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Waves of Protest Popular Struggle in El Salvador, 1925–2005 Paul D. Almeida |
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$75.00 cloth |
A groundbreaking study of protest movements in El Salvador. One of the first longitudinal studies of collective resistance in the developing world, Waves of Protest examines large-scale contentious action in El Salvador during critical eras in the country’s history. Providing a compelling analysis of the massive waves of protests from the early twentieth century to the present in El Salvador, Paul D. Almeida fully chronicles one of the largest and most successful campaigns against globalization and privatization in the Americas. Drawing on original protest data from newspapers and other archival sources, Almeida makes an impassioned argument that regime liberalization organizes civil society and, conversely, acts of state-sponsored repression radicalize society. He correlates the ebb and flow of protest waves to the changes in regime liberalization and subsequent de-democratization and back to liberalization. Almeida shows how institutional access and competitive elections create opportunity for civic organizations that become radicalized when authoritarianism increases, resulting at times in violent protest campaigns that escalate to revolutionary levels. In doing so, he brings negative political conditions and threats to the forefront as central forces driving social movement activity and popular contention in the developing world. “Sociologist Almeida (Texas A&M Univ.) has produced a detailed historical analysis of protest waves in El Salvador across decades and generations. . . a significant contribution to the sociological analysis of Central American conflicts. Most appropriate for graduate or undergraduate collections on social movements or Latin American studies.” —Choice “Almeida’s study should be of interest to many readers beyond area specialists. Because Almeida’s case of El Salvador is such a great one for the study of social movements and contentious politics and because his account is so good, Waves of Protest should be of interest to anyone seeking to better understand popular movements struggling under difficult circumstances to win a more decent life for themselves and others.” —Contemporary Sociology “Most social movement theory has been generated from case studies of shorter-term movement organization activity in Western democracies. Almeida breaks from this tradition, providing an insightful longitudinal analysis of multisector resistance under differing economic and political conditions in El Salvador’s history.” —Canadian Journal of Sociology “Almeida’s book effectively and clearly negotiates an alphabet soup of political, labor, student, teacher, and church organizations to provide a historical and sociological understanding of protest in El Salvador. Along with its empirical rigor, the author’s grounded theoretical discussion expands the framework of political opportunity in nondemocratic environments by integrating threat and organizational infrastructures into the analysis. These contributions will be helpful as movement scholars work to distinguish between social movements in democratic and nondemocratic environments.” —Mobilization “Waves of Protest is destined to be a reference book for everyone interested in comprehending collective action in the developing world, and essential for understanding the history of protest movements in El Salvador.” —A Contra corriente: A Journal on Social History and Literature in Latin America Paul D. Almeida is assistant professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. 288 pages | 39 b&w photos, 2 tables | 5 7/8 x 9 | 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements Introduction: El Salvador and Popular Mobilization in the Global South 1. Liberalization, Intimidation, and Globalization Appendix A. Data and Methods Notes |
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$25.00 paper