Mobilizing democracy : globalization and citizen protest / Paul Almeida.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Almeida, Paul, 1968- author.

Series:

Themes in global social change

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social movements--Central America.

Social movements.

Protest movements--Central America.

Protest movements.

Globalization--Social aspects--Central America.

Globalization.

Economic policy.

Social aspects.

Globalization--Social aspects.

Central America--Economic policy--Social aspects.

Central America.

Central America--Politics and government--1979-.

Politics and government.

Physical Description:

xvi, 198 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.

Summary:

Paul Almeida's comparative study of the largest social movement campaigns that existed between 1980 and 2013 in every Central American country (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama) provides a granular examination of the forces that spark mass mobilizations against state economic policy, whether those factors are electricity rate hikes or water and health care privatization. Many scholars have explained connections between global economic changes and local economic conditions, but most of the research has remained at the macro level. Mobilizing Democracy contributes to our knowledge about the protest groups "on the ground" and what makes some localities successful at mobilizing and others less successful. Based on extensive field research, archival data of thousands of protest events, and interviews with dozens of Central American activists, Mobilizing Democracy brings the international consequences of privatization, trade liberalization, and welfare-state downsizing in the global South into focus and shows how persistent activism and network building are reactivated in these social movements. Detailed graphs and maps provide a synthesis of the quantitative and qualitative data in this important study. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: globalization and citizen protest

A theory of local opposition to globalization

Costa Rica, the prototype for mobilization against globalization

El Salvador : oppositional party and protest campaigns

Panama : the legacy of military populism

Nicaragua : third world revolution confronts globalization

Anti-neoliberal resistance in Guatemala and Honduras

Conclusion : state-led development legacies in the era of global capital.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781421414089

9781421414096

1421414082

1421414090

OCLC:

868147285