Organizing civil society : the popular sectors and the struggle for democracy in Chile
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Organizing civil society : the popular sectors and the struggle for democracy in Chile
Pennsylvania State University Press, c1995
- : pbk
Available at 15 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [351]-363) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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.
by "Nielsen BookData"