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Social Policy and Collective Action: Unemployed Workers, Community Associations, and Protest in Argentina

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  • Candelaria Garay

    (University of California, Berkeley, cgaray@berkeley.edu)

Abstract

Unemployed and informal workers seem an unlikely source of large-scale collective action in Latin America. Since 1997, however, Argentina has witnessed an upsurge of protest and the emergence of unusually influential federations of unemployed and informal workers. To explain this puzzle, this article offers a policy-centered argument. It suggests that a workfare program favored common interests and identities on the part of unemployed workers and grassroots associations, allowing them to overcome barriers to collective action. State responses to demands for workfare benefits generated a pattern of protest and negotiation that strengthened those groups and dramatically expanded social policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Candelaria Garay, 2007. "Social Policy and Collective Action: Unemployed Workers, Community Associations, and Protest in Argentina," Politics & Society, , vol. 35(2), pages 301-328, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:35:y:2007:i:2:p:301-328
    DOI: 10.1177/0032329207300392
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Soss, Joe, 1999. "Lessons of Welfare: Policy Design, Political Learning, and Political Action," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(2), pages 363-380, June.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Kate Parizeau, 2015. "Re-Representing the City: Waste and Public Space in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the Late 2000s," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(2), pages 284-299, February.
    3. Mansbridge, Jane, 2017. "Recursive Representation in the Representative System," Working Paper Series rwp17-045, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Manuel Rosaldo, 2024. "Top-Down and Bottom-Up Formalization: Waste Pickers’ Struggles for Labor Rights in São Paulo and Bogotá," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 77(1), pages 32-61, January.
    5. Garay, Candelaria & Palmer-Rubin, Brian & Poertner, Mathias, 2020. "Organizational and partisan brokerage of social benefits: Social policy linkages in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    6. Manuel Rosaldo, 2022. "The Antinomies of Successful Mobilization: Colombian Recyclers Manoeuvre between Dispossession and Exploitation," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(2), pages 251-278, March.
    7. Amrita Chhachhi & Ana Cecilia Dinerstein, 2014. "The Dream of Dignified Work: On Good and Bad Utopias," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(5), pages 1037-1058, September.
    8. Lu, Peng & Yao, Qi & Lu, Pengfei, 2019. "Two-stage predictions of evolutionary dynamics during the rumor dissemination," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 517(C), pages 349-369.
    9. Saerom Han, 2023. "Mobilizing within and beyond the Labor Union: A Case of Precarious Workers’ Collective Actions in North Africa," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(4), pages 674-696, August.
    10. Baker, Andy & Velasco-Guachalla, Vania Ximena, 2018. "Is the Informal Sector Politically Different? (Null) Answers from Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 170-182.
    11. Lu, Peng & Nie, Shizhao, 2019. "The strength distribution and combined duration prediction of online collective actions: Big data analysis and BP neural networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 535(C).
    12. Ronconi, Lucas & Zarazaga, Rodrigo, 2017. "The Tragedy of Clientelism: Opting Children Out," IZA Discussion Papers 10973, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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