Social Movements in Latin America Neoliberalism and Popular Resistance

by Petras, James; Veltmeyer, Henry

• ISBN13: 9781137300119
• ISBN10: 1137300116
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2013-01-17
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Recent decades have witnessed a worldwide change in social and economic relations, accompanied by a multi-dimensional global crisis and major popular uprisings led by sociopolitical movements. While many critics see in these developments the agency of imperialist exploitation, mainstream development thinking and practice attribute them to the irresistible forces of progressive free market policies. They are content to believe that the pain and misery of poverty, and the degradation of people's lives and livelihoods, is the price of admission into the new world order the inevitable price of progress. However, waged and unwaged workers, the self-employed poor, small-scale or landless peasant farmers, and others in the popular sectors have proven themselves to be disposed to and very able to resist the machinations of imperial power and corporate elites, taking direct action as well as voting for political parties promising structural change. This book tells the story of popular resistance in its multiple forms with and against the new post-neoliberal regimes and of the changing social conditions in an era of globalization and worldwide crisis.

Author Biography

James Petras is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University in New York and Adjunct Professor of International Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University (Halifax, Canada). He is the author of over sixty books and numerous other writings on the dynamics of world and Latin American developments including Unmasking Globalization; The New Development Politics, Social Movements, and the State; Multinationals on Trial; What’s Left in Latin America; and Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire. A list and an actual file of his periodical writings and journal articles are maintained and can be accessed via http://www.rebelion.org/.

Henry Veltmeyer is Professor of International Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University (Halifax, Canada) and the Autonomous University of Zacatecas (Mexico). He is the author of numerous studies on the political economy of global development and Latin American affairs, many published in different languages. Recent publications include an edited festschrift in honor of James Petras, Imperialism, Crisis, and Class Struggle: The Verities of Capitalism, and over twenty books coauthored with James Petras including Globalization Unmasked; System in Crisis; Empire with Imperialism; Social Movements and the State; and What’s Left in Latin America.

Table of Contents

"James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer continue to define the analytical paths that the rest will eventually follow." - Tom Brass, formerly of SPS Cambridge, and editor of The Journal of Peasant Studies"Petras and Veltmeyer present, once more, a powerful and stimulating analysis of social struggles in Latin America. They combine a deep understanding of Latin American politics with a powerful commitment to social justice. Even readers who may not share all aspects of their class-based analysis will benefit greatly from their provocative insights." - Teivo Teivainen, Professor of World Politics, University of Helsinki