Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia,
Ecuador. By James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto
Press, 2005. 288p. $90.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.
Anyone interested in the recent renewal of social movement activity
and the rise of ostensibly left or center-left governments in Latin
America might be tempted to pick up this book, with its provocative jacket
photo and appealing title. Unfortunately, the book cover is nearly the
only thing going for this sectarian jeremiad from James Petras and Henry
Veltmeyer. If one is looking for serious scholarship, or even solid
journalism, neither can be found here. Instead, one finds a poorly
organized collage, including descriptions of recent history, critiques of
government policies, and tendentious and contradictory evaluations of left
strategy. Despite the promise of the title, the authors do not engage the
literature on social movements, nor do they contribute much in the way of
new analytical perspectives. The class analysis announced in the
introduction only emerges occasionally in the subsequent chapters, and
even then it is applied mechanically and reductively, yielding an
extremely limited capacity to help us understand the character and
trajectory of social movements or the nuances of political behavior in
diverse contexts. Important cross-national differences in terms of
political institutions, ethnic composition, and international constraints
are not addressed, much less systematically compared. Furthermore, the
book lacks consistent citations of sources, and serious empirical and
orthographic errors are sprinkled throughout. Those knowledgeable about
the countries in question might be amused by the almost congenital
inability to spell correctly the names of politicians, political parties,
and labor confederations; those without such knowledge, especially
undergraduate students, will only be confused or misinformed.