Citizen-Leadership and Community Action in Latin America

The Global Dimension of Local Politics

Papers presented at the Fourth Annual Kent State University Symposium on Democracy

Gamaliel Perruci

 

The dramatic process that we call globalization does not operate solely at the macrolevel—pitting fiercely competitive national economies against one another in a seemingly endless spiral. In reality, its deepest impact often takes place at the local level, when lives are torn apart through economic dislocation, political alienation, and loss of cultural traditions. At the center of this whirlwind are the lives of communities that struggle to adapt to the new logic of market forces.1 While the outcome in many local cases can be devastating, an adaptive response will result in the emergence of citizen-leaders who challenge and move communities into action (for or against these forces).

Citizen-leadership has been at the core of local communities’ responses to globalization. The international community has often overlooked the dynamic of local leadership as a catalyst for community action that can transform the political debate at the national and global level. This paper explores two cases from Latin America: (1) The Chiapas uprising in Mexico; and (2) the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra [MST]) in Brazil.

Since the mid-1990s, the Zapatistas have waged an armed uprising in southern Mexico, demanding protection for indigenous rights and democratic reforms. The uprising, which coincided with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has at its roots centuries of discrimination against indigenous communities that preceded the debate over “globalization.” Mexico’s decision to increase its economic transactions with the United States has brought the Chiapas issue to the national agenda. In the MST’s case, Brazil’s growing insertion into the global market has upset the delicate balance between the urban and rural sectors. As more peasants find themselves without viable economic prospects in overcrowded cities, the fight for land has intensified. In many local communities in the Brazilian countryside, violent confrontations with large landowners have given rise to community leaders in search of social justice.

These two cases demonstrate the dramatic transformation taking place in Latin America’s rural sector as the region deepens its participation in the global marketplace. Community action, in turn, affects (and informs) the national debate over the democratic implications of globalization. The first section of this paper examines globalization as a contested concept in the international relations literature. The second section explores the importance of citizen-leadership in the study of a community’s response to globalization. The third section applies the concept of citizen-leadership to the two Latin American cases. The final section suggests general conclusions about the paradoxical relationship between globalization and community activism in Latin America.

 

The Debate over Globalization

At the outset of this section, we need to define what we mean by “globalization.” The post–cold war debate over globalization has often obscured—rather than clarified—the way we use this word. Globalization, as a process of economic, political, and social integration across regions, is not a new phenomenon.2 Neither are the visible consequences of the clashes between cultures that are directly affected by this process. Fifteenth-century European contact with native cultures in the Americas, and the problems that ensued, can be compared to the same struggles that are taking place today in other parts of the developing world.

One of the chief reasons for the controversy surrounding globalization is the different meanings the word has acquired. Walter Truett Anderson, in fact, argues that there are two globalizations.3 On the one hand, the word has been used to mean a recent economic process of rapid integration. Much of the controversy surrounding this type of globalization revolves around the process of increasing economic interdependence.4 The second definition of globalization connotes a long evolutionary unfolding that involves not only economic but also political and cultural changes.

For the purpose of the present analysis, globalization is used here to mean the processes taking place at all three levels: economic, political, and cultural. First, we observe the intensification of economic integration under which markets expand and economies are linked through commerce, investments, and currency exchange. In Latin America, this process began five centuries ago when the Spanish and Portuguese crowns began to extract resources from the Americas. Much has been written in recent decades about economic exploitation in the region, but the main issue related to globalization is the countries’ decisions to expand their interaction with the global market.5

The interrelation of commerce, investment, and foreign exchange has been clearly demonstrated in recent studies of international political economy.6 What makes the twenty-first century so different from previous eras is the intensity of these exchanges and their global reach. Aside from the intensity of this integrative process, we also need to take into consideration the level of vulnerability that it creates for everyone. In the 1990s, the succession of financial crises that swept through Asia, Russia, and Latin America had a direct impact on investors’ confidence worldwide.7 The rise of market capitalism in recent decades (here defined as “neoliberalism”) as a dominant global paradigm has pushed countries to reorder their economic priorities in order to guarantee their economic survival in a highly competitive environment.8 Economic stability has become paramount in this game of economic survival. Security now has an economic aspect.9 Any hint of instability can destroy investment confidence, thus ushering in capital flight, currency collapse, and economic slowdown. The opening of new markets, coupled with the protection of the domestic market from foreign dominance, coexists with the desirability of attracting (and retaining) foreign investors.10

The second level of globalization deals with the political processes of integration. The advent of the Westphalian model of political organization through state-building in the seventeenth century has inspired violent processes of independence that continue to reverberate in the international system today.11 Statehood as a political concept first found expression in Europe in the 1600s, then through the Americas in the late 1700s and 1800s, and finally in Asia and Africa through the process of decolonization in the late 1800s and 1900s. While the internationalization of the concept of statehood has reached widespread acceptance, many of the local community uprisings have their roots in unfinished processes of political globalization, as subsequent sections will argue in the cases of Mexico and Brazil.

The international relations literature today explores the interrelation between economic integration and the survival of the Westphalian model.12 Some suggest that the state is declining in authority due to the powerful influence of transnational economic forces. This debate is far from settled, and this article does not seek to do so. Rather, we need to emphasize that this apparent “attack” on the authority and legitimacy of the state has its roots in local community processes. If state legitimization takes place in the hearts and minds of its citizens, so does the process by which the state loses its authority over the ones it purports to rule. Community rebellions against globalization challenge not only the economic order but also the political structures that sustain (and reproduce) market arrangements. If emerging democracies, such as Mexico and Brazil, decide to open their markets to foreign investments, what are the implications for the countries’ political stability? Further, who makes this decision? What if the country is not united behind this decision?

The advent of democratization as a state-building process in the 1990s has complicated this topic even further. If the authority of the state is undermined under economic globalization, how do citizens participate in the decision-making process at the local level? Edward S. Cohen argues that rather than undermining the state, globalization is a product of “a rearrangement of the purposes, boundaries, and sovereign authority” of the state.13 However, local communities increasingly feel disenfranchised from national political processes that subjugate local needs to national exigencies.

As countries cede their sovereignty to global institutions and agreements, what happens when citizens question the legitimacy of these decisions? Conversely, what happens to countries that attempt to arrest this transfer of authority without the full support of their citizens? A recent case in point was Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, the controversial populist president who promoted a nationalist stance vis-à-vis globalization and suffered the fractionalization of civil society with dramatic consequences to economic and political stability.14 As Björn Hettne suggests, “The collapse of political authority at one level of society (the nation-state) tends to open up a previously latent power struggle at lower (subnational) levels.”15 The return of populism in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s can be traced to the weak national institutions that attempted to become integrated to global political processes. Community leaders have emerged in an attempt to tap local frustrations over national economic policy-making.16

The third level of globalization (cultural) has proven the most contentious and violent. Globalization, as a social process of integration, brings diverse cultural values into contact with dramatic consequences.17 Long before Samuel Huntington argued that with the end of the cold war the new sources of international conflict would be the “clash of civilizations,” native cultures in the Americas had experienced violent clashes with European settlers.18 As economies integrate and political structures are built to manage these economic exchanges, the rules of the game (such as private property and labor relations) tend to reflect certain social norms that are inherently associated with dominant cultural values.

In the Latin American case, native cultures were subjugated to the emerging European commercial dictates.19 Large tracks of land were converted to estates engaged in single commodity production, thus displacing native groups that used communal farming practices. The outcome of social globalization has been centuries of cultural clashes at the community level, with European domination clearly subjugating, and in many cases, limiting the cultural expressions of local communities—as in the case of the Mayan communities in southern Mexico.20

 

Citizen-Leadership and Community Action

The previous section outlined some of the main forces being played out at the global level. First, we noted that global market forces shape the patterns of economic integration, including the local economic opportunities that spring up. In the Latin American case, agricultural production and raw-material extraction became a central concern of the national economic elites in their effort to cash in on booming export opportunities. Second, political structures are built to support economic arrangements. In the recent case of democratic reforms in Latin America, a heated debate has ensued questioning the relationship between economic decision-making and political accountability. Does democracy at the national level address local needs? Third, global economic exigencies have at times meant deep social dislocation with negative cultural implications at the local level. If a dominant cultural norm—such as private property laws—displaces local social groups, as in the case of peasants in Latin America, the environment becomes ripe for local leaders to emerge demanding redress.

In this section, we investigate the local dynamic of leadership emergence. As the three global processes intensify, leaders attempt to mobilize local communities as an adaptive process. Ronald Heifetz argues that leadership deals primarily with “adaptive work.” He defines leadership as “engaging people to make progress on the adaptive problems they face.” 21 Communities often experience “disequilibrium”—the gap between the values people stand for and the reality they face. There are three forms of disequilibrium. The first deals mainly with technical problems, requiring technical solutions. With this type of problem, a society’s existing resources restore equilibrium successfully. Heifetz characterizes these as Type I problems and solutions.22 For instance, if a bridge collapses and interrupts traffic, a leader summons enough resources in order to rebuild the structure and re-establish the flow of people, goods, and services. This technical problem (Type I) requires little adaptation as far as a community’s change in values.

In the second type, the available resources do not restore equilibrium, and society collapses. Heifetz characterizes these problems as Type II, in which there are no immediate solutions to the problems at hand. For instance, many local indigenous communities suffered a rapid demise after the initial contact with Europeans because of the diseases that were brought from the Old World. Whole communities disappeared because they were unable to adapt quickly to the new health challenges. When the Portuguese arrived in 1500, five million natives were estimated to live in the territory that constitutes modern Brazil. Today, the estimate is around 250,000. Society may perceive the threat, but the challenge may exceed the culture’s adaptive capability. Unable to adapt to the increasing onslaught of foreign diseases, slavery, and military attacks, great civilizations such as the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans, collapsed throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Third, Type III problems require learning (Type III solutions)—or developing a new repertoire to meet new challenges. In the Latin American case, we see indigenous communities today making wide use of twenty-first-century technology, such as the Internet, in order to counter the encroachment of international business interests. Through a carefully designed international marketing campaign, indigenous communities are able to galvanize international public opinion to their cause.23

Heifetz makes an important distinction between leading with and without authority. People generally look to their formal authorities to solve problems with a minimum of pain. However, what if authorities do not want to confront Type III problems? What if authorities’ Type I solutions do not work when confronting Type III problems? New leaders emerge even though society has not granted them formal authority. Citizen-leaders fall mainly under this category. By “citizen-leaders,” therefore, we mean members of a particular society who take up Type II problems and attempt to lead people toward Type III solutions. Citizen-leaders raise disturbing questions and engage in what Heifetz calls “creative deviance.”24

When we apply the concepts of globalization from the previous section to Heifetz’s conceptualization of leadership, a framework emerges for analyzing community action in Latin America. To many local communities in Latin America, globalization represents a Type II problem. Effective citizen-leaders are instrumental in framing globalization as a Type III challenge requiring Type III solutions (adaptive learning). On the economic side, globalization has meant the dislocation of socioeconomic groups—displaced from traditional economic activities. In the countryside, the introduction of large-scale commercial farming has broken down communal farming and evicted peasants from their subsistence practices. In its search for ever-growing and efficient agricultural production, the market has in turn created a surplus of farm workers. Once unskilled subsistence farmers attempt a new living in the urban centers, they suffer unemployment, discrimination, and ultimately abject poverty. Community action in this case has meant the economic organization of peasants in the form of cooperatives and unions. They demand land and access to credit in order to make farming a viable economic activity.

On the political side, displaced rural workers feel disenfranchised from the political process and alienated from the decisions that are made by national political leaders. The crisis explodes once local communities question the legitimacy of democratically elected national leaders. In more extreme cases, the very authority of the nation-state is questioned. Insurgency, therefore, becomes a strategy designed to arrest the alienating process of state building.

On the cultural side, national leaders tend to reflect dominant cultural norms primarily practiced in large urban centers. A Huntingtonian “clash” takes place between the urban elite and the local rural communities. If indigenous cultures dominate the countryside, as in the case of southern Mexico (but not necessarily the rural movement in Brazil), the clash becomes literally one of competing cultural values. The outcomes of these clashes have often been violent.

Citizen-leadership, as a process of goal formation and strategic development (framing globalization as a Type III problem requiring Type III solutions), does not guarantee success. In many cases, the resource differential between those with authority (national political leaders) and those leading without authority (citizen-leaders) often results in tragic outcomes. In many cases, national political leaders have used state military power to crush citizen-leaders’ movements, as the next section will show. While there are successful cases, such as the rural uprising in Mexico’s 1910 Revolution, more often than not, citizen-leadership has been marked by incremental gains amidst a bloodbath.

Paradoxically, citizen-leadership movements in Latin America tend to reflect conservative ends advanced by radical means. Citizen-leaders tend to express a desire to preserve a way of socioeconomic life—such as subsistence farming amid the growing commercialization of agricultural production. This strategy, however, goes against Heifetz’s Type III formulation—helping communities adapt to a new set of challenges. How do we then reconcile this seeming paradox in community action? The main way out of this paradox is to invert the analytical path—focusing instead on the ways in which local community leaders help national societies adapt to the delicate balance between global requirements and local needs. In the Latin American case, citizen-leaders question the legitimacy of national socioeconomic structures and demand changes at the national level that accommodate diverse cultural norms (Type III solution). This has been the biggest contribution of citizen-leaders—increasing national awareness of the impact of the global process in local communities across Latin America.

 

Community Action in Latin America

In the previous section, we developed a general citizen-leadership framework for understanding the relationship between globalization and community action in Latin America. The emergence of citizen-leaders (articulating Type III solutions to seemingly Type II problems) has reflected both conservative ends (protecting a way of life) and radical means (informing the national and international community through armed struggle). In this section, we apply these insights to two cases—the Chiapas uprising in Mexico and the Movimento Sem Terra (MST) in Brazil.

 

Mexico

The Mexican case illustrates the power of indigenous communities to advocate structural reforms at the national level. At the same time, globalization also defines the extent to which these reforms reflect the balance between the goals of national economic development and the preservation of indigenous cultures. The outcome is not clear-cut and far from optimum to those involved. The 1994 uprising in the Mexican state of Chiapas is hardly a new event as far as popular indigenous rebellions in that country. Various local rebellions punctuate Mexican history with violent confrontations between local indigenous communities and the national governments. The history of rebellions goes back even to the colonial period—the arrival of European-led globalization in the Americas. In 1542, for example, indigenous communities rose up in the jungle region of Lacondona against the payment of tributes to the Spanish crown. This region became a source of rebellious inspiration when the members of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional [EZLN]) issued the “Primeira Declaración de la Selva Lacandona” (“First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle”) in the mid-1980s, setting the stage for their uprising a decade later.25 In between these two critical periods (1540s and 1980s) lies an extensive history of bloodshed, discrimination, and social injustice.

Today, only 11 percent of the population in Mexico is considered indigenous. Its greatest majority falls under the category of mestizo—a mixture of European and indigenous ancestry—the outcome of generations of interracial marriages and assimilation. The indigenous groups who have embraced the European culture are today referred to as ladinos. What makes Chiapas stand out in Mexico today is that it has the largest number of natives who do not speak Spanish—almost one-third of the population. As a consequence, many live outside the Spanish-dominated “mainstream.”26 This fact alone illustrates the potential for an explosive clash of civilizations. Once this cultural divide is juxtaposed to extreme poverty and the political alienation that many indigenous communities feel toward the federal government, we begin to understand the root causes for community activism in southern Mexico.

Chiapas, as a region, did not receive wide attention from the Spanish explorers because it lacked precious metals. The region remained isolated from the center of power in what later became Mexico City. While the Spanish settlers practiced commercial farming with the introduction of coffee production for the international market, the indigenous communities continued to engage in communal agriculture, also known as ejidos. Any attempt to break up communal land in order to privatize farming in Chiapas was met with fierce local resistance. Ejidos represented not only an economic lifestyle but also a cultural expression of collective relations.27

Chiapas, therefore, represents centuries of globalization in the economic, political, and social arena. What is different this time is the complexity of the conflict in light of the intensity of globalization in the past two decades. On January 1, 1994, the EZLN launched an armed uprising against what it perceived as the undemocratic practices of the Mexican government and the assault of globalization on the indigenous communities in Southern Mexico. The army took over four towns and the major colonial city of San Cristóbal. The uprising came only hours before President Carlos Salinas de Gortari was to sign the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The timing of the uprising, therefore, sent a clear message of the rebels’ opposition to Mexico’s uncritical acceptance of globalization.

The EZLN draws its inspiration from the rebellious exploits of Emilio Zapata, the revolutionary leader who rose up against the Mexican government in the 1910 Revolution and was eventually assassinated by army units in 1919.28 The 1994 uprising can be partially explained by the process of globalization that the national government began to pursue in the 1980s as a result of the country’s debt crisis. As the ruling party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, [PRI]) abandoned the central goals of the 1910 Revolution and embraced neoliberalism, indigenous communities saw the global encroachment on its land as a mortal challenge to their livelihood (Type II problem). The globalization of Mexican agriculture, which in reality had started in northern Mexico in the 1960s, reached the south by the 1980s. The prospect of NAFTA opening the way for the expansion of commercial farming in states such as Chiapas once again ignited the long-standing distrust of the indigenous communities toward the national government.

The fighting itself lasted only about twelve days. Following the initial military confrontation, both sides settled into a protracted period of negotiations. What immediately struck people as different about this uprising, compared to previous indigenous uprisings, was the level of technological sophistication of the insurgents in mobilizing international public opinion. The enigmatic spokesperson for the EZLN, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, captured international attention with powerful messages to national political leaders decrying centuries of exploitation and discrimination against the indigenous communities in southern Mexico.29 His writings and speeches circulated widely, both in Mexico and in the international media.30

The EZLN made wide use of the Internet, including a regularly updated Web site, in order to establish links to international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). By taking advantage of the global market’s own interconnectedness, ELZN mounted an effective public relations campaign. In turn, the success of this campaign forced the Mexican government to the bargaining table. Some observers have characterized the 1994 uprising as “postmodern” because of its effective use of cyberspace as an instrument of community activism. As Clifford Bob suggests, the Zapatistas have become “symbols of a new transnational movement against neo-liberalism and globalization that their revolution helped spark.”31

Whenever the Mexican government attempted a military solution to the impasse, international pressure thwarted its plans. In February 1995, for instance, the new administration of President Ernesto Zedillo restarted military operations, but an international outcry led to a new cease-fire and renewed negotiations, ending with the San Andrés Accord on indigenous rights in 1996.32

While international pressure keeps a military solution off the table, it does not guarantee a diplomatic resolution to centuries of grievances, either. When Vicente Fox was elected president in July of 2000, hope was renewed. Fox defeated the candidate from the ruling PRI, in power for seven decades.33 As a member of a conservative party (Partido Acción Nacional [PAN]), Fox was initially willing to once again negotiate and find a diplomatic solution to the conflict. The new government’s commitment to globalization, however, dampened the EZLN’s hopes for progress. The leaders of PAN feared that the EZLN’s demand for autonomy and free determination in Chiapas might lead to the fragmentation of the Mexican republic—a challenge to the Westphalian model of sovereign nation-states. As a result, Congress enacted into law a watered-down version of the San Andrés agreement (Law for Indigenous Rights and Culture). Amendments, for instance, “reduced communities’ rights to the use and benefit from natural resources found within their own territory.”34

Fox saw the uprising in Chiapas as the reflection of extreme poverty. In other words, he approached the situation as a Type I issue (technical problem). His response, therefore, was to implement a regional development plan—Plan Puebla-Panama—which would link southern Mexico through highways and railways to Central America as a way to open up export markets.35 The plan would also draw investments and tourism, as transportation links made commerce more viable. This plan drew wide protests in San Cristóbal. As a local community leader argued, “These foreign tourists don’t benefit us. They help the rich get richer. We are better off without them.”36 By approaching the issue as a Type I problem, Fox unwittingly aggravated the situation. As a Type III problem, the impact of globalization in southern Mexico goes beyond economics. It also has political (democratic legitimacy) and social (clash of cultures) components that the Fox government is failing to address.

The EZLN is forcing the national government to come to grips with centuries of discrimination (Type III problem). At the same time, globalization is also presenting the indigenous communities with difficult choices (Type II problems). The Law for Indigenous Rights and Culture, however watered down its final version may have been, is part of the continuing learning process occurring in Mexican society regarding the impact of globalization on indigenous cultures. Leadership is occurring in Mexico, even if incomplete and unsatisfactory to both sides (local and national leaders).

 

Brazil

The Brazilian rural movement has come to international attention in recent decades because of Brazil’s worsening poverty and violent confrontations between landowners and landless peasants.37 The main issue surrounding the conflict in Brazil is the deep inequality of land distribution. It is estimated that Brazil has about 600 million hectares of land in private hands. A recent government study showed that 44 percent of the land in Brazil can actually be classified as idle.38

Like Mexico, clashes for land are as old as the country itself. From the beginning of colonization in the 1500s to today’s MST, land distribution has been a contested issue. Frei Sérgio and João Pedro Stédile divide the struggle for land in Brazil into three distinct phases.39 In the first phase (1850–1940), the Brazilian government developed its legal framework for land ownership. Following independence from Portugal in 1822, the Brazilian Empire began a formal land-distribution program with land grants to poor European farmers, particularly in the south and southwest—areas disputed by the Portuguese and Spanish crowns. The emperor retained ownership of all land, but allowed settlers to live and farm on productive land.

By 1850 the Brazilian Empire issued the country’s first Land Law codifying private property in the countryside. This legislation also legalized the large estates that became central in the export of sugar and coffee in the northeast and southeast. This law set the stage for the first major wave of conflict in the countryside, which lasted until 1940. When slavery was abolished in 1888, the country experienced a large increase in the number of rural workers without access to land ownership. As dispute over land increased, citizen-leaders emerged, challenging the constituted authority. “Messianic” movements, such as the ones led by Antônio Conselheiro (Canudos uprising, 1893), Monge José Maria (Contestado, 1912–16), and Padre Cícero in the Ceará state (1930–34), called for the development of new communities separate from the traditional political order.

Using the framework developed in the previous section, there was no attempt by citizen-leaders, such as the charismatic preacher Antônio Conselheiro, to help followers adapt to the new reality (Type III solutions). Rather, the solution to the problem (lack of access to land) was found in the development of new communities (Type I solution)—separate from the existing societal structures. Religion played a central role in these movements—hence its messianic nature—because many of the citizen-leaders were clergymen and viewed alternative communities as a way to build utopian societies separate from the secular society.40 Without proper infrastructure and resources and with continuous opposition by a more powerful state structure, these new communities eventually collapsed.41

In the second phase (1940–55), conflict in the countryside reflected the attempt to reform communities’ political and economic structures from within; that is, to directly challenge the existing power structures. Unlike the first phase, which sought to build parallel political structures, uprisings in the second phase proposed the overthrow of the existing order. From the perspective of Type III solutions, citizen-leaders did not attempt to engage followers in adaptation. Rather, an attempt was made to directly confront the problem through a power struggle. The outcome of these conflicts followed the classic lines of resource differentials. The citizen-leaders (leading without authority and engaged in “creative deviance”) could not muster enough resources to overthrow the order imposed by the state. As a result, these citizen-leaders’ movements met crushing defeat, as witnessed in the Dona “Nhuca” revolt in Maranhão (1951) and the Trombas–Formoso rebellion in the state of Goiás (1952–58). In some cases, the peasants were able to even temporarily take over some cities and establish parallel governments, as the Zapatistas did in Chiapas in the 1990s, but the rebellions were short-lived.

In the third phase (1950–64), the movements began to organize and take political shape. This is the phase when Type III solutions—adaptation—begin to be articulated. The influence of the Brazilian Community Party, for instance, helped the mobilization of rural workers in São Paulo, Paraná, and Rio Grande do Sul. In the northeast, peasant organizations in the 1950s fought the sugar barons under the radical motto: “agrarian reform through law or through force.”42 During this phase, a landless farmers’ movement appeared in the south under the influence of Leonel Brizola’s Brazilian Workers Party (Partido Trabalhor do Brasil [PTB]). As one of its main strategies, the movement leaders called for land invasion and occupation as a way of gaining access to land.

The 1964 military coup changed the local dynamic in the countryside. The conservative military leaders suppressed the peasants’ local movements because of their ties to Communist organizations. Nevertheless, the military government attempted to address the land distribution question by opening the Amazon region to colonization—proposing a Type I solution (technical problem).43 By framing the problem as technical in nature (lack of land for landless workers), the government failed to grasp the complex nature of the political and cultural dimensions of the peasants’ movement.

The Amazon land distribution program met with limited success. Settlers encountered a hostile environment with few access roads and a lack of basic infrastructure, such as schools, health care, and a marketplace for their produce. As a result, small farmers found little advantage in moving north. The opening of the Amazon did have an immediate environmental impact. Large-scale farmers and agribusinesses rushed to buy land, thus dislocating indigenous groups and small farmers. In other words, in the pursuit of Type I solutions (simple technical fixes), the military government ended up creating new problems. A new struggle emerged from this phase—the attempt by indigenous and peasant leaders to resist the commercialization of land in the Brazilian Amazon.44 By the 1980s, this new land struggle received wide international media attention, including the assassination of the rubber-tappers’ union leader, Chico Mendes.45 The main outcome of the government’s Amazon settlement policy was the environmental disaster that ensued.46 Once loggers and ranchers took advantage of governmental fiscal incentives, large tracks of land were cleared for commercial purposes. Expanding economic activities in the Amazon drew international attention in the 1980s.47

Amidst these complex interactions between Type I solutions (Amazon colonization) and Type III problems (unequal distribution of land), the MST emerged as a coherent movement dedicated to community activism. Beginning in the late 1970s, local community leaders, such as Vilmar Martins da Silva and João Pedro Stédile, mobilized land occupations, particularly in the south—Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná. In 1981, a national meeting of these local leaders was called by the Pastoral Commission on Land (Comissão Pastoral da Terra [CPT]). From this meeting came the First National Meeting of the “Sem Terra” (landless workers), which took place in January of 1984 in Cascavel (Paraná). This meeting provided almost one hundred citizen-leaders with a forum to compare notes and develop common strategies. This meeting also served as the organizational mechanism to convene the First National Congress of the Sem Terra in 1985 in Curitiba (Paraná) and the founding of the MST.48

The MST adopted land occupation as one of its chief strategies to force the government to address agrarian reform. Land invasions follow careful planning. Certain latifúndios are targeted because of questionable ownership or complete neglect by the lawful owners. Once a latifundio is identified, MST families are selected to be part of the invasion. In many cases, only local citizen-leaders know the invasion target before it begins. Once invasion of land takes place, the families set up tents (acampamento, or encampment). The owners call the police and the families are evicted. After the police leave the area, the families return to the same land. The police are called back, and the families are once again evicted. This process can take several years before a court injunction stops the evictions. A judge then is asked to rule on the final status of land ownership.

In the meantime, the families establish a semipermanent camp on the land and wait for the judgment. The government may step in at this point and offer to buy the land from the legal owners and give the land title to the MST families. If that takes place, then the families can then begin to build houses and community centers in what are then called “settlements.” The whole process can take five years from the time the land is first invaded (encampment) to the final transfer of ownership and building of communities (settlement).

The MST benefited from at least two historical developments that opened up the political space for more militancy in the land redistribution issue. First, a rural worker who was excluded from owning land had two alternatives—migration to the Amazon or to the large urban centers in the southeast and the northeast. By the end of the 1970s, both alternatives had proven clear failures. The Sem Terra movement, therefore, became a “last resort” alternative—a strategy to gain access to land by militant means. Second, by the early 1980s, the military government had decreased many of its repressive policies toward those deemed “subversives” and initiated a process of return to civilian rule.49 This transition away from authoritarian rule allowed the Sem Terra movement to intensify its political pressure for agrarian reform. In essence, the MST benefited from the global democratic wave that swept the developing world in the 1980s and brought civilian rule back to power. Similar to the EZLN in Chiapas, Sem Terra citizen-leaders may have fought economic globalization, but they used the dynamic of political globalization in order to advance their strategies.

Despite a much-celebrated return to civilian rule, the MST continued to pressure the federal government for agrarian reform. However, scarce resources and the worsening economic crisis limited the government’s response. The government’s support for liberal economic policies in the early 1990s made the agrarian reform question more complex. Civilian presidents, such as Fernando Collor de Mello (1989–92) and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994–2002), encouraged large-scale agricultural production, such as soybeans and oranges, as a way to expand export earnings. A perhaps unintended consequence, however, was the consolidation of the farm sector into larger and larger tracts of land, considered more efficient for a global marketplace. By one estimate, the number of farm families working less than one hundred hectares dropped from 5.2 million in 1985 to 4.3 million in 1995.50

According to Sue Branford and Jan Rocha, the globalization of Brazilian agriculture is far from complete: “Perhaps the most obvious consequence is the fragmentation of farming into isolated ‘islands’ of prosperity in a sea of stagnation.” 51 Globalization, therefore, has produced contradictory forces in the Brazilian case. On the one hand, economic globalization has pushed the state to seek consolidation in the rural sector—thus alienating a large segment of the rural population. On the other hand, political globalization opened up the opportunity for protest and confrontation between peasants and the dominant political structures.

When Luis Inácio (Lula) da Silva was elected president in 2002 the Sem Terra movement saw a new opportunity for further gains. Lula, a former metalworker and a citizen-leader in his own right, gained national prominence in the late 1970s when he led strikes in the southeastern region against the military government’s control over the labor unions. By the early 1980s, he was instrumental in creating the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT), which became one of the strongest political parties representing the interests of the working class in Brazil.52

While this background suggests a possible close alliance between the new president and the landless peasants’ movement, we should be cautious in predicting radical changes in land distribution in Brazil. First, Lula’s economic team has committed itself to a strict spending program in order to reassure weary foreign investors about the stability of the Brazilian economy. As Alexandre Barros, a political and economic analyst in Brasília, was quoted as saying, “I think Lula is showing us that he realizes social change can’t happen overnight and that there is a new, global reality in which, like it or not, you have to balance the speed of economic change with the realities of financial markets.”53 Second, PT is largely an urban movement with weak ties to the rural sector. While there is an affinity of issues between MST and PT, the two are not necessarily close allies. Therefore, it is unclear at this moment whether Lula is willing to lead the Brazilian society in adaptive work (Type III solution)—helping the rural elites accommodate the interests and aspirations of the peasant organizations. The government does not have the resources to expand its purchases and transfers of land that have been invaded by MST families (Type I solution). At the same time, MST may at some point abandon hope of cooperation with the Lula government, as the EZLN became disenchanted with the Fox government in Mexico, and provoke a confrontation with government forces.

 

Conclusion

The two cases (the EZLN and the MST) illustrate the complex relationship between globalization and community activism in Latin America. On the one hand, globalization has spawned the political opportunity for community activism through the use of cyberspace and links to international NGOs. On the other hand, globalization is the very issue that propels community activism. Citizen-leaders, such as Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos in Mexico and João Pedro Stédile in Brazil, end up protesting the very process that makes their community activism so effective.

This paradoxical relationship between globalization and community activism cannot be resolved through superficial, cosmetic Type I solutions (for example, Plan Puebla-Panama and colonization in the Amazon). The large Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Mexico, are now largely urbanized. The historical moment may have passed. The expanding force of globalization will work against any trend toward radical agrarian reform that freezes a particular constituency (peasants) into centuries-old subsistence-farming practices. The analysis provided in this article suggests that it would be a mistake to treat community activism in Latin America’s rural sector as simply anachronistic. Rural movements combine elements of both anachronism and postmodernism.54 To impose Type I solutions, history has shown, only creates new Type III problems. To approach agricultural production as a technical issue under a neoliberal paradigm will only miss the serious political and cultural implications that peasant movements are bringing to the international arena.

The cold war certainly internationalized local rebellions in the 1950s and 1960s, but this internationalization was perceived as the hijacking of community issues by the superpowers. What made community activism in the 1990s different, once the superpowers’ ideological conflicts were removed from the scene, was the ability of community leaders to elevate the debate to an international arena on their own terms. The 1994 uprising in Chiapas, therefore, has been recast as one example among many of indigenous cultures attempting to survive in a Huntingtonian clash of civilizations. Links to international NGOs only reinforce the perspective that these community activists are in reality global activists. Ironically, they are fighting globalization, but global forces allow them to internationalize their messages through tools brought about by globalization—namely, communications technology, such as the Internet and personal computers.

Unlike previous suppressions of local uprisings, both the EZLN and the MST have been allowed to survive in large part due to the watchful eye of international public opinion—fighting with postmodern weapons. The outcome of this paradoxical relationship is far from clear. It remains to be seen how the national authorities will respond to the opportunities that new administrations create. In the Mexican case, the Fox government seems to be missing the historical moment by emphasizing technical solutions (Plan Puebla-Panama). In Brazil, President Lula is opting for economic stability (another technical solution) and forgoing a constructive debate over land distribution. Neither case provides much reason for optimism that real government leadership will take place in Latin America.

 

Notes

1. Barry K. Gills, ed., Globalization and the Politics of Resistance (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000); Fred R. Dallmayr, “Globalization from Below,” International Politics 36, no. 3 (Sept. 1999): 321–34.

2. Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York: Anchor Books, 2000); for a critique of globalization, see Kevin Danaher and Roger Burbach, eds., Globalize This! The Battle against the World Trade Organization and Corporate Rule. (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage, 2000).

3. Walter Truett Anderson, “The Two Globalizations: Notes on a Confused Dialogue,” Futures, 31, nos. 9–10 (Nov. 1999): 897–903.

4. See, for instance, George Cho, Trade, Aid, and Global Interdependence (New York: Routledge, 1995).

5. See, for example, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America, trans. Marjory Mattingly Urquidi (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1979).

6. Joan E. Spero and Jeffrey A. Hart, The Politics of International Economic Relations, 5th ed. (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997); Jeffry A. Frieden and David A. Lake, International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Power and Wealth., 3d ed. (New York: St. Martin’s, 1995); Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1987).

7. Richard Brealey, “The Asian Crisis: Lessons for Crisis Management and Prevention,” International Finance 2, no. 2 (July 1999): 249–72; Brigitte Granville, “Bingo or Fiasco? The Global Financial Situation Is not Guaranteed,” International Affairs 75, no. 4 (Oct. 1999): 713–28.

8. Jonah D. Levy, “Globalization, Liberalization, and National Capitalisms,” Structural Change and Economic Dynamics 8, no. 1 (Mar. 1997): 87–98; Dong-Meyon Shin, “Economic Policy and Social Policy: Policy Linkages in an Era of Globalization,” International Journal of Social Welfare 9, no. 1 (Jan. 2000): 17–30.

9. Anna K. Dickson, Development and International Relations (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997), 134.

10. Enrique Rueda-Sabater, “Corporate Governance: And the Bargaining Power of Developing Countries to Attract Foreign Investment,” Corporate Governance: An International Review 8, no. 2 (Apr. 2000): 117–24; Alvin G. Wint and Densil A. Williams, “Attracting FDI to Developing Countries: A Changing Role for Government?” The International Journal of Public Sector Management 15, no. 5 (2002): 361–74.

11. International relations scholars generally date the rise of the modern international system to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ushered in the concept of sovereignty and the nation-state. The “Westphalia model,” therefore, refers to the system of sovereign states recognized as independent actors in the international arena. See Daniel Philpott, “The Religious Roots of Modern International Relations,” World Politics 52, no. 2 (Jan. 1, 2000): 206–45; Michael MccGwire, “The Paradigm that Lost Its Way,” International Affairs 77, no. 4 (Oct. 2001): 777–803.

12. Richard Falk, “Revisiting Westphalia, Discovering Post-Westphalia,” Journal of Ethics 6, no. 4 (2002): 311–52.

13. Edward S. Cohen, “Globalization and the Boundaries of the State: A Framework for Analyzing the Changing Practice of Sovereignty,” Governance 14, no. 1 (Jan. 2001): 75–97.

14. Michael Derham, “Undemocratic Democracy: Venezuela and the Distorting of History,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 21, no. 2 (Apr. 2002): 270–89.

15. Björn Hettne, “Globalism, Regionalism, and the New Third World,” in Redefining the Third World, ed. Nana Poku and Lloyd Pettiford (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), 82.

16. Alex E. Jolle Demmers, Fernández Jilberto, and Barbara Hogenboom, eds., Miraculous Metamorphoses: The Neoliberalisation of Latin American Populism (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001); Gamaliel Perruci, “Neopopulism in Brazil’s Democratic Consolidation: A Comparative Analysis,” Austrian Journal for Development Studies 11, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 29–49; Gamaliel Perruci and Steve Sanderson, “Presidential Succession: Economic Crisis and the Resurgence of Populism in Brazil,” Studies in International Comparative Development 24, no. 3 (Fall 1989): 30–50.

17. Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Times Books, 1995).

18. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).

19. Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith, Modern Latin America, 3d ed. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992), 20.

20. For a general overview of the struggles of many indigenous people in Latin America, see Susan C. Stonich, ed., Endangered Peoples of Latin America: Struggles to Survive and Thrive (Westport, Conn.:  Greenwood, 2001); Colin Clarke, Class, Ethnicity, and Community in Southern Mexico: Oaxaca’s Peasantries (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000).

21. Ronald Heifetz, Leadership without Easy Answers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1994), 187.

22. Ibid., 76.

23. Clifford Bob, “Marketing Rebellion: Insurgent Groups, International Media, and NGO Support,” International Politics 38 (Sept. 2001): 311–34.

24. Heifetz, Leadership, 183.

25. Marcelo González Bustos, La rebelión campesina del EZLN en Chiapas (Texcoco, Mex.: Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, 1995); Guido Camú Urzúa and Dauno Tótoro Taulis, EZLN: el ejército que salió de la selva (Mexico City: Grupo Editorial Planeta, 1994).

26. Olivia Gall, “Racism, Interethnic War, and Peace in Chiapas,” Peace and Change 23, no. 4 (Oct. 1998): 533.

27. Neil Harvey, Rebellion in Chiapas: Rural Reforms, Campesino Radicalism, and the Limits to Salinismo (La Jolla: Ejido Reform Research Project, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1994); Richard Snyder and Gabriel Torres, eds., The Future Role of the Ejido in Rural Mexico (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1998).

28. Frank McLynn, Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2002); Lynn Stephen, Zapata Lives!: Histories and Cultural Politics in Southern Mexico (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2002); John Holloway and Eloína Peláez, eds., Zapatista!: Reinventing Revolution in Mexico (Sterling, Va.: Pluto, 1998).

29. Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos was later identified as Rafael Sebastián Guillén, a non-Indian and former university professor; see Roderic Al Camp, Politics in Mexico: The Democratic Transformation, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003), 157; see also Yvon Le Bot, Subcomandante Marcos: El sueño Zapatista (Barcelona, Sp.: Plaza y Janés, 1997).

30. We know an international phenomenon has reached the global mainstream when his writings are sold on Amazon.com. See, for instance, Subcomandante Marcos, Our Word Is Our Weapon: Selected Writings (New York: Seven Stories, 2002).

31. Bob, “Marketing Rebellion,” 322.

32. For a review of the San Andrés Accord, see Bill Weinberg, Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico (New York: Verso, 2000), 153–63.

33. David A. Shirk, “Vincente Fox and the Rise of the PAN,” Journal of Democracy 11, no. 4 (Oct. 2000): 25–32; Francisco Reveles Vazquez, “La victoria de Vicente Fox y del Partido Acción Nacional en las elecciones del 2000,” Estudios Politicos 24 (May–Aug. 2000): 9–37.

34. Nicholas P. Higgins, “Mexico’s Stalled Peace Process: Prospects and Challenges,” International Affairs 77, no. 4 (2001): 898.

35. For a general review of the plan, see Alfredo Salomon, “Por los caminos del sur: el Plan Puebla-Panama,” Comercio Exterior 51, no. 11 (Nov. 2001): 970–74; for critiques of the plan, see Braulio Moro, “Une recolonisation nommee ‘plan Puebla-Panama,’” Le Monde Diplomatique 49, no. 585 (Dec. 2002): 14–15; Philip E. Wheaton, “Blueprint for Genocide: Vicente Fox’s Plan Puebla-Panama,” CovertAction Quarterly 71 (Winter 2001): 10–13.

36. As qtd. in Mary Jordan, “Threats Force Americans to Flee Ranch in Mexico,” Washington Post, February 6, 2003.

37. Liam Kane, Popular Education and Social Change in Latin America (London: Latin America Bureau, 2001), chapter 4; Jan Sallinger-McBride and Lia K. Roberts, “Conflict between the Landed and the Landless in Brazil,” International Journal on World Peace 15 (Dec. 1998): 61–90; Dirceu Pessoa, “Pobreza da terra, pobreza de terra, pobreza dos sem terra,” Revista Econômica do Nordeste 15, no. 4 (1984): 699–715.

38. Frei Sérgio and João Pedro Stédile, A luta pela terra (São Paulo: Scritta Editorial, 1993), 40.

39. Ibid.

40. José Antonio Sola, Canudos, uma utopia no sertão (São Paulo: Editoria Contexto, 1989); Ataliba Nogueira, Antônio Conselheiro e Canudos: revisão histórica (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1974).

41. See, for instance, Robert M. Levine, Vale of Tears: Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil, 1893–1897 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1992).

42. Sérgio and Stédile, A luta pela terra, 20.

43. The Brazilian military interest in the Amazon went beyond land distribution. It also included the development of a national security strategy for the Amazon. See João R. Martins Filho and Daniel Zirker, “Nationalism, National Security, and Amazonia: Military Perceptions and Attitudes in Contemporary Brazil,” Armed Forces and Society 27, no. 1 (Fall 2000): 105–29.

44. Stephen Nugent, “Amazonian Indians and Peasants: Coping in the Age of Development,” in Green Guerrillas: Environmental Conflicts and Initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Reader, ed. Helen Collinson (London: Latin American Bureau, 1996), 84–92.

45. Anthony Hall, “Did Chico Mendes Die in Vain? Brazilian Rubber Tappers in the 1990s,” in Green Guerrillas, 93–102; Biorn Maybury-Lewis, The Politics of the Possible: The Brazilian Rural Workers’ Trade Union Movement, 1964–1985 (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple Univ. Press, 1994); Mary Helena Allegretti, “Ambientalismo politico y reforma agraria: de Chico Mendes al Movimiento de los Sin Tierra,” Nueva Sociedad (July–Aug. 1997): 57–68.

46. Eric Raymond, “Road Development in Northwestern Brazil: Economic Integration against Ethnic and Ecological Degradation,” International Affairs Review 11, no. 1 (Winter–Spring 2002): 88–99.

47. Gamaliel Perruci, “‘Green McWorld’ versus ‘Gold Jihad’: The Clash of Ideas in the Brazilian Amazon,” Global Society 13, no. 2 (Apr. 1999): 163–80.

48. Dawn Plummer and Betsy Ranum, “Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement—Movimiento de trabajadores rurales sem terra—MST,” Social Policy 33, no. 1 (Fall 2002): 18–22; Wilder Robles, “Beyond the Politics of Protest: The Landless Rural Workers Movement of Brazil,” Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue Canadienne d’Etudes du Developpement 21, no. 3 (2000): 657–91.

49. Kathryn Hochstetler, “Democratizing Pressures from Below? Social Movements in the New Brazilian Democracy,” in Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions, and Processes, ed. Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy J. Power (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 2000), 167–84; James N. Green, ed., “Brazil in Transition: Democratization, Privatization, and Working-Class Resistance,” Latin American Perspectives 21 (Winter 1994): 3–131.

50. Sue Branford and Jan Rocha, Cutting the Wire: The Story of the Landless Movement in Brazil (London: Latin America Bureau, 2002), 173.

51. Ibid., 179.

52. Sue Branford and Bernardo Kucinski, Politics Transformed: Lula and the Workers’ Party in Brazil (London: Latin America Bureau, 2003); Alexandre Medeiros, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: crônica de um sonho (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Objetiva, 1994).

53. As qtd. in Anthony Faiola, “Brazil’s Leader Seeks to Ease U.S. Concerns about Policies,” Washington Post, December 10, 2002.

54. “Olhai as foices dos pobres da terra: com chefes cristão-comunistas e chefiados de pés no chão, os sem-terra são anacrônicos e actualíssimos,” Veja 27 (June 1, 1994): 70–75.

 

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