POLI 319 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Authoritarianism, Redistribution Of Income And Wealth, Sweatshop
13 May 2018
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POLI319: Friday March 23rd, 2018
When regime fell and Argentina made its transition to democracy, the Madres remained
And they are still here today, the disappearances remain a key issue in Argentinian politics
After transition, many of the women were still alive and many of the questions continued to go
unanswered (recently more evidence has merged and era of impunity is over)
Some HR abusers held accountable by regime
NY time article on MyCourses
Does oe’s partiipatio i o-governmental activity translate into greater participation
within the state?
- Many women fought in rebel groups and organized protests against authoritarianism
- These same women were not guaranteed power after transitions
- Does not transfer into greater representation for women after the struggle is over, women
may face discrimination in the movements that they have joined
- State institutions have required transformations from within; struggle to represent lasting
representation for women
Women in El Salvador FMLN
- Civil War 1980-1992
- Ended with Peace accords, very bloody civil war
- In terms of roles of women, at their peak women represented 30% of its 13000 combatants
Viterna
- What eplais oe’s oilizatio
- IN given generation,
- Elizabeth Woods, pleasure in agency she points out that the costs of staying passive can be as
high as joining the movement (government just as likely to kill you whether you join or not)
- But if that is true, government so violent that people stand a good chance of being killed
whether joining or not, implies everyone would join but there is variation in who joins and who
does’t
- Pre-existing networks are necessary for mobilization, though not all network members
mobilize
- People also eed a “Partiipatio idetit, persoal and political fuse as one, they cannot
picture themselves out of the struggle, it is part of their sense of self
Recruitment and Mobilization
- Network ties prior to mobilization: previous organizational involvement; family ties with
guerrillas, living in a refugee camp or repopulate community (moving people away govt. to from
the guerilla camps)
- Biographical availability: whether or not people were in a position to join the guerrillas,
motherhood (some guerrillas even if they were mother) but going to join guerrillas
compromises your role as a mother, broken family background where you did not have a clear
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role, younger you were the less likely to have these commitment, join at younger age when
the are’t tied do, age at oilizatio
- Changing situational context time of mobilization
Women of the FMLN image
- looking happy
- goes to show of 13 000 combatants, 30% that is a lot!!
Variation in Mobilization
- 3 kinds of guerrillas
- Politicized guerrillas: joining because of ideology – a pull factor
- Reluctant guerrillas: persuaded by recruiters to join the movement
- finds that the fact that the regime was so brutal also was a key factor for people joining,
women displaced by violence or lost family members through violence often felt compelled to
join
Image of Woman in Nicaragua nursing the baby with rifle slung over her shoulder during the
struggle
- Viterna says that women were only 30% in FMLN in El Salvador
- 30% of Sandinistas in Nicaragua
- 30% of army of the poor in Guatemala
- Leftist movements with similar ideology which attracted a great number of women recruits
- Challenging the dichotomy of joining the guerrillas or playing the traditional gender role,
challenging those 2 and reconciling them
- Somewhat staged but this woman seems completely satisfied with her life in context of
struggle
-Image became widespread in the 1980s, reproduced in murals; posters to publicize the nature
of the political struggle at that time
Post-Cold War/Civil War
- All movements turned into political parties after the struggle came to an end
- Continued to promote leftist values with welfare state and income redistribution, retained
many of the same symbols as the struggle era
- Women at Sandinista protest
Women and Democratization
- Democratizing istitutios is’t the sae as deoratizig soiet
- Minimalist democracies: procedural democracies, electoral democracies democracy with
adjectives, does not necessarily bring a greater degree of democracy
- Gendered component where women (at the grassroots) face those kind of inequalities,
democracy does not completely transform society and women more likely to bear the brunt of
this inequality
- Women may be sidelined during consolidation
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