Rethinking the liaisons between social mobilization and political representation in the21st century: a conceptual proposal

Abstract

In recent decades, South America has experienced strong changes at the political level, with institutional coups, early departures from power, political instability, etc. However, there are two participatory mechanisms that have shown a great degree of vitality: social mobilization and formal elections. Our argument is that the historical relationship between mobilization and representation is changing. Understanding these changes is the required first step to interpreting broader socio-political consequences in the form of what we call a post-dominant polity. The starting point of this chapter is that we lack a common language, and therefore we must refine our conceptual tools in order to understand what is going on. In order to build this perspective, we review the cases of Argentina, Chile and Brazil. In this context, theorizing is taken as the action of developing theory as suggestive analytical reading, rather than creating a theory, a noun that implies a systemic understanding of socio-political rules (Bertilsson, 2016). Thus, the aim of this chapter is to study the nature of the relationship between mobilization and representation in these different countries.