This post is a summary of a book with the title above published in 2013 at http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/crisis%20prevention/Understanding%20Social%20Conflict%20in%20Latin%20America%202013%20ENG.pdf
Democracy is not only the free and transparent election of our leaders. It is also a way of organizing power that places citizens and human rights at the heart of its concerns. This is the essence of the idea of democracy, and it is what gives this idea its universal significance. Latin America has experienced three decades of uninterrupted democracy. The triumph of democracy in the 1980s and its current day-to-day development are closely linked to the tradition of social mobilization in Latin America. First, it is necessary to recognize that democracy is, on essence, a conflictive form of order. Based on the monitoring of 54 newspaper in 17 countries in L.A. it is possible to conclude that social conflicts in the region share certain characteristics. Firstly, these conflicts are complex and ever more diverse and dispersed. These conflicts are also increasingly expressed through mass media, including both classic forms of media and new communications networks. Furthermore, they are expressed within the context of structures of concentrated power which are vehemently questioned by large segments of society. In L.A. these conflicts are characterized by a high degree of citizens participation. Likewise, the demands that they channel enjoy a high level of social legitimacy. Secondly, in many cases, it expresses a certain common sense regarding the processes of development. This study identifies three spheres of conflict-social reproduction, institutional, and cultural conflicts- each which has a different logic. However, these conflicts have a common denominator in the sense that they are related to pragmatic demands for improvements in the quality of life. Thirdly, the problem is not the conflict occurs on society today, but rather that the State lacks the necessary capacities to manage them in an effective manner. Many conflicts tend to grow because there is a lack of institutional frameworks which are capable of providing platforms for dialogue and negotiation. Fourthly, this study supports political constructivism as the best political approach for processing conflict. In fact, social conflict test the capacity of political systems to respond to the needs and demands of society. Political constructivism seeks to strengthen and expand democracy. Conflict analysis is a crucial tool for understanding social and political processes, and for guiding conflict management and decision-making toward the peaceful and constructive transformation of conflicts. Both processes of building sociopolitical order and a common vision involve conflict. Political developments in the last decades, which include that decline in the legitimacy of political parties and the emergence of variety of movements, in a greater extent contributed to a political transformation that could stregthen democracy, development, and the global standing of the region over the long term. The study adopts a classic definition of social conflict as a process of contentious interaction between social actors and institutions which mobilize with different levels of organizations and act in order to improve conditions, defend existing situations, or advance new alternative social projects. Conflict implies both the reproduction and transformation of social relations. It should be noted that the definition of social conflict employed in the study does not include violent conflict. Accordingly, countries affected by such types of conflicts, including Colombia and Mexico register relatively low levels of social conflicts in this study. This study's data suggest the traditional communication media are disinterested in the recent series of social conflict. On the other hand this implies that the press operates according to the logic of the market. It also indicates that journalistic ethics are deficient in terms of the media's potential role in providing indirect support to institutional stregthening, conflict resolution, and the formation of well informed and responsible citizens. At the same time that communications media companies have grown more powerful there has been a democratization trend in communications. New media (especially internet) offer a more direct and proactive access to global communication. Individuals have increasing space to produce information and directly contribute to the creation of narratives and collective perspectives.. In this context of reconfigured public space, there is growing independence from party systems and personal perspectives have more weight. Public opinion polls are the new political instruments of a relatively new system of governance that could complement representative democracy. Access to television, cellphones, and the internet grew dramatically, resulting in a new type of socialization in the daily activities of Latin Americans. "Politics on the Internet" have acquired more importance. Modern communications media introduce new languages and reconfigure collective action, the practice of politics, and the relationship between state and society. Although conflicts have various shades and conotations that make their categorization difficult, the study employs three broad categories of conflict in order to compare and analyze collective action across the region. These categories encompass the different demands that are the basis for collective mobilization: the demands and struggles for social reproduction and quality of life are essentially practical; institutional conflicts demand more efficiency and legitimacy from state institutions; and cultural conflicts aim to change ways of life, and are thus strategic in nature. In general, social groups and individuals protest in order to address tangible and pragmatic issues that directly affect their living conditions, improve their conditions, and call attention to deficiencies in institutions. Protest over values and politics beliefs are also relevant in the region's cultural conflicts. These three categories of conflicts are not completely independent. They arise from similar needs but emphasize different issues. Social conflicts in L. A. involve both a transition towards and a demand for social change. This study adopts a normative view of political constructivism (politics guided by values), and one of the conceptual underpinnings of the study is the recognition of constructivist politics as the best political model for managing social conflict. Political constructivism engages power struggles and seeks to establish a common order. It does this by reinforcing democracy and sociocultural plurality without denying that such order is the result of conflict processes. Conflict is thus not synonymous of violence. Instead, it is a dimension of diversity and interculturality inherent in democracy and peace. Politics and political actors are defined through conflict processes which are driven by unequal power relations (both real and historical). Social conflict in itself is not negative. If conflict is managed through dialogue and negotiation, while addressing both structural and circumstantial causes. Politics can be understood as the art of the best possible outcome and a process that leads to the formation of pluralism. According to Gianni Vattimo (2006), it is not that we reach an agreement when we find the truth, but rather that we find the truth when we reach an agreement. Political freedom is possible, and moreover it is a factor of development given that it makes it possible for different options to be created according to cultural identities, values, and personal and collective aspirations. The hypothesis here is that the principal historical and contemporary patterns of inequality must be overcome if democracy is to take us beyond the "dialetic of the denial of the other". In order to solve the problems of representation and participation that exist between states and societies it is necessary to reject authoritarianism, whether it is communitarian or elitist, or favors the political elite of the left or right. This entails recognizing social actors and providing them with spaces for participation in accordance with their goals and interests. Authoritarian culture that denies otherness appears to lead toward a system of final options where "the other" is seen as an enemy to be conquered, destroyed, or bought. Latin America societies should review the region's frustated attempts to establish hegemonic systems in which one class (proletariat or bourgeois) or region is dominant over others. In a democracy, these challenges are related to human rights and the way citizens form community and coexist. This study argue in favor of a political form of coexistence in which shared objectives may be pursued without denying power, conflict, or discrepancy in their multiple forms. In this sense, politics is not only an instrument of negotiation, It can also be exercise in understand memory and freedom. All people will benefit if the common good can be pursued and deliberated freely with others in public spaces. The patrimonial corporative state and the popular-nationalist regimes that emerged from the populist movements provided the salient foundations upon which new forms of conflict emerged. They included the strategic role of state enterprises in economic development, the emergence of cartels of bureaucratic power, strengthened intermediation mechanisms between state and society, and the development of bureaucratic clientelism. The imposition of political actors into social actors signaled the latter's loss of autonomy . The populist processes increasingly lost legitimacy as conflicts developed within social movements and the state, and power was excessively concentrated in the state. During a new stage of "dependent capitalism", state power was organized in line with modern intelligence institutions in order to instill militarized social discipline and order by means of fear, repression, and the control of public opinion. Conflicts involving popular actors who pushed for even minimal demands ended in purely defensive actions because any expression of contentiousness or combativeness was "taken care of" with heavy repression. In this context, increasingly intense struggles and demands for human rights and the democratization of politics began to emerge. Conflict over human rights was the avenue by which popular movements were reborn. These conflicts invoked the continuity and historical memory of popular struggle, and they emphasized the need to introduce ethics into politics and the very logic of social conflict. Their demands were not limited to the drama of families of the disappeared and the imprisioned. They also tackled the problem of legitimacy in a democratic society. The struggle for human rights underscored the indispensable role of ethics in politics and the need for institutional controls in morality and the indiscriminate use of power. These movements involved a social critique of the supposed immorality of the ruling classes and they expressed the desire for more transparent and participatory forms of politics.
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