Social Movements and Economic Transition: Markets and Distributive Conflict in Mexico

by Heather L. Williams

Overview

This book examines patterns of political mobilization among groups in Mexico whose livelihoods have been threatened by trade opening, fiscal retrenchment, and market liberalization. Using data from case studies of a worker-based movement and a farmer-based movement, Williams argues that economic transition, in altering modes of state-society bargaining, has shifted the locus of contention and has altered the form and shape of distributive protest. Williams further argues that social movements make strategic choices in their use of resources in order to widen their constituencies and extend the length of their insurgencies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521772563
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2001
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

List of figures and tables, Preface; Acknowledgments; Part I: 1. Markets, machine politics and protest in Mexico; 2. The insurgent's toolbox; Part II: 3. Privatization and protest in a steel town; 4. Shifting markets, shifting demands in Lázaro Cárdenas; 5. The rise of the Barzón farmers' movement in Zacatecas; 6. The Barzón movement: from a farmers' to a debtors' insurgency; Conclusion: the interplay of movements and markets; References; Interviews cited; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"An important contribution to the literature on social movements in Latin America." Latin American Politics and Society

"Williams' analysis...generates a number of conclusions useful for understanding more than her two cases. An important commonality that emerges...is the importance of understanding and identifying local conditions..." Latin American Research Review

From the Publisher