Producing Change Institutional Strategies and Contentious Protest in the Argentine Factory Takeover Movement

At the same time, investigating change in social movement strategy in the context of changing structural situations provides a significant way to further examine the ability of political

May 2, 2005

Since 1998, Argentine workers have seized and reopened over 100 factories and businesses,

known as fábricas recuperadas This study examines the ability of political opportunity

structures to explain the emergence and evolution of the factory takeover movement, focusing ondifferences of strategy within the movement and shifts in strategy over time Emerging in the context of widespread social and economic upheaval and initially viewed as a challenge to the existing political system, these groups now increasingly rely on institutional channels of protest

I argue that although changing political opportunities explain some of these dynamics, a full explanation of the diversity of strategic choices requires theories more attuned to micro-level processes

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction………1

Chapter 2: Literature Review:

Structure, Agency, and Channels of Protest in Social Movement Theory……… 12

Chapter 3: Political Opportunity and Movement Emergence……….20

Chapter 4: Political Opportunity and Strategic Choices in Movement Evolution…… 37

Chapter 5: Conclusions………69

Bibliography……….75

Chapter One

Introduction

On December 18, 2001, the workday ended at 3 pm at the Brukman textile factory, in the

Once neighborhood at the heart of the city of Buenos Aires, but the workers did not leave The

next day, the city at large would erupt in protest as the economy dramatically collapsed, but for now the conflict was played out on a smaller scale, and under a different guise With salaries that had not been paid in full since 1995, the owners had begun to distribute smaller and smaller weekly allowances until finally workers were receiving just a few pesos a week Angry at the lack of payment, and many without even the means to pay their bus fare home, a group of about thirty workers, mostly women, stayed at the factory and refused to leave Facing the prospect of forceful eviction at the hands of the police, and eventually facing down the police themselves, they began to restart the factory: on their own terms, without the bosses This simple yet

surprising act began the occupation of the Brukman factory

Around the metropolitan area and elsewhere in Argentina, other workers were doing the same As Argentina’s economy crashed in late 2001, the phenomenon, which had begun with a few individual and largely isolated cases of factory takeovers in 1998, began to transform into a dynamic movement Eventually, there were as many as 170 “recovered” factories and

businesses, or fábricas recuperadas, around the country, loosely grouped into several movement

organizations Although numerically the factory takeovers represent a direct challenge to just a tiny fraction of the Argentine economy, symbolically they came, in many ways, to be seen as one

of the most visible and emblematic manifestations of the character of the wider protest

movements which rejected the authority of the existing political system Here were workers, facing the threat of chronic unemployment, creating their own jobs—without bosses, without capital, and without the state

If the factory takeovers as a whole were often viewed as emblems of a new resistance, few were as symbolically potent as the Brukman takeover Due to its timing, it was naturally identified as bound up with the massive protests of the 19th and 20th of December Indeed, once acoherent strategy emerged it seemed to echo the sentiments of many of those protestors,

rejecting the legitimacy of the state and proclaiming the need—and capacity—of Argentine citizens to ‘do for themselves.’ Rejecting the prospect of laws of expropriation which might legalize their status, but which would not fundamentally challenge the system on a broader scale,the Brukman workers demanded to either be nationalized as part of a new socialist state

economy, or to have nothing to do with the state at all Abandoning institutional politics as illegitimate, they began to produce

And yet, the Brukman story, and that of the movement more broadly, is not so simple After defeating two eviction attempts, the Brukman workers were finally forced out of the factory in April 2003, despite a confrontation in the street outside the factory between a thousandpolice officers and “several thousand” Brukman supporters (Magnani 2003: 176) Shut out of work, the tactics and political orientation of the group began to change The factory that had been one of the most visible embodiments of the anti-institutional ethos of the mass response to the economic crisis started ‘doing politics.’ Working with a lawyer, committed Peronist, and former political candidate named Luis Caro, the group of Brukman workers went through the legal process to obtain a judicial order granting them temporary possession of the premises, pressed the legislature for a law of expropriation, and, finally, returned to work

The factory takeover movement in Argentina poses a multitude of important questions for social movement scholars Key among them is the dilemma posed by the Brukman case How did the Brukman workers and others like them come to form part of a social movement which adapted such a rejection of institutional politics as a whole? Perhaps more importantly, how did they go from rejecting traditional politics and politicians to lobbying legislators to pass

a favorable bill? Finally, what can this surprising turnaround tell us about how strategies are formed and evolve, and the respective roles of institutional strategies and contentious protest within the factory takeover movement, and in social movements more broadly?

***

Like any social movement, the factory takeover movement emerged and evolved within a specific socio-political context Specifically, the takeovers emerged in the period just prior to the 2001 crisis, and were clearly responses to large-scale economic and political forces While several of these factory takeovers occurred prior to the crisis, the project only coalesced as a movement at the time of the economic collapse, in the context of widespread social and political upheaval, and in relationship to the proliferation of other social movements such as the

cacerolazos, 1 popular assemblies, cartoneros, 2 and piqueteros.3 Emerging in a time of relative political vacuum—including five presidents in two weeks—these movements were largely

embodied by the slogan “Qué se vayan todos," or "Out with them all," representing a rejection of

the entire political class, seen as corrupt and responsible for leading the country to economic

collapse While some of the emerging social groups, especially the piqueteros, did demand that

the government address their needs, all had a strong element of direct action, including the idea that social movements needed to work together in the absence of government assistance to solve

their own problems The movement of factory takeovers in particular operated on the idea that

workers could not wait for employers, the state, or the market to solve their unemployment problems, but rather that they should use their own potential for organized action to create work for themselves

As the country slowly emerged from the depths of the crisis, the political situation has stabilized and it has once again become viable to work within more traditional political

channels Indeed, the current Kirchner administration has made clear efforts to reach out to some of these groups and to take up the problems they have identified And yet, the vast social and economic problems targeted by these new social movements remain critical, particularly in terms of poverty and unemployment How have such changing circumstances affected these movements? How have movements responded or adjusted? And within this evolving context,

what roles might these movements, and the fábricas recuperadas in particular, play within the

new post-crisis Argentina?

As the factory takeover movements have grown, they have clearly been of interest not only to Argentines, but to observers around the world as well Both inside and outside the country, the takeovers have largely been interpreted and represented through one of two main lenses: either as renegade groups of protestors who pose a threat to a fragile society by

challenging private property and the rule of law, or as a new and inspiring form of activism which promises to bypass traditional political channels, creating rather than soliciting or

1 A term used to describe the mass protests and demonstrations which occurred, so called after the cacerolas, or pots

and pans, used as noise-makers

2 Refers to the ubiquitous groups of poor people, many of them families, who enter central Buenos Aires at night

from the suburbs and villas miseries (slums) to collect cardboard and other recyclable items from curbside trash

3 Common name used to refer to unemployed workers' movements which block traffic on major highways, streets, and bridges as a means of protest.

demanding changes In contrast, I argue that both of these visions are misguided, depending on

a narrow understanding of the factory takeovers that glosses over their diversity This study attempts to create a more comprehensive analysis of these movements, arguing that the

relationship between institutional strategies and contentious protest is far more complex than thisdichotomy implies While some groups have adopted strategies that attempt to bypass the state

in creating social change, many others have adopted such decidedly institutional tactics as visiting the legislature, lobbying for the passage of favorable laws, and working within the court system, and still others combine both institutional channels and contentious protest Utilizing the insights of the political opportunity, resource mobilization, and political process schools of social movement theory, this study asks, what factors contribute to how and when social

movements emerge and what shapes and strategies they take? I argue that although changing political opportunity structures explain some of these dynamics, a full explanation of the

emergence of the movement and the diversity of strategic choices requires both a reevaluation ofthe concept of political opportunity as well as the incorporation of theories more attuned to micro-level processes

In undertaking this study, I am responding to several gaps in the literature in this area First, the factory takeovers are a new and quickly emerging phenomenon, such that to date there have been only a few comprehensive works which address the subject from any angle Perhaps even more significantly, those works that have emerged have been largely isolated from the largebody of work which exists on the subject of social movements, and there have been few rigoroussocial scientific studies published of these movements Thus the first contribution I hope to make in this study is to bridge the study of the factory takeover movement and social movement theory more broadly, adding to the base of knowledge about both through critically engaging each with the other This entails examining both what a social movement theory perspective cantell us about the factory takeover movement, as well as what the factory takeovers can tell us about the strengths and weaknesses of social movement theory

Social movement theories in the past have explored in detail the factors that surround the emergence and organization of social movements, while comparatively having much less to say about how and why such movements change and evolve over time Particularly, the issue of strategy and tactics—how and why different groups adopt different approaches and strategies, and how they shift—has at times been overshadowed by the complexities of the mobilization dilemma This study attempts to use the factory takeover movement to address this gap, positingnew ideas seeking to make sense of these changes and divergences In this way, critical inquiry into the factory takeover movement in Argentina makes important additions to our

understanding of how social movements make strategic decisions in the face of changing

political situations At the same time, investigating change in social movement strategy in the context of changing structural situations provides a significant way to further examine the ability

of political opportunity theories to explain social movements beyond the mobilization stage While these contributions are certainly important, theoretically they could be provided by

examining the tactics and strategy of any social movement The factory takeovers, however,

have the potential to contribute some measure of understanding within social movement theory that goes beyond this factor The canonic works which have shaped the direction of social movement theory as a whole have largely emerged from certain geographical regions of the world, mainly North America with a more recent integration of Western European traditions As

a result, although most social movement theory is concerned with constructing generalizable claims regarding the impact of political structure on social movements, they at the same time

create these theories from experiences of social movements arising within a particular delimited set of political structures It would seem, then that social movement theory can tend towards becoming, in the words of Steven M Buechler, “an (unacknowledged and implicitly) historicallyspecific theory of social activism at the same time that it explicitly seeks to develop abstracted empirical generalizations applicable to all times and places” (2000: 56)

These canonical theories have increasingly been applied to the explanation of social movement theories elsewhere in the world, yet more exploration here is called for Examining social movement theory in the light of political structures which differ from those under which the theory was born serves as an important tool for reevaluating the true generalizability of the theory Argentina offers the scholar the possibility of examining social movement dynamics in the context of dramatic and rapid shifts in political structures, as well as within a society which has a history of participation, and at times mechanisms of participation, which differ

significantly from the North American standard Investigating social movements outside of North American and Western Europe using the explanatory tools of theory developed in those areas could be dangerous, to a certain extent, if it leads scholars to ignore or collapse key

structural differences under the assumption that the theory remains a valid point of inquiry culturally Yet nevertheless when conducted carefully with an eye towards both movement-leveldifferences and broader structural or cultural differences which might otherwise pass unnoticed, this approach can be conducive to both the development of more inclusive and as a result

cross-generalizable theory and to a deeper analysis of the movements at hand

Taken together, then, the suggestions identified here call for a social movement theory that takes seriously issues of structure Yet at the same time, I argue that the affects of structure

on social movements cannot be divorced from an understanding of the social movement actors who interpret, respond to, and sometimes even reinvent them To adequately address this

complex interplay, it is necessary to employ a methodology that has the capacity to grasp

subtlety To this end, I conduct this study through detailed examination of three factory case studies, employing personal interviews with participants, leaders, and scholars, secondary sources, newspaper articles, and documents and websites produced by workers and movement organizations Each of the three cases illustrates a different approach to strategy within the factory takeover movement In the first case study, the Brukman textile factory, workers initiallyadopted a very non-institutional strategy, and in fact rejected ‘within the system’ solutions such

as a proposed law of expropriation would have temporarily legalized their claim to the factory, but without fundamentally challenging the system as a whole which they saw as the deeper root

of their problems Later, the Brukman workers abandoned this approach, and began to use institutional strategies and eventually returned to the legislature to press for a law of

expropriation In my second case, a printing business called Chilavert, workers adopted a

strategy which combined both institutional strategies and contentious protest, often seeming to move almost seamlessly between the two Finally, at the wool-washing factory Lavalán,

workers have focused on institutional channels of action and consistently emphasized in both their actions and their rhetoric the legality of all of their actions

Clearly, all movements occur within a particular set of political and historical

circumstances, and are formed in reaction to them The relevant question here, then, is how movement emergence affects those structures, and how movements change when the

circumstances against which they were formed no longer exist or have been altered in some fundamental way I argue that examining the emergence and evolution of the factory takeover movement clearly reveals the importance of models that take into account political opportunity

At the same time, this study indicates that political opportunity structures alone fail to fully explain either movement emergence or strategy formation Rather, political structures affect social movements in a complex and dynamic process; as Doug McAdam suggests, social

movements “emerge and develop as a product of the ongoing interaction of organized

contenders within a shifting politico-economic environment” (1982: 12) This suggests that social movement theory must further explore the role of social movement groups and

participants themselves in these processes

The concept of political opportunity is commonly used to explain movement emergence, arguing that social movements develop when the larger political structure provides openings thatallow pre-existing grievances to be addressed In the case of the factory takeovers, this appears

to hold true While many similar grievances, such as failing industries, lack of payment of salaries and fraudulent bankruptcies, existed prior to the currency crisis, there were only a few isolated cases of factory takeovers As the magnitude of the crisis emerged, however, the

number of “recovered factories” increased greatly, inter-factory organizations and lasting ties began to emerge, and both participants and observers began to view the takeovers as part of a larger social movement Yet this case also indicates a deeper flaw within the concept of politicalopportunity as a determinant of movement formation The political opportunity model supposes that at best social movement groups are passive re-actors who merely respond to larger structuralchanges beyond their influence Yet, in the Argentine case it seems clear that the political opportunity context in which the factory takeover movement emerged and evolved was in fact profoundly influenced by these same social movement actors Social protest itself was a crucial factor in creating the breakdown of the political system which provided opportunities for

movements such as the factory takeovers While not negating the often insurmountable power

of large-scale political forces, this indicates that, in some cases, social movements can help shape the political opportunity structures which also shape them

Similarly, theories that rely heavily on concepts of political opportunity structure are unable to satisfactorily explain not only the emergence but also the evolution of the factory takeover movements, particularly in regards to changing and divergent strategic choices

Certain aspects of the evolution of strategy do seem to be related to system wide changes Particularly, I propose that whereas structural influences such as the history of neoliberal

transformation of the state and economic and political collapse initially were instrumental in the rejection of institutional channels of action, the increasing vitality of traditional political

structures since the 2001 crisis seems to have contributed more recently to a turn towards

institutional channels While these factors are undoubtedly important, however, they cannot account for the diverse ways in which various sectors of the movement act, and frame those actions, within the same set of structural constraints and possibilities Examining strategy development within these three case studies suggests that social movement theory needs to be more cognizant of micro-level factors which may also play a role in structuring social movementstrategy, including leadership, networks, financial resources, and group dynamics and decision-making processes In isolation, these micro-level factors do no better than structural accounts at explaining social movement strategy Rather, incorporating the two visions seems to be key to understanding the complex ways in which social movements make strategy decisions within a given environmental context, or how they choose between the strategic options structurally available to them

This paper will begin with a review of the relevant literature on political opportunity structures, agency, and institutional and extralegal channels of protest as they relate to movement

emergence and movement evolution Chapter 3 will specifically examine the relationship between the concept of political opportunity structure and the emergence of the factory takeover movement in Argentina, arguing that opportunity structures both shape, and are shaped by, movement mobilization Chapter 4 will examine the possibilities and limits of the political opportunity structure concept for explaining strategy and strategic choices within the three case studies Finally, Chapter 5 will explore the implications of these conclusions in a wider lens

Chapter Two

Literature Review:

Structure, Agency, and Channels of Protest in Social Movement Theory

As a social science, interested in creating generalizable theory which can explain events, much of the history of political scientific and sociological accounts of social movements has emphasized those factors which most readily lend themselves to the task of explanation

Political structures, for example, provide a force external to the movement whose impact can be explored, and at least theoretically controlled for and measured While structure is without doubt an appropriate area of inquiry, it is nevertheless crucial, as the Argentine factory takeover case studies will show, to ensure that the 'messier' aspects of social movement development are not left out of the picture This requires that social movement theory account for complex issuessuch as agency, dilemmas, and choices, even if this ultimately requires explanations that are likewise 'messier.' This does not mean neglecting the constraints and opportunities political structures place on or provide to social movements, but rather attempting to more adequately

capture the dynamics which occur within social movements as actors make sense of and use

those structures in different ways This study, then, is an effort to envision 'agency' as more thanjust "the concept waved about when structural theorists are forced to recognize the limits of theirmodels," and begin to examine the processes through which agency might be expressed in the choices made by social movement participants (Jasper 2004: 2)

This study touches on both the what institutional versus contentious protest channels of action and the how the respective roles of structure and agency in strategy formation of

strategy development in the factory takeover movement First, however, it is necessary to begin with what social movement theory has had to say about these two issues in a historical

perspective This chapter focuses on reviewing the extant literature dealing with issues of structure and agency in social movements Particularly, it examines the body of theory which touches on the issue of internal and external factors influencing movement formation and strategy, and theory dealing with various social movement theory perspectives on institutional and non-institutional channels of protest In both situations the history of social movement theory provides a context for examining emergence and strategy formation in the factory

takeover movements

Structure and Agency: Micro and Macro Explanations of Social Movements

Early social movement theorists, generally referred to as the classical or collective behavior school, focused largely on psychological explanations for collective action and protest, sharing a belief in the role of grievances and the resulting psychological strain in generating social protest As many later theorists have argued, however, this view sees structure as

important only in its ability to generate strain or discontent within aggrieved groups, ignoring the importance of structural changes in creating constraints or opportunities for protest In fact,

it is argued, classical theories were implicitly based on the assumption of a constant open and pluralistic system in which social movement emergence is attributed to changes not in structure, but in individual psyches Thus classical social movement theories accounted adequately for neither structure, with their view of an open constant system, nor agency, attributing social movements and protest not to rational actors but to broad social forces such as anomie and non-rational expressions of the resulting social strains

Resource mobilization theory emerged in the mid-70’s as a response to the tendency of classical social movement theory to see social movements as a means of managing the

psychological impact of stressful social situations rather than as attempts to achieve political goals, relying on the explanatory potential of structure Challenging the pluralist model,

resource mobilization theory established social movements as rational acts by groups excluded from other more traditional venues of political action The original form of resource

mobilization theory, sometimes identified as “entrepreneurial” for its economistic approach to movements, was introduced by McCarthy and Zald (1977) Resource mobilization theorists argued that micro-level factors such as levels of strain or of grievances were never enough on their own to generate social movements Indeed, they argued, grievances are common; social movements are not Instead, resource mobilization theory suggested that if discontent is

constant, it is resources, and the ability to mobilize them, that varies In keeping with this approach, much of resource mobilization theory stresses formal organization and the importance

of elite support (McCarthy and Zald 1977) Jenkins and Perrow, for instance, argue that " when deprived groups do mobilize, it is due to the interjection of external resources" (1977: 251) Thus in the original mobilization perspective resources were largely seen as external to the movement, leading to a theoretical approach which affirms the rationality of social movement actors and grapples with the effects of political structures on movements, but which does not allow for much understanding of agency or choices on the part of movement leaders or

Both of these books represent a qualified return to grievance and beliefs, arguing that

entrepreneurial resource mobilization theory overly economizes the study of social movements, leaving out more difficult to quantify but no less important factors, resulting in an overemphasis

on the roles of elite and the oversimplification of the factor of grievances

Piven and Cloward argue that social movements are largely determined by political

institutional structures, and therefore that both when lower-class groups protest and what forms

that protest takes are largely functions of overarching political and social structures The

authors, however, argue that while grievances are not sufficient to explain the growth of social movements, changes in how people view or interpret their grievances are key to explaining why grievances sometimes lead to protest and at other times do not Further, Piven and Cloward takeissue with the emphasis placed on formal organization and elite support within resource

mobilization theory, arguing that when social movements do achieve some of their goals, it is not due to formal organization or the support of elites, but rather to the elite-threatening

insurgency that precedes those organizations

Doug McAdam disagrees with this assertion that formal organization of social

insurgency is destructive or counterproductive On the contrary, McAdam argues that formal organizations are crucial to sustaining social movements over time, and to sparking the

emergence of new social movements McAdam’ iteration of the three main factors structuring social movements—the structure of political opportunities, levels of indigenous organization, and cognitive liberation—clearly show a recognition of factors both internal and external to a movement He also makes it clear that even structural influences have power only as they are interpreted in a particular context by movement participants, pointing to "the enormous potential

for variability in the subjective meanings people attach to their 'objective' situations" (McAdam 1982: 34) Yet all three of theses factors are primarily attuned to explaining movement

emergence, leaving political process theory without a clear way to handle the choices that movements inevitably must make once they make it past the initial problems of mobilization

By the late 1980s, certain shifts in prevalent epistemologies within the social sciences more broadly began to be reflected in social movement theory as well, leading to new theories ofsocial movements which attempt to engage more critically with the role of cultural processes One of the most important outcomes of this shift was the concept of “framing,” essentially the process through which social movement participants assign meaning to their actions and the surrounding context At the same time, social movement theory also began to look at structure more broadly, attempting to theorize a historically specific social structure as the context for contemporary social movements Sidney Tarrow likewise attempts to bring a sense of the “big

picture” to social movement theory Tarrow’s Power in Movement: Social Movements and

Contentious Politics, first published in 1994, is an attempt to synthesize theories of particular

types of movements or concerns into a larger vision which views individual social movements, social protest, and revolutions as forms of “contentious politics,” and contentious politics, in turn, within a broader political and historical context Contentious politics arises, Tarrow argues,when people seize opportunities presented by changing political situations What form this action takes is shaped by the repertoire of collective action available within a given society, as it

is interpreted and engaged by participants Contentious action becomes a social movement when coupled with connections to social networks and the use of framing strategies to form consensus within the movement, thus creating new opportunities to be seized by other groups, expanding the “cycle of contention.” For Tarrow, then, social movements and contentious actionare best examined within the context of a larger, overarching structure of cycles of conflict

Defining the Social Movement: Institutional and Non-Institutional Channels of Protest

While much of the focus of theories of social movements historically has been on

movement emergence and mobilization, with relatively less attention given to the changing dynamics of later stages where strategic decisions take on great significance, the issue of

institutional versus non-institutional channels of action nevertheless frequently been present Historically, the use of institutional channels of protest has often been viewed as one of the delimiting factors by which social movements are divided from other forms of political action Several schools of social movement theory, despite their difference elsewhere, concur on

excluding non-institutional forms of action from the social movement analysis

In classical theories, particularly, social movements are defined by their use of institutional tactics, seen as an irrational use of extralegal action despite access to legitimate channels As Doug McAdam contends, “by assuming that all groups are capable of exercising influence through institutional means, the pluralists have made of social movements a behavioralphenomenon requiring ‘special’ explanation” (McAdam 1988: 18) This creates a complete division between separate spheres of “politics” and “social movements,” defining social

non-movements as inherently extralegal Similarly, while resource mobilization theory rejects a divide between politics and social movements, arguing that social movements are explicitly political phenomena, it does distinguish between social movements, which employ extra-

institutional tactics, and other forms of political action Doug McAdam demonstrates this distinction when he criticizes McCarthy and Zald for basing their theory groups whose “reliance

on institutionalized change strategies mark them as different phenomena than social movements

properly conceived.” The term “social movement,” he goes on to claim, should be reserved for

“those organized efforts, on the part of excluded groups, to promote or resist changes in the structure of society that involve recourse to non-institutional forms of political participation” (McAdam 1998: 25).4

Particularly within the US context, such a distinction is common, as groups who rely primarily on institutional channels are defined as interest groups, and thus out of the category of social movement A deeper look at tactics within the factory takeover movement, however, challenges this view, revealing that many workers and factory groups within this movement in fact move constantly back and forth in between institutional and non-institutional, legal and extra-legal, strategies, and employ complex means of framing the relationship between the two forms of action This suggests that social movement theory must contemplate the possibility thatsocial movements may, at times, make use of institutional tactics without necessarily ceasing to

be social movements altogether

Sidestepping the definitional issue, a number of theorists have made cases regarding the usefulness of institutional channels Piven and Cloward (1979), particularly, clearly uphold a belief in the power of insurgency and extralegal, non-institutional action, arguing that due to the degree of exclusion and the power of elite groups within institutional systems, disruption is the only way poor people can ever win power Along the same lines, McAdam argues that "In effect, 'proper channels' afford members the means to monitor and control any substantive threat

to their interests Moreover, they are able to do so without recourse to more costly control strategies (i.e., violence) that might call the legitimacy of their actions into question" (1982: 26)

In both cases, institutional structures are seen to be ineffective and counterproductive sites for social movement contestation Within other perspectives, groups such as the Sierra Club, oriented around lobbying activities, have been studied as potentially successful social

movements

Clearly, not all social movement theory has defined social movements in precisely the same way, and many studies have dealt with groups that do make use of institutional pathways Nevertheless, the repeated discussions surrounding whether or not institutional actions are or arenot within the domain of social movement scholarship has obscured the issue of when, why, and how particular groups, whether defined as social movements or not, choose to make use of eitherinstitutional strategies or contentious protest

4 While the brunt of this argument is directed toward McCarthy and Zald’s emphasis on the role of elite groups in social movements, he also clearly argues that social movements as he defines them are essentially characterized by their use of non-institutional forms of participation

Chapter Three

Political Opportunity and Movement Emergence

In Argentina, the emergence of social movements such as the fábricas recuperadas at the

time of the crisis in late 2001 are very often connected to the impact of broad structural forces, from processes of democratic consolidation to neoliberal economics and late global capitalism

As a theoretical concept, political opportunity offers many important additions to the study of social movements First and foremost, the move towards conceptions of political opportunity were integrally linked to the move away from earlier theories that envisioned social movements

as non-political and failed to acknowledge the myriad social and political factors which impose constraints on the ability of many marginalized groups to mobilize and which affect the forms that protest, when it occurs, may take These are crucial issues particularly since, as was

discussed in Chapter 2, failing to recognize systemic constraints directly leads to the tendency ofearly social movement theorists to view movements as irrational As a practical matter, social movements often operate in environments where many of the factors affecting their ability to mobilize, the available channels of action, and the ultimate outcomes of mobilization, are, in fact, beyond their control Failing to recognize this is to fundamentally fail to grasp many of the most important factors affecting social movements

At the same time, an excessive focus on political opportunity structures threatens to

obscure other factors affecting social movements Political structure, while extremely

significant, never has the ability to directly create social movements or determine their actions

Rather, it is always interpreted and responded to by people Thus, the true impact of political opportunity structures can be understood only in conjunction with the complex processes

through which individuals and groups make sense of them and act within them Chapter 4 will address the impact of political opportunity on strategic choices in latter stages of movement development This chapter, however, focuses on a critical examination of the role of political opportunity structures in movement emergence and mobilization While the latter stages of movement development more clearly necessitate a more nuanced and less structural theory—after all, any discussion of strategy and tactics requires some actor making strategic decisions of one type or another—it is my assertion that this nuanced vision is also necessary in the

mobilization stages

In many ways, the emergence of the factory takeover movement appears to be a perfect illustration of how political opportunity structures affect mobilization While several takeovers had occurred prior to the eruption of the political and economic crisis in late 2001, it was only after this dramatic change in the surrounding political environment that the takeovers began to spread, and emerge as a coherent and recognizable movement Indeed, the changing political environment provided openings for and structured the emergence of the factory takeover

movement Yet a closer look reveals that this concept of political opportunity structure cannot itself be separated from social movement activities While movement possibilities are certainly limited by broader sociopolitical and economic forces, I argue that individual actors and

organized groups of protestors, both inside the factory takeover movement and in other related groups, played a direct and pivotal role in creating the window of opportunity within which the factory takeover movement exploded The concept of political opportunity structure, then, cannot be fully understood without a view of the actions of social movements themselves In constructing this argument, this chapter will first explore how structure has shaped the

emergence of the factory takeover movement, and then move on to look at how the factory

takeovers and other related Argentine social movements have not only reacted to these

opportunity structures, but also shaped them as well

The Structuring Effects of Political Opportunity and Movement Emergence

A review of the beginnings of the factory takeover movement reveals that broader structural factors, both opportunities and constraints, have in fact played an important role in determining when and how the movement would develop Although it is common to speak of political opportunity structures, systems of constraints are certainly significant structural features

as well While structural threats can of course be significant largely in their ability to impede movement formation, they can also play important roles when rather than preventing the

emergence of a movement all together they instead shape the movement as it emerges by

restricting certain courses of action Paired with political opportunities that open other

pathways, these two factors of political structure can have a huge impact on not only when and where a movement develops, but what kind of movement it is Understanding this process requires first examining the early factory takeovers and the beginning of the movement

The first factory takeovers which can be clearly connected with the movement in its current form occurred in 1996 As a form of protest or direct action, however, the factory takeover was not, in fact, an entirely new phenomenon in Argentina, but rather emerge from pasthistories of worker cooperatives and factory seizures A number of earlier factory takeovers occurred within the context of Peronist labor unions, such as the takeover of the Frigorífico Lisandro de la Torre in 1958 or those organized by the CGT (Confederación General de Trabajo)

in 1964 Thus while seizing factories seems to have been an established part of the Argentine repertoire of contention (Tilly 1978), these earlier events differed dramatically from current factory takeovers Most noticeably, they were generally intended as pressure tactics within a traditional labor union context, with no plans for any sort of continued operation under worker control In the mid to late 1980s, several factories broke with this pattern, and in 1985 during a takeover at the Ford factory in Pacheco workers ran the factory for 18 days until they were evicted from the premises by police In the late 1980s, workers at two other factories

successfully gained control of their businesses after takeovers, but only when the workers came

to an agreement with the owners to exchange their claims to their past due wages for rights to the factory, therefore setting no legal precedent and remaining isolated incidents

The earliest factory takeover which can be connected directly with the contemporary factory takeover movement occurred in 1996, when workers seized a meatpacking plant called Yaguané in the municipality of La Matanza in greater Buenos Aires due to the threat of drastic layoffs resulting from a debt of 150 million peso-dollars Foreshadowing the form of

organization that would be favored by later groups, the Yaguané workers created a cooperative under the name Cooptrafriya, but like earlier examples they obtained legal status through

negotiations with the creditors, requiring the new cooperative to take on the debt carried by the previous corporation Another early takeover, at the metalworking factory IMPA in the federal capital, would later play an important role in the emerging movement, but it too differed

significantly from later takeovers Not a typical capitalist corporation, IMPA had been

nationalized in 1945 and became a worker-owned cooperative in 1961, but was run by a

directive commission isolated from the rest of the workers and viewed by many as operating the factory much like the bosses of any other corporation When in 1997 the regular disbursements,

or retiros, ceased, workers, with the help of a lawyer, forced a general assembly and in 1998 the

directive commission withdrew

The third early takeover which formed part of the beginnings of the movement was the case of the cooperative Unión y Fuerza (Union and Force), formerly Gip Metal S.A., a

metalworking factory in the economically depressed municipality of Avellaneda, just south of the federal capital While IMPA's importance to the factory takeover movement lies mainly in its visibility, involvement in movement organizations, and financial and logistical support, Unión y Fuerza is significant because the story of the conditions leading to the takeover is illustrative of the 'typical' takeover story told within the movement, and the forms by which it was resolved would become a model for many other factories Essentially, the owners of Gip Metal attempted to orchestrate a fraudulent bankruptcy, taking out large loans and falsifying and tampering with factory records to hide true assets before declaring bankruptcy Workers, angry

at being laid-off from a business which appeared to be profitable, seized the factory in 1998 In

2001 Unión y Fuerza became the first fábrica recuperada to receive a law of expropriation, with

the help of lawyer Luis Caro, providing a path for others to follow

These three early takeovers were highly significant to later attempts, because of the

examples and precedents they set, and assistance they provided to subsequent groups Yet tellingly, these three takeovers remained largely isolated early on A number of the problems which factory takeovers addressed, such as the threat of chronic unemployment, were clearly evident throughout much of the late 1990s, and particularly after 1998 Yet as political

opportunity theories would indicate, the presence of such structural 'stressors' is not sufficient to explain the emergence of the movement Rather, while a few individual factories were seized earlier, the factory takeover phenomenon only emerged as a recognizable social movement whenthe sharpening economic and political crisis and longer-term trends combined to form a set of structural opportunities and threats which both denied other potential channels of addressing these needs and, significantly, opened possibilities for new forms of action

Looking at the recent economic history of Argentina, it is clear that the problems addressed

by factory takeover movements did not begin with the crisis in 2001, but have deeper roots In the 1990s Argentina underwent a number of changes as President Carlos Menem implemented reforms, which largely followed established neoliberal, Washington Consensus guidelines While the economic policies of the 1990s would ultimately prove unsustainable, they did

provide a number of benefits early in the decade Menem's combination of privatization of public utilities, deregulation and economic opening, and convertibility—pegging the peso to the dollar—succeeded in halting the staggering hyperinflation which had crippled the previous Alfonsín regime By the mid-90s, however, several trends which would later be important factors in the emergence of the factory takeover movement began to emerge While

employment figures rose in 1991 and 1992, they began to drop again soon thereafter, and by

1996 were below 1990 levels (Frenkel 2002: 32) Additionally, informal or under-the-table laborbecame much more widespread In 1990 25% of workers worked without contracts, benefits, or the protection of many labor laws; by the end of the decade the figure had risen to 40% (Fajn 2003: 215) Economic growth rates turned around abruptly in 1998; the economy grew 8.1% in

1997, only to shrink by 3.4% in 1999 Inequality also skyrocketed, with the income gap in Buenos Aires increasing by 172% during the 1990s (Tedesco 2002: 470)

These basic markers provide an important background to the factory takeovers, but cannot themselves explain the movement emergence As resource mobilization theory suggested about classical theories, strain itself, lacking a more meaningful intervening mechanism, does not create social movements Rather, the emergence of the factory takeover movement in its distinct recent incarnation has been shaped by two opposite yet complementary facets of changing

political opportunity structures On the one hand, restrictive changes obstruct many of the less contentious traditional channels of political participation, while at the same time opportunities open up which make protest more possible and attractive

One area where political shifts in the 1990s decreased opportunities to address grievances through other more traditional channels was in the relationship between the state and dominant Peronist political party and labor unionism A number of scholars and Argentine political

observers have noted that there was a fundamental shift in the nature, frequency, and levels of success of union-led labor activities during Menemism First, the number of contentious labor disputes declined overall Additionally, as Patricia Davolos and Laura Perelman show, there wasalso a shift in the nature of the demands being made, particularly pronounced in the latter half ofthe decade, from demands for better wages and working conditions towards more defensive actions focusing on preserving jobs and demanding past-due wages (2003: 190)

While certain of these shifts could perhaps be attributed to changing conditions and grievances leading directly to different sorts of demands, in fact these changes in union activity represent a more fundamental structural shift within Argentine politics, part of a broader change within the Peronist party which diminished the power and influence of labor unions within the party Steven Levitsky identifies this as a "coalitional transformation," which replaced

traditional Peronist labor unions with clientelist networks as the party's main connection with its lower- and working-class base (2003: 3) Thus although alliances shifted, Menem's Peronism was nevertheless able to continue to mobilize its claim to be the party of the people (Romero 2001: 280) These shifts, however, had negative effects on the feasibility of unions as channels within which working class groups might exert influence, as reflected in the decrease in

challenges At the same time, many labor union groups attempted to maintain their close ties to the party, even in the face of the passage of unfavorable labor legislation, as a means of retaininginfluence Leaders of some unions were seen obtain personal benefits from adhering to

Menem's platforms Taken together these two trends both diminished the capacity of unions to exert influence and decreased the sense of alliance between the unions and some Argentine workers, who ceased to view labor unions as representative of their interests or as possible pathways to achieve meaningful change

Many theorists argue that there were also a number of structural elements of the

developing Argentine democracy which restricted meaningful participation as well Laura Tedesco argues that 1990s Argentina suffered from a "politics of informality," in which "limits toArgentina's democratic culture" were significant factors in the crisis, resulting in an "absence of political channels capable of providing for the more systematically and proactively deliberative articulation of interests" (Tedesco 2002: 469) The lack of transparency in important policy decisions and perceptions of corruption in government, particularly in relation to the transition toprivatized utilities, undermined faith in the ability of the public to influence government policy through institutional means Menem's success in packing the Supreme Court with favorable judges and altering the constitution to permit him a second term in office likewise were

instrumental in creating widespread perceptions of the abuse of power and the relative

fruitlessness of attempting to combat such unchecked power through the very systems it

controlled

On top of these access and participation issues relating to the questions about the vitality

of Argentine democracy during the 1990s, broader economic forces and domestic policy also restricted the ability of the state to intervene to meet the growing needs of its population towardsthe end of the decade Paradoxically, just as Menem's successors were faced with increasing

demands to meet social needs, they were also severely limited in their ability to do so by the magnitude of the debt burden and the rigid monetary and exchange-rate system, and the effects

of a decade of neoliberal economic policies involving the state’s retreat from social spheres (Levitsky and Murillo 2003: 153)

Finally, as unemployment grew, it became clear to many workers that previous

possibilities would no longer be viable in an economic situation where recalcitrant workers could so easily be replaced and where a number of industries were struggling to compete

internationally Many workers involved in factory takeovers often argue that they went that route only because it seemed to be the only option left, save accepting prolonged unemployment and poverty As Eduardo Murúa, president of the National Movement of Recovered Businesses (MNER) explains, "We did it from what we knew from experience, that the previous struggles,

or the methods that we workers had, the fight for wages, or better working conditions no longer sufficed, that with 35, 40 percent unemployment as there is in the country the only way out was

to occupy the factories and make them produce in our hands."5 This clearly indicates that at least some of the workers involved in the takeovers indeed envisioned their actions as a direct result of structural situations that left few opportunities or alternatives for workers

The processes outlined so far fit with Doug McAdam’ argument that "social insurgency is shaped by broad social processes that usually operate over a longer period of time," as

contrasted with "the classical sequence of disruption/strain" which "depicts insurgency as a function of dramatic changes in the period immediately preceding movement emergence" (McAdam 1982: 41) Yet at the same time the Argentine factory takeovers and other social movements arising around the same time were also shaped by more immediate changes as well The causality sequence here, however, differs significantly from the classical view of dramatic changes Whereas classical models view immediate social disruptions as important because of their ability to create strain and unrest directly, I argue that the Argentine factory takeover case reveals a situation in which immediate and dramatic changes shaped social movement

emergence not through creating strain but by creating new opportunities and openings for protest Piven and Cloward’s concept of 'regulatory breakdown,' is particularly relevant, arguingthat political instability can lead to social movement activity both by lessening the impact of entrenched political powers which can, during other periods, prevent open dissent, as well as by leading to conceptual changes in what people see as possible(Piven and Cloward 1979: 28)

In Argentina, the same broad forces which led to changes in the political opportunities for labor-related contention during the 1990s also led to the more dramatic changes of the financial crisis in 2001 While longer-term forces were influential in creating the background conditions which both created the perceived need for action as well as structuring or restructuring the available channels of action, the few factory takeovers that occurred were essentially isolated events It was only when the crisis took hold, both making widespread the problems which had been felt by some groups earlier and creating a sharp rupture in the legitimacy of existing

political and economic systems, that the factory takeovers spread and began to act and be

perceived as a movement rather than isolated instances of protest

As factory and business closures began to accelerate, more groups of workers looked towards previous factory takeovers for guidance as they examined their options In mid-2001, representatives of several factories got together, and as Murúa recalls, "from this meeting the idea of the movement was launched" (Magnani 2003: 46) As the crisis worsened, the factory takeovers gained currency within other segments of the population, and previously isolated

5 Personal interview, June 16 th 2004

incidents began to be seen as parts of a coherent social movement by participants and observers alike This was particularly evident in increasing awareness of, and support for, the factory takeovers among the middle classes newly mobilized in the context of the effects of the financialcrisis and eventual devaluation on savings and mortgages Esteban Magnani argues that the proliferation of new factory takeovers was due to more than just the accelerating numbers of bankruptcies and closings and new financial hardships, claiming that "if indeed the profundity ofthe economic crisis served to strengthen the movement, the social debacle of 2001 cleared the path towards a greater social and political legitimacy" (Magnani 2003: 46) For example, one popular chant and slogan during the protests and demonstrations of late 2001 and early 2002 was

"piquete, cacerola, la lucha es una sola," claiming a unity of purpose between the largely middle class cacerolazos and the unemployed workers movements engaged in pickets and road blocks,

tactics which were far more controversial than the factory takeovers This availability of supportfrom sectors of society not directly involved in the factory takeovers proved to be an important factor in many cases, particularly because it enabled workers' groups to call on others to provide support during conflicts with police, increasing visibility and the costs to authorities of

repressing takeover attempts

Additionally, the severe challenge to the legitimacy of the political system, echoed in the

calls of "que se vayan todos," or "out with them all," and the lack of stability, epitomized by the

two week period in late 2001 which saw a total of five presidencies, further hindered the

government's ability to prevent or end the takeovers The early cacerolazos on December 19th

2001 were, in fact, faced with brutal police repression, and resulted in two-dozen deaths This repression, however, was instrumental in eroding the last vestiges of De la Rúa’s authority and leading to his resignation the following day(Levitsky and Murillo 2003) The succession of presidents that followed, with little authority or legitimacy to begin with, were more reluctant to authorize the use of force against protestors for some time President Duhalde's resignation was also linked to the use of repressive force, following an incident in June 2002 when police again killed two protestors While violence was in some cases used, it seems clear that there was, in fact, inadequate political authority to use it credibly as a consistent governmental strategy.Examining these factors, the emergence of the factory takeover movement in many ways seems to follow quite closely theories on the impact of structure on mobilization processes Broader structural forces which restricted many traditional pathways over a longer term process and short-term disruption and regulatory breakdown combined to create new openings for contentious politics Yet, at least in the Argentine case, there is more to the political opportunity story

Creating Political Opportunity

While the story surrounding the beginnings of the factory takeover movement clearly

supports the thesis that broader political opportunity structures and threats are instrumental in creating the conditions for the emergence of a social movement, they also indicate that a view ofpolitical structures as abstract forces totally external to social movements and social movement actors is incomplete While some scholars have argued that political structures and elite groups nearly unilaterally dictate both the emergence and shape of social movements (Piven and

Cloward 1979), certainly it is not entirely novel to suggest that movement actors themselves may have a role in interpreting or reacting to such forces (McAdam 1982) The case of

Argentine social movements in the late 1990s and early 2000s suggests, however, a need to go beyond this element of the political process model to reexamine the concept of political

opportunity itself While it is clear that the factory takeover movement has been profoundly shaped by a number of broader political, economic, and social forces, these forces and contexts cannot be entirely separated from the social movements they shape Rather, the Argentine case reveals that social movements can in some cases do more than simply react to structural

opportunities; they also have the potential to play a fundamental role in creating them as well Most productively, it speaks to Sydney Tarrow's concept of cycles of contention, arguing that

"people engage in contentious politics when patterns of political opportunities and constraints

change and then, by strategically employing a repertoire of collective action, create new

opportunities, which are used by others in widening cycles of contention" (Tarrow 1998: 19)

In the preceding section, I argued that the economic and political crisis of 2001-2002 could be viewed as a dramatic rupture in the political structure, with a profound impact on the formation of the factory takeover movement Certainly, the crisis was fundamentally a structuralchange largely attributable to broad economic and political forces, both international and

domestic Nevertheless, this was not just a crisis of broad forces, a failure of international

finance policy, of domestic economic management, or of institution building Rather, it is

impossible to speak of the crisis without speaking of social movements and contentious politics, without examining the groups of people who filled plazas, banged pots and pans, rioted,

conducted neighborhood assemblies and alternative economies, marched, forced the resignation

of presidents, blocked streets, and took over factories The breakdown of the state, most clearly reflected in the resignation of five presidents in two weeks, cannot be understood without looking at the groups of protestors who were instrumental in bringing those resignations about

If the crisis of political and economic institutions is one of the key changes in the political opportunity structure affecting the emergence of the factory takeover movement, as I argue it is, social movements must also be recognized as important actors in the creation of that political opportunity structure

Although less obviously than some of the other forms of contentious politics, factory takeovers themselves and the groups of workers engaged in them were important in shaping this new political opportunity structure as well Occurring prior to the widespread protests and political breakdown which would dramatically change the political landscape of Argentina, the early factory takeovers were shaped by a different set of political opportunities and restrictions

As this broader political situation changed, so too did these factories and those which followed Yet these early factory takeovers, and the people involved in them, were not simply passively reacting to the dramatic changes and ruptures occurring around them; rather they were actively involved in bringing them about

First and most basically, the early takeovers began to question the legitimacy of existing systems in ways which could be utilized by groups which followed Additionally, the

individuals involved in these takeovers, and the groups they formed, would become important resources for other workers considering a takeover of their own factories, becoming part of the

"opportunity" that other groups could tap into While the importance of networks and

connections with existing social movements or other community organizations is well

documented within the social movement literature (McAdam 1982), as indigenous factors they have generally been viewed as distinct from the idea of political opportunity structures In manyways, this is an important distinction, as networks are emerging as an important new area of study in social movement theory, and as they clearly impact movements in ways which are distinct from those of political opportunity structures However, in this context, and in light of the many social movement theories which uphold the importance of elite actors in creating

opportunities for social movements (Jenkins and Perrow 1977), it seems worthwhile to note that these developments fundamentally alter structural conditions

Finally, the factory takeover case clearly indicates that even seemingly structural

opportunities such as legal changes are often brought about directly by the agitation of social movements themselves, rather than resulting only from shifts in elite groups and other external forces The Argentine constitution, for example, previously allowed for expropriations of property declared to be of "public utility," theoretically at least providing a structural opportunityfor one institutional approach to change Yet it was the effort of the workers of Unión y Fuerza and lawyer Luis Caro who transformed this potential opening into a true opportunity by pressingfor and winning that first expropriation Here again, the movement itself is able to create real changes within the political opportunity structures that they are, at the same time, operating within

I argue that a complete conception of political opportunities must open itself to the concept that social movements can in certain instances have a role in creating opportunity as well as reacting to it, yet this does not diminish the need to highlight the continued importance

of structure This particular case complicates our understanding of the processes by which socialmovements emerge, but the power of structural constraints, of course, continues These analysessuggest a potential need to alter the way social movements are viewed, particularly within a volatile context, but it seems that in the vast majority of cases, potential social movements are still restricted by structural constraints Nevertheless, examining a partial exception to the rule may prove fruitful for social movement theory more broadly