| Owing
to a poor economy and renewed political repression, Philip Oxhorn
was one of only a handful of individuals able to conduct research
in Chilean shantytowns in the 1980s. His book focuses on the emergence
of popular organizations among the Chilean urban poor under the Pinochet
regime and their place in the larger political system.
Oxhorn develops an original theoretical framework for understanding
the emergence of popular organizations and their potential for forming
a new social movement that can contribute to the democratization
of civil society independently of a change in regime. He then offers
a comprehensive account of popular sector organizational activity
in Chile over the past twenty years, based on extensive interviews
with shantytown organization leaders and political party elites,
various primary documents, and participant-observer experiences
carried out since 1984. He finds, paradoxically, that changes in
the political system provided the necessary conditions under which
a new social movement representing the urban poor could emerge,
but simultaneously made such an emergence very difficult because
of the problems that political parties faced after prolonged political
repression.
Oxhorn's conclusions offer insights for understanding Chilean democracy
today, as well as the nature of popular social movements among the
urban poor and their relations with political parties in Latin America
more generally. |
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