Graduation Year
2022
Date of Submission
4-2022
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
International Relations
Reader 1
Lisa Koch
Rights Information
@2022 Katrina D Frei-Herrmann
Abstract
Social movements have sprung up in countries after their respective economies experience an economic crisis and the International Monetary Fund places restrictions on a country’s fiscal policy. Argentina’s piquetero movement and Greece’s anti-austerity movement have both mobilized after economic crises to protest the neoliberal shifts to their economics, yet their success at shifting those policies have not been studied sufficiently. The dominant explanation for social movement success involves analyzing political opportunities or seeing the social movement as an actor with limited resources. These existent methods fail to answer how nuances about internal decisions or forms of protest could influence the outcomes of the movements. I use Argentina’s and Greece’s social movements as case studies and analyzed them through a new framework: (1) forms of protest, (2) relationship to government, and (3) locus of decision making. In this analysis, I conclude that social movements have not been successful in reversing IMF restrictions, but they are successful in shifting the national political scene or culture. This research demonstrates that social movements are best equipped to influence local communities or national politics, but are limited in their impact on international pressures.
Recommended Citation
Frei-Herrmann, Katrina D., "The Impact of Social Movements on Austerity Measures: An Analysis of Argentina’s Piquetero Movement and Greece’s Anti-Austerity Movement" (2022). CMC Senior Theses. 3055.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/3055
Included in
Comparative Politics Commons, International Relations Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Other International and Area Studies Commons
