Do Protests Work? A Latin

make their way to the table where such abortion bills are signed. When they do (like with the case of Alabama Governor Kay Ivey) they must be better educated to understand the importance and wider implications beyond such irrational decision-making based on conservative values rather than statistics and science about female health.

Social movements have always been among us, but the political hierarchies and social elite make it harder for the public opinion to reach on top. This can be due to the aggressive nature linked to protesting as an activity, for example, the feminist protests. Such movements have the downside of dividing the population into two opposing sides, ignoring the necessity of collaboration. Protesting alone can be counterproductive if it focuses on forcing change without persuading and targeting the leaders, not just frustrating average people.

Do Protests Work? A LatinAmerican Perspective

By Kléber Olmedo

In Latin America, a single person can earn up to 16,000 times more than another. As reported by the United Nations, this is the most unequal region in the world in terms of wagedistribution. Consequently, economically and socially disadvantaged minorities have proliferated and have become subaltern social groups, which are the social groups whose political voice is denied, as per explained by Gramsci’s work on cultural hegemony.

In addition, weak institutionalism has also impacted the region due to a historical trend of shifting between democratic and autocratic rule parties. As a result, formal spaces for political participation seem to be scarce and rather unconventional forms of participation such as protests have become more tense.

Based on the above, demonstrations are apparently the only mechanism that minorities have in Latin America to pursue their policy interests. Notwithstanding, the effectiveness of this mechanism is only evident in the short-term because, paradoxically, institutional weakness also hinders the proper political articulation of the demonstrations.

As explained by Professor Brown -Nagin, Dean of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University, not only can protest work but it becomes a need for those groups who are ostracised from the political processes and who lack effective representation of their interests. From a post-colonial prism, protest is defined as a 'popular self-activity to challenge the hegemonic order and the existing patterns of hegemonic domination.' It is post-colonial in the sense that it goes beyond traditional understandings of the working class as the only emancipatory subject and rather incorporates other actors who ignore their differences and join together with a common protesting aim. The aims range from the achievement of legislative or policy change to the sole expression of disapproval. An example of the above are the protests in Ecuador that took place at the beginning of October of this year. These demonstrations united indigenous groups, students, teachers, women’s collectives, transports unions and left-wing political parties who despite having been encountered in the past (such as the case of the indigenous groups and the leftist parties in 2015) united together against the elimination of fuel subsidies by the government. The policy goal was not only achieved but what particularly stands out is the fact that, during the negotiations that ended the protests, the indigenous groups

were the leading and only governments in order to calm the participating actors together with social uprisings. Following the the government and the example of Ecuador, the mediating institutions. This withdrawal of the removal of fuel demonstrates that protests not subsidies is just a small portion of only work to achieve a policy goal the overall discontent with the but also to make visible groups economic measures adopted by that have been historically the current government. neglected and abused. Notwithstanding, the policy changes that are achieved by The consequence is that social order becomes very unstable and means of protests are not always long-lasting or very substantial because of Latin America’s weak “Protest cannot be institutionalism which paradoxically is also the very reason for the proliferation of successfully articulated to concrete policy proposals.” protests in the region. As explained by the literature, the lack of strong institutions means that there is also a scarcity of institutionalised platforms where actors can intervene in the political processes for which informal methods such as protests tend to be used. The problem is that this weak institutionalism also impacts the long-term political articulation of the protests. A lack of a proper strategy by the demonstrators together with a lack of proper platforms of participation result in new protests can emerge at any time. The problem with future protests is that they are forcefully repressed and even criminalised based on the argument that concessions have already been made by the state. The result is thus an endless cycle where weak institutionalism provokes protests and likewise it impedes the proper political articulation of the social demonstrations. the problems just to be superficially addressed. It can even be argued that any policy changes achieved by the protests are just small concessions made by the Protests have therefore demonstrated to effectively work for the subaltern social groups in order to make them visible and to

achieve immediate policy changes only. This is explained by the strong relation that exists between protests and weak institutionalism. The reason is that, on the one hand, from a post-colonial perspective protest is perceived as the response of minorities to weak institutionalism. Namely, this practice is the only way by which subaltern social groups can have a political voice within the Latin American political environment where institutions are not strong enough and political spaces are not available for them. Notwithstanding, on the other hand, weak institutionalism is also the reason for which protests struggle to achieve deeper political change. In this sense, the lack of strong institutions in Latin America is the triggering factor for the escalation of violence in the protests. Demonstrations are not seen as legitimate by the state but rather as criminal actions which are forcefully repressed. The response from the civil society is also more intense and violent which in turn delegitimises any political claims. Consequently, there is a detrimental impact if more substantial political advances are attempted since protest cannot be successfully articulated to concrete policy proposals.