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More About This Textbook
Overview
“Political clientelism” is a term used to characterize the contemporary relationships between political elites and the poor in Latin America in which goods and services are traded for political favors. Javier Auyero critically deploys the notion in Poor People’s Politics to analyze the political practices of the Peronist Party among shantytown dwellers in contemporary Argentina.
Looking closely at the slum-dwellers’ informal problem-solving networks, which are necessary for material survival, and the different meanings of Peronism within these networks, Auyero presents the first ethnography of urban clientelism ever carried out in Argentina. Revealing a deep familiarity with the lives of the urban poor in Villa Paraíso, a stigmatized and destitute shantytown of Buenos Aires, Auyero demonstrates the ways in which local politicians present their vital favors to the poor and how the poor perceive and evaluate these favors. Having penetrated the networks, he describes how they are structured, what is traded, and the particular way in which women facilitate these transactions. Moreover, Auyero proposes that the act of granting favors or giving food in return for votes gives the politicians’ acts a performative and symbolic meaning that flavors the relation between problem-solver and problem-holder, while also creating quite different versions of contemporary Peronism. Along the way, Auyero is careful to situate the emergence and consolidation of clientelism in historic, cultural, and economic contexts.
Poor People’s Politics reexamines the relationship between politics and the destitute in Latin America, showing how deeply embedded politics are in the lives of those who do not mobilize in the usual sense of the word but who are far from passive. It will appeal to a wide range of students and scholars of Latin American studies, sociology, anthropology, political science, history, and cultural studies.
Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
“At the level of most political science literature on urban poverty and clientelism, this work is genuinely pathbreaking. Combining the best of ‘thick description’ ethnography with a sense of more global processes at work in a society, Auyero uses the most up-to-date analytical frameworks to interrogate an object of study that has rarely—if ever—been so addressed. This is a book to be reckoned with over the next few years and beyond.”—Daniel James, author of Doña María’s Story: Life History, Memory, and Political Identity“Other people write about patronage politics as a form of organization, as a scourge to eradicate, or as a necessary evil on the way to full democracy. Javier Auyero writes about it as a raucous, improvised, crucial way of surviving poverty and inequality. Reporting perceptive first-hand observations in playful, energetic prose, Auyero illuminates poor people’s politics in Argentina and elsewhere.”—Charles Tilly, Columbia University
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Meet the Author
Javier Auyero is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Read an Excerpt
Poor People's Politics
Peronist Survival Networks and the Legacy of EvitaBy Javier Auyero
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2000 Duke University PressAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-2621-2
Chapter One
"They Were Mostly Poor People"Poverty and Inequality in Contemporary Buenos Aires
Introduction: Two Sides
"In one way or another, they fear us. We also fear them." -Beatriz Sarlo, Instantáneas
In her most recent book, Instantáneas, Argentine cultural critic Beatriz Sarlo (1996) clearly captures the process of dualization taking place in Argentine society and in particular in the city of Buenos Aires. Instantáneas is divided into three sections: "From This Side," "From the Other Side," and "Everything Is Television." Whether it is intended or not, these titles nicely convey the image of the polarized and fragmented society that has slowly developed in Argentina over the last two decades: two sides and the all-encompassing media.
These two sides make up a "paradoxical mix of splendor and decay" (Mollenkopf and Castells 1991, 8). The luxurious wealth of an allegedly cosmopolitan bourgeoisie gives "this side" of Buenos Aires the appearance of other "global cities" (Sassen 1991). The landscape of "La Reina del Plata" is increasingly ornamented with-to quote Saskia Sassen (1991, 9)-"expensive restaurants, luxury housing, luxury hotels, gourmet shops, boutiques, French hand laundries and special cleaners," and one could add to the list the opulent shopping malls and the sumptuous developments in Puerto Madero. On "the other side," the spectacle is that seen in many Third World countries, one presented in some chapters of Sarlo's book as an obscure and impenetrable drama: death, violence, abandonment, homelessness, hunger, child labor, street predators, danger, and poor shanty towns. These two sides represent the "two nations" that Argentina is becoming, following the trends in other major cities.
This chapter provides a straightforward empirical description of this fragmented and polarized society, locating within it the "territories of urban relegation" in which the outcasts that "we fear" dwell. One of those stigmatized places is where the social relations and cultural representations described in the following chapters take place.
It is hardly a new observation that Argentina's social structure is becoming increasingly polarized and fragmented (Nun 1987; Villareal 1996; Torrado 1992; Minujin 1992). According to Mingione (1991), these two apparently contradictory processes-fragmentation and polarization-can be understood as simultaneous and mutually reinforcing. We should realize, he asserts, that social structures might become more and more diversified "but that the micro-typologies tend to concentrate around two major poles, or macro-typologies, which differ greatly in terms of conditions of existence, life-chances, and the quantity and quality of available social resources" (p.436). Both extremes-"this side" and "the other side," sumptuous wealth and utter destitution-flourish side by side in contemporary Argentina.
On "the other side," fragmented polarization leads to the constitution of a new regime of urban marginality. Although having certain common traits with the "new poverty" of advanced societies (see McFate, Lawson, and Wilson 1995), this "new marginality" has its distinctive features: the structural character of joblessness (the massive loss of blue-collar jobs, the concentration of unemployment among the least skilled and least educated, and the persistence of long-term unemployment) (Iñiguez and Sanchez 1995; Beccaria and Lopez 1996); the growth of underemployment and the increasing insecurity of labor force attachment (the casualization of wage-labor relations) (Nudler 1996; Cieza and Beyreuther 1996); the functional disconnection of employment from macroeconomic change (Lozano and Feletti 1996; Rofman 1996; Monza 1996); and the retrenchment of the welfare component of the state (CEB 1995; Lo Vuolo and Barbeito 1993).
The first two features dovetail with the deep decline of the manufacturing sector, which includes the worsening position of unionized workers, the deterioration of wages, and the proliferation of sweatshops. And all four features entail a process that-although with different rhythms and structural causes-is analogous to the one taking place in more advanced societies (Sassen 1991, 1998), namely, a reorganization of the capital-labor relation in which two simultaneous processes prevail: the maximization of the use of low-wage labor and the minimization of the effectiveness of the mechanisms that have traditionally empowered labor vis-à-vis capital.
Joblessness and Income Reduction
The unemployment rate among the economically active population in Argentina rose from 5.0 percent in 1974 to 18.6 percent in 1995. Underemployment rose from 5.4 percent in 1974 to 11.3 percent in 1995. Since the launching of the Menem-Cavallo "Convertibility Plan" in 1991, unemployment has increased 200 percent (Iñiguez and Sanchez 1995; Beccaria and Lopez 1996).
The Conurbano Bonaerense, which contains 24.4 percent (8,440,000 inhabitants) of Argentina's total population in 1.2 percent of its territory, is home to the largest industrial park in the country, representing 74.4 percent of the total employment of the state of Buenos Aires and 62.3 percent of its total production. It is the region most affected by the process of deindustrialization and the subsequent hyper-unemployment. According to Cieza and Beyreuther (1996, 3), the passage of thousands of workers from factory work to informal and precarious jobs is the most significant economic phenomenon of the last fifteen years. Numerous plant closings and massive layoffs constitute the paramount experience of thousands of working families.
The situation in the Conurbano Bonaerense is one of dramatic levels of unemployment and the casualization of labor. Between 1991 and 1995, there was a 277 percent increase in the number of unemployed people. Unemployment rates doubled between 1991 and 1994 and doubled again in the period 1994-95.
In 1995, the unemployment rate in the Conurbano was 22.6 percent of the economically active population (or 843,840 people). Unemployment and underemployment together accounted for 33.8 percent of the population. For large segments of the working class, mass joblessness resulted in a straightforward deproletarianization. As Iñiguez and Sanchez (1995, 10; my translation) explain: "If something characterizes the change in the Conurbano Bonaerense's landscape, it is the shutdowns of factories and the subsequent transformation of the industrial workers into unemployed, marginals, or workers in the informal sector. The reduction in the proportion of the population employed in the manufacturing sector in Buenos Aires was very severe."
In the last ten years, the Conurbano Bonaerense lost 5,508 industrial plants, and, between 1991 and 1995, the manufacturing sector eliminated 200,000 jobs. The rise in unemployment has not affected every sector of the economy in the same way, nor has it affected the entire population in a similar manner. Manufacturing was most severely affected. In May 1991, 26.7 percent of the employed population in the Conurbano was working in manufacturing. Four years later, this rate had declined to 23.1 percent. In contrast, the "commerce, hotels, and restaurants" sector of the economy, which accounted for 21.1 percent of the jobs in May 1991, had grown to account for 23.3 percent by May 1995, gaining roughly 70,000 more jobs. The most striking increase, however, takes place among those working in the transportation, storage, and communications industries: taking 1991 as the base, for every 100 jobs in that year there were 162 in May 1995. Yet it is important to note that a third of these new jobs can be attributed to self-employment (CEB 1995; Lozano and Feletti 1996).
In other words, what we have witnessed over the last five years is the radicalization of a process that had its starting point in the mid-1970s: a shift in the economy from the manufacturing to the service sector-what is known as an "early and nonmodern tertiarization" (LoVuolo and Barbeito 1993), characterized by a great loss of jobs and a general worsening of working conditions. Although the shift from the manufacturing to the service sector in a developing economy has different causes and effects and takes place at a different rate than it does in advanced economies, some of its effects are similar, including "a much larger share of low-wage jobs than is the case with a strong manufacturing-based economy. The overall result is an increased income polarization"(Sassen 1991, 329).
Who Is Unemployed?
Unemployment in the Conurbano, and in the country as a whole, seems like an "epidemic disease" (Kessler 1996) that poses an equal threat to everyone. Yet, contrary to the national propaganda that emphasizes the "globalized," "general," and "transitory" character of unemployment, in the 1990s unemployment was neither randomly distributed nor short-lived. As in other parts of the world (McFate 1995; Wilson 1997; Mingione 1996), unemployment hits certain groups harder than others: the highest rates of unemployment can be found among the lowest income groups, the least educated, the least skilled, and the young.
Secondary school dropouts have the highest unemployment rates. Whereas the average unemployment rate in the Conurbano was 22.6 percent in May 1995, for secondary school dropouts it was 26.8 percent. Primary school dropouts do not do much better. The average unemployment rate among them is 24.3 percent. For those who hold a university degree, the rate of unemployment is 8.7 percent (CEB 1995; see also Murmis and Feldman 1996).
Lozano and Feletti (1996) also show that unemployment hits the poor harder than it does other groups. While in May 1995 the unemployment rate among the total economically active population in Greater Buenos Aires was 20.2 percent, it was 38.8 percent among the lowest income groups. Poor people, thus, must confront much higher levels of unemployment. Unemployment also weighs disproportionately on unskilled workers, who find entrance into the job market increasingly difficult. As Murmis and Feldman (1996) consistently show, in 1995, unskilled workers represent 27.5 percent of the employed population in general and 39 percent of those unemployed in Greater Buenos Aires. Those in the "informal sector" are strongly affected: 62 percent of the unemployed had been holding casual and precarious jobs. Construction workers and domestic service workers were particularly affected, representing 13.9 percent of the employed population and 29.8 percent of those unemployed. I highlight these two occupations because, as we will see in the next chapter, they are (or, better, they were) the two most important sources of employment for the inhabitants of Villa Paraíso. The younger population is greatly affected by the increase in unemployment: 51.8 percent of those between age fifteen and age nineteen were unemployed in May 1995, according to official figures (INDEC 1996). Thus, unemployment is neither generalized nor transitory. Indeed, there has been a notorious increase in the average duration of unemployment. A large proportion of those unemployed have been without a job for at least six months (25.9 percent in Greater Buenos Aires), becoming what is technically known as the long-term unemployed (Murmis and Feldman 1996, 200).
The Structural Character of Unemployment and Its Effects
The concentration of unemployment among the least skilled and least educated and the persistence of unemployment clearly lead to a conclusion that is constantly denied in the official discourse on the subject: the structural character of current unemployment (Rofman 1996).
Almost three decades ago, in what would later become one of Latin America's most original and controversial contributions to the social sciences, a group of sociologists tackled the relation between the structural character of unemployment in the region and the escalation of urban marginality. Working within a structural-historical neo-Marxist perspective, these researchers recovered from the realm of modernization theories (represented by the sociologist Gino Germani and the DESAL school) the notion of marginality, which focused on the lack of integration of certain social groups into society owing to their (deviant) values, perceptions, and behavior patterns. According to this approach, marginal groups lack the psychological and psychosocial attributes deemed necessary to participate in modern society. Emerging in the transition to modern, industrial society, marginality was thought to be the product of the coexistence of beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors of a previous, more "traditional" stage. Rural migrants were seen as carriers of a "baggage of traditional norms and values which prevent(ed) their successful adaptation to the urban style of life" (Portés 1972, 272).
In contrast with this approach, the structural-historical perspective on marginality focused on the process of import-substitution industrialization and its intrinsic inability to absorb the growing mass of the labor force. As Mollenkopf and Castells (1991, 409) assert, this intellectual tradition "aimed to understand why and how increased industrialization and GNP growth, concentrated in the largest metropolitan areas, went hand in hand with accrued urban poverty and an ever-growing proportion of people excluded from the formal labor market and formal housing and urban services." At that time, Nun, Marín, and Murmis (1968) understood that the functioning of what they called the dependent labor market was generating an excessive amount of unemployment (see also Nun 1969, 1972). This "surplus population" transcended the logic of the Marxist concept of an industrial reserve army and led the authors to coin the term marginal mass. The marginal mass was neither superfluous nor useless; it was marginal because it was rejected by the same system that had created it. Thus, the marginal mass was a "permanent structural feature" never to be absorbed by the "hegemonic capitalist sector" of the economy, not even during its cyclic expansionary phases.
As the structural-historical approach anticipated, the structural character of the "mass of the unemployed" has had multiple effects, most of which are present in contemporary Argentina. These effects are the lowering of incomes, the deterioration of working conditions and the worsening of contractual guarantees for the labor force. Thirty years later, in addition to this "industrial" marginality, Argentina is experiencing a novel kind of marginality: one related to the functioning of the globalized post-Fordist economy (Harvey 1990), the dynamics of the "early and nonmodern tertiarization" (LoVuolo and Barbeito 1993), and the resolute adoption of neoliberal adjustment policies by the state.
The sectorial shift in the economy and the steady process of deindustrialization have led to an increase in the numbers of the unemployed and underemployed, a growth in the casual job market-usually the black market-and an increase in the number of people willing to take any job, even one that requires fewer skills or less experience than they possess. The unstable situation of the labor market ensures that even those who do have jobs are uncertain that they will be able to keep them, which in turn erodes workers' bargaining power and, thus, their incomes (Lo Vuolo and Barbeito 1993; Beccaria and Lopez 1996, 10; Murmis and Feldman 1996, 145).
Since 1975, when formal employment lost its dynamism, there has been a steady decrease in real income (together with growing inequality in earnings). According to Beccaria and Lopez (1996, 24), there has been a 37 percent reduction in the real income of wage earners between 1974 and 1990.
Underemployment escalated to unprecedented levels. Although the total number of employed people did not vary between 1991 and 1995, the number of underemployed (calculated on the basis of hours worked) increased 70 percent (170,000 more people in the Conurbano became underemployed during that period). In accordance with Latin American trends, the 1990s saw a sustained growth in clandestine and casual employment. In 1974, 21.5 percent of wage earners were not registered with social security, and they did not enjoy the basic benefits of labor legislation. Fourteen years later, in 1988, 30 percent of wage earners were in this situation.
(Continues...)
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments....................ixWho Is Who in the Peronist Network....................xiii
Introduction: The Day of the Rally Complaining about T-shirts on Perón's Birthday....................1
1. "They Were Mostly Poor People" Poverty and Inequality in Contemporary Buenos Aires....................29
2. "Most of Them Were Coming from Villa Paraíso" History and Lived Experiences of Shantytown Dwellers....................45
3. "They Knew Matilde" The Problem-Solving Network....................80
4. "We Will Fight Forever, We Are Peronists" Eva Perón as a Public Performance....................119
5. The "Clientelist" Viewpoint How Shantytown Dwellers Perceive and Evaluate Political Clientelism....................152
6. "They Were All Peronists" The Remnants of the Populist Heresy....................182
Conclusions Problem Solving through Political Mediation as a Structure of Feeling....................205
Epilogue Last Rally....................215
Notes....................219
Bibliography....................237
Index....................255