Protest Waves and Social Movement Fields: The Micro Foundations of Campaigning for Subaltern Political Parties

Abstract

The paper examines the individual-level building blocks of getting out the vote (GOTV) for electoral parties that represent subaltern sectors in resource scarce environments. Drawing on theories of protest waves, social movement fields, and threat-induced collective action, we examine the likelihood of campaigning in left party electoral mobilization and party identification. The study implements a modified version of the Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation (CCC) survey protocol and respondent selection design. We use a sympathy pool sample of over 1,200 May Day participants in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras to explain the micro-foundations of electoral proselytizing of political parties advocating for disadvantaged populations. We found that involvement in left party electoral campaigning was largely driven by resources deposited during anti-neoliberal protest waves, including prior movement-type protest, civic organizational activity, and economic threat perceptions. Campaigning for the anti-neoliberal party was also associated with a higher level of post-election party identification. The findings suggest that left parties may at times partially overcome economic and political resource deficits by mobilizing individuals deeply embedded in the social movement field.

Interpreting Repressive and Economic Threats: Música contestataria and Collective Resistance in Central America

“…The resonance of música contestataria in El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica in the neoliberal era (post-1990) can also be observed in the mobilized population. In a 2014 field survey study with a representative sample of 1,500 May Day marchers in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras (Almeida et al, 2021), the demonstrators were asked, “On a scale from 0 to 10, how important do you think protest music is for promoting solidarity among participants in demonstrations?” The responses for all three countries ranked protest music high in generating solidarity, with an overall mean of 8.4 (Table 2).…”

Gains and Losses in the Urban Political Field: Multilayered Outcomes of Mobilization in Moscow’s Housing Controversy*

“…In addition to the well-researched social capital concept, defined by Putnam (2001: 19) as "connections among individuals, social networks and norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them," activists develop specific skills they can use in future campaigns. Research shows that protest waves result in an increased "number of potential skilled volunteers" (Almeida et al 2021) available for future campaigns, which demonstrates one-way political capital can link different episodes of mobilization.…”

Revisiting party system structuration in Latin America and Europe: Economic and socio-cultural dimensions

“…Second, although claims for cultural and social rights accompanied political democratization, the coincidence of political and economic reform meant that demands from groups campaigning on issues of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or the environment generally reinforced the material demands of labor, students, or the informal sector (Almeida et al, 2021). As a result, few parties in the region emerged articulating a distinctly new cleavage.…”