve their goals. Involve-ment in clientelism, although usually expressing an exploitative relationship,may also be a strategy to achieve a movement’s goals (Hilgers 2012). Similar tothe protest of poor tenants studied by Michael Lipsky (1970) in the early 1960s,the cases presented here underline the fact that leaders have to address differentconstituencies, including members and authorities. In doing so, an SMO maydemobilize (privileging negotiation over direct contention) to avoid alienatingallies and satisfy the pressing survival needs of members.

In this section, I provided an account of the “pressures from above” stem-ming from the alliances MoCaFor creates with the national government and anational social movement. The relationships between social movements and thenational government is well captured by spatial metaphors found in thediscourse of peasants: it is common to hear that resources “come down” (bajaronrecursos); that information or negotiations they had with authorities need to be“brought down” to their members (bajamos la informaci�on a la gente); or thatthe state is “up there.”12

It would be misleading to think of demobilization as a direct result ofauthorities and national social movement leaders “manipulating” local leadersof MoCaFor. Similarly, it would also be a misrepresentation to assert that localleaders control their constituents. The multiple relationships between members,leaders, and allies suggest that this local social movement was channeled ratherthan controlled (Jenkins and Eckert 1986). I propose, in short, a relationalapproach to understand demobilization processes. That is, demobilization is lessthe outcome of a straightforward “co-optation” than the result of multiple pres-sures created by the relationships between national authorities, provincialauthorities, national social movements, provincial social movement leaders, andlocal constituents.

DISCUSSION

In this article, I aimed to advance our understanding of processes of demo-bilization in contexts where political action is dominated by patronage politics.To do so, I proposed the concept of dual pressure to capture the pressures “fromabove” and “from below” on a social movement organization. Pressures “frombelow” are built by the expectations of constituents that, in a context dominatedby patronage, join the movement with the goal of defending their rights andvoicing discontent but also to obtain concrete material benefits they need for thesubsistence of their families. Pressures “from above,” in turn, are created when

12 As anthropologists James Ferguson and Akhil Gupta (2002:982) argue, states are “spatialized,”usually in vertical terms.


leaders move from the role of “distributors” of resources to that of “clients”vis-�a-vis national authorities and a national social movement.

The national government and the provincial government belong to the sameparty and are allies in institutional politics. Thus, the system of reciprocity whichMoCaFor leaders become involved in by receiving resources from its nationalallies poses obstacles to initiating confrontations with the provincial administra-tion. MoCaFor needs resources to ensure the organization’s continuity and theparticipation of constituents. At the same time, this translates into informal bar-riers for collective action; as N�elida said, alliances with people from BuenosAires “conditioned” the movement. A comparison between the 1999–2003 andthe 2004–2011 period indicates that dual pressures and alliances translated intodemobilization, as the SMO privileged negotiation over transgressivecontention.13

The process suggests a paradoxical situation: social movement leaders rejectclientelistic arrangements while inadvertently reproducing similar practiceswithin their organization. Acting in a context imbued with patronage politics,peasant leaders and constituents thus express the ambivalences and ambiguitiesof resistance emerging from “the intricate webs of articulation and disarticula-tions that always exist between dominant and dominated” (Ortner 2006:62).MoCaFor leaders are embedded in a social context where they need to “speakthe language” of clientelism even when doing so involves the danger of beingcaptured by its logic. As suggested by research on the relationship between socialmovements, culture, and the state, “Movement organizations may adopt struc-tures that mirror those of their targets. . . . Movements draw on hegemonicdiscourses and categories to construct discourses that are both transformativeyet constrained by the hegemonic meanings they wish to challenge” (Whittier2002:293, 305–306; see also Steinberg 1999). Therefore, while MoCaFor repro-duces certain patronage practices in the distribution of resources, it is importantto notice that receiving those resources also allows MoCaFor’s continuity as asocial movement organization. The organization’s survival keeps alive a force forsocial change that encourages collective claims making in the province, even assome more confrontational perspectives and actions may be set by the wayside.

CONCLUSION

My goal in this article has been to understand processes of demobilizationwhile heeding the call to pay more attention to the constraints posed to theemergence of collective action by organizations and culture (in the cases ana-lyzed here, a history of patronage politics). Specifically, I observed the pressuresemerging from the access to and distribution of resources. A social movementorganization can stay alive by acquiring resources for its constituents, but thelogic of reciprocity that permeates the participation of members and the

13 On transgressive contention and demobilization, see McAdam et al. 2001:7–8, 34.

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construction of political alliances in a context dominated by patronage can ulti-mately result in processes of demobilization. Although my data pertain to For-mosa and MoCaFor, the concept of dual pressure can serve as heuristic deviceto observe other instances of popular politics where patronage and social move-ments live side by side. In particular, the ideas presented in this article can shedlight on current Latin American politics. In recent years, “progressive” govern-ments have taken office throughout the continent, placing public policies in syncwith long-held demands of popular social movements. The ideological “electiveaffinities” between these governments and popular sectors, and the resonance ofpopulist rhetoric may explain why many social movements have demobilized.However, we still know little about the mechanisms addressing how those pro-cesses take place.

At least two limitations emerge from the analysis presented here. First, bykeeping my focus on the organizational level, I did not delve deeper into themeanings attributed to participation and mobilization; in other words, I did notpay enough attention to the subjective dimensions of demobilization. Second,I concentrated on the role of leaders and a provincial SMO; a close observationof how state actors deal with popular mobilization (and aim to quell it) can com-plement the picture. Taken together, these two limitations pinpoint the need forfurther research analyzing processes of demobilization by studying them “down”(subjective processes among SMO participants) and “up” (how state actorsaddress mobilization). Additional work lies ahead.

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Documents

Social Movements and Patronage Politics: Processes of Demobilization and Dual Pressure