Argentine citizenship: Changes from above and below
LE3 .A278 2010
2010
Brickner, Rachel
Acadia University
Bachelor of Arts
Honours
Political Science
Politics
The purpose of this thesis is to explore the forces that have shaped Argentine citizenship since democratization in 1983. It will be argued that two separate but related processes, one from ‘ above’ and one from ‘ below’, have impacted Argentine citizenship. The terms of citizenship that defined what it meant to be a citizen were altered unevenly by the state, while citizen movements that rejected these definitions were generated from below. By examining government economic policy, constitutional reforms and external economic forces in the 1980s and 1990s, it will be demonstrated that the state attempted to create a type of citizenship consistent with both neoliberal and elitist models. The measures taken by autonomous new actors in civil society in the 1990s and early 2000s will then be explored in order to demonstrate the emergence of a force antagonistic to the state. The ways in which the new civil society actors combated the neoliberal and elitist models, exposed a crisis of representation and articulated citizen dissatisfaction with the erosion of social citizenship benefits will also be demonstrated. To conclude, this thesis analyses some of the political, social and economic changes that have occurred under both Kirchner presidencies and how these changes were driven by the two processes.
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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:694