Article written by 2009 DPDF Critical Agrarian Studies Fellow Pablo Lapegna, featured in the Journal of World-Systems Research, Volume 21, No. 1:

Based on ethnographic research, archival data, and a catalog of protest events, this article
analyzes the relationship between popular social movements, business mobilization, and
institutional politics in Argentina during the post-neoliberal phase, which arguably began circa
2003. How did waves of popular mobilization in the 1990s shape business mobilization in the
2000s? How did contentious politics influence institutional politics in the post-neoliberal
period? What are the changes and continuities of the agrarian boom that cut across the
neoliberal and post-neoliberal periods? While I zoom in on Argentina, the article goes beyond
this case by contributing to three discussions. First, rather than limiting the analysis to the
customary focus on the mobilization of subordinated actors, it examines the demobilization of
popular social movements, the mobilization of business sectors, and the connections between the
two. Second, it shows the ways in which the state can simultaneously challenge neoliberal
principles while also favoring the global corporations that dominate the contemporary
neoliberal food regime. Finally, the case of Argentina sheds light on the political economy of the
“Left turn” in Latin America, particularly the negative socio-environmental impacts of
commodity booms. The article concludes that researchers need to pay closer attention to the
connections between contentious and institutional politics, and to the protean possibilities of
neoliberalism to inspire collective actions.