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

Producing Change: Institutional Strategies and Contentious Protest in the Argentine Factory Takeover Movement Alexa Teichert Milton Department of Political Science Macalester College Advised by Professor Paul Dosh May 2, 2005 Abstract 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 on differences 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 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 a coherent 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 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 thousand police 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 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 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 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 this dichotomy 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 of the 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 large body of work which exists on the subject of social movements, and there have been few rigorous social 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 can tell 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, positing new 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) historically specific 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 crossculturally Yet nevertheless when conducted carefully with an eye towards both movement-level differences 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 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 initially adopted 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 that allow 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 political opportunity 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 structural changes 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 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 movement strategy, including leadership, networks, financial resources, and group dynamics and decisionmaking processes In isolation, these micro-level factors 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 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 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 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 issues such 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 than just "the concept waved about when structural theorists are forced to recognize the limits of their models," 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 nonrational 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 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 participants Within the larger framework of resource mobilization theory, several influential works began to take issue with some of the specific ramifications of McCarthy and Zald’s approach, most notably Frances Fox Piven and Richard A Cloward’s Poor People’s Movements (1979) and Doug McAdam’ Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970 (1988) 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 not Further, Piven and Cloward take issue with the emphasis placed on formal organization and elite support within resource mobilization theory, arguing that when social movements 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 authorities in the way it might have otherwise While few other factory takeovers were directly confronted by police immediately after their actions, the long lag between the action and any interaction with officials at all is particularly striking in the Brukman case In fact, the Brukman proprietors themselves did not bring an official charge against the workers until March, nearly three months after the initial takeover This lack of government intervention, and delay by both sides in appealing to the government seems revealing given the total disarray of government institutions and the lack of trust placed in them in the time immediately following the Brukman takeover This state of affairs also seems to show that, while the Brukman workers' rejection of institutional pathways was a philosophical and political stance, it was also a practical reflection of their assessment of not only the government's legitimacy, but also its ability to take action When the Brukman owners eventually did bring their case to the government, attempts by the police to enforce judicial eviction orders failed due to the amount of community support, and the official decision that if the eviction could not be carried out peacefully the enforcement of private property rights did not warrant the use of force against protestors This pronouncement changed, however, with the successful eviction in April 2003 One of the changing structural factors that would seem to have an impact on the strategies undertaken by various factory takeover groups is the effect of the improving economic situation on the middleclass, previously mobilized by a situation which affected their own pocketbooks and bank accounts, but now increasingly able to return to a more 'normal' state In the Brukman case, decreasing community support does not seem to have been directly the issue in the success of the second eviction attempt, as the workers were still able to mobilize nearly 1000 people to challenge the police Nevertheless, these were largely groups of people involved in social movement organizations in other ways, and did not necessarily represent the same level of support in the broader community Thus while diminishing community support may not have led to a significant decrease in those physically present to prevent the eviction, it seems likely to have played an important role in the decision to use force if necessary to prevent the workers from re-taking the factory Micro-level Factors: While it is easy to point to structural factors which may have lead to both the initial stance of the Brukman worker and to their later change in strategy, as I have argued previously, changing structural factors lead to changing strategy only as a factor of how those structures are interpreted and reacted to by movement participants and leaders The Brukman workers seem to chosen strategies in reaction to changing interpretations of the structural options available to them Yet the Brukman workers were not the only group to experience this changing set of opportunities and constraints, and yet not all groups adopted the same strategies and stances Understanding the impact of these structures requires understanding how they were interpreted and reinterpreted by Brukman workers, and how leadership, networks and community connections, and intra-group dynamics impacted those interpretations and resulting strategic decisions First, the trajectory of strategic choices made by the workers at Brukman suggests that networks and leadership played a role in shaping how problems are analyzed and what solutions are examined The workers had initially remained in the factory without a clear strategy for further action, and in fact did not begin producing for several weeks As they were beginning to develop a long-term strategy, they did so within the particular context of the other individuals and groups they were exposed to The Brukman workers were, more than many other factories, 25 involved with a number of small left-wing political parties, particularly the Party of Socialist Workers or PTS, who had come to the factory during the time after the initial takeover They were later often criticized for having been overly influenced or even manipulated by these groups, but as Gladys Figueroa argues, with time they simply grew a sense of loyalty and connection to those parties because they had been the ones to support them most at the beginning of their takeover Nevertheless, theses groups were major proponents of the "nationalization under worker control" plan, and were influential in the Brukman decision to adopt that platform Figueroa acknowledged that influence in an interview, saying that the decision to reject a law of expropriation earlier on came partly from concerns about an expropriation's failure to provide a long-term solution for the factory and for other struggling workers, and also perhaps "a little because…we were comfortable and didn't ask the opinion of other people" (Magnani 2003: 183) Conflicts within the factory and the ambiguous leadership situation also influenced the process which resulted in the decision to change strategies While the factory was run by an assembly, composed of all the workers involved in the takeover, where decisions were debated and made by vote, in practice certain workers took on larger roles, acting as spokesmen to the media and other interested groups Celia Martinez adopted this role early on, and in many ways became the public face of Brukman As such, she had responsibility for representing the factory, and the decisions made by the group as a whole, to supporters, and via reporters, to the community as a whole, and was also an influential personality within the factory, making her personal connections with the PTS more significant than they might otherwise have been Intergroup conflict over strategic issues also began to be apparent during the time the workers were locked out of the factory, and initial conflicts centered over Martinez and her decision to run for a political position with the PTS over the opposition of the assembly As the economic situation of the workers, unable to produce for months, worsened, this conflict widened and ultimately was the schism out of which the change in strategy occurred This indicates that although the structural difficulties that the Brukman workers faced shaped their decisions about future strategy, those decisions were made through processes shaped by internal group dynamics and network connections Case Study: Chilavert History: As at Brukman, the workers at the printing press Chilavert began their takeover during a time of structural instability and social protest, and yet the strategies they adopted, mixing both institutional and extralegal actions, differed significantly from those initially adopted by Brukman This suggests that while strategy was impacted by this context, it was also influenced by internal factors within the factory The printing factory Chilavert first opened its doors in 1923 For most of its history, it concentrated on printing high quality graphics, particularly specializing in art books and reproductions During the 1980’s Chilavert had around 45 employees, but as the economic situation began to worsen that number dropped in the 1990s The combination of opening of the economy to imports and rapidly changing technologies in printing and design conspired to make remaining competitive in the industry more and more difficult In 1998, these difficulties became acute, and the business began the practice of withholding benefits, retirement pensions, and paying salaries only in part 26 On March 20th, 2002, the owners of Chilavert closed the factory, without giving prior notice to the employees, and entered into a preventative concourse (Concurso preventativo) under the applicable bankruptcy law When they announced that they would be removing some machinery ‘for repair,’ it became clear to the workers that this was an attempt to sell off the assets of the factory secretly before declaring bankruptcy, and they occupied the factory on April 4th, 2002 As with the Brukman factory, the Chilavert workers involved in the takeover contend that their actions at the beginning lacked an organized and concerted plan for the future and were rather immediate responses to the immediate threat of unemployment One worker active in the takeover, Cándido Gonzalez, states, "I'm going to be honest We took the factory as a reflexive act in order to not loose our jobs Later, when we formed a cooperative…there the idea began to circle in our heads, don’t ask me how… now I no longer think of employment, I think of the other companions' factory" (Magnani 208) Soon after the takeover, the eight remaining workers, with the assistance of Diego Kravetz, a lawyer with the National Movement of Recovered Businesses, attempted unsuccessfully to negotiate an agreement with the owners of the factory The union which previously represented the workers of Chilavert, the Sindicato Gráfico, continued through this time to provide benefits, but maintained that reopening the factory would be impossible On May 10th, Chilavert officially declared bankruptcy At this time, again with the assistance of Kravetz, the workers presented a plan for reopening the factory to the judge overseeing the bankruptcy This proposal was rejected and the workers were ordered to abandon the factory They refused, however, and on the 21st an initial attempt at eviction was made In this first attempt, however, only the síndico, or trustee of the bankruptcy, and four police officers were present, and the workers continued to occupy the premises Three days later, a second eviction attempt was made, this one with a much larger contingent of police, described by Cándido as including sixteen police vehicles, two ambulances, and small trucks capable of knocking in the large front doors of the factory Resisting this forceful eviction attempt was possible only because of the support of workers from other cooperatives, neighbors, and groups from various neighborhood assemblies Crossing several trucks in front of the entrance way, they blocked the police from the doorway, as workers passed recently completed work out through a hole in a side wall to a waiting car Ultimately, the police were not willing to risk sparking the conflict which seemed likely to occur should they follow through with the eviction order, and withdrew This temporary victory would clearly not have been possible without the broad support from others in the community As Cándido explained, "Between the eight of us that were there we wouldn't have been able to resist the police cars, vans, and fire trucks there were even ambulances But we were a ton of people, and in the end we scared them Without the others, we wouldn't have been able to" (Magnani, 201) "I think that the most distinctive characteristic of this factory is not that it was taken by eight workers It was taken by the neighborhood assembly, the neighbors, the teachers… By the people!"( 204) 27 After the failed eviction, the judge overseeing the Chilavert bankruptcy proceedings decided to come to a temporary agreement with the workers, whereby they would pay a rental fee to the bankruptcy trustee and retain the right to remain inside the factory while attempting to attain a law of expropriation In July of 2002, the workers of Chilavert officially formed a cooperative, registered with INAES After a long process of lobbying, the legislature of the City of Buenos Aires passed Law 889 on September 12, 2002, declaring the factory to be of “public utility” and granting the expropriation, for a period of two years for the real estate and permanently for the machinery, brands, and patents This was the first law of expropriation for a fábrica recuperada in the city of Buenos Aires In November of 2004, a second law of expropriation was passed for Chilavert along with 13 other factories within the federal capital, including Brukman, this one granting permanent expropriation From the very beginning of their takeover attempt, the Chilavert workers clearly made use of institutional pathways towards the resolution of their situation Immediately after the occupation they attempted to come to an agreement with the owners of the factory, and within a month were working within the judicial system to win approval for their project Yet their tactics and accompanying rhetoric have clearly not been confined to institutional or legal channels It is clear from the statements of workers involved in the takeover that from the beginning they were not opposed to taking action that would transgress legal boundaries Clearly, rejecting judicial orders and resisting police transgresses those boundaries In fact, Cándido stated in an interview with journalist Esteban Magnani, "when I say that the police were going to enter I thought: 'If its not ours its not anybody's,' and I prepared a Molotov to burn all the machines" (Magnani 201) As his son, Hernán, who is not a member of the cooperative but has been closely involved with it, says "it all comes down to a question of justice: social justice, real justice What we have done is only rarely legal, but it is always legitimate" (Magnani 210) The positions stated publicly by Chilavert workers, like those of members of the MNER with whom they have associated, show a clear willingness to adapt to whatever strategies seem necessary or most effective, regardless of their legality The question, then, as Hernán puts it, is "How we make it so that this legality that today doesn't exist legalizes the legitimacy of our demands?" (Magnani 210) Answering, in a way, his son’s question Cándido says, " I believe that the battle has to happen on all fronts, entering a factory, cutting a padlock, but also in the Legislature with the legislators that they present the laws of expropriation for the factories, that they present the reforms to the bankruptcy law, that they present even a constitutional reform" (Magnani 211) Political Opportunity Structures: Occurring just three months after the Brukman factory takeover, the Chilavert takeover faced a broader political context that was in many ways very similar to that experienced by the Brukman workers Although the state of extreme unrest and protest occurring around the time of the Brukman action had subsided somewhat, little had been solved by March 2002 when the Chilavert owners shut down the factory Duhalde's government was seen as unstable, the economy continued to be in disarray, and protestors and social movements in other sectors continued to challenge the legitimacy of the government Additionally, Chilavert's experiences with attempted eviction orders are very similar to those of Brukman: in both cases, occurring in May and March of 2002, respectively, workers and supporters confronted the police assigned to enforce the eviction order, and in both cases the police, unwilling to use the force necessary to complete the order, failed to so Yet in the time surrounding the defeated eviction attempts, 28 the two groups of workers took very different actions While Brukman declined a potential law of expropriation and focused on production and consolidating community support, the workers of Chilavert turned also to the legislative and judicial systems, working with the help of a lawyer to find ways to legalize their claim to the factory, until then supported only by the sense of social legitimacy which had propelled them past the threat of expropriation While the somewhat reduced degree of turmoil nation-wide may have contributed to the decision to turn to legislative as well as contentious protest to preserve the claim to the factory, the differences between these two groups cannot be explained through structural explanations alone Micro-level Factors: There are, however, a number of micro-level factors which differentiate the experience of the Brukman workers from that of those from Chilavert, and which may help to explain the particular strategic directions that the Chilavert workers followed The particular connections they developed with other social movements and organizations, most noticeably the National Movement of Recovered Businesses (MNER) and neighborhood assemblies, were especially significant in shaping the mix of institutional and extralegal strategies they developed The Chilavert workers developed particularly strong relationships with local neighborhood assemblies Cándido Gonzalez's son, Hernán, is an active member of the Assembly of Pompeya, providing the initial link While many factories have benefited from connections with the assemblies, Chilavert workers have made particular efforts to strengthen those ties, for example contributing the upper story balcony of the factory as a cultural center, housing art exhibits, performances and meetings, and a library of information on factory takeovers and other Argentine social movements, run in conjunction with youth from the local assembly The tactics followed by Chilavert have certain characteristics in common with the avenues pursued by many assemblies, particularly in their ad hoc and multi-fronted approach to strategy The neighborhood assemblies, which arose in late 2001 as alternative spaces of democratic participation and deliberation, present an alternative to the established political system, but not always and necessarily reject all aspects of the state, rather serving as sites of debate over what the appropriate interaction between social movements and the state should be In some assemblies, participants ran for office in the 2003 election cycle, while in others such efforts were rejected The assemblies as a whole, however, clearly operate projects within many different spheres and on many different levels, including community self-governance projects, community kitchens, and protests and other activities advocating public policy changes These connections have contributed to the Chilavert workers' deep alliance with neighbors and social movements outside the factory walls, and make confronting authorities a possible strategy option where it might not otherwise have been due to their lack of numbers At the same time, unlike Brukman's connections with the small radical political parties, the 'assambleistas' not reject using institutional pathways where they are found beneficial Case Study #3: Cooperativa Lavalán, Avellaneda, Buenos Aires7 Cooperativa Lavalán is a small factory located in the municipality of Avellaneda, an economically depressed industrial suburb just outside of the city limits of Buenos Aires, whose business, as the name suggests, is washing wool Approaching the factory, one passes through a residential neighborhood sprinkled here and there with the occasional industrial building, largely The Lavalán history recounted here is reconstructed from news articles, a lengthy statement on the MNFRT website, and personal interviews with cooperative president Gregorio López and member Juan Domingo Rapien 29 shuttered; just around the corner from Lavalán a huge abandoned factory fills almost an entire block Lavalán itself occupies three quarters of a block, and three stories, although it is hard to tell from unassuming entrance way It was founded in 1938 by a man named Roberto Fanton, and some of the current workers have been with the factory for as many as forty years In 1988, Lavalán employed 75 workers Today, the cooperative has 24 members In the early 1990’s, the economic situation of the factory began to worsen and in late 1995 it began to fall behind in payment of bonuses and vacation time During 1998 and 1999, the conflict was brought before the Ministry of Labor several times, in hopes of arriving at a resolution In November 2000, the company denied having any debts to the workers at all As the dispute grew more serious, in March 2001 the owners requested compulsory conciliation In September, they presented a potential resolution, agreeing to the formation of a worker cooperative which would take control of the production process, with the caveat that seven of the workers who had been most active in voicing their complaints would be excluded This attempt to create division among the workers ultimately failed Meeting in assembly, the workers who had been offered a position within the cooperative decided not to exclude the other seven, and rejected the company’s offer A few of the workers had seen the work of Luis Caro, a labor lawyer working with the social work organization of the Catholic Church, on television, and approached him for advice Caro was involved with several other cooperatives and groups of workers in the takeover process, and as a result of this contact the strategy of the Lavalán workers began to evolve, focusing on the eventual goal of forming a cooperative including all 25 workers Over the course of that spring (October and November 2001), the company laid off a number of the workers, on the grounds that there was not enough work, only to call them back the next day to work informally (trabajar en negro) without a contract or the protections of labor laws applying to those in formal contractual relationships As one Lavalán worker explained, "the idea was this: wash away the claims we had" (Fajn 57) On December 1st, the workers of Lavalán, both those still there officially and those working en negro, began a strike, demanding the payment of back wages, bonuses (aguinaldos) and vacations, and attempting to prevent the surreptitious removal of the stocks of wool In late December, a number of workers tell of an event which cemented their sense of betrayal relating to the union supposedly representing them On December 24th, Juan Domingo Rapien, a worker with a long history at the factory, was at the factory overnight guarding the premises during the strike From his vantage point on the second floor, he relates, he saw the General Secretary of the labor union,8 exit the manager’s office with what appeared to be an envelope of cash—a bribe This history, retold with much emotion, embodies the sense of frustration, betrayal, and abandonment that the remaining workers felt about the actions of those institutions which were, at least in theory, supposed to represent them and fight for their interests On December 26th the business entered the first stages of bankruptcy proceedings (concurso preventitivo), and on January 4th 2002 the cooperative Cooperativa de Trabajo Lavalán Limitada was formed, including this time all of the 25 workers Although the cooperative began to work at this time, during the bankruptcy proceedings, their only client was an entity owned by the same group as Lavalán itself, who soon began to become indebted to the cooperative as a whole, in addition to owing unpaid wages to individual workers The last managerial and office workers left in April In May and June of 2002 the remaining workers of Lavalán, with the help of Caro, began working in earnest towards a law of expropriation which the Sindicato de las Barracas de Lanas, Cueros, Cerdas, Pinceles, Lavaderos de Lanas y Peinadurías 30 would give them legal tenure over the factory, approaching first the municipal government of Avellaneda, and then the provincial legislature In what would later become an important detail, this preliminary bill included the provision to expropriate the real estate, machinery, and all installations that "in keeping with the inventory form integral parts of the entity in question." The attached inventory referred to included the quantity of wool, washed and unwashed, that was in the factory at the time of inventory The law was quickly approved by the Representatives, and moved on to the Buenos Aires Senate on the 13th of June On the 14th, Carlos Fowler, one of the joint owners of the plant, brought forward a claim as a client to the wool in storage, and the workers put forward an objection, arguing that Fowler was a party to the conflict rather than an independent client as he claimed Fowler and the group of owners then hired a private security company, which placed padlocks on the doors of the factory preventing the workers from entering to perform their shifts guarding the machinery Distracting the security, the group of workers broke the padlocks and set up a tent outside to monitor the premises Argentine labor law provides for the right for workers to remain at the work site during a labor dispute, and thus, according to worker Juan Domingo Rapien, a judge at this time declared that these actions were not criminal Meanwhile, the law of expropriation was debated in the Senate on the 27th , and a modified version was then drafted and sent back to the House On July 11th, the new version was approved by the Representatives With only the final approval of the Senate still needed, the workers changed the locks of the offices of the factory, and prevented the private security guards from entering As a result of these actions, Fowler brought an unsuccessful penal complaint against the workers In an important step, the workers receive official recognition as a cooperative from INAES, the national government agency in charge of regulating and certifying cooperative businesses, on July 25th On August 9th, the final version of the law of expropriation is approved by the Senate, making it official In late August, the conflict over the wool remaining within the factory went before a different judge, Judge Javier Maffucci Moore, who, arguing that the wool had not been included in the expropriation and that Fowler was a third party to the labor dispute, ordered its removal This order led to a conflict which the national newspapers would dub the “War of the Wool.” On September 3rd at 5:30 in the morning the two workers who had been on guard overnight were preparing to return home when police officers arrived with an order to remove the approximately 330 tons of wool inside According to Víctor Cherei, one of the workers on guard duty that morning, the police then entered “a garrotazos,” indicating the threat of force Cherei left to notify Juan Rapien, who lives approximately a half a block from the factory Other workers— many of them former union colleagues—began to load the wool into hired trucks to be removed, but the Lavalán workers were determined to prevent the trucks from exiting Even as family members, neighbors, workers from other fábricas tomadas, and various other activists began to gather, and to burn tires in the street to prevent the wool from being removed, Caro and Gregorio “Goyo” López went to the judge to plead their case After a three-hour meeting, the judge eventually proposed that the wool be taken to a neutral location while its final status was determined Caro and López brought the proposal back to the workers still inside the factory behind police lines, but the assembly decided not to allow the wool to be removed, and prepared to resist While the account published in the national daily El Clarín indicates that this was done in a non-violent fashion, “following the example of Mahatma Gandhi,” by sitting in the doorway of the factory and refusing to leave, by their own account, published on the website of the MNFRT, the workers were prepared to resist 31 more violently, even considering burning the wool rather than letting it be taken out In personal interviews, Juan Domingo Rapien indicated that it was the neighbors, rather than the workers themselves, that had indicated they would set fire to any trucks attempting to leave Whatever the intentions of the various groups, however, none of this proved necessary Instead, the workers of Lavalán approached the truck drivers who had been hired to remove the wool, convincing them that attempting to take the wool would be likely to damage the trucks When the owners of the trucks agreed, the wool was unloaded, although its status remained unclear The next day, the struggle moved from the streets surrounding the factory back to the legislature in the provincial capital of La Plata On the 4th, modifications to the original law of expropriations were introduced, which would specifically reference the wool in the body, rather than the annex, of the bill The final vote, however, was pushed back several times, and on the 19th of September the Senate version was passed while the House version stalled Upon meeting with the judicial authorities, the workers were informed that another order to seize the wool had been issued, which indicated that it should be carried out even if it had to be done forcefully At the same time, they were presented with an offer from Fowler, whereby the workers would receive a total of 10,000 pesos in back wages, rights to all the wool stored in the factory, and the annulment of the seizure orders Feeling the pressure of unemployment, the workers decided in assembly to accept this offer On September 25, they returned to work Although eventually the workers of Lavalán did confront the police over a judicial order, and even expressed a willingness to use violent means to prevent the removal of the wool, overall their strategy represents a much more institutionally-oriented path than the other factory cases examined in this study They were quick to register legally as a cooperative with the government agency in charge of that process, and much of the action within their story takes place in legislative sessions and court rooms In fact, it is difficult to pinpoint the moment of "takeover," in part because the workers attempted to maintain at least some semblance of a legal status throughout Even in the midst of a confrontation with police in riot gear outside the factory, they were still working institutionally, as Caro and cooperative president Gregorio López left the scene to meet with the judge in charge of their case All told, these actions represent a strategy that differs significantly from that of the other factories studied here The question then, is, how were those decisions made, and what factors contribute to Lavalán's preference for institutional channels of action? Political Opportunity Structures: Although the long and drawn-out process that the workers at Lavalán went through before winning the rights to their factory make it somewhat difficult to determine exactly when the actual "takeover" took place, it seems that the conflict itself emerged before the conflict within the other two factories examined here In Chilavert, the company began withholding benefits in 1998, and in Brukman similar practices began in 1995, as they did in Lavalán Yet the conflict at Lavalán seems to have escalated sooner, being brought before the Ministry of Defense as early as 1998, and the workers began organizing with Luis Caro of the National Movement of Factories Recovered by their Workers (MNFRT) in early Spring (September and October) of 2001, as the magnitude of the country's economic crisis was becoming painfully apparent but before the eruption of protest brought about a political crisis as well The timing here suggests that the Lavalán workers' adoption of more institutionally-based channels of protest may be in part a function of the conditions within which they began their actions, at a time when political institutions had not suffered as major a challenge as they had just prior to or at the time of the 32 mobilization of workers in the other two cases Despite this potential link, however, much of the action of the Lavalán takeover occurred later, after the protests of late December 2001 and within the same political situation as the Brukman and Chilavert takeovers In fact, they began the process of registering with the government as an official cooperative on January 4th, in the midst of the upheaval Thus while the structural conditions at the time of their initial actions may have made the adoption of an institutional strategy more likely, a look at micro-level factors is necessary to fully explore why it was, in fact, chosen and maintained Micro-level Factors: One of the major factors which seems to have played a role in Lavalán's adoption of a more institutional strategy is the role of their networks and connections to other groups Primarily, this is seen through their connections to Luis Caro and, through him, to the MNFRT Particularly, the focus on institutional pathways is in line with the strategies emphasized by Luis Caro's National Movement of Factories Recovered by their Workers, or MNFRT, of which Lavalán is a member, and where several Lavalán workers are quite active The MNFRT stresses the legality of all of their actions, both as a matter of strategy, arguing that legal recognition is the key to being able to retain control of the factories, and as a matter of framing, under the premise that presenting themselves as law-abiding increases the weight of their claims both in the real courtroom and in the courtroom of public opinion In fact, the MNFRT has even come out against the slogan "Occupy, Resist, Produce" used by the other branches of the movement, arguing that they not 'occupy' factories, which would be a criminal action, but rather remain on the premises during a labor dispute, while working for the legal right to remain there Although the workers recount that they contacted Caro after seeing his work on television, this contact was also facilitated by other connections to Caro, suggesting that their experience with him is more than just a random encounter Particularly, Lavalán is situated in the municipality of Avellaneda, and a number of the workers also live in the area and are active community members, while Caro also lives in Avellaneda and was born and raised in a villa, or slum, nearby Prior to, and continuing during, his involvement with the factory recoveries, he was involved in the local council of the Catholic church and other local organizations, and his wife, Liliana, is a councilwoman in the Legislature of Avellaneda These connections seem to have facilitated the alliance between Lavalán workers and Caro’s organization In addition, Caro's own preference for institutional and legal strategies can also be tied to his own personal history, networks, and social location His strong ties to the Peronist party, and frank admiration for Perón, lead to this orientation—as well as to the accusation of personal political aspirations by many outside his organization In his own words, "from social movements alone you can't get very far, you have to contend for power….as a Peronist, one always is conscious of rising to power" (Magnani 2003: 52) Exploring just three case studies out of more than 100 factory takeovers nationwide, it is not possible to definitively determine what factors specifically led to which strategic decisions Nevertheless, these three cases indicate that the structural explanation can explain only part of strategy formation, as it fails to account for different strategies emerging within similar structural situations Although this study cannot determine precisely what other factors are involved, it argues that exploring movement-level factors may provide important clues into how social movements make strategy choices within a given situation 33 Chapter Five: Conclusions The social movement uprisings in Argentina in the wake of the financial crisis of late 2001 have been hailed by activists on a number of fronts as a fundamentally new form of social and political activism, and as presenting new ideas and possibilities to others around the world I would argue, on the other hand, that the social movement developments in post-crisis Argentina are not, in fact, entirely distinct from others, and precisely for that reason, can indeed present new ideas to those, in Argentina and elsewhere, who are interested in exploring social movement development and strategies, and particularly the interaction between the state and political structure and social movement activities First and foremost, this analysis of the factory takeover movement indicates that political structure, while significant, cannot be divorced from an understanding of the people and groups who interpret and reinvent it In explaining the emergence of social movements, scholars have often relied on political opportunity structure, which offers the possibility of explaining where and when social movements emerge, and to a certain degree, what types of social movements will emerge within certain structures These are important innovations, and should not be discarded Yet at the same time, political opportunity has too often been conceived of as an abstract structure which somehow exists independent of and unaffected by actual actors Examining mobilizations in Argentina surrounding the recent economic crisis, however, indicates that structures should be explicitly interpreted as shifting and dynamic forces, rather than static objects, and affected by both forces from 'above'—those external to social movements, and from 'below'—by social movements themselves The impact of the second of these claims has been explored here, to argue that social movements are, or at least sometimes and in certain situations can be, instrumental actors shaping the political opportunity structures which also, in turn, shape them In other words, social movements can, in limited situations, create political opportunities as well as reacting to them As much of social movement theory has focused on the mobilization process, and too little on how decisions about strategy are made, I have also focused this inquiry on the factors leading to diverse choices of strategy within the factory takeover movement Exploring the impact of structure in strategy formation reveals that again, structural explanations are important factors in examining the development of social movement strategy, but not account for all its complexities These case study analyses indicate a connection between the strength of political institutions, particularly at the time of the emergence of conflict, and the channel of protest—either institutional, non-institutional, or a mix of the two—chosen At the same time, however, it reveals that in some cases, factory takeover efforts emerged in the context of similar political structures, and yet adopted very different strategies, indicating that other factors particular to the factories in question must be analyzed While a number of such micro-level factors can be identified, including leadership, factory histories, and intra-group dynamics, the issue of networks and connections with other social movement groups seems to be most consistently an influential factor in strategy development, suggesting that social movement strategies are not developed within a single organization or even movement Rather, they are better viewed as sets of cognitive framework and ways of viewing the world which can and are transmitted, not only from person to person within a group, but also from group to group and movement to movement 34 There are certainly practical reasons that contribute to the emphasis social movement theory has historically placed on structural explanations of social movements and social movement strategy Characteristics of, and changes in, political opportunity structures are relatively to easy determine, through a careful reading of history, and their impact seems to be more objective and easier to examine Micro-level factors, on the other hand, are more difficult to identify and their impact on strategy is less easily tested While political opportunity structures are broad enough to affect numerous social movement groups, the micro-level factors affecting strategy are often particular to each individual group examined James Jasper, while accepting that structural constraints limit social movements, argues that social scientists need to learn to accept that on some issues there might just be several equally possible and equally likely choices, and learn to deal with the agency implicit in that "strategic dilemma" rather than attempting to explain away choices entirely (Jasper 2004) In this study, I have accepted Jasper's charge to move beyond macro-structures to explore how social movement actors make strategic decisions, but nevertheless have not rejected the structural paradigm quite to the extent that Jasper does Rather, I have looked to 'micro-level structures' including the impact of the prior experiences of the individuals, leaders, and groups involved, networks of contacts and connections with others, and the nature of intra-group dynamics and decision making processes and considered the ways in which these micro-level structures might interact with macro-level political opportunity structures to shape movement strategy Both these claims, about mobilization processes and the forms that movements take, reveal the need to look at the complex interplay between social movements and their structural contexts In many ways, this represents the project of the political process model This study diverges from that project as originally conceived, however, by arguing that the conception of political opportunity structure as a whole needs to be reevaluated to incorporate an understanding of the ways in which social movements, while operating within the constraints of a particular political structure, are not just passive reactors On the contrary, they can, in some situations, be influential actors shaping and reshaping political opportunity structures Additionally the original political process conception of political opportunity focuses on mobilization at the expense of later stages of movement development, explicitly exploring the process by which external and internal factors interact to contribute to mobilization and the formation of social movements, but not the process of strategy formation Viewed as a whole movement, these groups also seem to support Jack Goldstone's (2001: 336) claim of a "fuzzy and permeable boundary between institutionalized and non-institutionalized politics." While some groups frame their actions primarily in terms of one or the other, all of them transgress, at one point or another, this boundary This claim has important ramifications for social movement theory, but also for the prospects of the factory takeover movements in the future Examining the factory takeover movement realistically, it seems clear that—contrary to the pronouncements of some enthusiastic observers—these factory takeovers are not going to change the world Examining the limited agency of social movements does not diminish the power of structural forces, and the factory takeovers, whatever their strategies, will not solve the systemic inequities stemming from the deeper structures of neoliberalism and global capitalism There are, by most counts, between 70 and 170 'recovered' factories in Argentina, representing a small fraction of the economy as a whole Few factories are currently being taken over, largely because the sacrifice needed and risks endured to so are great, and not as readily taken in a situation where finding other employment seems merely difficult, rather than impossible Additionally, as politics, the economy, and society return to 'normal,' the process of cognitive 35 liberation (McAdam 1983), by which people identify their grievances as structural rather than personal problems, are not so readily accessed as they were when almost everyone seemed to be adversely affected by dramatic economic and political changes that they had no control over The factories that have already been taken over, however, continue to operate, and their impact goes beyond their own economic survival The increased use of institutional channels is on the one hand a clear sign that these social movements not provide a real challenge to the large systems at the root of the workers’ problems But the 'fuzzy boundary' between institutional politics and protest indicates that the factory takeover movement, even if the conditions for its continued growth not exist, may nevertheless have an impact within a system which is recovering its previous institutional form Goldstone argues that the presence of democratic institutionalized politics will not make the social movements go away, but rather change their form This claim seems to be upheld by this investigation, as the development of institutional strategies of change tend to be associated with the presence of institutional avenues and factors In the process of fighting their own fights, they have impacted the legal system as it exists currently, and continue to so, creating new possibilities for openings in political opportunity structures in the future As the laws are reshaped to fit changing conceptions of social rights, the impact of these movements may continue to be felt even once they are no longer active Furthermore, on a cognitive level they have reshaped in a small way the conceptions of what is possible in Argentina Groups of workers who today find themselves laid off, particularly those who are laid off amidst fraudulent bankruptcy schemes, no longer have to envision themselves as entirely without options Rather, they can look to examples around them of workers who have refused to resign themselves to this situation Whether or not they choose to take that route, the knowledge of it certainly has an impact on their decisions While it is too soon to determine, these impact suggest the possibility, at least, that the factory takeovers might shape protest and politics in Argentina in the manner Sidney Tarrow (1993) indicates with the concept of a "moment of madness," altering the repertoires of protest available in the future This certainly does not seem likely to dramatically alter the entire system in the way many argued for in the heady moments of December 2001, yet as many movement participants move back and forth across that fuzzy line between protest and politics they may find ways to keep some of that momentum alive, enshrining some of their claims in changed legal norms, and others in cultural shifts in what is envisioned as possible 36 References Empresas recuperadas : Ciudad de buenos aires 2003 Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: GobBsAs Alvarez, Sonia E., Evelina Dagnino, and Arturo Escobar, eds 1998 Cultures of Politics, Politics of Cultures: Revisioning Latin American Social Movements Boulder: Westview Press Amenta, Edwin, Neal Caren, Tina Fetner, and Michael P Young 2002 Challengers and States: Toward a Political Sociology of Social Movements Research in Political Sociology 10: 47-83 Andermann, Jens, Philip Derbyshire, and John Kräaniauskas 2002 Cacerolazos: People, class and multitude-A dossier Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 11, (2) (Aug): 135-136 Boudreau, Vincent 1996 Northern theory, southern protest: Opportunity structure analysis in cross-national perspective Mobilization 1, (2): 175-189 Buechler, Steven M 2000 Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism New York: Oxford University Press Corte, Gabriela dalla, and Silvia Gomez i Mestres 2000 Social justice, legitimacy and legality: Civil society before the defender of the people in Argentina Revista Mexicana De Sociologia 62, (4) (Oct-Dec): 69-90 della Porta, Donatella, and Sidney Tarrow, eds 2005 Transnational Protest and Global Activism Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Di Marco, Graciela, and Hector Palomino, eds 2004 Construyendo sociedad y politica : Los proyectos de los movimientos sociales en accion Buenos Aires: Jorge Baudino Ediciones ——— 2004 b Reflexiones sobre los movimientos sociales en la argentina Buenos Aires: Jorge Baudino Ediciones Dinerstein, Ana C 2003 Power or Counter Power? the dilemma of the piquetero movement in Argentina post-crisis Capital & Class 81, (autumn): 1-8 Eckstein, Susan, ed 2001 Power and Popular Protest : Latin American Social Movements Berkeley: University of California Press Eckstein, Susan, and Timothy P Wickham-Crowley 2003 Struggles for Social Rights in Latin America New York: Routledge Fajn, Gabriel, ed 2003 Fabricas y empresas recuperadas : Protesta social, autogestion y ruptures en la subjetividad Buenos Aires: Centro Cultural de la Cooperacion Fradkin, Raul O 2002 Social protest in Argentina Ecuador Debate 57, (Dec): 115-139 Galafassi, Guido 2003 Social Movements, Conflicts and a Perspective of Inclusive Democracy in Argentina Democracy & Nature 9, (3) (Nov): 393-399 Ganz, Marshall 2000 Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic Capacity in the Unionization of California agriculture, 1959-1966 The American Journal of Sociology, 105, (4) (Jan): 1003-1062 37 Goldstone, Jack A 2001 More Social Movements or Fewer? Beyond Political Opportunity Structures to Relational Fields Theory and Society 33: 333-365 Grimblat, Sebastian, and Eduardo Frajman 2004 Thoughts on Argentina: A year after the "collapse" Space and Culture 7, (2) (May): 188-192 Guidry, John A., Michael D Kennedy, and Mayer N Zald, eds 2000 Globalizations and Social Movements: Culture, Power, and the Transnational Public Sphere Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press Hakim, Peter 2003 Latin America's lost illusions: Dispirted politics Journal of Democracy 14, (2) (Apr.): 108-122 Hammond, John L 1999 Law and disorder: The Brazilian landless farmworkers' movement Bulletin of Latin American Research 18, (4) (October): 469-489 Jasper, James M 2004 A Strategic Approach to Collective Action: Looking for Agency in Social-Movement Choices Mobilization: An International Journal 9, (1) (Oct): 1-16 Jenkins, J Craig, and Charles Perrow 1977 Insurgency of the Powerless: Farm Worker Movements (1946-1972) American Sociological Review 42, (2) (Apr): 249-268 Levitsky, Steven, and Maria Victoria Murillo 2003 Argentina weathers the storm Journal of Democracy 14, (4) (Oct.) Lobato, Mirta Zaida, and Juan Suriano 2003 La protesta social en la argentina Argentina: Fondo de Cultura Económica Magnani, Esteban 2003 El cambio silencioso : Empresas y fabricas recuperadas por los trabajadores en la argentina Buenos Aires: Prometeo McAdam, Doug 1982 Political process and the development of black insurgency, 1930-1970 Chicago: University of Chicago Press McAdam, Doug, John D McCarthy, and Mayer Zald N 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements : Political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings Cambridge studies in comparative politics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press McCarthy, John D., and Mayer N Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements: A partial theory The American Journal of Sociology 82, (6) (May): 1212-1241 Meszaros, George 2000 Taking the land into their hands: The landless workers' movement and the Brazilian state Journal of Law and Society 27, (4) (Dec): 517-541 Olmedo, Clara, and Martin J Murray 2002 The formalization of Informal/Precarious labor in contemporary Argentina International Sociology 17, (3) (Sept): 421-443 Peruzzoti, Enrique 2001 The nature of the new Argentine democracy The delegative democracy argument revisited The Journal of Latin American Studies 33: 133-155 Peruzzoti, Enrique 2002 Towards a new politics: Citizenship and rights in contemporary Argentina Citizenship Studies 6, (1): 77-93 38 Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A Cloward 1979 Poor people's movements : Why they succeed, how they fail New York: Vintage books Recalde, Hector E 2003 La protesta social en la Argentina: Desde las primeras sociedades de resistencia al movimiento piquetero Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Universitario Romero, Luis Alberto 2001 Breve historia cotemporanea de la Argentina Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Economica Rubin, Edward L 2001 Passing through the door: Social movement literature and legal scholarship University of Pennsylvania Law Review 150, (1) (Nov): 1-83 Tarrow, Sidney G 1983 Struggling to reform : Social movements and policy change during cycles of protest Cornell Western Societies Papers No 15 Ithaca, NY: Center for International Studies, Cornell University ——— 1993 Cycles of collective action: Between movements of madness and the repertoire of contention Social Science History 17, (2): 281-307 ——— 1998 Power in movement : Social movements and contentious politics Cambridge studies in comparative politics 2nd ed Cambridge England] ;; New York: Cambridge University Press Wiilliams, Rhys H 1995 Constructing the public good: Social movements and cultural resources Social Problems 42, (1) (Feb): 124-144 39 ... 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. .. 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... 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