Adopting Argentina’s popular uprisings against neoliberalism including the 2001-02 rebellion and subsequent mass protests as a case study, The Mobilization and Demobilization of Middle-Class Revolt analyzes two decades of longitudinal research (1995-2018), including World Bank and Latinobarómeter household survey data, along with participant interviews, to explore why nonpolitically active middle-class citizens engage in radical protest movements, and why they eventually demobilize. In particular it asks, how do they become politicized and resist economic and political crises, along with their own hardship? Theoretically informed by Gramsci’s notions of hegemony, ideology and class consciousness, Ozarow posits that to affect profound and lasting social change, multisectoral alliances and sustainable mobilizing vehicles are required to maintain radical progressive movements beyond periods of crisis. With the Argentinian revolt understood to be the ideological forbearer to the autonomist-inspired uprisings which later emerged, comparisons are drawn with experiences in the USA, Spain, Greece UK, Iceland and the Middle East, as well as 1990s contexts in South Africa and Russia. Such a comparative analysis helps understand how contextual factors shape distinctive struggling middle-class citizen responses to external shocks. This book will be of immense value to students, activists and theorists of social change in North America, in Europe and globally.

The problem of citizenship has long affected Latin America, simultaneously producing inclusion and exclusion, division and unity. Its narrative and practice both reflect and contribute to the region’s profound inequalities. However, citizenship is usually studied on the margins of society. Despite substantial public interest in recent mass mobilizations, the middle and upper classes are rarely approached as political agents or citizens. As the region’s middle classes continue to grow and new elites develop, their importance can only increase. This interdisciplinary volume addresses this gap, showcasing recent ethnographic research on middle- and upper-class citizenship in contemporary Latin America. It explores how the region’s middle and upper classes constitute themselves as citizens through politics and culture, and questions how these processes interact with the construction of difference and commonality, division and unity. Subsequently, this collection highlights how elite citizenships are constructed in dialogue with other identities, how these co-constructions reproduce or challenge inequality, and whether they have the potential to bring about change. Citizenship in the Latin American Upper and Middle Classes will appeal to scholars, advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in fields such as Latin American Studies, Citizenship Studies, Political Science and Cultural Studies; and to a general readership interested in Latin American politics and society.

Contrary to dominant narratives which portray East European politics as a pendulum swing between democracy and authoritarianism, conventionally defined in terms of an ahistorical cultural geography of East vs. West, this book analyzes post-socialist transformation as part of the long downturn of the post-WWII global capitalist cycle. Based on an empirical comparison of two countries with significantly different political regimes throughout the period, Hungary and Romania, this study shows how different constellations of successive late socialist and post-socialist regimes have managed internal and external class relations throughout the same global crisis process, from very similar positions of semi-peripheral, post-socialist systemic integration. Within this context, the book follows the role of social movements since the 1970s, paying attention both to the level of differences between local integration regimes and to the level of structural similarities of global integration. The analysis maintains a special focus on movements’ class composition and inter-class relationships and the specific position of middle-class politics in movements.

This book focuses on critical approaches to the state and state theory in the Global South. In light of the reemergence of the post-colonial and peripheral state as a crucial institution and actor in the 21st century’s capitalist world-system, the book examines the nature, functions and development dynamics of the state in the periphery, as well as its constituting interests and struggles. Drawing on the works of Poulantzas and Gramsci, dependency and world-systems theory, as well as the regulation school and the German Ableitungsdebatte, stategraphy and critical realism, it analyzes the development of different theoretical perspectives on the state, elaborates on their theoretical, ontological and epistemological presuppositions, and illustrates their methodological, practical and ethical implications. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which provides an overview of recent global capitalist developments and challenges for state theory and lays the theoretical, ontological and hermeneutic foundation for studies of the state and statehood in the Global South. In turn, the second part introduces readers to different schools of state theory, including critical theory and materialism, as well as approaches derived from postcolonial, anthropological, and feminist thought. Lastly, the third part presents various empirical studies, highlighting concrete methodological and practical experiences of conducting critical state theory.

After Pinochet's dictatorship ended in Chile in 1990, the country experienced a rapid decline in poverty along with a quickly growing economy. As a result, Chile's middle class expanded dramatically, echoing trends seen across the Global South as neoliberalism took firm hold in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Identity Investments examines the politics and consumption practices of this vast and varied fraction of the Chilean population, seeking to better understand their value systems and the histories that informed them. Using participant observation, interviews, and photographs, Joel Stillerman develops a unique typology of the middle class, made up of activists, moderate Catholics, pragmatists, and youngsters. This typology allows him to unearth the cultural, political, and religious roots of middle-class market practices in contrast with other studies focused on social mobility and exclusionary practices. The resultant contrast in backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives of these four groups animates this book and extends an emerging body of scholarship focused on the connections between middle-class market choices and politics in the Global South, with important implications for Chile's recent explosive political changes.

How middle-class economic dependence on the state impedes democratization and contributes to authoritarian resilience Conventional wisdom holds that the rising middle classes are a force for democracy. Yet in post-Soviet countries like Russia, where the middle class has grown rapidly, authoritarianism is deepening. Challenging a basic tenet of democratization theory, Bryn Rosenfeld shows how the middle classes can actually be a source of support for autocracy and authoritarian resilience, and reveals why development and economic growth do not necessarily lead to greater democracy. In pursuit of development, authoritarian states often employ large swaths of the middle class in state administration, the government budget sector, and state enterprises. Drawing on attitudinal surveys, unique data on protest behavior, and extensive fieldwork in the post-Soviet region, Rosenfeld documents how the failure of the middle class to gain economic autonomy from the state stymies support for political change, and how state economic engagement reduces middle-class demands for democracy and weakens prodemocratic coalitions. The Autocratic Middle Class makes a vital contribution to the study of democratization, showing how dependence on the state weakens the incentives of key societal actors to prefer and pursue democracy.

This definitive contribution to social science literature describes German's general theory of authoritarianism in modem society, and applies it to authoritarian movements and regimes likely to merge out of the social mobilization of the middle and lower classes. Germani analyzes the nature, conditions, and determinants of authoritarianism in the context of Latin American political and social developments and compares it to European fascist movements.

This definitive contribution to social science literature describes German's general theory of authoritarianism in modem society, and applies it to authoritarian movements and regimes likely to merge out of the social mobilization of the middle and lower classes. Germani analyzes the nature, conditions, and determinants of authoritarianism in the context of Latin American political and social developments and compares it to European fascist movements.

This book promotes an in-depth understanding of the key mechanisms that govern the functioning of capitalist economies, pursuing a Classical Political Economics approach to do so. It explores central theoretical issues addressed by the classical economists Smith and Ricardo, as well as Marx, while also operationalizing more recent theoretical developments inspired by the works of Sraffa and other modern classical economists, using actual data from major economies. On the basis of this approach, the book subsequently provides alternative explanations for various microeconomic issues such as the determination of equilibrium prices and their movement induced by changes in income distribution; the dynamics of competition of firms within and between industries; the law of tendential equalization of interindustry profit rates; and international exchanges and transfers of value; as well as macroeconomic issues concerning capital accumulation and cyclical economic growth. Given its scope, the book will benefit all researchers, students, and policymakers seeking new explanations for observed phenomena and interested in the mechanisms that give rise to surface economic categories, such as prices, profits, the unemployment rate, interest rates, and long economic cycles.

This book investigates the role of social groups in mobilizing resources for protests in repressive contexts. In particular, it examines the impact of organizations and informal groups on individual engagement in the protests developed in 2010–2011 in Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria. Empirical analysis draws on a wave of events and protests that took place between 2010 and 2021. It explores how, in repressive contexts, spontaneous groups and more established and formal organizations continuously switch from one form to another, transforming themselves faster than they would do in democratic contexts.