The two current trends of democratization and deepening economic liberalization have made Latin American countries a ground for massive defensive mobilization campaigns and have created new sites of popular struggle. In this edited volume on Latin American social movements, original chapters are combined with peer-reviewed articles from the well-regarded journal Mobilization. Five sections represent major themes in Latin American social movement research. An introductory section is followed by chapters that examine large-scale collective action by civil society against economic liberalization policies in comparative perspective. The third section focuses on democratic transition in the context of neoliberalism. The fourth section examines two important cases of women's empowerment in Latin America through protest mobilization and the final section includes case studies that will help readers examine key issues in the strategic mobilization of Latin American movements. The volume includes original chapters on the Madres de Plaza de Mayo movement in Argentina and the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico. Also included in its coverage of the region's major movements are los piqueteros and antisweatshop labor organizing.

This is the first study to focus closely on the related issues of neoliberal globalization, democratization, and the workings of transnational advocacy networks in Latin America.