ABSTRACT
The Peronists were tarnished by Menemismo, and the governing Radicals – and FREPASO as part of the ruling Alianza – were blamed for the crisis. While individual protest options existed for the middle class in the 1990s, via a credible and apparently sympathetic main opposition Radical Party to channel anger against downward mobility or impoverishment through the ballot box, by late 2001 the mainstream opposition had become discredited. The size and radicalism of the emerging movement on each occasion also depends on the extent to which the ruling class is able to secure consent to govern and secure a hegemonic consensus. In explaining the collective group behavior of Argentina’s struggling middle class, a notable distinction was made between various phases. The actions of the struggling middle class under neoliberalism or post-neoliberalism can, therefore, be described as constituting “cycles of protest and collective behavior”, which fluctuate depending on the spaces available for these actions.
