EMERGENCE, ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS, AND DECLINE OF THE PIQUETERO MOVEMENT: A COMPARATIVE INSTITUTIONAL EXPLANATION

This paper offers an institutional explanation for the growth, organizational transformations, and decline of the piquetero social movement in Argentina, developed from a comparative perspective based on Latin America. I analyze which institutional arrangements, political actors, and configurations of power contributed to the success and decline of the piqueteros. Applying the basic principles of the rational choice approach, I find that the success, decline, and transformation of the organizational structures of the piquetero movement were mainly produced by a political cycle of deep political division within the ruling party (the Peronist party). Other socio-economic explanatory factors were the over-regulated Argentine labor market, and the exogenous impact of the Argentine economic crisis through relatively high unemployment rates.