(Studies of The Americas) Gisela Zaremberg, Valeria Guarneros-Meza, Adrián Gurza Lavalle (Eds.) - Intermediation and Representation in Latin Ame

STUDIES OF THE AMERICAS
INTERMEDIATION AND
REPRESENTATION IN
LATIN AMERICA
ACTORS AND ROLES
BEYOND ELECTIONS
Editors Gisela Zaremberg,

Valeria Guarneros-Meza
and Adrián Gurza Lavalle
Studies of the Americas
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University College London
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Gisela Zaremberg • Valeria Guarneros-Meza • Adrián Gurza Lavalle
Editors
Intermediation and
Representation in
Latin America
Actors and Roles Beyond Elections
Editors
Gisela Zaremberg Adrián Gurza Lavalle
Campus México Political Science Department
Facultad Latinoamericana de University of São Paulo
Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) São Paulo, Brazil
Mexico City, Mexico
Dept. of Politics and Public Policy
De Montfort University
Leicester, United Kingdom
Studies of the Americas

ISBN 978-3-319-51537-3 ISBN 978-3-319-51538-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51538-0
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Preface
Political democracy around the globe seems to be coming under increas-

ing stress. From the resurgence of the Far Right in Western Europe and
the unprecedented menace of populism in the USA to serious assaults
on fundamental democratic institutions in Thailand and the Philippines,
not to mention the growing influence of unabashedly authoritarian lead-
ers such as Vladimir Putin in Russia and Xi Jinping in China, democracy
seems increasingly incapable of meeting citizens’ expectations in the midst
of growing insecurities and widespread disillusionment with political elites.
While the global scale of this democratic disenchantment arguably has
never been higher since the end of the Cold War, it is something that Latin
America as a region has grappled with in various ways for much of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries as it experienced waves of authoritar-
ian violence, civil war, populism and often fitful experiments with political
democracy. The promise of democratic transitions in the 1980s, before the
collapse of the former Soviet Union, quickly gave way to growing signs of
citizen frustration and a lack of confidence in the fundamental institutions
of political democracy. This frustration gave rise to various democratic
alternatives, starting with the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in
1998 and the region’s so-called pink tide, that promised something new:
to generally respect the democratic institutions of elections and represen-
tative government, combining them with a variety of innovative mecha-
nisms for enhanced citizen participation and social inclusion.
Less than 20 years after Chavez’s unprecedented election, the region
seems to have lurched back to the Right, with Venezuela deeply polarized
in the midst of the worst economic crisis in the region, and other countries
v
vi PREFACE
similarly suffering various forms of democratic malaise. Although it is not

yet clear what impact this will have on the new forms of political participa-
tion that emerged during the pink tide, the ideological shift to the Right
in much of the region raises important questions regarding whether these
new institutions will be part of the pink tide’s ultimate legacy or will be
one of the first targets of the more conservative governments that have
replaced it.
This unique history suggests that the world potentially has a lot to
learn from Latin America when it comes to understanding the vaga-
ries of democratic governance, representation and democratic institu-
tions. Intermediation and Representation in Latin America: Actors and
Roles beyond Elections is an important attempt to capture that potential.
While a growing body of literature focuses on the importance of formal
and informal institutions, this is one of the first books to attempt to
systematically understand how they are interrelated by focusing on key
concepts such as representation and intermediation. In particular, the
authors develop important theoretical insights into democratic gover-
nance in Latin America by exploring the ways in which different actors
resort to a variety of “circuits of political representation” that capture the
multifaceted nature of political participation, whether it be democratic
or non-democratic forms of participation, or formal or informal institu-
tions. While elections are important, they are hardly the only mechanism
through which the interests of different actors are mediated. These are
captured graphically through a “cube of political intermediation” (CPI)
that provides the volume with an original theoretical model for under-
standing the multidimensional and multilayered nature of politics. In
this way, the book is path-breaking both theoretically and empirically,
with the discussion of a wide range of cases from a shared theoretical
perspective.
When the project that led to this book started back in early 2013,
Latin America—and the world—was a very different place. The region’s
populations were much more optimistic as economies grew, poverty
declined and even inequality began to reverse itself in the context of
democratic institutions that seemed to be growing in strength. Yet the
relevance and importance of Intermediation and Representation in Latin
America have in no way diminished. Ironically, the volume may be even
more important today, given the general loss of that optimism among
growing segments of the region’s population. The complexity of politi-
cal participation and its relationship to democracy has been something
PREFACE vii
we generally ignore. Growing citizen frustration, if not anger, suggests

that if we continue to do this, it will be at our own peril as the formal
institutions of democratic politics come under increasing assault, and
people start looking for undemocratic mechanisms to at least be able to
cope. As Intermediation and Representation in Latin America reminds
us, there is still a certain resilience to basic democratic practices that
we seem to take for granted. The challenge, however, is to take the les-
sons to be learned and apply them, creating new models of participation
and democracy that are both true to the underlying norms associated
with political democracy and, at the same time, move beyond them in
order to offer the foundation for what could become a “post-liberal
democracy” that will benefit people across the globe, and not only Latin
Americans. Intermediation and Representation in Latin America is an
important step in that direction.
Philip Oxhorn
McGill University
Acknowledgements
The three coordinators of the book, Gisela Zaremberg, Valeria Guarneros-

Meza and Adrián Gurza Lavalle, are grateful to Facultad Latinoamericana
de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO, Campus Mexico) for the support during
the production and translation of this book.
Adrián Gurza Lavalle wishes to thank the support of the Center for
Metropolitan Studies (CEM), São Paulo, Brazil, grant no. 2013/07616-
7, and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).
Gisela Zaremberg is grateful to FORD-Latin American Studies
Association (LASA) Special Project Seventh Cycle (2012) for the sup-
port to strengthen the network of researchers involved in this book. She
would also like to thank the University of San Pablo and the Democracy
and Collective Action Nucleus, in Brazilian Center for Analysis and
Planning (CEBRAP), San Pablo, Brazil, the University of Pennsylvania,
EEUU (especially Tulia Falleti and Emilio Parrado) and the Centre for
Research on Direct Democracy (C2D, in Aarau, Switzerland). In C2D,
Yanina Welp’s careful and insightful comments were especially valuable.
Sabbatical time and stay in these academic centres contributed greatly to
the realization of this book.
ix
Contents
1 Introduction: Beyond Elections: Representation Circuits

and Political Intermediation 1
Gisela Zaremberg, Adrián Gurza Lavalle, and Valeria
Guarneros-Meza
2 Political Intermediation and Public Policy in Brazil:

Councils and Conferences in the Policy Spheres of Health
and Women’s Rights 31
Wagner de Melo Romão, Adrián Gurza Lavalle, and Gisela
Zaremberg
3 Establishing Intermediaries in Developing Mechanisms

of Citizen Participation in La Silsa, Caracas, Venezuela 53
Graham Martin
4 Political Rights and Intermediation: Municipal

Decentralization and Democratic Innovation in Uruguay 77
Martín Freigedo Peláez
5 Bolivia: “Social Control” as the Fourth State Power

1994–2015 95
Moira Zuazo
xi
xii Contents
6 Citizen Security in Mexico: Examining Municipal

Bureaucracy from the View of the Intermediation–
Representation Debate 115
7 Conflicts of Representation and Redistribution in

the Mexican Labour World 137
Graciela Bensusán and Marta Subiñas
8 The Political–Legal Representation Circuit of Human

Rights Politics 159
Karina Ansolabehere and Paula Valle de Bethencourt
9 Conclusions and Future Research Agenda 181

Gisela Zaremberg, Adrián Gurza Lavalle, and Valeria
Guarneros-Meza
Index 201
List of Contributors
Karina Ansolabehere is professor and fellow researcher at the Latin American

Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) Campus Mexico. She has a PhD in Social
Sciences (FLACSO-Mexico). Her research focuses both on judicial courts and the
role of human rights defence societal and socio-legal mobilization strategies.
Graciela Bensusán is fellow researcher and professor at the Latin American
Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and Metropolitan Autonomous University
(UAM) campus Xochimilco, Mexico City. She has a PhD in Political Science from
the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her research interests
are labour world institutions, policies and organizations in comparative
perspective.
Paula Valle de Bethencourt is a professor at the Autonomous University of
Guerrero. She has a PhD in Social Sciences, Latin American Faculty of Social
Sciences (FLACSO-Mexico). She investigates the work of social, civic and com-
munity organizations within violence prevention and public safety.
Martín Freigedo Peláez is a researcher-professor at the Institute of Political
Science, University of the Uruguay Republic (UDELAR), and at the Institute for
Sustainable Development, Inclusion and Social Innovation (Center Tacuarembó,
UDELAR). He has a PhD in Social Sciences (FLACSO-Mexico). He specializes in
management of sub-national governments and citizen participation, decentraliza-
tion, democratic innovation and public policies in Uruguay.
Valeria Guarneros-Meza is a senior lecturer at De Montfort University, UK. She
has a PhD in Public Policy from the same university. Her research focuses on the
relationships existing between public management processes and citizen participa-
tion. Her research has been published in international, interdisciplinary academic
journals such as Public Administration and Urban Studies.
xiii
xiv LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Adrián Gurza Lavalle is a professor at the Political Science Department of the

University of São Paulo (USP) and researcher at the Center for Metropolitan
Studies (CEM) and Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP). He
has a PhD in Political Science from USP. His research interests are civil society
politics, democratic innovation and participatory institutions of social, civic and
community organizations in violence prevention and public safety issues.
Graham Martin doctoral research at Cardiff University explored democratic
innovations in Venezuela and assessed the extent to which they enabled citizen
participation in local and municipal-level planning.
Wagner de Melo Romão is a professor at the Political Science Department,
University of Campinas (Unicamp). He has a PhD in Sociology from the University
of São Paulo. His research interests are democratic innovation, participation and
public policies in Brazil and political parties in Latin America.
Marta Subiñas is a professor and fellow researcher at the Latin American Faculty
of Social Sciences (FLACSO) Campus Mexico. She has a PhD in Political Science
from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City. She
works on women rights, gender equality policies and quality of democracy in the
labour movement.
Gisela Zaremberg is a professor-researcher at Facultad Latinoamericana de
Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) Campus Mexico. She has a PhD in Research in Social
Sciences from FLACSO-Mexico. Her research focuses on democratic innovations,
networks and gender. Among her publications, her book Votos, mujeres y asistencia
social en el México priista y la Argentina peronista won the 2010 Donna Lee Van
Cott Award for “Best Book on Latin American Institutions” (LAPIS, LASA).
Moira Zuazo is a professor at the University of San Andrés and a member of the
Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Bolivia. Her research interests focus on participa-
tion and political analysis in Bolivia. She is the author of several articles and books,
among them ¿Cómo nació el MAS? La ruralización de la política en Bolivia (2009,
Fundación Friedrich Ebert).
List of Acronyms
AMORES Group of Organized Women for the Executed, Kidnapped

and Disappeared People of Nuevo León
CADHAC Citizens in Support of Human Rights
CCs Communal Councils
CIDOB Confederation of the Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia
CMAS Municipal Commission for Water and Sanitation
CNDM National Council for Women
CNSM National Minimum Wage Commission
CONALCAM National Coordinator for Change
CPI Cube of Political Intermediation
CROC Confederation of Labourers and Peasants
CROM Confederation of Mexican Labourers
CSOs Civil Society Organizations
CSUTCB Unique Union Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia
CTM Confederation of Mexican Workers
CVs Monitoring Committees
DGE Greek Spanish Dictionary
DIF Family Services Direction
DLE Latin Spanish Dictionary
DUyOP Urban Development and Public Works
FA Frente Amplio
FONDAS Fund for Socialist Agrarian Development
JFCA Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board
LD&PC Decentralization and Citizen Participation Law
LFT Federal Labour Law
LOCC Ley Orgánica de los Consejos Comunale
LPP Law for Popular Participation
xv
xvi LIST OF ACRONYMS
MAS Movement to Socialism

MPJD Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity
NGO Non-governmental organization
OACNUDH Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights in Mexico
OTBs Grassroots Territorial Organizations
PAN Partido Acción Nacional
PB Participatory Budgeting
PC Colorado Party
PC Policy community
PDM Municipal Development Plans
PICSOs Public Interest Civil Society Organizations
PIs Participatory Institutions
PN National Party
PRI Partido Revolucionario Institucional
PU Unity Pact
SITIAVW Stands for Independent Workers Union of Volkswagen
Automotive Mexican
SOs Social Organizations
SPM Secretariat of Women’s Policy
ST Technical secretary
STPS Labour and Social Security
SUS Unified Health System
TIPNIS Territory of the Isidoro Sécure National Park
VWM Volkswagen Mexico
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 Intermediation as a triadic relationship 13

Fig. 1.2 Dimension of recognition 15
Fig. 1.3 Dimension of constraint 17
Fig. 1.4 Substantive dimension of representation 19
Fig. 1.5 Cube of political intermediation (CPI) 20
Fig. 3.1 Institutional locus and relationships between intermediaries
in La Silsa 61
Fig. 7.1 Chart of intermediation actors in the Mexican labour world 146
Fig. 7.2 Map of intermediators in the Mexican labour sphere
(conflict 2) 148
Fig. 7.3 Blockage of representation in the CNSM and agricultural
labourer movement (stage 1) 150
Fig. 7.4 Unblockage of conflict 1 by the labourer movement of
San Quintin Valley (stages 2 and 3) 151
Fig. 7.5 Conflict experienced by the SITIAVWM workers 154
Fig. 8.1 Political–legal intermediation circuit 168
Fig. 9.1 Triadic first and second order substantive representation 192
xvii
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Types of representation circuits 7

Table 2.1 CPI by policy sector and type of PI 47
Table 3.1 Selection, roles and functions of intermediaries in La Silsa 57
Table 3.2 Plans, initiatives and intermediation according to institutional
locus63
Table 4.1 Representation circuits in the case studies 89
Table 5.1 Synthesis of processes 109
Table 6.1 Front-line officers’ level of discretion and party politics
constraints130
Table 8.1 Summary of actors by representation circuits 169
Table 8.2 Political and legal intermediation by CPI dimension 176
xix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Beyond Elections:

Representation Circuits and Political
Intermediation
Gisela Zaremberg, Adrián Gurza Lavalle,
and Valeria Guarneros-Meza
Jonas, member of an indigenous community in the state of Oaxaca,

Mexico, tells of how a project was written, thanks to the willingness of
Maria, a municipal social worker, who translated it into Spanish (the com-
munity does not speak the language well) and travelled to Mexico City, he
says, to “represent them” before the Ministry of Environment and Natural
Adrián Gurza Lavalle thanks the support by the Center for Metropolitan
Studies (CEBRAP, USPCEM), grant nr. 2013/07616-7, São Paulo Research
Foundation (FAPESP).
G. Zaremberg (*)
Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Mexico City, Mexico
A.G. Lavalle
Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil
Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM), São Paulo, Brazil
Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), São Paulo, Brazil
V.G. Meza
De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
© The Author(s) 2017 1

G. Zaremberg et al. (eds.), Intermediation and Representation in
Latin America, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51538-0_1
2 G. ZAREMBERG ET AL.
Resources. She spoke on behalf of the community.1 In another part of the

continent, Joao shared his experience with Paulo, president of the family
farming association to which he belongs. He remembers how everything
began with praying in the grassroots church organization near where he
lives in Bahia, Brazil. It was there that they built a group to defend their
work. The organization is now active and strong, and Joao has no doubt
that Paulo will “represent them” well in the regional Council for Territorial
Rural Development. In Venezuela, in 2009 (with Chavez still alive),
Mariana tells of Clara, the president of the Communal Council. Clara sup-
ported the “Robinson Mission”2 and became “chavista at heart”, empha-
sizing, “at heart!” Mariana refers to Clara as one of them. Both belonged
to the “Subversión Agraria” movement from even before Chavez. In the
last meeting of the National Fund for Socialist Agrarian Development
(FONDAS), officials proposed converting land into communal property.
Clara vigorously defended the individual property rights for which they
had so intently fought and won. Mariana claims that “the officials from
FONDAS don’t understand what the people want. That is not how a revo-
lution is made!” Clara, on the other hand, does understand. “She’s a real
chavista”. Finally, Adele is Canadian, living in the north of Mexico. She
works for an international organization that aims to improve the labour
conditions of women workers in the maquila sector. Returning from a
meeting with government officials and business people from the sector,
Adele explains that she was there to represent the maquiladora women.
This book seeks to reconsider the various roles played by Maria, Paulo,
Clara and Adele and their relationship with the respective interlocutors,
both above and below them in the chain in which they act as bridges.
In other words, this work seeks to reformulate the conceptual scope of
the term “political intermediation” in order to highlight analytically new
horizons of indirect politics whose range has usually been reduced to elec-
toral (party) representation, or, with a bit of luck, to classic corporate
(union) representation of the mid-twentieth century. Without disregard-
ing or detracting from these forms of representation, this book offers an
analytical framework with which to explore a wider repertoire of forms
of intermediation for the access and defence of citizens’ rights, including
advocacy for social accountability in public policy that provides goods and
services in different parts of Latin America.3
In the last few decades, classic channels of representation centred on
political parties and unions have been profoundly transformed, to the
point where some have emphasized the existence of a generalized crisis
of political representation (Saward 2010; Mair 2005; Mansbridge 2003).
INTRODUCTION: BEYOND ELECTIONS: REPRESENTATION CIRCUITS... 3
Furthermore, broad structural features of twentieth-century industrial

society have changed; among them are the welfare state and mass democ-
racy, the structure of the market and the means of production (Offe
1990). Along with these, drastic changes have occurred in the social cleav-
ages that supported labour unions and mass-based parties (Gurza Lavalle
and Araujo 2008). They have become “catch all” structures or quasi-state
corporations oriented towards maximizing their access to public resources
(cartel parties) to sponsor candidates, where the media has become an
essential means of compensating for the breakdown of ties between parties
and society (Manin 1997; Novaro 2000).
Regardless of whether or not we may agree with diagnoses and subse-
quent predictions regarding the decline of electoral (party) or corporative
(union) politics, it is undeniable that simultaneous to this process has been
the multiplication of new mechanisms of extra-parliamentary or non-party
representation. New participatory experiences (such as the well-known
participatory budget of Porto Alegre) have bolstered this empirically.
Concepts such as deliberative and participative democracy, radical citizen-
ship and post-liberal democracy have converged, at times contradictorily,
in an attempt to understand processes that seek to “democratize democ-
racy” (De Sousa Santos 2002).
Against this backdrop, experiences classified under the label of “demo-
cratic innovation” become particularly interesting. We focus specifically
on participatory institutions (councils, committees, forums, conferences)
excluding mechanisms of individual direct participation such as consulta-
tions, referendums or assemblies. Furthermore, we are also interested in
representation phenomena developed by new actors (especially civil soci-
ety organizations) who have gained unprecedented roles and scope in vari-
ous fields, from labour to human rights, including social and civil rights
(Smulovitz and Peruzzotti 2006; Smulovitz 2008; Bensusán and Subiñas
2014; Bensusán and O’Connor 2015; Von Büllow 2011; Gurza Lavalle
and von Büllow 2015; Castiglione and Warren 2006).
Consequently, both empirical evidence and its links with conceptual
developments demand broader theoretical frameworks, but similar to
those that accompanied and imbued the debate on representation in the
field of political theory during the twentieth century. In other words, the
changes described demand a widening of the analytical viewpoint and,
consequently, the modification of the conceptual language used when dis-
cussing these phenomena.
Renewing conceptual language is a demand that arises from the
limitations of existing language in order to understand thoroughly the
experiences of democratic innovation and not an operation to embel-

lish theory. On the one hand, these experiences have been widely
described and analysed with the language of participation, although
an important part of these do not constitute channels of direct par-
ticipation for citizens, but rather examples of (indirect) representation
of the interests of groups commonly underrepresented in traditional
circuits of political representation (Fung and Wright 2003; Smith
2009; DeBardeleben and Pammet 2009; Tornquist 2010, specifically
for Latin America: Wampler and Avritzer 2005; Selee and Peruzzotti
2009; Gurza Lavalle and Isunza Vera 2010; Goldfrank 2011; Cameron
et al. 2012; Feinberg et al. 2006; MacKinnon and Feoli’s 2013). On
the other hand, the language of representation was developed mainly
as a theoretical correlate of development and transformation of repre-
sentative government, and thus it is not surprising that students of rep-
resentation consider democratic-participative innovations, or new roles
of intermediation, as fashionable curiosities or less important institu-
tions that do not satisfy the democratic criteria of electoral representa-
tion. Furthermore, the experiences mentioned vary considerably with
regard to the radicalism of their objectives and complementarity or
aversion regarding electoral representation. This has resulted in the
literature attributing, more than conceptualizing, part of this experi-
ence as clientelist or populist, therefore opposing implicitly democratic
experiences. Neither the use of traditional language of participation
and representation nor their attributes seem adequate to characterize
satisfactorily and comparatively the numerous experiences of demo-
cratic innovation and new roles of intermediation that have multiplied
in Latin American and other latitudes in the last few decades.
In this book, we argue that a conceptual framework based on the lan-
guage of intermediation would help to understand, compare and charac-
terize the experiences mentioned in a way that is applicable to any modality
of political intermediation, including traditional forms of representation
such as (parties) elections. By broadening the scope beyond electoral rep-
resentation, this introduction calls for a new conceptual framework based
on the language of intermediation. This framework is developed across
four sections. First, the concept of representative circuits is developed, and
then their relationship with the concept of intermediation. Second, the
main definitions regarding the concept of intermediation are presented.
In the third section, the three dimensions of what we have coined as the
cube of political intermediation (CPI) is discussed. Based on the cube, we
propose operationalizing the conceptual language of intermediation, with
special attention to the substantive dimension of representation. Finally, in

the fourth section, we present empirical cases addressed in this book based
on the widened analytical range of intermediation.
Representation Circuits: Widening the Scope

from the Actors’ Perspective
The emergence of democratic innovation institutions and new roles played

by civil organizations has contributed to the consolidation of the under-
standing that “politics and the democratic process transcend the idea of
citizenship, understood as electoral participation” (Arditi 2005, 9). This
“other” scenario may be seen as a “second level, register or circuit” that,
while not reaching the same degree of institutionalization as that of the
electoral-party circuit—through the expansion of the right to vote and the
consolidation of party systems—nevertheless constitutes a “marginal but
supplementary territory to the sphere of political-party representation”
(Arditi 2005, 9). This book supports this position, and distinguishes a
diversity of representation circuits. In some cases, these are presented as
complementary, and in others as adverse, to the electoral circuit.
The idea of representation circuits is inspired by the theory of net-
works. It is analogous to the concept of electrical circuits, understood as
the interconnection of two or more components (e.g., resistances, induc-
tors, capacitors and sources) that contain at least one closed circuit.4 The
comparison with electrical components allows us to identify three elements
(actors, institutions and repertoires) that conform to different circuits of
representation. These elements pinpoint who, under which rules and with
what repertoire of actions stable paths of practice are drawn that connect
the social world with the world of politics and policy, and vice versa.
Furthermore, these circuits are based on an “actors’ perspective” (Long
2007). This perspective argues that, both theoretically and methodologi-
cally, it is important not to lose sight of the heterogeneity of patterns built
by actors themselves as different responses to structurally similar situations
can develop. This view highlights the power of social agency, which allows
us to “immerse ourselves below political and institutional myths, models
and poses (…) as well as avoid the idealizations of local culture” (Long
2007, 12).
In this way, a varied repertoire of existing channels of representation
is uncovered, from the perspective of the actor. A typology of representa-
tion circuits has been constructed on these theoretical bases (theory of
networks and perspective of the actor). Metaphorically, we associate the
circuits with the terms force, project, word and people. They may, or may
not, be complemented by a fifth, more traditional term, the vote. As has
been mentioned, each circuit is characterized by a type of actor, acting
under certain rules and resorting to certain repertoires of actions, such as
shown in Table 1.1.
Each circuit follows certain principles underpinning a repertoire of
action that structures the type of representation in such a circuit. Circuits
also have certain rules incentivizing and sanctioning such repertoires.
Besides these structuring elements, we highlight several types of actors,
associated to each circuit, who play the role of intermediaries or represen-
tatives. The type of actor allocated to each circuit is the most recurrent
actor found in empirical research; however, they are not constrained to
that circuit. It is possible for actors to cut across other circuits depending
on the context that is being studied.
The circuit referred to as “force” includes generally corporate (union)
actors, and recently we have found civil society organizations developing
an important role in this circuit. It is related to the world of urban–indus-
trial or rural–agricultural work. Institutions that form part of this circuit
are those that regulate the right to strike, from labour associations to col-
lective bargaining. In addition, they would regulate freedom of demon-
stration and assembly, although these do not relate solely to this circuit.
The repertoire of actions associated with this representation circuit, from
the actors’ perspective, are essentially striking and protesting. Although
social movements are actors who use protest as a part of their repertoires
of action, we recognize protest as a part of a representational task. Social
movements can play a role in this circuit (see Ansolabehere and Valle’s
chapter), but we need not confuse the role of social movements in a cycle
of protest with the role of mobilization attached to bargaining in formal
processes of representation found in the labour sphere.
Placing “force” at the centre of this circuit does not imply that no negoti-
ation exists. Rather, the metaphor alludes to the fact that for actors involved
in this circuit, the existence of conflict is an integral part of the presenting
issue, and assumes real or potential appeal for the use of force as an integral
part of negotiation. From the start, this circuit corresponds to the most clas-
sic sphere of corporate and neo-corporate representation (Schmitter 1992;
Schmitter and Lehmbruch 1979). However, as shown in the chapter by
Bensusán and Subiñas, included in this book, new actors are rising from both
national and international civil organizations that will incorporate delibera-
tive innovations into the negotiation process regarding labour rights.
Table 1.1 Types of representation circuits
Vote Force Project Word People
Repertoire Election Strikes Technical training Participation in Participation in

of actions campaigns Mass meeting, Development and institutional interfaces popular councils
INTRODUCTION: BEYOND ELECTIONS: REPRESENTATION CIRCUITS...

Proselytism protest presentation of projects (councils, committees, Expression of
Clientelism Tripartite (technical, policy- conferences, etc.) adherence to leaders
negotiations oriented, for Advocacy for the Process of
(state, business, international formation of a public subjectivation and
workers) cooperation) agenda and projects for identification with
Consultancy, pre- and laws, follow-up and leaders
post-evaluation of auditing regarding policies
projects Public demonstrations
Institutions Electoral laws Trade union Operational regulations Constitutional articles and Constitutional articles
Laws regarding laws, right to for policy areas and laws regarding and laws of popular
the party system strike, collective government programmes participation and civil power
Informal rules of bargaining and Informal regulations for association Informal rules
proselitist and so on the demand and International treaties regarding the
clientelist Informal rules of assignment of public Informal rules governing relationship of
exchange union struggles products and services the relationship between people–leader
movements and
government bureaucracy
Actors Parties Corporations, Population groups with Civil organizations “Ordinary citizens”
(principal Citizens, trade unions defined objectives (e.g., NGO networks, stable (typically
tendencies) individuals, (including groups of farmers, cattle issue networks marginalized from
clientele business breeders, women, young Government officials socio-economic
Candidates associations) people, etc., may also designated to participate benefits)
Elected officials New civil include certain NGOs) in councils, committees, Charismatic/populist
and legislators associations, Non-elected officials conferences and so on. leaders
Chiefs, punteros, defenders of Consultants
caciques, brokers labour rights
7
The “project” circuit, characterized by the metaphor, includes a

technical-bureaucratic component. It is located at the opposite extreme
to that of the force circuit and deserves careful analysis. The actors gener-
ally associated to the project circuit (officials, programme beneficiaries,
consultants, etc.) enunciate the techniques and knowledge implicit in
conflict, rather than the conflict itself, as a core element of action. Of
course, long-standing officials in Latin America have learned to avoid the
naivety of excluding the cause of conflict, of political or socio-economic
nature, in their programme considerations. Nevertheless, in this circuit the
technical criteria, such as a calling card, a calculated procedure or a regu-
latory ideal, play key roles. Studies in this book show how the technical-
bureaucratic/legal intermediation—within government programmes or
international cooperation agreements to access, defend or control a par-
ticular right (social, human, environmental, etc.)—is a typical resource in
the repertoire available to local actors. The chapters in this book written
by Valeria Guarneros (on frontline bureaucrats in Veracruz, Mexico) and
Graham Martin (on technical officials in Caracas, Venezuela) eloquently
reflect this. The chapter written by Ansolabehere and Del Valle also details
the crucial role of technical-legal knowledge in intermediation for human
rights in Mexico.
Nevertheless, taking these recurrent observations to a conceptual level
may seem risky. On the one hand, technical-bureaucratic positions, espe-
cially in a presidential system (prevalent in Latin America), are under orders
from those designated by individual citizen’s vote, and, as such, form part
of the party-election (vote) circuit. On the other hand, literature regard-
ing classic public policy characterizes the administrative sphere as precisely
a space that has separated from the world of politics (Lasswell 1992).
Elected representatives act, according to Weberian theory, with the ratio-
nale of common values (including ideology), but officials need to act with
the rationale of the intended purpose. That is, a rationale guided solely by
the idea of choosing the best means of achieving an end (Aguilar 2004).
In this way, political scientists and analysts of classic politics classify the
technical-bureaucratic circuit as an inconceivable level of representation.
Why, then, insist on a technical-bureaucratic representation circuit?
Developments within public policy studies, while not discounting the
technical-rational component, have questioned the categorical divide
between one sphere, representing political decisions, and another that
would only be applied technically.5 In accordance with current debates
on the issue, we would support efforts to systematize theoretically those
“grey areas” or blurred boundaries between decision and implementa-

tion of policies, assuming that not everything in public policy process is
representation, but that representation is, without a doubt, an important,
although generally invisible, aspect of this process.
The circuit referred to by the metaphor “word” does not make conflict
invisible as the technical circuit does. It rather assumes the reasonableness
of arguments through participation and the creation of spaces and rules
in which to raise these arguments, to be fundamental ingredients for the
access to, and defence and social control of rights. Spaces of democratic
innovation (such as councils, conferences, participative budget, etc.) are
natural (though not the only) spaces in which this circuit can manifest.
Various chapters included in this book deal with this circuit through a vari-
ety of national cases such as in Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela or Uruguay. Laws
regarding citizen participation, occasionally included in constitutional
pronouncements, form the main institutional framework for this circuit.
Furthermore, the endorsement of international treaties (in the field of
human, environmental and social rights) also constitutes frameworks of
appeal for actors. In addition, contrary to the project circuit, that of the
word is characterized by the fact that actors tend to defend socio-political
projects beyond the particular circumstances of programmatic funding.6
Finally, the circuit that we have metaphorically referred to as “people”
implies generally a symbolic process of identification with a leader, directly
related to ordinary citizens (generally previously marginalized from social
and economic benefits of national development), and which is central to
the repertoire of actions of protagonists in this circuit. Literature regard-
ing the people’s circuit is abundant, and controversial, specifically regard-
ing the use of the term populist. It is not the objective of this book to
contribute to this debate, but, rather, to differentiate the circuit con-
structed around these actors from others that have been discussed above.7
One of the most important distinctions centres on the fact that this circuit
generally, though not necessarily ipso facto, counters sovereignty arising
from elections with popular power.
Together, these four new circuits build a broader scope, and, within
it, the possibility of observing diverse political intermediation modalities
occurring which differ from electoral representation. Furthermore, these
circuits appear as new objects of study regarding representation. However,
the very language used in representation theory inhibits analysis, due to
its tendency to reduce everything that is outside of the electoral circuit to
a collection of not entirely representative practices, therefore considering
them illegitimate, incomplete or inferior. It is thus necessary to go beyond

the typology defined by the circuits and analyse, with a new common
conceptual language, these different forms of intermediation. It requires
not only a broadening of scope but also an extension of the language
employed. A new conceptual framework is needed that allows for a more
comprehensive way of comparing phenomena that may, initially, appear
incompatible, but which, viewed through a different lens, may have unex-
pectedly comparable aspects.
How then do different dimensions of representation implicit in the
actions of a myriad of actors such as committee spokespersons, street offi-
cials, union leaders, human rights defenders and elected representatives
come into dialogue? Our proposal draws on the language of intermedia-
tion in order to offer a conceptual framework capable of “travelling” easily
among various representation circuits.
Defining Intermediation
The term intermediation is broad and, in some senses, more abstract than
that of representation. Although it has been used with various objectives,
strangely enough, it has repeatedly not been related to the concept of
representation. According to dictionary definitions, intermediation has
two main meanings. First, intermediate means an “act where two or more
people or entities can reach an agreement” (DRAE, 403). Second, and in
contrast to the first, it refers to an economic activity that consists of “medi-
ating between two or more people, and especially between producers and
consumers of goods and merchandise” (DRAE, 403). What is interest-
ing about these two meanings is that the first places importance primarily
on the achievement of an agreement, and appears to suggest that who-
ever intermediates has to be neutral and impartial, devoid of any vested
interest, and averse to partial decisions in reaching agreement (including
a paid and employed third party or two disagreeing parties). The second
meaning, on the contrary, clearly allows space for economic and personal
interest.8
Implicitly, the first meaning appears to be more recurrent in the lit-
erature pertaining to legal intermediation and especially in the discourse
related to intermediation regarding labour rights. In this case, the idea of
intermediation appears to allude to the impartial intervention of a third
party (typically the State) that intervenes in labour conflicts in order to
reach agreements. The second meaning, in contrast, generally consid-
ers that the person who intermediates acquires a certain return for being
in a position to connect two actors who, without such intermediation,
would be unable to accomplish an economic exchange (e.g., the financial
intermediation that connects capital with production). This is the most
frequent connotation in the literature of brokerage and clientelist interme-
diation (Auyero 1999), and, of course, in the understanding of politicians
as rent seekers (Downs 1991[1957], 9–33). This meaning is also present
in studies regarding those who intermediate the relationship between pri-
vate corporations (Burt 1992).
It is worth noting that in no case do dictionary definitions refer to
intermediation as constituted by formal or public elections. If regarded as
intermediation, it is always alluded to as political representation, although
it implicitly shares qualities with a more general conceptualization of inter-
mediation. The differences in language appear to run parallel to the his-
torical importance acquired by electoral representation in a representative
government. Within this context, it is noteworthy that the tension between
universal or impartial (in everyone’s benefit) connotations, related to the
first meaning of intermediation, and the personal or rent-seeking connota-
tions of the second meaning is also key in the literature regarding electoral
representation (Pitkin 1967; Sartori 1980[1976]).
Over and above the tension between the meanings behind the first two
definitions exists a third, usually in dictionaries that designate the term
intermediate as that which is located between two extremes of time, size,
quality or place. In these cases, intermediation alludes to a delicate geo-
metric or time exercise that requires the ability of precise measurement. It
is interesting to underline that this third group of meanings predominates
in the Latin origin of the word.
The contrast between “universal” connotations of intermediation and
partial connotations is not seen clearly in their philological origins. By
tracing the etymology, it can be seen that in Latin (late, common Latin),
the word intermediate alludes to “s/he who is in middle” (Latin Spanish
Dictionary, DLE).9 This, in turn refers to medial: “s/he in the middle”.
The word medialia: medal, is derived from these words, meaning to
divide in equal parts and refers to the period in which sports games were
divided and winners were rewarded on the middle podium (also related
to the term medal or metal). Similarly, the terms merit or meritocracy are
derived from this word.
Regarding the Greek root of the word “means”, two etymological ori-
gins can be found. The first refers to the word medeia, literally, astute,
ingenious, mischievous. Related, in turn, to the word medos, meaning

council, plan, apparatus, device; referenced, at the same time, to the word
medein, which means “protect, generate rule regarding” and the word
med (from which the words medicine and meditate are derived): measure,
limit, consider, advise, know to take adequate measures (Greek Spanish
Dictionary, DGE).10 Alternatively, the word “means” is related to the
act of measuring, implicit in the word meter, meaning portion or mea-
surement (generally associated with a portion of land). The word is also
related to the Greek word medium, meaning “place where something is
developed or gestates” and with the word matricis, meaning pregnant
animal, and matrias (later matrix), meaning “origin or source”.11
This etymological journey allows for the identification of lines of devel-
opment in ordinary language that are not exhausted by the contradiction
posed between universal and particular types of intermediation. From this
third definition, intermediation refers to an activity that requires inge-
niousness, the capacity to measure precisely (being in the middle), while
at the same time, carry out the task on fertile ground, as a vehicle for the
gestation of something new (acting as a means to). The creative power
associated with the idea of intermediation is particularly relevant for rep-
resentation as an activity not designed simply to reproduce the world or
reflect objective preferences, but rather to transform it (Urbinati 2006;
Vieira and Runciman 2008).
From this point of view, the argument over the universal and particular
nature of representation no longer occupies a protagonist role. Instead, a
descriptive vision of the quality and nature of intermediation takes centre
stage, as a continuous dynamic ingredient that does not seek to resolve,
but rather cohabit with the normative contradiction between universal/
particular (“good” and “bad”) types of representation, about which the
literature on political representation has so obsessively focused. This third
definition helps to expand the scope that we propose. In this book, we take
the meaning of intermediation as that which refers to both “being in the
middle” and “acting as a means to”. This allows us to broaden the notion
of representation without associating it only with “good intermediation”
or with electoral representation, which is assumed, a priori, as superior.
Finally, we must define the term “political” within our definition of
intermediation to avoid concept overstretching. Not all mediated relation-
ships between two individuals or collective actors are political. As discussed
in Gurza Lavalle and Zaremberg (2014), political intermediation refers to
mediation played vertically by an actor, with positional advantages, who
connects citizens, collective actors or organizations, on the one hand, and

instances of public authority located at higher levels, on the other hand.
Political intermediation follows an asymmetrical and upward nature that
does not apply to symmetrical relations. Combining both, our definition
of intermediation (“being in the middle” and “acting as a means to”) and
this narrow definition of “political”, we argue that political intermediation
is a triadic relationship between an intermediated, an intermediary and
a superior actor. This understanding clearly departs from the traditional
definitions of representation as a dyadic relationship between a principal
(voter/represented) and its agent (candidate/representative). The short-
comings of the principal–agent model in relation to representation have
been stressed by Pitkin; the model “leads us to expect or demand features
in representative relationship which are not there and need not to be there”
(1967, 221). More recently, critical appraisals of representation point out
the limitations of traditional dyadic models (i.e., principal–agent) and
instead embrace multi-mediation models of representation (Saward 2010;
Alcoff 1992; Vieira and Runciman 2008) (Fig. 1.1).
Three Analytical Dimensions of Political Intermediation

Before exploring the analytical dimensions of political intermediation, it
is worth ruling out the tempting dimension of effectiveness/efficiency.
Although this dimension tends to calm good conscience, it makes reflec-
Superior actor
Intermediary
Intermediated
Fig. 1.1 Intermediation
as a triadic relationship
tion and research sterile. From the viewpoint of the interests of the inter-
mediated, no existing modality of political intermediation is capable of
guaranteeing, a priori, the effectiveness or efficiency of its results. This
implies that electoral representation does not a priori constitute the most
effective form of intermediation. What makes political intermediation
effective or not depends on a set of contingent factors—electoral legis-
lation, profile of existing political parties, political circumstances and
so on—that are worth separating out from our definition. As discussed
below, discarding this dimension does not imply abandoning the substan-
tive issues regarding interests and preferences of those intermediated, as
classically suggested by the idea of “good representation” or acting in the
“best interest of the represented”. Maintaining these substantive issues
does not mean restoring formulaic answers to theories based on electoral
representation either, but rather redefining them with a degree of abstrac-
tion that allows for the separation of a specific institutional modality of
intermediation (electoral representation) from the characteristics of other
forms of intermediation that may be more favourable to the intermediated
(other types of circuits).
The analytical dimensions of intermediation need to be defined in such
a way as to equate the formal and substantive properties of the various
modalities of political intermediation (circuits), without preordaining the
attributes of electoral representation as superior. Furthermore, we endeav-
our to preserve a discussion with the accumulation of systemic reflec-
tions offered by contemporary theories of representation. This has meant
specifying sufficiently abstract categories in order to allow empirical cases,
regardless of morphology, to hold comparable positions.
We begin with a crucial dimension, for which electoral representation
tends to impose itself as a parameter: authority (Pitkin 1967). Clearly,
one of the main difficulties in considering diverse forms of political
intermediation without opposing electoral representation is their lack of
authority. With good reason, this arouses suspicion regarding their legiti-
macy (Przeworski 2002). Nevertheless, expressed, universal and institu-
tionalized authority, as an integral part of electoral representation, is not
easily applicable to other modalities of intermediation, not even when pub-
licly expressing defence of a particular group (advocacy), and even less so
when the defended causes are diffuse or not associated with a constituted
social group (e.g., activities in defence of the rights of future generations,
animals or nature). Furthermore, authority may not even be desirable in
certain cases of public voice, as evidenced by civil society organizations
(CSOs) working for the defence of human rights and for causes that are
contrary to the majority in the context of daily life (such as gender equality
in Islamic countries).
We consider authority as an expression of a more general dimension:
internal recognition, and not necessarily as vertical authority of those that
are intermediated. Elections are formal mechanisms, with highly institu-
tionalized authority that guarantees the recognition of functions of rep-
resentation exercised by representatives, although the possibility always
exists of disagreeing with specific decisions taken. Traditional figures of
authority also have ways of gaining recognition of the people who can be
institutionalized.
To recognize the exercising of functions does not mean approval of the
content of the decisions themselves (and neither is this the case regarding
electoral authority), but rather of the legitimacy of the functions exercised.
Two other possibilities exist. The first consists of having knowledge of
intermediation but not agreeing with it, that is, knowing but not recog-
nizing (e.g., this is what the literature tends to refer to as “clientelist”).
The second possibility is to be unaware of intermediation, as is the case
with some advocacy CSOs.12
The nature of this analytical dimension is thought about as internal rec-
ognition of political intermediation or, if preferred, ex parte populi. Those
represented, or those whose interests and opinions are politically mediated
by others, can only guide their behaviour in relation to the intermediation
exercised, if they know of its existence (see Fig. 1.2).
The second dimension of intermediation refers to accountability, nor-
mally thought of as control of the representative by the represented. This is
the model, par excellence, of electoral representation informed by it. This
model has at least one supposition that is worth reviewing: the idea that
the relationship between representative and represented responds to the
principal (elector/represented) and agent (elected/representative) model
(see, e.g., Manin et al. 1999). This is the dominant model in empirical and
theoretical literature regarding the relationship between accountability
- ______________________+________________________++
Ic Without knowledge Ib knowledge Ia recognion
(knowledge without consent) (knowledge with consent)
Fig. 1.2 Dimension of recognition

and representation, possibly given the convenience of its democratic prin-

ciple, according to which, individuals have the competency to decide for
themselves (self-determination or self-governance), under the premise
that we are all equal. As such, within the liberal model, these are primarily
represented are interests (Young 2002). However, this was not always the
consensual model, as shown most eloquently in Burke’s doctrine (1774;
Pitkin 1967) regarding the objective rather than individual nature of
interests. In this case, the one-to-one relationship that is assumed in the
agent–principal model is barely faithful to the real dynamic of electoral
representation, beginning with the fact that motives for voting are diverse,
and in most cases, an imaginary contract or agreement is hardly unidimen-
sionally construed (Campilongo 1988).
The aim here is not to discard, at the stroke of a pen, the substantive
issues or the democratic spirit that underlies the idea of accountability, but
rather to consider it within the broader concepts of “social accountabil-
ity” (in Spanish, control social) and practices of intermediation. Of course,
diverse understandings of accountability exist, from minimalist and lax,
that accept it as any form of responsibility, information or sanction of
public authorities (Schedler 1999, 13–28; Fox 2006), to demanding and
restrictive understandings that define accountability through the simul-
taneous presence of the obligation to inform and of the mechanisms to
sanction (Gurza Lavalle and Isunza Vera 2010).
We consider social accountability as the set of constraints that confine
the behaviour and decisions of those who exercise political intermediation
in relation to the perspectives, opinions and interests of those mediated
(Young 2002). It is well known that the vote is a weak mechanism of con-
straint or has little capacity for induction (Manin et al. 1999). Furthermore,
economic costs or prestige, systems of customs and practices, peer interde-
pendence, dependence on resources and on various grassroots institutions
or cultural organizations restrict the universe in which the intermediator
can act and decide. Even “clientelism”, with all the negative connotations
that have been attributed to it in the literature, is a practice of political
intermediation, constrained by the particular interest of the “clientele”,
which only makes sense within an exchange economy of resources, albeit
its power imbalances.
The poles of this analytical dimension are ordered in terms of almost
discretional intermediation on one side and are subject to strong con-
straints on the other. The first pole is almost discretionary. There is a logi-
cal rationale for not only naming it “discretionary” as the exercising of
- _______________________+________________________++
IIc Almost discreonal IIb moderate constraints IIa strong constraints
Fig. 1.3 Dimension of constraint
any type of political intermediation is hardly exempted from any consid-

eration on the part of the mediated. “Constraint” assumes an action that,
by definition, does not annul the differences and constitutive asymmetries
between parts at play in any political intermediation (see Fig. 1.3).
Finally, the third analytical dimension seeks to introduce an issue that
is often difficult to deal with, commonly addressed by democratic the-
ory as the substantive nucleus of representation. Democratic representa-
tion assumes that acting on behalf of someone amounts not only to the
consideration of their apparent preferences or implicit values but also to
their decision on the basis of “acting in the best interest of” (Pitkin 1967;
Manin et al. 1999). This perspective assumes that it is possible to differen-
tiate between “interest” and “true interest”.
Should representatives position themselves in favour of the nation, safe-
guarding a position that is distant from particularities in order to act in
the name of all, or should they defend the particular interests of their
constituencies and act as an interested party?13 Theories of representation
resolve this question by referring to the independence of the representative
(Burke 1774; Manin 1997). Thanks to this independence, representatives
may determine the best decision and be accountable for the consequences.
However, the separation between true interest and apparent interest
appears unsatisfactory to us, while the alternative of representatives’ inde-
pendence takes too much for granted. For example, this separation leads
us to ignore the effects of the electoral cycle on representatives’ decisions
regarding expenditure, which in turn may result in irresponsible deci-
sions, while granting representatives “superior qualities” that differentiate
them from those represented because of their supposed ability to discern
between “true” and “false” interests.
For scholars analysing these issues, the normative trap (true inter-
est vs. apparent interest) continuously emerges. From the position
of an observer, is it possible to externally attribute something to be
represented as “true”? What would be considered truthful in the rep-
resented interest (“truly” democratic, modern, popular, humanist,
revolutionary, etc.)? There is no clear, let alone objective, answer to
these questions.
The tension between true and apparent interests, as an inherent con-

tradiction of representation, needs a detour following a different episte-
mological perspective. Once again, the actors’ perspective, as commented
at the beginning of this introduction, is most useful as it provides the
opportunity of recognizing the definition of “true interest” as part of the
game played by actors involved in intermediation.
What is important is not to define ex ante the criteria that would deter-
mine whether or not reliable content is generated in relation to the inter-
ests of the represented, but rather to unravel the ways in which the very
actors involved in intermediation construct this content. Thus, the sub-
stantive dimension of representation loses normative substance and gains
dynamic content. On this basis, it is fundamental to warn that the con-
struction of content considered more or less legitimate with regard to the
relationship between represented and representative is always, to a greater
or lesser degree, a generally asymmetrical, conflictive process.
Having said that, conflict is initially defined as a unique social rela-
tionship where the confrontation between forces is the measure of the
relationship. From a Weberian perspective, conflict supposes a game of
resistance between “forces” (collective, identity, etc.) and an imposition of
wills. A crucial aspect to the way in which the game is developed is a rule
constituent of other rules, namely what the literature refers to as a com-
mon system encompassing the rules of conflict.14
According to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985), the demo-
cratic political and representation systems are the result of the acceptance
and subsequent institutionalization of conflict (that defines who will par-
ticipate in the “space left by the power vacuum” and how the occupancy
of this space will rotate) (Lefort 1992). Furthermore, for Mouffe (2003),
the political is constituted by a predominantly Schmittian nature: always
an intrinsically conflictive social relationship that results in an ontological
contradiction between liberalism and democracy.15
We do not seek to defend vigorously the latter ontological principle.
In fact, we would argue that valid and less demanding theoretical ver-
sions exist of this principle.16 Nevertheless, it is useful to identify how
actors position themselves in a conflict inherent to the construction of
content to be represented. Should the contenders accept the reality of
an open conflict, the conflict itself would be legitimized. Agonism is thus
defined by the existence of certain common ground rules between con-
tenders in which the impossibility of subsuming conflicts to a single order
located outside a temporary change is accepted. Antagonism, in contrast,
is defined by the “clash” between two forces that confront one another
without sharing common ground rules, as they do not recognize the irre-
deemable existence of the “other” with interests, demands or beliefs that
are different and opposed to their own.17
The above formulation shows that the substantive issue remains in our
scheme, but cleansed of some of its most intractable aspects. This pro-
posal includes the degree to which interests are “refined and enlarged”
as expressed in the now classic formulation by the Federalists (specifically
Hamilton), not as a product of the characteristics of the intermediator, but
rather as the presence of different ways of processing the content in dis-
pute in the intermediation. From a conceptual viewpoint, this dimension
of intermediation centres on the tension between agonism and antago-
nism. What is interesting here is the degree of agonism permitted by the
characteristics of the modalities of the intermediation in question. The
poles of this third analytical dimension are ordered from antagonism,
where actors are oriented towards the nullification of the other; as such,
within this pole, attempts exist to silence the content defined by some of
the parts. The dimension then passes through a restrictive agonism, in
which this silencing is only tolerated under certain restrictive conditions,
and finally culminates with the opposite pole in which agonism is open or
(almost) unrestricted (see Fig. 1.4).
The Cube of Political Intermediation (CPI)

The integrated dimensions of this analytical model give rise to a three-
dimensional space in which it is possible to locate along its axes the
modalities of indirect politics, that is, political intermediation. The CPI
(see Fig. 1.5) allows different experiences of intermediation to be plotted
and thereby compared.
This three-dimensional space is represented as follows: each analytical
dimension corresponds to one of the axes of the cube. Only the extreme
categories are represented (I.a., I.c., II.a., II.c., III.a., III.c.). If one con-
siders the axes as force vectors, the positions close to the poles of recogni-
_______________________+________________________++
IIIa antagonism IIIb restricted agonism IIIc unrestricted agonism
Fig. 1.4 Substantive dimension of representation

Strong
constraints
Unrestricted agonism
Antagonism
Almost discreonal
Without
Recognion
knowledge
Fig. 1.5 Cube of political intermediation (CPI)
tion (I a), strong constraints (II a) and unrestricted agonism (III a) shift
towards the upper, back, right vertex of the cube, while the modalities
of political intermediation located close to the poles without knowledge
(I c), almost discretional (II c) and antagonism (III c) shift towards the
lower, front, left vertex (see Fig. 1.5).
As a result, we have an axis of basic tension that diagonally crosses the
cube from one vertex to the other in a continuum. For example, average
electoral representation would occupy a position defined by three values:
recognition followed by moderate to low constraints, and unrestricted
to restricted agonism. To the degree that political decisions are taken by
elected representatives, based on the principle of a simple majority, we
have a representation system closer to restricted agonism with a lesser
degree of constraint. Alternatively, if, for example, we add proportional
mechanisms to the presence of internal party elections or administrative
control of the electoral process, we would shift towards both unrestricted
agonism and greater constraints.
The cases included in this book undertake the exercise of locating dif-
ferent experiences on the dimensions of the cube, based on the breadth
of observation offered by the representation circuits. The four chapters
included in the first section emphasize intermediation within the con-

text of democratic innovation together with electoral representation. The
chapters in the second section offer varied analyses of CPI that are devel-
oped through the different disciplines addressed by each one.
The first chapter, written by Romao, Gurza Lavalle and Zaremberg,
looks at the circuit of word and analyses the councils and conferences in
national health and gender equality policies in Brazil. These are based on
the accumulated results of research and secondary information system-
atized over time. The CPI in action also enables us to locate different rep-
resentation circuits that act in unison and are blended in. This is the case
of the chapter written by Graham Martin that analyses, through ethno-
graphic techniques, the case of a communal council in Caracas, Venezuela.
He shows how the people and project circuits (see Table 1.1) interweave.
This articulation, analysed within the framework of the CPI, enables an
understanding of the Venezuelan situation beyond typical dichotomies
commonly addressed in the scholarly debate.
The chapter by Martin Freigedo, based on an analysis of an atypical case
of the recent municipalization in Uruguay, is similarly interesting. In this
case, the antagonistic dynamic of the vote circuit itself resulted in the cre-
ation of spaces of participation. This shows how participative institutions,
acting from the word circuit (see Table 1.1), complement the electoral
representation circuit, and, surprisingly, contribute elements of agonism
that the vote circuit had been unable to establish. The chapter by Moira
Zuazo offers a dynamic application of the typology of circuits and the
CPI, by outlining the historical transformation of the participative institu-
tion known as “Control Social” in Bolivia, from the time of its inclusion in
the Bolivian constitution to the current day. The chapter highlights a pro-
cess that started from the force circuit and moved towards the word cir-
cuit, while passing through intermediation loaded with antagonism, but
with high levels of recognition. Over time, intermediation shifted towards
higher degrees of agonism, though accompanied by a decrease in the rec-
ognition of social associations that acted as intermediaries.
The chapter by Ansolabehere and Del Valle also allows us to observe
a creative application of the typology of circuits proposed by a grass-
roots faith organization promoting human rights. The chapter shows
a fusion between attributes of the technical-bureaucratic circuit (proj-
ect), specifically in the legal technical terrain, interwoven with elements
of the word circuit. This, together with the application of the CPI,
enables an understanding of the agonistic construction of representa-
tive content within the context of extreme violence of northern Mexico.

Valeria Guarneros’s chapter, through ethnographic techniques, offers
an analysis that details the role of intermediation by frontline munici-
pal bureaucrats implementing a programme of citizen security in Las
Truchas, State of Veracruz, Mexico. This analysis shows the impor-
tance of considering the technical-bureaucratic circuit from the per-
spective of intermediation, thereby allowing an integrated application
of the CPI, while showing how the recognition dimension becomes
crucial in policy implementation. Finally, the chapter by Bensusán and
Subiñas, which focuses on the force circuit, contrasts cases of more
traditional union representation (of the hegemonic era of the PRI in
Mexico) with more innovative forms (by new civil organizations and
national and transnational social movements). In an original way, they
show how, within the context of globalized economies, new forms of
conflict resolution around labour rights have developed. Collectively,
the chapters in this book offer a rich and relevant range of experi-
ences with which to observe the relationships between the conceptual
framework presented here and their empirical cases, taking account of
the various repertoires of intermediation that actors construct in order
to broaden representation for the access, defence and social control of
citizens’ rights in Latin America.
Notes
1. This and the following narratives come from field logbooks and
in-depth interviews conducted during the research entitled
“Networks and Hierarchies, representation, networks and local
governance in Latin America”, financed by International
Development Research Centre, Canada, from 2008 to 2011
(Zaremberg 2012; Zaremberg and Muñoz 2013), and from focus
groups developed in the framework of the project entitled “Behind
the threads of Theseus: intermediation and representation in Latin
America”, financed by FORD LASA during 2012. Names of
respondents and certain movements have been changed and only
vague references are made to geographical locations in order to
preserve the anonymity of the respondents.
2. The mission system comprised a series of social programmes devel-
oped by Hugo Chavez’s government in 2003. The Robinson
Mission, in particular, was designed to combat illiteracy.
3. Our definition of rights arises from the notion that includes, but is
not limited to, civil, political and social rights as characterized by
the classic tripartite classification proposed by Marshall (1950).
Exercising citizenship transcends its legal characterization as rights
granted. Citizenship is perceived as civic-political identity, and in
this sense we understand that citizenship is considered to be a pro-
cess of fighting for “the right to have rights” (Jones and Gaventa
2002). Allusion is made in this book to rights that include cases
where intermediation can be identified in the fight for different
rights: from those more classically recognized (such as labour
rights) to those related to the protection and reparation of victims,
included more recently in the expanded framework of human
rights (Sikkink and Kim 2013), and encompassing those rights
related to participation in order to access goods and services (pub-
lic lighting, running water, etc.).
4. The theory of networks states that a closed circuit is a sequence of
complete circulation, perfectly distinguishable within a network
(technically, a sequence where no point or line is repeated). See
Harary (1969). We have translated this idea to sequences of inter-
mediation in which it is possible to distinguish clearly certain actors
and relationships that recurrently appear in a similar way.
5. The frontiers of public policy have shifted. On the one hand, there
is a move towards political aspects of public policy (Stein and
Tommasi 2006), while, on the other hand, literature regarding
governance has gained momentum, such as networks of public
policy and inter-organizational bodies where civil and political
actors have greater influence (Rhodes 1997, 2000; Marsh and
Smith 2000; Kooiman 2000; Jordan et al. 2005). Regarding the
study of implementation, the classic studies by Pressman and
Wildavsky (1984) and Mazmanian and Sabatier (1981) are noted.
6. A paradigmatic example is the Brazilian health movement that
started in the 1960s and continues to this day, in which actors
became agents and, later, protagonists in health councils at all lev-
els of government. This permitted, among other things, the cre-
ation and consolidation of the single Health System, Sistema Único
de Saúde, leader in Latin America (Dowbor 2009).
7. For example, Laclau (1990) has been a prolific author, and some of
his concepts have been taken up by Arditi (2000). Aibar (2007)
and Aibar and Vázquez (2009) offer a clear overview of the main
literature covering this issue. In the field of enunciation, the work

of Sigal and Verón (1986) is recommended for its understanding
of the symbolic relationship between the people and their leader.
8. For a detailed discussion on the characteristics of brokers in the
economic and political sphere, see Stovel and Shaw (2012).
9. The following dictionaries were consulted: Online Etymology
Dictionary, Diccionario Latin Español, Diccionario Griego
Español, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology Pierre Grimal
and The Oxford Classical Dictionary.
10. It is interesting to note that in Greek mythology, this word was
related to Medea, goddess of witchcraft, who knew how to prepare
the “means” in adequate measures for the potions of her spells.
11. These meanings in Greek and Roman mythology relate to the god-
dess Demeter, goddess of agriculture, whose origin can be divided
into the words Da—Dorian transformation of the pre Indo-
European term Ge, meaning Gaia, that is land—and meter, meaning
mother (also measurement, portion, source, origin, parent) (see
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology, Pierre Grimal, DMGR).
12. Similar to what Burke (1792) sharply referred to as virtual represen-
tation, although in this case the perspective of an external observer,
capable of recognizing the represented interest, does not exist.
13. In Pitkin (1967) this tension is analysed both theoretically and his-
torically in terms of what is expected from political representation
as a modality of substantive representation that assumes acting for
someone. In this sense, the repeated presence of the represented
(and their demands, particular interests, etc.) does not easily agree
with the mission of representing the general good or the “higher
good of the nation” over those of private interests. N evertheless,
the duality between representative and represented, as a constitu-
tive duality of representation, receives markedly ambiguous treat-
ment in Pitkin (Gurza Lavalle 2014; Gurza Lavalle et al. 2006).
14. Literature regarding political conflict has been prolific regarding
this dimension (Zaremberg and Muñoz 2013).
15. Consequently, for Mouffe, conflict is not eradicable from modern
politics. Consensus reached is the result of a particular hegemonic
configuration that crystalized a certain power relationship; it
becomes a “conflictive consensus” (Mouffe 2003, 116).
16. To narrow the important ontological differences, a friendlier con-
ceptual bridge can be constructed that does not suggest a contra-
diction between liberalism and democracy. Albert Hirschman’s

idea regarding indivisible and divisible conflicts can link, from a
different theoretical perspective, the ideas of agonism versus antag-
onism, presented below (Balán 2010).
17. According to Laclau, an interesting paradox arises here: each iden-
tity is threatened by the other. At the same time, however, it is this
“other” that defines each identity (Ranciere 1996; Laclau 2000a,b;
Žižek 1999).
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CHAPTER 2
Political Intermediation and Public Policy

in Brazil: Councils and Conferences
in the Policy Spheres of Health
and Women’s Rights
Wagner de Melo Romão, Adrián Gurza Lavalle,
and Gisela Zaremberg
Adrián Gurza Lavalle thanks the support by the Center for Metropolitan Studies
(CEM), grant nr. 2013/07616-7, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).
W. de Melo Romão (*)

Department of Political Science, University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
A. Gurza Lavalle
Department of Political Science, University of São Paulo (USP),
São Paulo, Brazil
G. Zaremberg

32 W. DE MELO ROMÃO ET AL.
Introduction
In promoting participatory democratic innovations, Brazil is viewed as
a paradigmatic case with unmatched diversity, territorial capillary and
policy influence. In this chapter political intermediation by two of the
most consolidated experiences of participatory democracy in Brazil will
be described, those of the councils and conferences. We assume that the
varied nuances of these paradigmatic participatory institutions (PIs) per-
taining to the “word circuit,” described in the introduction of this book,
are analysed.
Using the three dimensions of the cube of political intermediation
(CPI), the chapter argues that a thorough characterization of PIs requires
the incorporation of policy community (PC) profiles amidst which these
institutions operate. This argument is significant because even within a
political context that is favourable to participatory democratic innova-
tions, policy areas or domains (Birkland 2005; Capella and Brasil 2015),
alongside their respective communities, present variations. This exercise
demands a close examination of not only the overlooked role of actors
in PIs (e.g., executive power, bureaucracy, professional associations and
unions), but also of the variation of actors found within civil society—
something that in the literature is often taken to be homogeneous or
studied in a generalized fashion through indicators on organizational vital-
ity or associationalism. In this regard, incorporating an analysis of policy
communities can considerably enrich the description of the councils and
conferences. Without a doubt, the general definitions and typologies of
PIs—councils, conferences, participatory budgets, hearings, consultations
and so on—provide analytic advantages, but as they tend to focus on a
stylized description of their basic institutional design, there is a risk of
masking the different interests, conflicts and challenges that exist between
the respective communities of actors embedded in the governance of each
particular policy domain.
With these objectives in mind, policy management councils and national
policy conferences on health and women’s rights will be examined as two
distinct policy areas. Though less well known internationally than par-
ticipatory budgets (Fung and Wright 2001), the councils and conferences
are more institutionalized and have a much broader territorial presence
in municipalities. Their high degree of institutionalization is particularly
relevant for the analytical purposes of this chapter, as it shows how the
POLITICAL INTERMEDIATION AND PUBLIC POLICY IN BRAZIL: COUNCILS... 33
three dimensions of the CPI provide a richer and more robust analysis
than those studies only focused on the basic institutional design of PIs.
Given our interest in understanding the political intermediation carried
out by the councils and conferences, while considering their variation as
a function of the PCs, purely institutional descriptions will be avoided
and more specific and sensitive typologies to policy areas will be intro-
duced. The evidence presented is based on results from previous studies,
ongoing research and a growing specialized bibliography. With regard to
conferences, the chapter draws on a comparative study of the most recent
versions of conferences (Romão 2015a). Regarding councils, a recent,
exhaustive national study is drawn on the study by Gurza Lavalle and
Barone (2015).
In order to weave together the two arguments―the PCs/PIs and
the CPI―the chapter has been organized into four sections. The first
presents the concept of PCs and its variants, articulating it with the dimen-
sions of the CPI. The second discusses the development of the councils
and conferences and their position within health and women’s rights poli-
cies. In the third, the selected councils and conferences are analysed in the
light of the three dimensions of the cube. Lastly, final considerations are
presented.
Policy, Politics and Policy Communities

To understand the general contours of the conflicts in each policy domain
and the expectations of its actors, it is necessary to look at the character-
istics of each policy area and the goods and services it produces. This was
done by Lowi (1964) in a pioneering study that conceptualized distribu-
tive, regulatory and redistributive policies. But this does not replace the
need to analyse the role of actors, especially when dealing with a policy
cycle that involves participatory processes, thereby broadening institu-
tional policy governance (Rhodes 1996).
Policy areas may have distinct sets of actors with varied capacity to act
in different contexts and moments. In this way, actors with an ongoing
presence in the governance of policies under examination are considered
to be the policy community (PC). The term was coined by John Kingdon
(1995) to indicate mechanisms to produce and disseminate alternatives to
policy agendas.
A leading characteristic of PCs, in addition to having a common inter-
est in a given policy, is the fact that they comprise actors who interact
among themselves and are familiar with, to a greater or lesser extent, the
positions of the others even if they do not necessarily agree. It is a funda-
mentally empirical category, which Kingdon uses to compare PCs around
health and transportation policy. But, given the scant theoretical develop-
ment introduced by Kingdon, it is difficult to establish the conceptual
contours of this category and the differentiation between tightly knit and
fragmented PCs introduced by the author barely serves to clarify them.
Kingdon’s term is not the only one describing the set of actors mobi-
lized in a given policy area. Other terms have been offered, such as issue
networks (Heclo 1978) or policy networks (Rhodes 1988). In general, such
concepts reveal the presence of patterned relationships between socio-
political actors who seek to influence the formulation of public policies,
beyond rigid distinctions between State and society.
While relationships between actors in the PCs occur in varied circum-
stances—public and private—in the case of Brazilian councils and confer-
ences they are set up by legislation (though not exclusively). As such, we
assume that the PIs are bodies made up of, and connected by, a set of
relevant actors within the PCs of each policy area. Given their institutional
characteristics, the councils comprise a narrower set of representatives,
while the conferences include a more numerous set. Both PIs are formed
by representatives of groups interested in the policy in question.
To develop an analysis that articulates the PCs of councils and confer-
ences within the dimensions of the CPI, it is useful to look at the vari-
ous configurations that the latter may assume. For the purposes of this
chapter, and to simplify the use of the concept, three PC configurations
are considered1: (1) Homogeneous policy communities: these have shared
principles and values, with frequent interaction between actors suggest-
ing joint construction of the policy domain. Here negotiation takes
place at a low intensity or around secondary issues; in other words, the
essential elements of policy are not questioned or are marginally ques-
tioned. (2) Heterogeneous policy communities: for these the general prin-
ciples and values of the policy remain in dispute and interaction between
actors is intermittent. They tend towards exclusive power clusters, and
leave some groups outside the construction of the policy. No actual
negotiation takes places, as disputes are a game in which a group may
ultimately be excluded from the policy formulation or decision-making
process. (3) Policy proto-communities: this is similar to the concept of
social movements. Despite declaring shared principles and values, as in
the case of homogeneous policy communities, these are still far from
being agents who produce policy, due largely to the fact that the con-
struction of policy is still incipient. As a result, the community is more
a set of collective actors exerting pressure on policy design, in which, at
best, they can occupy positions of little discretion within the State. The
three configurations, of course, straddle the rigid division between State
and society.
The political intermediation exercised by the councils and conferences
acquires more nuanced and stable contours if it is examined along two
dimensions: (1) the institutional characteristics of the public policy in dis-
pute and (2) the characteristics of PCs and actors within the community
who participate, as part of the dispute, in the PIs (Romão 2015b). As seen
in the following sections, although the councils and conferences share
basic institutional features, they carry out distinct political intermediation
functions.
Councils, Conferences and Their Role in Policy

Two contextual characteristics, often forgotten in international compara-
tive literature, have played a favourable role in the development of PIs in
Brazil (at least until 2016). First, as has been shown in previous studies
(Gurza Lavalle et al. 2014), the presence of a highly competitive party sys-
tem—led by the Workers Party (PT) and the Brazilian Social Democratic
Party (PSDB)—has had an effect on democratic participatory innovations.
This associates a political cost to the elimination of PIs, while permitting
varying degrees of proximity or distance, without direct conflict, between
innovations and more traditional mechanisms of electoral party represen-
tation. As a result, PIs maintain, and in some cases consolidate, their func-
tions in the definition, management and supervision of public policies.
Second, the 1988 Constitution conferred the status of autonomous enti-
ties to the municipalities within the federation; that is, while federalism is
generally defined by a dual relationship between the federation and the
state level, in Brazil there is a tripartite relationship between autonomous
entities: the federation, states (26 states and the Federal District) and
5570 municipalities. Municipalities have seen their faculties considerably
broadened, especially in service provision and policy execution, particu-
larly social policies (Andrade 2004; Anastasia 2007). Although the expan-
sion of resources and responsibilities has not been accompanied by greater
autonomy to decide the nature of policies and spending priorities (Souza
2003; Arretche 2004; Almeida 2001), the new role of municipalities in
policy operations has had a positive effect on the development of PIs at

the local level. This is seen in the case of councils and, to a lesser degree,
conferences.
Councils
The policy councils are the most institutionalized PIs and have the most
territorial capillary in Brazil. In 1999, ten years after they began their
expansion, 71.9% of the municipalities had councils for the rights of chil-
dren and adolescents, a participatory policy considered to be strategic
and mandatory by the Constitution. In contrast, during the same year,
only 21.4% of the municipalities had environmental councils, a policy area
without equivalent constitutional status. A decade later, in these same sec-
tors, the percentage grew to 91.4% and 56.3%, respectively (IBGE 2001).
The most emblematic case has been the health councils, with presence in
98% of municipalities, although other councils follow similar universalis-
ing tendencies.2 Overall, it is estimated that over 30,000 municipal coun-
cils exist in the country. There are also a smaller number of state councils
and a national council in each policy area.
The expansion of the councils stems from the Constitution, which
calls for a commitment from the State to citizen participation and what is
referred to as “shared management” of public policies, making such par-
ticipation mandatory in certain policy areas. The constitutional require-
ments do not determine the institutional characteristics of participation
nor its form or format. However, the initial regulation of participation in
health policy and the implementation of the Unified Health System (SUS)
became a reference point for PCs in other social policies in the country.
As such, the figure of the councils was adopted as the institutional format
for organizing participation at the three federal levels and in policy areas
considered to be strategic: education, health, social welfare and the rights
of children and adolescents. The “council-driven model” later expanded
to a broad range of policy areas.
The basic institutional design of the councils is similar. The composi-
tion, although bipartite, seeks parity between civil society and government,
although the meaning of “civil society” may vary in different councils. In
some cases, such as health, the unions have their own councillors and
therefore non-governmental actors constitute a majority in the council.
The composition of civil society representation tends to be defined by
segments or groups—clients, service providers, disabled people, advocacy
organizations and so on—while government participants are largely left to

the discretion of the corresponding municipal, state or federal secretariat.
The process of selecting civil society councillors is heterogeneous; within
the councils at the three levels of government, disparate and diverse meth-
ods of selection are evident: attributed by law to some institution, posi-
tions granted by appointments, agreements between civil society actors,
assemblies or elections. Powers of the councils may vary between the
different policy areas, but in general their functions include designing,
managing and overseeing policies, and coordination functions with other
participatory bodies such as the municipal conferences (Tatagiba 2004;
Isunza Vera and Gurza Lavalle, 2012).
Their institutional insertion into the policy domains also varies. These
can be organized into three main types of councils (Gurza Lavalle and
Barone 2015; Gurza Lavalle et al. 2016). The first corresponds to councils
that may be called traditional, or fully consolidated. They are organized at
the three federal levels, ensconced in policy systems or in well-structured
policy areas and incorporated into the regular functioning of their respec-
tive sectors (health, social assistance, childhood and adolescent rights).
They possess some control over funding and are granted, to a certain
extent, with institutionally backed powers to enforce or sanction. Since
the early 1990s, the federal government has heavily promoted the creation
and expansion of this first type. These councils became universal across the
country precisely because of federal incentives such as conditioning the
transfer of resources to municipalities on the establishment of councils.
The second type of council is moderately consolidated: with a structure
moderately linked to its policy area (i.e., councils on culture, housing,
rights of the elderly and the environment), but without operating under
a unified system or comprehensive institutional structure. As such, fund-
ing for these councils is irregular, their powers are not as broad and the
federal government has promoted their expansion in a more modest way,
with weaker funding incentives. Though they are organized at all federal
levels, their presence at the municipal level is uneven, comprising only 40%
of the municipalities.
In both the consolidated councils (Type 1) and, to a lesser extent, the
moderately institutionalized councils (Type 2), their function is regular,
allowing clear expectations and fostering specialization among civil soci-
ety councillors, as well as allowing councils to become a sort of sound-
ing board for resolving conflict within the sector and its PCs. Some of
the PCs use the councils as an institutional resource for advancing policy
ideas and protecting their interests. This means that, on the one hand, the
councils are not mobilizing bodies and are not governed by “lay people,”
but rather by members of interested civil organizations (activists, practi-
tioners, professionals, workers, clients) who seek to influence the composi-
tion of the council. On the other hand, actors from PCs mobilized around
specific policy matters tend to look to the councils as a way of increasing,
introducing and disseminating their demands among civil society groups
active in that policy domain.
Moreover, in these councils, both homogeneous and heterogeneous
PCs are likely to be found, depending on the specific policy area or period
of time being examined. Without a doubt, differences exist among and
between policy areas and PCs. However, those spheres with more insti-
tutional capacity tend to have more homogeneous, although not neces-
sarily inclusive, PCs that tend to agree on a basic set of political principles
and, by extension, do not resemble those heterogeneous PCs that lack an
underlying set of agreements.3
The last type incorporates a large set of councils in policy areas that
are transversal and poorly structured, or where municipalities have wider
discretionary policy powers. However, councils themselves have restricted
powers; their expansion does not stem from federal incentives, but rather
from local politics. Such is the case for councils on human rights, sports,
youth, women’s rights, racial equality, transportation and security, among
others. Councils are frequently created under the auspices of mayors and/
or members of congress, targeting specific constituencies to show that
they care about certain policy issues. The presence of these councils at
the municipal level is low; they are not stipulated by federal laws and are
found in approximately 10% of municipalities. Their creation, survival and
capacity to act depend largely on local political circumstances, which nor-
mally include disarticulated local actors. Unlike the previous two types of
councils, when links exist with other state- or national-level actors, these
do not belong to a PC. In general, PCs belong to advocacy communities,
with varying levels of influence on a given policy area, at best resembling
proto-PCs.
Conferences
Conferences have less territorial capillary than councils; however, as
will be shown, they are much more inclusive of diverse actors in their
respective PCs. Although they have existed for decades as mechanisms
for inter-institutional dialogue and articulation between federal tiers in

traditional policy areas such as health and education, it is only recently,
in the period of re-democratization, that they have become more com-
mon and comprehensive mechanisms for political mobilization. In areas
such as health, social welfare and human rights—in particular, rights
of children and adolescents—conferences were already working in the
Cardoso administration, as an instrument to build political consensus
(1995–2002). With the Lula administration (2003–2010), they not
only multiplied but also increased the number of times they were con-
vened, the number of policy areas covered and their ability to mobilize
civil society—something that continued into the Dilma administration
(2011–2016).
The conferences are participatory processes generally convened by the
federal government and organized by public policy sectors. They have a
pyramidal structure of participation where municipal and state levels gen-
erate proposals for their respective authorities and for the federal level,
taken up by elected delegates. The participatory process typically lasts six
months to one year, from convening to publishing of a final report, which
includes the minutes from deliberations and policy guidelines.
Like councils, the institutional profile of participants reflects specific
traits according to the policy area and its PCs. In general, conferences
follow representation of civil society and the government of usually
between 50:50 and 70:30. In general, they include professional catego-
ries and/or workers from the sector, civil society representatives and
public officials.
In addition to their basic organizational similarities, conferences, like
the councils, show wide variation. They are created as part of a process
towards building potential policy agreements not only between members
of the three levels of government, but also between civil servants and civil
society representatives. They typically execute three main functions: mobi-
lizing actors in the discussion of certain issues or problems, formulating
general consensus on public policy and including issues and actors in the
PCs and public agenda (Souza 2013; Romão 2015a).
Parallel to the typology of councils, a positive relationship between the
institutionalization of a policy sector and the integration of its PCs is seen
with the conferences, but given the more inclusive nature of the confer-
ences, the traits of the PCs take on an even more notable role. Without
suggesting a direct causal relationship between the two—institutionaliza-
tion and integration—we propose that certain levels of institutionalization
in a policy sector tend to correspond with a similar level of maturity in PCs.

Three basic types of this correspondence exist that occur in the conferences.
The first type relates to institutionalized conferences, where the PCs
manifest a high degree of concordance between actors regarding the
principles and goals of the policy, while at the same time relatively close
contact exists between formalized actors and bodies of the public debate.
Participants bargain based on the likelihood of creating win-win scenarios
and conflicts tend to focus on secondary aspects of the policy. This matu-
rity in the PCs as well as in the policy domain fosters the robust role
of conferences within the policy cycle, hence becoming relevant in the
evolution of the sector. Conferences of this type define policy guidelines
not only for the debate in the councils but also for decisions made by
the executive and legislative branches at the three levels of government.
They are institutionalized conferences that present thematic uniformity
at municipal and state levels, present in a large number of municipalities
and in all states. This type of conference is particularly strong in the health
sector where they have been in place, playing a relevant role before the
democratic transition and the 1988 Constitution. This has left a profound
mark on the development of public health. In fact, the SUS matured dur-
ing the years of the dictatorship in a series of conferences.
The second type refers to conferences of agenda disputes. These exist in
sectors with a middling level of institutionalization associated with incipi-
ent organizational efforts such as federal policy systems, with restrictive or
irregular resources from the federal budget. These conferences bring few
mechanisms to induce or enforce matters related to policy and are associ-
ated with very heterogeneous PCs and ongoing disagreements around the
principles of the policy’s orientation. They do not exist to form long-term
consensus on policy direction, given that this type of conference is created
as a space where a plurality of agendas is in conflict. Deliberation may be
received in a number of contradictory ways depending on the methodol-
ogy used to prioritize and choose proposals. These conferences do not
evolve into a space to formulate policy; on the contrary, they become
stages where parties attempt to persuade each other, at times without
success. Depending on the distance between the contrasting positions
between government, civil society and professional groups, polarization
and segmentation may occur. Rival groups may dominate the municipal
and state conferences.
The third type refers to mobilization conferences. These are found
in transversal policy areas which tend to show a minimal level of
institutionalization; they are not policy systems and do not receive regular
resource transfers. Often, access to funding depends on personal initia-
tives and clientelism. These policy areas tend to register little develop-
ment within municipalities and also at the state level, which results in a
lack of internal or sectoral accountability. The corresponding PCs may
be best understood as proto-communities. They are little developed and
relatively fragmented, presenting varied policy proposals—from small net-
works of civil society organizations and activist groups that, committed
to the defence of certain principles for the emerging policy, act within
government bureaucracies or civil society. As such, these conferences
constitute spaces of national articulation for the groups, where ideas may
be presented for public consumption. They thereby become a space for
mobilization activities to strengthen their cause before government and
public opinion. Their territorial capillary in municipalities is low and they
are relatively weak at the state level, tending to be only present where civil
society organizations or pioneering groups for the policy matter exist.
Health and Women’s Rights Policies

in the Councils and Conferences: Applying
the Cube of Intermediation
The typologies of councils and conferences make it clear that important

variations exist regarding policy areas and their respective PCs, which
affect the capacity of these PIs to act. This variation, therefore, shapes
their functions of political intermediation (recognition, constraints and
agonism). The intention here is to use health and women’s rights policies
as examples of how it is possible to articulate the political intermedia-
tion capacity of the councils and conferences. These policy areas are used
because they mark extremes: full sectoral institutionalization with homo-
geneous PCs (health) and very limited institutionalization in a transversal
policy area with proto-PCs (women’s rights).
For methodological convenience, the focus is placed on the national
level for each of the PIs under analysis; this reduces the number of
cases and renders them more manageable, thus allowing a simpler exer-
cise. Nonetheless, some data will be provided at the sub-national level
in order to complement the analysis, in particular, to show the differ-
ent degrees of institutionalization and consolidation of the policy areas
under discussion.
The Recognition Dimension

In the recognition dimension, what matters is the extent to which the
councils and conferences are converted into arenas where representatives
are recognized as legitimate. While agreement does not necessarily exist
with regard to the content of the representatives’ decisions, there is agree-
ment as to the legitimacy of their functions. The dimension has three posi-
tions: (1) without knowledge, (2) knowledge and (3) recognition.
In health policy, a federalized system currently exists organized at the
three levels of government, which is functional in nearly all municipalities.
The system has specific funding for municipalities and the transfer of these
resources is conditioned upon policy execution in compliance with federal
mandates. The national, state and municipal councils are an essential part
of SUS and guarantee social accountability of budget transfers. The PCs
have historically participated in the conception, approval and implementa-
tion of SUS and in the modalities of participation within the health sys-
tem. These PCs remain active in councils due to the proportional division
of representatives: 50% users (members of social movements and local civil
society organizations and associations of the system’s groups of users),
25% workers (members of unions and professional associations such as
doctors, nurses or pharmacists) and 25% public administrators and ser-
vice providers. These proportions are also found in municipal, state and
national health conferences, which are held every four years. Their stabil-
ity and consolidation ensures that members of the councils and confer-
ences are chosen to participate based on their profiles as specialists. These
PIs become bodies for defining, managing and overseeing policies for the
PC which in turn are interested in electing representatives for their own
group. In addition, those members who act in councils and conferences
become linked to each other, and resolutions of the latter inform actions
of the former. The fully consolidated nature of these PIs and their inser-
tion into the regular functioning of a highly structured policy system help
define an intermediation with high levels of recognition. The profile and
actions of the councillors and conference members who compete for these
positions are widely recognized by the sector’s community because the
councils and conferences are understood by the PC to be the result of
a long-term struggle for health reform. The greater the extent to which
councillors and conference members for groups of workers and physi-
cians are elected by their unions and professional organizations, which
follow internal accountability rules and are aligned to the goals of SUS,
the greater tends to be the weight of their recognition.
In contrast, policies related to women’s rights rest on a more frag-

mented and limited legal foundation, which addresses varied issues, from
violence against women to laws against gender-based discrimination in
the workplace. However, a unified legal framework, a single sectoral pol-
icy with specific funds or a federalized policy are all non-existent. It is a
transversal policy sphere, with a low level of institutionalization requiring,
moreover, continual reaffirmation.
Perhaps due to these characteristics, the creation of the National
Council for Women (CNDM) became a framing space, included as part of
the Secretariat of Women’s Policy (SPM), dependent upon the President’s
Cabinet Office since 2011. Currently, CNDM acts more as a collegiate
entity charged with social overseeing and promotion of policies for women
with a gender perspective, with clear rules for selecting councillors. The
CNDM and its corresponding national conferences are products of a his-
torical struggle by the feminist movement and are valued as such by their
respective proto-PCs, though this network is significantly less dense and
organized than the health sector PCs. Nonetheless, at sub-national levels
the implementation of councils has been low and present in only 15% of
municipalities in 2013 (Gutterres et al. 2014). A recent study has shown
that while in 1988 there were health councils in 0.4% of the municipalities
and 0.1% of women’s councils, by 2009 nearly 96% of municipalities had
created health councils, while women’s councils were in only 10% (Gurza
Lavalle and Barone 2015). For the conferences, in a report from the III
National Conference (December 12–15, 2011), it was noted that 2000
municipal conferences (about 36% of municipalities) were convened and
attended by roughly 200,000 women. While this is an impressive number,
it stands short in contrast to the nearly universal implementation of health
conferences at municipal level.
The CNDM is made up of 41 members: 16 represent the federal pub-
lic sector and 21 represent civil society organizations elected through a
regulated process defined by public edict. An additional three women
are chosen for their extensive knowledge of gender issues and experience
with the women’s rights movement, and one is an emeritus councillor.
The selection process is accepted by the organizations within the PC and
by public sector officers who work on gender issues; this is due to agree-
ments reached among themselves and guarantees put in place to ensure
that rules are followed. As a result, the recognition of CNDM council-
lors by the PCs is high at the national level. A similar situation occurs
with the conferences. Available data show that recognition of members
chosen to participate in the national conference is undisputed by orga-

nizations that make up the proto-PCs, considering, in addition, that the
number and strength of these organizations are less than in the contrast-
ing case of the health sector. However, CNDM and women conferences
are more focused on civil society players, producing a close connection
between leading entities of the feminist movement and PIs. This close-
ness strengthens recognition, although it limits the variation of the PC
actor’s profiles.
The Constraint Dimension

The dimension of constraint expresses the degree to which the represented
may influence the behaviour of those who represent them. Analytically,
three distinctions are proposed: one pole of near-total discretion for the
representative; on the other extreme, a pole of heavy restrictions; and one
intermediate point with moderate restrictions.
In health policy, the presence of actors with internal rules around
accountability and legitimacy introduces limits for the councillors who
represent both civil society and governmental actors. Consolidation allows
councillors from civil society to become specialized and stabilizes the
expectations of PCs for the performance of the council and the decisions
by councillors in their respective groups. Moreover, the shared commit-
ment towards SUS developed between civil society councillors and gov-
ernment representatives establishes common ground against privatization,
centralization and the fragmentation of the sector. As such, health councils
are found to occupy a high degree along the constraint dimension at a
national level.4
With regard to the conferences, the fact that they form part of a federal-
ized process to choose delegates that represent specific policy sub-sectors
(pharmaceutical, dental, primary health) tends to favour a more harmoni-
ous represented/representative relationship. While it is true that, espe-
cially in small municipalities where user groups are less organized, there is
a preponderance of positions held by government staff and workers, this
is less common in state conferences and even less so at the national level
where debates are more likely to occur within the basic framing of SUS
principles. Hence, the health conferences occupy a mid- to high position
on the constraint dimension.
In women’s rights policies, the dimension of constraint should incorpo-
rate the critique from certain factions of the feminist movement regarding
the routinization of the CNDM. CNDM councillors are not free from
constraints but their role as councillors seems to have lost its original
intentions as the council’s bureaucratization has weakened ties of con-
trol (see Gutterres, Vianna, and Aguiao 2014). In the best of cases, it is
possible to locate these PIs at a point of moderate constraint. This situ-
ation differs from that of the conferences, which are more movement-
influenced, and therefore more constrained. It also reflects a restrictive
circle of activists, with well-defined positions within the larger context of
the feminist movement (a configuration close to a proto-PC) represented
in the conferences given their national leadership. In other words, given
the extremely limited universe of actors, delegates’ behaviours are subject
to strict vigilance and questioning.
The Substantive Dimension

Finally, the substantive dimension refers to the plausible content of politi-
cal disputes, where intermediation is concretized in cases of actual political
conflict, evident in the formulation of policy. The gradations fall into three
positions: unrestricted agonism, restricted agonism, and antagonism or
nullification of the other.
In health policies, the discourse on rights or the recognition of legiti-
mate subjects is not at play in the councils because the healthcare reform
movement is recognized historically as a key actor of the PC. The prin-
cipal conflicts have less to do with the general conception of the policy
than around resources, priorities and quality and management issues. The
defence of SUS takes priority over any other threat to the system. The
presence of a main goal that defines the heart of the institutional sys-
tem helps to elevate the degree of agonism in decisions that, from an
external perspective, may be understood as an administrative decision.
Furthermore, councillors in this policy sector have greater resources at
their disposal for auditing (but not for decision-making or co-manage-
ment of policy) than councillors in most other sectors. For example, the
most notable asset available at the municipal level is a regulation stating
that it is essential for the municipality (prefeitura) to get approved sector
spending by the council for the federal government to carry out budget
transfers the following year. However, there is no evidence that this asset
is used as a tool by councillors to bargain over how the policy is defined.
In fact, the deep-rooted level of the municipal councils in the daily opera-
tions of the policy sphere stems in moderating conflict. The combination
of agonism that is explicit in policy formulation, but moderate in actual

decision-making, places these councils near moderate agonism.
With regard to health conferences, an analysis of the resolutions from
the XIV National Health Conference in 2011 shows that, here again, the
general defence of SUS prevails as a main objective. Agonism is accen-
tuated in the rejection of the increasing local presence of private sec-
tor actors within SUS, such as the so-called social organizations (SOs),
public interest civil society organizations (PICSOs) and private trusts.
This conflict is highlighted as many state and municipal governments, at
variance with the councils and conferences, have created these organiza-
tions and trusts. Conflicts are also found in resolutions that refer to the
secondary features of the SUS operation. In this way, and judging by the
XIV Conference, it is estimated that health conferences are in a posi-
tion of unrestricted agonism, because the tenor of the issues debated is
very broad and some conflicts centre on the protection of the system’s
principles.
In contrast, the difficulties in advancing policies on women’s rights are
clearer in this dimension of the CPI. The institutional weakness of the
policy seems to be an expression of the roadblocks that exist in the pro-
motion of a substantive gender agenda. Timid attempts at agonism at the
level of the CNDM elicit sizeable waves of antagonism from conservative
actors in reaction to statements made by conference members. This fea-
ture characterizes the policy sphere, the PCs involved and therefore, PIs.
Players from the feminist movement seem to be aware of this dilemma.
On the one hand, they must promote substantial advances in line with the
legacy of their struggle within a context of constant conservative attacks.
Hence, they cannot disregard institutional spaces such as the CNDM that,
although relatively weak, have been hard-won. On the other hand, they
also cannot forgo an agenda that requires greater forcefulness and sub-
stance. However, every statement made for more substantive advances
provokes significant levels of antagonism, which puts earlier achievements
in jeopardy.
Interviews gathered in recent studies point to cycles of momentum
in controversial topics through deliberations in the conferences, fol-
lowed by a loss of vitality on the same topics in the CNDM. While in
the conferences resolutions reveal efforts to build aspects of identity for
the feminist movement (sexual and reproductive rights, economic, social,
cultural and political autonomy), the more technical content of the pol-
icy predominates in the council, generating a certain division of labour
between the two forums. In contrast to health, where the conferences

and councils are more articulated, in this sector policy resolutions from
the conferences take the form of general demands—to strengthen the
National Policy for Women approved in 2004—rather than of guidelines
to current policy.
The dimension of agonism is encompassed by a context of conservative
beliefs (external to the conferences and the councils). This implies not
only low odds of negotiating with influential conservative actors, but also
threats to the spaces that have been won. Faced by the constant conserva-
tive threat, antagonism is “cooled” or contained defensively in the more
institutionalizing role of the CNDM, via tasks of technical follow-ups
of what has already been achieved, while the more offensive or agenda-
mobilizing role is carried out mainly in the conferences. Antagonism is
more evident in the conferences while moderate agonism prevails in the
council.
In other words, the substantive dimension is played at two different lev-
els. At a first level, inside the conference, a cohesive PC is able to take deci-
sions in an agonistic way, but at a second level, outside this conference,
antagonism predominates between progressive and conservative actors.
This conflict of processing the content of representation between the two
levels has implications for the CNDM’s inner debates and decisions, where
PC actors moderate the risks of such conflict.
Table 2.1 presents a comparative summary between conferences and
councils in health and women’s rights.
Table 2.1 CPI by policy sector and type of PI

PIs at national Policy
level
Health Women
Recognition Council High a

High
Conference High High
Constraints Council Higha Medium
Conference High High
Substance of Council Moderate agonism Moderate agonism
representation Conference Unrestricted Agonism (level 1)
agonism Antagonism (level 2)
a
Given the available evidence on councils in the health sector, the degree could pass to medium or low in
certain sub-national governments
Conclusions
This chapter showed how the paradigmatic advances in PIs in Brazil
are accompanied by certain differences among them. When the analytic
framework based on PCs is intertwined with the framework of interme-
diation specified in the CPI, different types of achievement and challenges
are identified, depending on the type of policy and the PC into which the
councils and conferences are embedded.
This characterization presents a diagnosis that differs from the major-
ity of experiences of institutional participation in Latin America. This is
because, on the one hand, democratic innovations in other countries are
much less related to specific policy sectors and thus do not mobilize spe-
cific PCs. On the other hand, the level of institutionalization of the PIs
distinguishes Brazil from other countries (at least until 2016).
Highly institutionalized councils and conferences with consolidated
PCs (i.e., health) show high levels of recognition, constraint and agonism.
These dimensions (with the exception of the dimension of recognition)
tend to be weaker in the case of the councils and conferences where, as in
the area of women’s rights, neither the policy nor its respective communi-
ties are consolidated, as characterized by the idea of proto-PCs.
The recognition dimension is high in the two policy fields, but for dif-
ferent reasons. In health, the shared trajectory of actors in the struggle to
define SUS and participatory decision-making processes in councils and
conferences shaped the understanding of public health across the group-
ings within the PCs (managers, workers, doctors, rank-and-file movements
etc.). As a result, a participatory tradition is added into a legacy of shared
principles and specific discussion forums, in which a high recognition of
the intermediation carried out by the representatives in PIs takes place. In
women’s policy, high recognition happens because of proto-PCs’ limited
scope, where civil society organizations are strongly interconnected even
though their capacity to influence policy decisions is limited. Recently,
these players have conquered the councils and conferences as spaces for
public discussion.
Similar characteristics in health and women’s rights sectors and their
respective PCs are also seen in the constraint capacity upon representatives
in health councils and conferences and in conferences of women’s rights.
Control mechanisms operate in both policy areas, through the organiza-
tional density and differentiation of the health sector and the proximity of
feminist civil society organizations to their conferences. However, this is

not the case for the CNDM, which is evaluated by activists as being more
routinized and distanced from the most demanding agendas of the femi-
nist movement.
Finally, the centrality of defending SUS and its principles in the agen-
das of the councils and conferences protects them against conflicts over
the direction of the system under an unrestricted agonism. In contrast,
the nature of women’s policy, framed by intense disputes over principles
between progressive and conservative ideological positions, creates on the
one hand agonist decisions among feminist actors of the proto-PCs inside
the conference, and on the other hand an antagonistic dynamic outside
these conferences.
The general panorama shows that the Brazilian experience has generated
a real engineering of the “word circuit”: with distinct logics in different
policy spheres, subject to the PCs’ own evolution and articulated within
the institutional frameworks of their sphere. In other words, the Brazilian
case in all its complexity shows that the analysis of the effectiveness of
intermediation must be undertaken alongside the political-institutional
development of the PIs, the policy area in which it is embedded and the
nature of the political actors in the corresponding PCs. The chapter also
shows that more than one mechanism can generate similar effects in the
functioning of political intermediation exercised by the PIs; similar posi-
tions in the CPI may result from different causes. For example, in health,
the organizational density and functional representation of health workers
produce the same constraint effects as those produced by mechanisms put
in place in women’s rights PIs, such as the ideological proximity between
players within the proto-PC. Consensus over SUS in the PCs defines the
conditions that establish recognition of the role of the health conferences
and councils. This consensus is highly threatened by the environment sur-
rounding the PIs of women’s rights; however, the internal recognition of
the intermediaries originates from the conquests gained by the feminist
movement.
Notes
1. The first and second categories are based, respectively, on the three
ideal types of policy community and issue network (Rhodes 2008).
See also Capella and Brasil (2015).
2. For example, councils on the rights of children and adolescents and

education and social assistance with over 90% participation in
municipalities (Gurza Lavalle and Barone 2015; Censo SUAS
2013).
3. It is important to note that the presence of a basic set of political
principles does not preclude conflict or confrontations within the
PC and within the setting of the council. However, these usually do
not result in tensions that threaten a permanent division within the
PC.
4. However, the selection processes and control mechanisms for civil
society councillors vary considerably between municipalities, gener-
ating stronger restrictions in some and weaker restrictions in
others.
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CHAPTER 3
Establishing Intermediaries in Developing

Mechanisms of Citizen Participation in La
Silsa, Caracas, Venezuela
Graham Martin
Introduction
This chapter seeks to discuss the experience of consejos comunales (CCs)
and comuna in Venezuela using the cube of political intermediation (CPI)
explained in the introduction of this book. Their model seeks to decen-
tre political intermediation from political representation. It is argued that
while political representation does encompass political intermediation,
not all intermediation involves representation. Since 2006, Venezuela’s
national government has sought to redefine representation by construct-
ing the communal state and introducing mechanisms of participation in
parallel to the federal state and government structures. Drawing on empir-
ical research (observation and interviews) of CCs and comuna in La Silsa,
Caracas, undertaken in 2013, the case enabled the cube’s three axes (rec-
ognition, constraints and substantive content) alongside “circuits of repre-
sentation” to be tested further. Two circuits in particular—“project” and
G. Martin (*)
Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

54 G. MARTIN
“people”—are shown to interface and intersect. The chapter highlights

that the CPI provides a way of systematising different circuits of represen-
tation and the ways that these are enacted in practice. The empirical data
also show that the CPI avoids traditional ways of conceptualising repre-
sentation rooted in discrete categories such as participation/co-optation.
Being able to differentiate such nuances is particularly pertinent in the case
of Venezuela where co-optation of participation is a prevalent attribute
used in scholarship.
Background
Since the implementation of the 1999 Constitution, Venezuelan democ-
racy is stated to be not only “elective” (i.e. representative) but “partici-
patory and protagonistic”. The last 15 years have seen a number of laws
enacted which seek to reshape the country’s society, culture, politics and
institutions to conform to the constitution. Chávez’s second-term pro-
gramme, Líneas Generales del Plan de Desarrollo Económico y Social de La
Nación 2007–2013 (MINCI 2008), outlined the government’s intention
to enhance citizen’s participation via a process termed “democratic revo-
lutionary protagonism” (ibid., 29–41). This is seen as one of seven strat-
egies in delivering Venezuela’s transition towards “twenty-first-century
socialism” (ibid., 5–7). Two mechanisms which have been established to
achieve these goals were CCs and comunas.
CCs are community councils formed at the sub-neighbourhood level
by residents within a certain geographical area. These councils were
first introduced by law in 2006 Ley Orgánica de los Consejos Comunales
(LOCC) and then reformed into an organic law in 2009 LOCC. The
LOCC clearly sets out the intended remit of CCs: direct citizen par-
ticipation in the management of community matters and projects which
respond to the needs and aspirations of the community “towards building
a socially just and equitable society”. CCs can be understood as an attempt
at achieving direct, local community involvement rather than trying to
form a council where politicians share planning activities with community
members. The LOCC states that CCs are autonomous in their formu-
lation, geographical remit and resource allocation. A CC’s geographical
remit is dependent on whether it is within an urban or rural locale: CCs
located in urban areas will comprise 150–400 families, and those in rural
areas will have more than 20 families. Any citizen over the age of 15 within
the CC’s defined area can form the “Citizens’ Assembly” on a volunteer
ESTABLISHING INTERMEDIARIES IN DEVELOPING MECHANISMS OF CITIZEN... 55
basis (i.e. non-compulsory and non-paid). The “Citizens’ Assembly” is

defined as the maximum instance of decision making within the CC. The
CC Assembly then elects spokespeople who will form the units and sub-
committees within the CC.
Comunas were created and promoted by Chavismo from 2009 onwards.
They were first brought in to being with its corresponding law in 2010,
which is one of the five Popular Power laws. Comunas are intended to
provide an amalgamation of CCs within a certain neighbourhood or
rural area. Chavismo considers that comunas will lead to the creation of
twenty-first-century Socialism by acting as a federation of CCs rather than
being an authority imposing upon CCs. The Organic Law (2010) estab-
lishes that comunas have eight key functions, which include the devel-
opment of the “communal state” and “popular power”, the creation of
“self-government” for public administration, the promotion of integrat-
ing, liaising and cooperating with “instances of territorial management”
established by the national-level Federal Council of Government (GDC),
the promotion of social (community) ownership, the “guarantee” of the
existence of mechanisms for citizen participation in public matters and
planning, community education, and the protection of human rights and
the constitution.
Chavismo has sought to reconceive state–civil society relations by creat-
ing a dual role between “constituted power” conferred to representatives
and governmental institutions and “constituent power”, which lies with
citizen agency and participatory mechanisms. In doing so, Chavismo has
sought to redefine the relations among the planners within the govern-
ment and the state bureaucracy with local residents (Acosta Rico 2012;
Ciccariello-Maher 2013). Acosta Rico’s (2012) book for CC and comuna
participants, published by the national government, provides an interpreta-
tion of the move towards the “communal state” and how planning should
work within the framework of the new legislation. The intent brought
about by Chavismo is to bridge the gap between the interests of the state
(“constituted power”) and the people (“constituent/popular power”) to
“apply policy and ensure resources are applied correctly”. Doing so “will
create an intersection [between the two ‘powers’] which will permit shared
[my emphasis] decision making in public policy” (ibid., 43).
Chavismo’s (re)conceptualisation of state–civil society relations pro-
vides an interesting case for applying the lens of circuits of representation
and the CPI. In particular, it raises the question as to how Chavismo’s shift
to establishing “popular power”, via CCs and comunas, can be understood
56 G. MARTIN
through the lens of representation. The remainder of the chapter will

explore and unravel this in more detail. In addition to the axes of the
CPI, the following analysis will also refer to the “circuits” conceptualising
representation. As shown in Table 3.1, in addition to the traditional way
of identifying and electing representatives through the medium of vot-
ing, four more types are presented (strength, project, word and project).
While certain elements of each of the five circuits of representation may
exist, there are two circuits which are clearly demonstrated in the case
of La Silsa. These include the circuits of the people and of the project,
respectively. Constructing “twenty-first-century socialism” in Venezuela,
and constituent mechanisms, such as CCs and comunas, which are seen to
contribute to fulfilling this aspiration and vision of the society, provides a
unique example for drawing out how such a project is reflected in practice.
As such, La Silsa can be understood as a project (creation of a comuna)
which is part of the wider Chavista project. The project is supported by
community activists as well as receiving considerable governmental sup-
port via officers/technical staff. Second, the case provides demonstration
of the circuit of people. This circuit seeks to conceptualise the furthering
of interests, empowerment and participation of “ordinary people” via spe-
cific mechanisms designed for this purpose. Venezuela is one of the few
examples where this is currently being established. As such, the circuit is
understood to have quite close relationships with rights provided by the
national executive (and President) and corresponding legislation.
It is of note for the forthcoming analysis to indicate that the CPI and
the circuits of representation allow for a conceptualisation of indirect poli-
tics within CCs and comunas that may not otherwise be understood by
adopting more traditional definitions of political representation. In par-
ticular, the CPI allows for concepts such as corruption of representation
(clientelism) or attributing breakdowns of means of participation as forms
of co-optation to be unpacked, understood and differentiated.
The CPI and Circuits of Representation Using

the Case of La Silsa, Caracas
Case Area Description and Selection

La Silsa is a barrio with a population of approximately 14,000 residents
(Posani 2012). It is located in the municipality of Libertador near the sub-
centre of Catia in the parish of Sucre. With a population of 1.95 million
Table 3.1 Selection, roles and functions of intermediaries in La Silsa
Actor/ Selection Role/function Geographical level Accountability Circuit of Extent of Origin
intermediary of remit/ (ordered by representation intermediation
Institutional locus importance)
Government Public Public administration: National project Municipal Technical; Between municipal n/a
officers administration oversee and coordinate (Barrio Nuevo Barrio executive; project government and
selection process; delivery of objectives of Tricolor)/Municipality directors; comuna and
assigned National and municipal municipal CCs—principally ST
internally to plan and barrio councillors and comuna citizen’s
oversee/deliver improvement assembly
La Silsa project programme objectives
ST technical Stage 1 Delivery of national/ Comuna; First year Directors of Technical; Between municipal Fundacaracas
staff (project municipal government entirely with La Silsa Fundacaracas; project government/ initiative in
initiation and plan and projects comuna comuna Fundacaracas 2012; later
first year To support CCs in the (subsequently Citizen’s directors and supported by
2012–2013): development of plans assigned to share Assembly comuna and CCs national
Fundacaracas and projects. time and resources government
officers To support the with other projects
formation and official and STs)
registration of the
comuna; to undertake
technical activities (site
visits, drawing up
plans, choosing and
making budget for
building materials)
Stage 2: As above Entirely ST stage 1 Technical; Between CCs and As above
employed La Silsa–based staff; comuna project municipal
directly to ST Citizen’s government (less
as complexity Assembly direct contact with
and workload municipal
developed government than
stage 1 staff)
(continued )
Table 3.1 (continued)
Actor/ Selection Role/function Geographical level Accountability Circuit of Extent of Origin
intermediary of remit/ (ordered by representation intermediation
Institutional locus importance)
ST CC Citizen’s Assist technical staff by La Silsa Comuna Comuna Project Between all CCs As above
community Assembly organising site visits in Citizen’s and ST technical
staff (nomination) CC areas; Assembly and staff as comuna
and elected via administration tasks; ST technical employees;
later Comuna undertaking site visits staff respective CCs
Assembly and data collection; when liaising, and
coordinating acting on behalf,
registration of CCs and with their own CCs
comuna
Comuna Nominated by Represent comuna La Silsa Comuna Comuna Project; Respective CCs and 2010 comuna
sub- CC Citizen’s interests and Citizen’s people comuna law
committee Assembly and constituents in a Assembly and
personnel) later elected at specific sub-committee ST technical
Comuna level role (e.g. environment staff
or housing)
CC Elections held Represent CC CC CC Citizen’s People Respective CCs 2006; 2009
spokespeople at CC level, constituents in a Assembly CC laws
every 2 years specific sub-committee
role (e.g. CC
coordination or theme
such as health or
transport)
and occupying half of the land area, Libertador is the largest municipal-
ity in the metropolitan area of Caracas in terms of both population and
territory (INE 2013). Libertador is predominantly politically aligned to
Chavismo, especially in the barrios, a very small minority of areas in the
municipality providing a majority of residents who vote for opposition
parties (CNE 2013).
The municipal government’s planning department, in conjunction
with Fundacaracas1 and the Gobierno del Distrito Capital,2 created “Plan
Socialista Caracas”. The plan aimed to consolidate efforts of a number
of initiatives and programmes created in Libertador into a coordinated
“political” plan (Fundacaracas 2013a,b). The plan had four key themes of
action: Integral Barrio Transformation (IBT); small public works groups
(cayapas socialistas), which, for example, can undertake repairs or imple-
ment water pipes, stairs or walkways; barrio rehabilitation; and “new
socialist communities” that focus on the development of social housing
(ibid.).
La Silsa was chosen to be a beneficiary of these programmes. As a result,
Fundacaracas established a technical team, Sala Técnica (ST), of architects
and engineers and accompanying coordinators who would lead commu-
nity development initiatives and implement the municipality’s projects.
The national government quickly supported the project and injected addi-
tional funds, elevating the barrio’s improvement project as part of the
government’s national programme for improving barrios3 (Arteaga 2013;
Cantillo 2013; Lugo 2013).
CCs in the area were building a new comuna. The municipal and
national government funding was linked to the political project. Both
constructing the political entities and delivering the physical infrastruc-
ture were key. Consequently, as discussed later, spokespeople from both
CCs and government (intermediaries) were integral to the project. During
fieldwork, there were 12 CCs4 (with a further 7 proposed) in the neigh-
bourhood seeking to register formally with Fundacomunal in order for the
comuna to become consolidated and fully registered.
La Silsa was chosen as a case study as it provided a relatively unique
opportunity to see a pioneer project which reflected the aspirations and
drive of national government policy during 2013. The national and
municipal government were striving to meet the objectives set out in
the second National Plan (MINCI 2013). The case was also pertinent
because the creation of STs and targeted municipal government pro-
grammes were an exception. Most other comunas were not supported
60 G. MARTIN
in the same way either financially or via technical staff. As such, arrange-
ments provided a unique opportunity to establish how state–civil society
relations operated, and how intermediaries operated and were under-
stood in such a unique context. It should be noted that the fieldwork
formed part of interpretive/ethnographic-based doctoral research and
the cases chosen were not seeking to be representative (Martin 2015;
Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2012).
Identifying Intermediaries
Compared with Zaremberg’s (2012) study of the relationship between
CCs and other institutions in Zulia, the case study demonstrates a more
complex example because it also includes the comuna level. However,
this provides—as will become evident—the ability for additional nuances
to be elicited regarding the axes of the CPI and the “peoples” circuit
of representation. In this chapter, I will discuss four types of interme-
diaries. These include municipal government officers who have been
tasked with coordinating the ST for the area, and the officers/technical
experts of this committee; community representatives of the ST in the
form of CC spokespeople; and other CC spokespeople who do not form
part of the ST. These are considered intermediaries due to the role they
play in mediating between the ordinary citizen and the government,
whether municipal or national. There is some overlap between roles:
namely some of the ST technical staff are paid municipal employees,
and also form part of the local bureaucracy; CC spokespeople represent
citizens within their sub-neighbourhood level but can also represent
the community more widely at the neighbourhood level as community
liaison officers within the ST. Consequently, there is a need to unpack
what they do, and how they undertake their roles. Within the theoretical
framework, there is a need to establish the type of representation that
is manifest, whether acting for or standing for certain groups of people
(e.g. sub-neighbourhood community) or organisations (such as govern-
ment departments) (Pitkin 1967; Gurza and Zaremberg 2014). Table
3.1 outlines the four types of intermediaries, the way they are selected
for their roles, the content of their roles and their geographical remit
and/or institutional locus. The table is supplemented by Fig. 3.1, which
seeks to demonstrate how these intermediaries relate and intersect, par-
ticularly with the different mechanisms of participation and institutional
loci they are involved with.
INSTITUTIONAL LOCUS
National Municipal Government Comuna Communal Community

Government Council
National government Municipal Assigned

La Silsa Project
officers government
Director
officers
Support/
coordination
Assigned
Sala Técnica
Sala Técnica Sala Técnica

technical staff community
staff
Comuna sub- CC sub-committees

committees
elected
Comuna CC spokespeople
spokespeople
elected elected
KEY
Intermediary Comuna Citizen’s CC Citizen’s Assembly

Assembly
Liaison/
intermediation
Citizens
Process/ selection
Comprised from
Fig. 3.1 Institutional locus and relationships between intermediaries in La Silsa
xis 1. Recognition of Intermediaries

A
Overall, interviewees within La Silsa identified that the ST was widely
regarded as positive. Emphasis was given especially to the technical staff
who were able to provide the detailed level of support and expertise in
order to help deliver community development. ST community members
were also regarded positively, albeit less explicitly. While community mem-
bers were acknowledged for their coordinative and administrative roles,
greater emphasis was attributed to the technical staff because they could
help with the specifics of project development. Consequently, the positive
support was more commonly attributed to the architects, engineers or gov-
ernment officers (“stage 1” Fundacaracas coordination staff, particularly).
Community CC members saw the ST’s role (comprising both technical
and community staff) where liaison was considered key. The ST was a place
that residents or CC spokespeople could go to with the opportunity to
seek and receive help. This meant that there were increasing expectations
of securing projects for their sub-neighbourhood area. The opportunity of
62 G. MARTIN
being able to voice an opinion, which was acknowledged as being novel,

was seen to create a high level of authorisation for the ST and its staff.
Community CC members described that civil society–municipal govern-
ment (or any level of government) relations prior to the post-Chávez era
were dismal. As a result, the top-down plans from national (MINCI 2008,
2013)—including the creation of the mechanisms of participation, CCs
and comunas, as well as the Barrio Improvement projects—and municipal
government (Alcaldía de Libertador 2009) were given high levels of sup-
port. Taking part in CCs, electing spokespeople (as CCs were required to
do), forming the comuna and helping to deliver by volunteering to take
part in government-sponsored activities were all seen to be supporting
Chavismo and helping to carry forward its wider plans, aims and objec-
tives. If we refer to Zaremberg (2012), we can identify links between the
“circuit of project” and the recognition axis in the cube. The implemen-
tation of a plan (or plans) coming from the top-down, in this case from
the national plan to municipal level plans, which were being coordinated
and supported by national and municipal government officers, was being
“authorised” by the local community. The case provides an exceptional
example where communities (circuit of people) have been provided access
to resources (technical and financial) through the medium of national
and municipal plans and specific projects (national Barrio Nuevo Barrio
Tricolor and the municipal-level Barrio Improvement Projects). This can
be understood as the “circuit of project”. Consequently, the two cir-
cuits of project and people have an iterative interface and circuitous dia-
logue and exchange between civil society and government, which is quite
unique, and certainly highlights new relationships between communities
and government, underpinned by various forms of intermediaries, which
are not normally identified in scholarship on political representation, and
especially that regarding Chavismo.
While these roles are quite clear in the way of determining the level of
authorisation, interviewees indicated that not all spokespeople within CCs
were held in quite high regard. This provides evidence that CC spokes-
people act as intermediaries within their own CCs as well as with the
comuna more widely (see Fig. 3.1 and Table 3.2). As indicated earlier, the
ability of these newer CC spokespeople to be able to secure projects more
easily was a result of the installation and support provided by the ST and
municipal and national government funding more widely. Given that both
levels of government had assigned funds for large-scale projects within the
neighbourhood meant that a derivative effect of this was the creation, or
Table 3.2 Plans, initiatives and intermediation according to institutional locus

Institutional locus Plan/project/initiatives Direction of process and/or
intermediation
National government Barrio Nuevo Barrio Tricolor Top-down

project (subsidiary of
National Plan objectives)
Municipal government/ Barrio Improvement project Top-down
Fundacaracas (subsidiary of municipality/
Fundacaracas Plan Caracas
Socialista)
Comuna Propose and secure funding Comuna intermediates via ST
for projects in addition to staff that in turn liaises with
those already defined by government to try to secure
national and municipal funding for community
barrio improvement initiatives and projects
programmes
Consejos comunales Propose CC remit (sub- CC spokespeople liaise with
neighbourhood) comuna spokespeople and ST;
improvement projects or directly with government to
try and secure funding (second
option is less common now that
ST has been established)
the ability to fund, smaller projects (such as drainage or housing repairs)

which form part of the funding package belonging to the wide umbrella
term of “barrio improvement project”. Again, this highlights the interface
and exchange between the circuits of people and project underpinned by
intermediaries.
In summary, the degree of recognition, as stated in the introduction,
could be considered to be “Ia” given that each spokesperson within the
CC and comuna has been elected by La Silsa residents. The ST by nature
has a very close working relationship with local residents and is highly
accepted as being advantageous to meeting community interests.
xis 2. Constraints to Intermediaries

A
The second axis of the cube, referring to the level of accountability that
representatives demonstrate, was slightly more difficult to determine in the
case of the four intermediaries identified. Some of the ST technical staff
were Fundacaracas (municipal government) officers. They were therefore
under the remit and control of the bureaucracy itself. There were two
coordinators who oversaw the day-to-day running of the ST from the
64 G. MARTIN
perspective of the bureaucracy. One of these was based permanently in the

community and was in charge of developing the comuna. His role was to
ensure coordination of the CCs and the registration. He also managed the
comuna’s sub-committees and presided/led the weekly assembly meet-
ings. The other coordinator was in charge of developing the barrio devel-
opment programme in La Silsa, as well as the other three neighbourhoods
where similar STs had been installed. Consequently, these bureaucrats
were principally accountable to directors in Fundacaracas. It is important
to stress that this specific control (between bureaucrats and directors) is
part of a Weberian administrative dimension, therefore it is not under-
stood as a CPI dimension as only constraints related to comuna members
express some control that flows from intermediated to intermediaries. The
technical staff (“stage 2”, non-municipal government officers) that had
been employed directly by the ST/comuna were, however, accountable to
the Fundacaracas ST officers and the comuna Assembly directly. Table 3.1
and Fig. 3.1 illustrate these interfaces and relationships.
ST community staff were also under the supervision of these coordi-
nators, but were considered to be slightly more autonomous given that
they were not salaried municipal officers. ST community members also
indicated that minor pressure existed from other CC members and the
comuna Citizen’s Assembly towards them to secure projects and fund-
ing because they were part of the ST. However, ST community members
were clear that their role in the ST did not give them undue influence.
They were keen to tell me that they simply reminded their respective CC
members that the ST’s role was to develop projects that were most needed
and/or where there was consensus among other CCs.
I observed two mechanisms where forms of accountability were dem-
onstrated. The first was the weekly comuna assembly, where spokespeople
and any other interested residents could come to find out about project
and comuna development, as well as hear about new ongoing develop-
ments or issues arising. Residents could also raise matters for discussion
and hopefully get some response. And in the case that this was too com-
plex to be resolved within the assembly itself, it would be taken as a mat-
ter for the coordination, ST and comuna sub-committees to deal with.
Second, CCs and the comuna presented their accounts (rendición de cuen-
tas) to the assembly.
An additional crosscutting theme that persisted in interviews and dis-
cussions with participants was the importance of authorities [or repre-
sentatives] “providing answers” (dando respuestas). Consequently, all
intermediaries, whether coordinators or CC spokespeople, were seen to

be actors whose role was to liaise with organisations, either vertically, hori-
zontally or transversally, in order to secure information. Two interviewees,
a community ST member and the Fundacaracas coordinator, highlight
this new focus as a result of engagement via the new intermediation pos-
sibilities created by the comuna and the ST with the government:
Community ST member: Hemos visto un cambio en la alcaldía, los ministe-

rios. Hemos visto un cambio en el gobierno central hacia las comunidades. El
comandante nos ensenó́ de que…son las comunidades que tiene que dar su pro-
puesta, no el gobierno que da su propuesta. O sea no empezar de arriba abajo,
sino de abajo hacia arriba. O sea la de arriba no puede ser la misma de abajo.
Ah, pero lo de abajo sí puede ser lo de arriba. ¿ok?5
Fundacaracas coordinator: [Tenemos] una articulación de poder popular
hacia las instituciones.…eficiente, donde hemos demostrado el cambio. Ha sido
bastante alto, donde ahorita sí se llegan proyectos a las comunidades, donde los
proyectos están discutido en diferentes sectores, donde la comunidad participa,
donde como dice la ley: el poder en asamblea de ciudadanos y ciudadanas a las
diferentes decisiones que se van a tomar en los consejos comunales.6
This information transfer was key in order to advance projects or

obtain knowledge about how to go about undertaking a certain proce-
dure. Consequently, by “giving answers”, intermediaries fulfilled their role
and were seen to be “delivering” up to the expectations of those they
were representing. It is also of note that because of the “closeness” of the
actors, citizens are able to liaise with intermediaries and the government
(national and local) for answers relatively easily.
In summary, the degree of accountability in this dimension could
be considered to be “IIb” given that moderate constraints exist in the
way that different actors/intermediaries are accountable to their base
community. Yet, there are indications that there is scope to improve

accountability within and between the different entities, particularly in a
transversal manner.
xis 3. Substantive Content

A
It is widely acknowledged that Venezuela presents an example of extreme
political polarisation (Brewer Carías 2010; García Guadilla 2005; Carroll
2013; MUD 2013). While a certain level of polarisation has always
been present in the country, this has seemingly been exacerbated under
Chavismo. Increasingly, the discourse of Chavismo became more assured,
66 G. MARTIN
particularly in the post-2006 era with the introduction of CCs and the
“communal state” and its corresponding legislation in 2009/2010. The
post-2006 era meant that government-sponsored programmes should all
be undertaken in the “spirit of socialism”. It is of note that all of those
taking part, being observed and interviewed were supporters of Chavismo
and actively sought to pursue the goals of establishing the communal state
and moving towards “twenty-first-century socialism”. The programmes
being implemented in La Silsa were constituent parts of this wider goal:
CCs were the base unit of the communal state; the emerging comuna was
the neighbourhood-level entity of this new structure. Interviewees argued
that the ST (as a whole comprising both technical and community staff)
was a facilitator for getting a large-scale renewal project implemented and
for increasing capacity within the local community so that these commu-
nal state structures would become autonomous and self-managing, as the
goal of the plans/legislation intended.
Although the observed participants supported Chavismo, enquiry was
made whether opposition members existed and how they took part in
these new structures and mechanisms. Participants described that opposi-
tion supporters existed within the local community, but they rarely par-
ticipated in CCs or the comuna. Interviewees (Chavistas) described that
opposition members were “saboteurs” and they “needed to know where
resources were coming from” that is Chavismo. There was a distinct “us”
and “them” demarcation. Consequently, one could describe the political
possibilities and acceptance from within the neighbourhood as antago-
nistic. Furthermore, because national-level antagonism had percolated
throughout the neighbourhood level there was very little opposition
support within the CCs and the comuna. ST members and coordinators
were Chavista supporters (many of whom wore T-shirts confirming their
political affiliation). The same could be said of CC spokespeople. While
interviewees confirmed that opposition members did take part within their
respective CCs, they were not voted spokespersons.
It should be noted that there were different levels of affiliation towards
Chavismo (and militancy in the ruling party), the Partido Socialista Unido
de Venezuela (PSUV), and, in particular, how “revolutionary” the projects
and political content of the comuna and its processes should be. While
this might not be described as antagonism per se, it is pertinent that even
within Chavismo there were certain individuals who believed that deeper,
more radical measures and forms of organisation and action should be
undertaken. Nonetheless, most participants observed and interviewed
during fieldwork were content with the way the projects and the comuna
were being developed.
What can be made of such a dynamic? For interviewees, Chavismo was
seen and understood as the only way for these programmes to happen
within an area that had a long history of marginalisation. Interviewees
described that giving way to the opposition would create a reversal of the
gains being experienced and the opposition would want to revert to old
practices and all would be lost. Furthermore, the opposition was under-
stood to be acting in the elite’s interests, not in those of a barrio like La
Silsa. Consequently, the programme sought to increase the level of partici-
pation of the community but set in motion a high disregard for the middle
and upper classes (not existent within the case study area), thereby propa-
gating antagonism further. Some interviewees described that they wished
for the defeat of capitalism and the opposition. In such a case, we can see
a dynamic where the axis of antagonism–pluralist agonism was consider-
ably weak. While not all participants in the area were antagonistic, some
were at least accepting of the opposition while not supporting them. No
evidence existed in La Silsa that pluralist agonism was feasible, considered
advantageous or even possible, at the time of research.
The highly polarised and divisive nature of Venezuelan politics and soci-
ety means that Chavismo’s participatory mechanisms have not been imple-
mented with approval across all sectors of society. In many cases, they have
been resisted by middle and upper classes due to a perceived infringement
on pre-existing state–civil society relationship and organisations (García
Guadilla 2005, 2008a,b). After the fieldwork, national politics remained a
highly polarised affair. Political protests in February 2014 escalated to an
extent where 43 people died (Faria 2015). Cross-party talks in the after-
math revealed continuation of the government’s/opposition’s intractable
positions (Ore and Cawthorne 2014). These positions are likely to persist
and ensure that such views at the neighbourhood level are maintained for
the foreseeable future. These national-level events and wider politics are
reflected at the neighbourhood level and become evident in day-to-day
activities and citizen’s opinions.
In summary, the degree of antagonism, as depicted in the introduc-
tion, could be considered to be “IIIa” given that there continues to be
a permanent questioning of opposite political views and perspectives and
a drive to reduce considerably (potentially eliminate in the case of some
radical individuals) the possibility of the existence of opposition political
stances, where possible.
68 G. MARTIN
Discussion
Zaremberg’s (2012) study highlighted that CCs in Zulia served as inter-
mediaries between the community and the state. Compared with other
Latin American examples in Brazil, Nicaragua and Mexico, CCs demon-
strated an extremely small and direct link between the community and
the president/national executive. Councils in Bahia, Brazil, demonstrated
a much more diffuse network among different actors. However, despite
the very direct links to Venezuela’s national executive, CCs were found to
exercise high levels of activism, empowerment and references to popular
education. The spaces created by CCs were seen to be vehicles for popu-
lar empowerment. However, as Zaremberg clearly pointed out, the direct
links to the national executive may have appeared to provide indications of
co-optation, by means of monopolising intermediation (see Zaremberg’s
section on “betweenness”). Each case needed to be taken to draw out
the nuances between the top-down and the bottom-up dynamics that can
exist or coexist within or among different CCs and the national executive.
The case study in this chapter provides a new perspective on not only
the “peoples” circuit of representation but also the way in which the axes
of the cube can be applied to actors and their corresponding relationships
within the institutional mechanisms being studied. Where Zaremberg’s
(2012) study focused on CCs as mediating community interests to a wide
variety of central government departments and agencies in Venezuela, the
present case shows that spokespeople and government officers can be dif-
ferentiated, and that this enables new dynamics to be explored regarding
the “cube of political intermediation” and the “circuits of representation”.
There is a bottom-up dynamic of non-pluralistic representation of and
for local residents by CC spokespeople within the CC and the comuna.
This bottom-up representation occurred with CC spokespeople who
were chosen or elected to serve the interests of all the CCs within the
neighbourhood/comuna by working as community liaison and coordina-
tors. Consequently, these CC spokespeople served two functions: they
represented the residents and community within their own CC, and while
working for and within the comuna they also represented other CCs. This
provided forms of representation akin to parliamentarians who serve both
the national interest and their local constituents’ interests.
Interviewees described that they were encouraged and motivated to
participate in Chávez’s political project and create the infrastructure
required to further embed “popular power” institutions and to consolidate
the “communal state” and “twenty-first-century socialism”. In this regard,

similar to Zaremberg’s (2012) findings on CC spokespeople, the majority
of CC participants in La Silsa took part in order to further their commu-
nity interests and contribute to the political projects started by Chávez.
The mechanisms of community representation, CCs and comuna, were
seen to provide community empowerment and a vehicle for engaging with
authorities. In La Silsa, this was predominantly the municipal government
and its agencies.
This engagement and newly founded links between the community and
the government also provided an additional dynamic that requires discus-
sion. As noted earlier, two sets of government officers were involved in
helping to consolidate the comuna in La Silsa. The first set of government
officers were those who were employed to work within the ST as technical
experts (Stage 1 Fundacaracas staff) and served as intermediaries. Other,
non-intermediary, government officers were the directors or heads of the
municipal government’s project for improving the habitat and living con-
ditions within the barrio. As such, they played a leadership/coordinative
role for the whole project and its implementation (see Fig. 3.1). Yet, what
needs to be made clear is that they identified this role as being part of the
“project”. Therefore, as per the concepts presented in the introduction,
we can see their role falling into the “circuit of project”. Interestingly,
although they would unlikely call themselves technocrats, they did dif-
ferentiate their role from that of CC spokespeople and other resident
participants in the comuna. Government officers attributed community
representatives (CC/comuna spokespeople) with the role of leading the
“political” direction of the project.
We see a complex relationship emerging between the two sets of repre-
sentative circuits. One that is understood to have a coordinative top-down
and enabling role, and the other which is community-led and, as described
by officers, explicitly “political”. Government officers were therefore
implementing a municipal and national government project, which sought
to meet objectives stated in the national and municipal plans and man-
dates. But the project in which they were engaged also sought to supple-
ment and consolidate additional and increasing “circuits of the people”,
by constructing mechanisms and institutions through which the com-
munity could become more self-governed in engagement with existing
authorities. This would enable the project’s long-term goal for commu-
nity self-determination and autonomy to be achieved. Paradoxically this
can be understood as a government-sponsored project through which it
70 G. MARTIN
was constructing the foundations for its future diminishment and—poten-

tially—disappearance due to being superseded by new territorial forms of
structure and decision making.
The epicentre of this bottom-up/top-down interface between peo-
ple and project circuits of representation occurred within the comuna.
Previously, as noted in Zaremberg (2012), CCs simply liaised with which-
ever government authority could help them secure project financing
or support. The dynamic within La Silsa was one where for the barrio
improvement project, and the consolidation of the comuna, funding had
already been allocated. CCs’ focus for engagement was with the ST in the
first instance and the municipal government in the second.
While the case study provides an interesting example in which the
ST and the comuna showed where representation circuits of “project”
and “people” interfaced in a specific and structured manner, it should
be acknowledged that for Chavismo this arrangement was intended to be
temporary. It is also of pertinence that the establishment of STs and spe-
cific municipal government programmes was the exception rather than the
norm. Most other comunas did not have specific funding, or direct gov-
ernment support, allocated to them in the way that La Silsa did. Therefore
the arrangements and interfaces identified here may not be widely present
among other comunas. Further research can be undertaken to determine
this.
As discussed earlier, certain government officers who were not work-
ing within the ST could be said to have played both coordination and
facilitation roles. They were coordinating the national/municipal gov-
ernment programmes in a top-down manner while facilitating the consol-
idation of CCs and comunas via citizen participation as part of a process
which enabled “circuits of people representation” to be established. This
by its nature is bottom-up. This goes beyond Zaremberg’s (2012) analy-
sis, which identified the CC as a form, and medium, of representation.
The case studied in the chapter has demonstrated that there is potential
to see that as Chavismo’s project has developed and new institutions have
emerged and consolidated, new linkages and dynamics of representa-
tion within and among different institutions can be distinguished. More
specifically, the case showed that within comunas, particularly those
sponsored by the government, there were interfaces between different
types (community/government) and circuits (project/people) of rep-
resentation. At the time of research, CCs and the comuna (citizen side)
were not autonomous or exhibiting high levels of self-determination.
They were under the guidance, facilitation, coordination and impetus

of a joint national and municipal-level project involving targeted fund-
ing and government technical staff and officers (“circuits of project rep-
resentation”). Nonetheless, the project encompassed the formation of
entities which were designed to create increasing levels of autonomy and
self-determination.
The particular usefulness of the axis would likely be for comparisons
to be made between different cases. This chapter has focused only on the
single neighbourhood. Within the neighbourhood, which is predomi-
nantly Chavista and in favour of the national and municipal political
and development projects, very little opposition or explicit antagonism
existed. Each of the representatives outlined focused on achieving the
goals (obviously at times internal problems or grievances would occur)
and levels of antagonism were low. But it was not possible to determine
whether this meant the presence of agonism or that it was subsumed
within the neighbourhood. It simply meant that participants observed
and interviewed were of the same political persuasion and working on
behalf of the project.
The level of plural agonism in the case studied was very low. On the
whole, participants were keen to support Chavismo and see the diminish-
ment (or extinction in some cases) of the opposition. The existence of the
opposition, seeking compromise and establishing a competitive environ-
ment of continual, respectful conflict of ideas was not a priority. While this
is a single case study, fieldwork in neighbouring municipalities showed that
the specific mechanisms of Chavismo (especially comunas) were not widely
accepted in areas of the opposition, or they had been adopted and used in
a manner not intended by government and legislation (Martin 2015). Any
scholar studying Venezuela will be aware of the political polarisation that
exists. At the time of writing, the level of antagonism was present to such
an extent that it seemed inevitable and intractable. However, the concept
may prove to be a noteworthy indicator. If there are indications that there
is an increasing level of political agonism then, given the current state of
affairs, this could be considered positive.
In summary, according to the continuums of the CPI, La Silsa’s comuna
provides a case of intermediation/representation where
• the level of authorisation is “Ia”

• the level of accountability is “IIb”
• the level of antagonism/agonism is “IIIa”
72 G. MARTIN
As such, the case can be described overall as recognised and authorised

non-pluralistic community representation.
Conclusions
The chapter focused on how different actors involved in CCs and the
emerging comuna described and understood their roles as intermediaries.
The chapter identified how those actors, whether community participants
or government officers, could be differentiated and attributed to differ-
ent “circuits of representation”. The chapter described how two circuits
in particular—“project” and “people”—interfaced and intersected. The
key contribution identified in the chapter is that the comuna has enabled
the bottom-up/top-down interface between people and project circuits
of representation. This has elicited epistemological insights beyond the
traditional analyses and applications of “representation”. The case studied
also provides indication that, within the CCs and their respective comuna,
levels of authorisation are relatively high (“Ia”), accountability is generally
weak (“IIb”) and agonism is extremely low (“IIIa”). The case highlights
the national-level extreme antagonism, and political polarisation present
in contemporary Venezuela is correspondingly reflected at the neighbour-
hood level. However, the chapter identifies that the axes of the CPI may
prove useful as a barometer of positive change in political relations in the
country, particularly if future political dynamics show a move towards a
more agonistic relationship than the present antagonism.
Notes
1. Fundacaracas is the municipality of Libertador’s decentralised
agency for housing and habitat.
2. Federal district covering the same geographical area as the munici-
pality of Libertador.
3. The programme is called Barrio Nuevo Barrio Tricolor.
4. To put La Silsa in context, the municipality of Libertador, due to its
large territorial size and population, had around 1500 CCs
(MPComunas 2013).
5. We have seen a change in municipal government, the councillors.
We have seen a change in central government towards communities.
The “comandante” taught us that it is not the government that
gives proposals, but the communities that have to give them. That
is, not to start top-down but bottom-up. That is, the top can’t be
the same as the bottom. Ah! But the bottom can be the top, ok?
6. [We have] an efficient popular power articulation towards the insti-
tutions, where we have shown change. It has been at a high level,
now community projects are reached, in which projects are being
discussed among different sectors, in which the community partici-
pates, in which the law says: the power of citizen assemblies and the
different decisions that are taken in the consejos comunales.
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CHAPTER 4
Political Rights and Intermediation:

Municipal Decentralization and Democratic
Innovation in Uruguay
Martín Freigedo Peláez
Introduction
Uruguay is a heavily centralized country with little room for the emer-
gence of local autonomies: “[W]e live in a centralized society, local systems
of actors are weak and mind-sets are constrained by a reality that denies
local particularities” (Arocena 2008, 17; author’s translation). However,
in 2010, with the rise to power for the first time in history of a left-wing
national government—the Frente Amplio (FA)—a new local institu-
tion was created, promoted by the central government and embodied in
municipalities. This gave rise to the emergence of new expressions of polit-
ical intermediation in the form of spaces of participatory democratic inno-
vations as outlined by Gurza Lavalle and Isunza (2010, 17–82). However,
M. Freigedo Peláez (*)

Institute of Political Science, University of the Uruguay Republic (UDELAR),
Montevideo, Uruguay
Institute for Sustainable Development, Inclusion and Social Innovation, Center
Tacuarembó, UDELAR, Tacuarembó, Uruguay

78 M. FREIGEDO PELÁEZ
the creation of participatory institutions has not been homogeneous;

some municipal authorities have created and implemented such institu-
tions while others have not. In this regard, two questions arise: Why have
these new spaces of institutionalized intermediation, that broaden political
rights, arisen? And what reasons exist for opening up the “playing field”,
beyond the classic circuit of representation associated with the vote, and
allowing new actors to make local decisions?
This chapter aims to answer these questions, based on the experience
of two similar Uruguayan municipalities, Chuy and Libertad,1 but which
shows different features of democratic innovation. In the first, participa-
tory institutions have been created that include actors from organized civil
society in decision making—broadening the circuits of the “word” devel-
oped in the introduction to this book—while in the second municipality,
this process has developed less intensely, hence citizens’ influence over
those institutions is weaker.
In order to explain these differences in otherwise similar municipalities,
it is argued that political conflict, outlined in the third dimension of the
cube of political intermediation (CPI) (see Introduction), facilitated the
emergence of new forms of political intermediation. Conflicts between
political leaders gave way to the rise of new voices. In this chapter, the
CPI, especially the substantive dimension related with conflict, will play
a causal rather than a descriptive role to understand the creation of new
circuits of representation. This chapter first analyses municipal authorities’
incentives for creating institutionalized spaces of participation.2 Second,
based on these incentives, the chapter looks at the most relevant represen-
tation circuits of the analysed cases (vote and word).
It will be shown that new participatory institutions should not be
understood as an alternative to traditional voting circuits, but rather as
complementary spaces of political intermediation. In a stable democracy,
such as Uruguay, where political parties are strongly institutionalized and
act as drivers of political life (Buquet and Chasquetti 2004), it is difficult
to consider the rise of other intermediation channels without the electoral
circuit. Nevertheless, there is variation between municipalities and it is
possible to understand the greater or lesser presence of new forms of non-
electoral political intermediation.
Based on the two mentioned cases, this chapter focuses on participatory
institutions, considered here as institutionalized spaces of intermediation,
created within the establishment of municipalities in Uruguay. Two struc-
tural variables were controlled in the selection of municipalities—democratic
POLITICAL RIGHTS AND INTERMEDIATION: MUNICIPAL DECENTRALIZATION... 79
density and socio-economic level—which, according to the participation lit-

erature (Font and Blanco 2005; Giugliano et al. 2013), are two of a broader
range of explanatory factors behind the implementation of participatory
institutions.3
For developing the argument, the chapter has been organized into four
sections. In the first two, the specific characteristics of the Uruguayan
political context are presented, followed by a closer look at the democratic
innovation processes fostered by the new municipalities. The third section
presents the argument based on the incentives of strategic actors. The
fourth section analyses the representation circuits in local political life.
The conclusions underline two aspects: first, the factors that condition
the opening of mechanisms within the context of conflict; second, certain
questions are proposed regarding the new municipalities and the impact
they may have on the future political life of the country.
The Political System and Sub-National Policy

in Uruguay
In addition to significant State centralism, the strong presence of parties

in the political and social life of the country should be noted. These have
historical importance, given that two of the main factions, still existing
and with a central role in political life, were created even before the exis-
tence of the State as a nation (Fuentes 2010). The current political system
has only three important political parties—the two historical factions, the
National Party (PN) and the Colorado Party (PC), and the Frente Amplio
(FA)—founded at the beginning of the 1970s and currently the ruling
national government.
Since the return to democracy in 1985, these parties have been the
only ones winning elections for office in sub-national governments (both
departmental and municipal), extinguishing any opportunities for local
political parties or strong leaders outside of the main party structures to
emerge. This particularity responds to the little power dispersion existing
at the different levels of government.
The configuration of the political system and democracy has been
labelled “consensual particracy” (Buquet and Chasquetti 2004), high-
lighting the protagonist role of political parties and the importance of
traditional channels of party representation. Consequently, little margin
exists for other expressions of representation over public decision making
without partisan intervention.
For example, when analysing mechanisms of direct democracy—

Uruguay being a reference amongst Latin American countries given its
highest number of popular consultations—it is impossible to understand
their approval without party support, given that all issues under consul-
tation approved by the population were somehow supported by a party
(Lissidini 2012, 235–271). This reality challenges the premise that tends
to associate direct democracy with a crisis of party representation given
that, far from promoting its demise, it reinforces and generates new party
identities (idem).
Nevertheless, and particularly since the rise of the FA to power, cer-
tain initiatives can be identified that aim to moderate the strong party
centralism and stimulate the creation of new channels of intermediation
through municipalities. During the period of the first leftist government,
the country faced a discussion regarding how and to what degree it was
possible to implement political reform that could favour decentralization
while incorporating new forms of citizen expression. As a result of this
process, the approval of the Decentralization and Citizen Participation
Law (LD&PC in Spanish), which created municipalities, enabled the elec-
tion of 89 municipal councils by direct vote.
The recent creation of municipalities reflects two notable differences
with the majority of Latin American countries. First, it is an overdue pro-
cess; the decentralization trend in the rest of the region occurred mostly
during the 1990s as a consequence of the return of democratic regimes and
neoliberal economic policies (Mascareño 2009). The second difference
refers to what some scholars have noted—that the region has embarked on
a re-centralization process (Cravacuore 2014) to which Uruguay appears
to go in counter flow.
In a strongly centralized country, where stability and the status quo have
prevailed, and where, in addition, few spaces exist for further decentral-
ization, it is worth exploring those aspects that foster the emergence of
municipalities. In this regard, rational institutional literature suggests that
in conditions of uncertainty, political actors are more likely to minimize
their losses than to maximize their gains. The fear of risk means that actors
tend not to seek the modification of rules, unless they are sure of maximiz-
ing gains (Vetter 2009).
The arrival of the FA to power provided a window of opportunity for
undertaking reforms. In particular, the tax and health reforms are high-
lighted, as well as the approval of important laws with both national
and international repercussions.4 The decentralization process, with the

approval of the LD&PC, is also framed within this reformist package.
While this law has brought about significant changes, the degree of
municipal autonomy is limited, particularly regarding financial matters
which remain subordinate to departmental and national governments,
as does the capacity to define political arenas in which new municipali-
ties can intervene. This dependence contrasts with the political legitimacy
of municipal elected members. The fact that political representatives are
elected directly by citizens has advanced the decentralization of local
politics. Constituency support is reaffirmed by the connection that new
governments have established with civil society organizations, while rec-
ognizing that the new local political representatives are the actors with
whom citizens most frequently build relationships (Freigedo 2015).
The incorporation of municipalities into the institutional framework
of the Uruguayan political system should not be seen as an evolutionary
process, as it did not involve gradual reform. Rather, it is the consequence
of an imperative decision by the central executive that abruptly modified
local political life.
Against this backdrop, local political actors were pushed into unknown
territory generated by the changes that resulted in uncertainty built around
this central imperative. The municipalities had to pave the way for new
voices to arise and began to form part of the political scene. Furthermore,
they provided opportunities to establish new strategies for political rela-
tionships between local political actors. This facilitated the development
of new interests and demands and thereby room was created for new ways
of advocating local political power. The following section looks at these
interests in greater depth and identifies incentives for the creation of new
intermediation channels.
The Local Political System: Actors and Interests
In order to analyse the reasons behind the decision by municipal authori-

ties to create new spaces for intermediation, the argument is centred on
incentives: What incentives do local political actors have for ceding power
and, consequently, for incorporating new voices in decision-making?
To answer this question a rational choice framework was used given its
focus on personal preferences (Colomer 1991; Grindle 2007). Politicians
become strategic actors who accumulate information about available
options and, based on these, evaluate which actions are most likely to help
them maximize power, votes, influence or political survival. They thus
seek how best to maintain power and be re-elected, and, as such, it is to be
expected that incumbents will use municipal resources and assets to sup-
port their re-election (Downs 1957).
However, these actors are not isolated within the local political con-
text, but rather have to confront other interests. Specifically, in the case
of Uruguayan municipalities, three actors are highlighted: the mayor,
political opposition within the City Council and civil society organizations
(CSOs). Political opposition will seek the means by which to win the next
elections, and spaces of participation may be the channel through which
their supporters (citizens or CSOs) are able to influence policy decisions
and, furthermore, seek to erode or seize government positions for other
actors in the electoral arena (Navarro 2000).
Meanwhile, social actors, represented by CSOs, will use their resources
to advocate for their objectives. However, their influence is dependent
on the resources of each organization: financial, organizational resources
and so on (Wampler 2008a; Spada 2014; Boiocchi et al. 2011). Without
sufficient resources, they will not have the necessary means to pressure
authorities and thereby advocate decision making to reach their objectives.
Electoral competition between parties shapes, organizes and estab-
lishes processes within the local political arena; it defines legitimate access
to political power in local government. As such, authorities that control
municipal governments and manage the resources of power have control
over opportunities for participation and may decide whether to create new
channels of political intermediation.
Based on these incentives, these channels should be seen as intentional
creations that authorities choose to enforce. Thus, political actors will
not create just any institutions, but rather those that favour their interests
(Schneider and Goldfrank 2007). This argument is based on the premise
that processes of participation and channels of intermediation should be
analysed as political products, and not as neutral instruments claimed by
civil society (Gurza Lavalle et al. 2005).
Constructing institutions that involve new actors in decision making,
while at the same time seeking to win elections, creates a dilemma over
which actors and what decision-making power should be granted in order
to achieve both objectives. As such, an equilibrium needs to be found
between ceding some spaces of power and not putting at risk the possibil-
ity of staying in government.
Mechanisms of Democratic Innovation

in Uruguayan Municipalities
One of the primary objectives after the creation of the municipal govern-
ment is the broadening of voices and incorporation of new actors into
local political life. So, to what degree has the establishment of alternative
channels of intermediation been furthered in comparison with classic elec-
toral circuits at the local level? The municipal map reveals a heterogeneous
situation: the LD&PC allows differences to exist, as it depends on the
political willingness of local authorities whether to further, or not, the
creation of intermediation spaces.5
The vast majority of municipalities has implemented mechanisms of
information and exchange,6 where authorities are held accountable solely
by an annual public audience,7 but citizens do not have the capacity to
sanction authorities. As such, these spaces do not afford citizens the ability
to directly decide on any government action.
Institutionalized spaces with no possibility of direct policy influence
have little attraction for CSOs as these in no way increase their capacity
for advocacy. In those Uruguayan municipalities where the only mecha-
nism of interaction is public audiences, CSOs have sought other means,
generally based on direct and informal contacts where advocacy capacity
depends on individual organizations’ resources. This has generated a par-
ticipatory bias (Navarro 2000).
From the authorities’ perspective, the new spaces of public audiences
are seen as a formality mandated by law. As such, public audiences do
not address issues relevant to municipal management (Freigedo 2015).
Beyond these largely consultative mechanisms, other forms of democratic
innovation have been implemented where citizens have a greater degree of
policy influence, particularly participatory budgets8 and councils related to
programmes promoted by the central government to strengthen munici-
pal management in the making of citizen relations. Spaces of interaction
differ, in terms of both citizens’ capacity for policy influence and incen-
tives for political actors to create them. Focus will now be placed on two
case studies: the municipalities of Chuy and Libertad.
In Chuy, committees have been created where participants and repre-
senting authorities work together. Various bodies have been established
dealing with different issues: culture, sport, theatre and carnival, and two
neighbourhood committees also exist. Participation in these spaces is
based on self-selection, that is, interested citizens approach the commit-

tees directly.9
The dynamic is based on discussions around issues on the agenda;
projects or concrete petitions by citizens, generally CSOs members, are
taken into account; and, finally, based on a budget predetermined by the
government, spending priorities are decided. This is then brought to the
municipal council, where representatives of the committees also partici-
pate. It is here that decisions are taken. As such, citizens possess the tools
(institutional as well as political) to directly influence local government
decisions and matters that affect the daily management of the municipality.
The Libertad case is different as no mechanisms of democratic inno-
vation have been established, apart from the public audiences where, as
mentioned earlier, citizens have little decision-making capacity. In addi-
tion, channels of intermediation that have been implemented arose out of
national programmes where neither civil society nor local political actors
have acquired decision-making autonomy. Taking account of these differ-
ences, and looking more closely at incentives, the next section will discuss
the reasons for cessation of power and the opening of different interme-
diation spaces by the two local authorities.
The Creation of Intermediation Spaces and Conflict

as a Motor of Change
Of the three dimensions raised by the CPI (recognition, constraint and

substantive representation), only the third will be used here to analyse
incentives. This is based on the premise that both recognition and con-
straint are strong, as the institutional framework within which the new
local governments operate allow for guarantees of representation from
both these dimensions.
Defining political conflict and understanding how it could be a deter-
mining factor for the rise of new channels of intermediation is a complex
challenge. While the very definition of “conflict” is not a simple task, the
categorization used in the introduction of this book, based on the sub-
stantive dimension of representation, is useful for understanding how the
confrontation of interests could be the motor needed for actors to cede
power.
It is argued that the nature of the relationship between mayors,
political opposition and CSOs conditions the strategies that promote
intermediation spaces. When the relationship between actors is based

on conflict, closer to the antagonism pole of the spectrum, participatory
institutions can be understood as mechanisms of political control over
the actions of the mayor. In other words, in cases where the relation-
ship between mayor and city council is one of conflict and fragmenta-
tion, and opposition groups seek to challenge government decisions,
the establishment of participatory institutions can be a mechanism for
political–civil coalitions. On this basis, opportunities for participation
imply a redistribution of power which can be exploited by the opposi-
tion to shift government positions vis-à-vis other stakeholders or to seek
ways of controlling the management of government resources (Selee and
Peruzzotti 2009).
In contrast, if the relationship is based on the absence of disputes among
incumbents, the opposition and civil society, it would be closer to the ago-
nism pole of the spectrum; there is less incentive to cede power through
the creation of intermediation spaces. In these cases, mayors must create
a climate of trust in order (a) to dissuade the creation or strengthening of
new political groups, (b) to identify the interest of each stakeholder and
(c) to limit the capacity to generate conflict that could lead to the cessation
of power (Freigedo 2015). Based on the experience of the two municipali-
ties and the arguments outlined in the previous paragraphs, the determin-
ing role that political conflict has played in the behaviour of actors and the
opening up of new channels of intermediation will be analysed next.
In Libertad, the leadership style and personality of the mayor has led
to his recognition by all actors in the municipality as a conciliatory fig-
ure, open to dialogue and extremely skilled in managing personal rela-
tions. This form of leadership has meant that, despite partisan differences,
no conflicts have arisen between political actors or confrontations with
social organizations have been seen. CSOs interviewed have an ongoing
relationship with the mayor. In fact, in response to the question “With
whom do you have links in the municipality?” all commented that they
would always establish contact with the mayor. The ongoing relationship
between CSOs and the mayor occurs even in cases where organizations
have a direct relationship with the opposition party. Similarly, the opposi-
tion also highlighted the charisma of the mayor:
While he has always been from the PN, more importantly, he is a person
from the community. Everybody loves him. And it’s no coincidence, it’s
his way of being. Obviously we are always able to argue and not agree on
things, but I feel that he listens to me and doesn’t see me as a rival, but
rather as a work colleague. That’s what helps us to function well. (Interview
with council member of the FA in Libertad)
The presence of a conciliatory figure, with the capacity to manage dis-

putes and integrate different stakeholders of the locality, both social and
political, has meant that neither organized civil society nor the opposition
exerted pressure to open room for inclusion or to get directly involved in
the management of the municipality. The mayor is able to transmit a sense
of trust to the rest of the local actors, and this makes him a leading figure
for the whole political spectrum.
So, what allows a mayor, in a country conditioned by strong party
competition, to be a conciliatory figure for all parties and CSOs? In this
case, his personal history has an important role to play. In general, the
majority of candidates for mayor are leaders of the political parties in the
municipality; however, the case of the mayor of Libertad is different.
Historically, he has been connected to the social life of the area, though
not in party politics. This position meant that for years he was able to
cultivate a constant dialogue, not only with political leaders from differ-
ent parties, but also with social, union and business leaders. As a result,
the trust placed in him is based on his past as a social reference, and not
as a party leader. This has meant that the mayor has not needed incen-
tives to open new participatory institutions. Direct, fluid and constant
contact, albeit informal, with CSOs and opposition council members (as
well as those from his own party), is the predominant form of interaction
in the municipality.
The municipality of Chuy reflects a different situation. From the politi-
cal campaigning stage, conflict has existed between political and social
actors. In order to understand better the conflict, it is important to look
at the conformation of the City Council: four of the five elected positions
are occupied by the FA, and only one by the PN. Nevertheless, within the
left coalition the nature and history of the relationship among the four
members of the FA have brought about marked problems.
The FA has played a significant role in the municipality, dating from
even before the dictatorship. With the return to democracy, the FA’s
organic structure was further strengthened in the municipality, particularly
due to the importance that the local grassroots committees10 acquired.
These formed the cadres with substantial political weight that today are a
fundamental group of the FA.
The mayor who was finally elected, however, does not belong to the
traditional cadres of the FA, but rather joined in 2004. Her electoral
strength, far from the common pattern of FA candidates, was based on her
strong personality, more than on the traditional FA vote. Furthermore, her
electoral base is identified as mostly low-income voters. Her recognition as
a local leader is the result of community work and the use of a communica-
tion style that connects her with “the people” and to the grassroots culture
of the “neighbourhood”. These are far from traditional forms of creating
cadres within the FA, where traditionally candidates have to form part of
the party’s base committees before climbing up the party ladder (Vera
2014; Yaffe 2005). In this case, how did a party outsider achieve victory?
The fractionalized internal nature of the grassroots committees resulted in
the current mayor receiving the most votes. Institutionalised actors of the
FA were not able to establish a winning coalition capable of countering the
number of non-partisan votes obtained by the elected mayor.
At the same time, CSOs also play an important role in this dispute.
On the one hand, the non-governmental organization (NGO) Eco Chuy,
which has positioned itself as a social reference in the region, is directly
linked to the classical structures of the FA. Its founders identify them-
selves as party militants and two of them were elected councillors. This
positions them differently within the local political system. On the other
hand, the elected mayor has a direct relationship with the neighbour-
hood’s “popular” committees in which she acquired her political capital.
The political conflict was thereby transferred to the social level, via CSOs,
which defended their own interests in such committees. This conflictual
relationship between the mayor and City Council has been present during
most of the current government term, with both FA and PN council-
lors.11 The councillors criticize the mayor’s limited negotiation capacity
and her “populist” personalism when acting on government decisions,
often excluding the rest of the elected representatives.
In Chuy, internal conflict within the municipal government, particularly
between members of the FA, was an important factor in the establishment
of the participatory committees. They worked as a form of controlling
the management and power of the mayor. Furthermore, the management
style of the mayor, based on her strong personalism, was used to bypass
the counterweight of the municipal council; the latter prompted FA coun-
cillors to build civil–political alliances as control mechanisms. Hence, the
possibility of involving CSOs in decision making limited the discretion in
the mayoral management.
Representation Circuits in Uruguayan Local

Politics
Taking into account the particular characteristics of the Uruguayan case,
the importance of the vote circuit becomes evident. Following the typol-
ogy of the five circuits presented in the introduction and considering local
politics in the country from the cases presented, it can be noted that the
force and project circuits are hardly prevalent.
Regarding the force circuit, interviews showed that corporate struc-
tures are not key actors in the local scenario12:
It is difficult to get inside. But that is historical, it was always the complaint
of Pepe D’Elia.13 In the rural areas, where no legislation exists that allows
rural workers to affiliate, it was impossible and people lost interest in partici-
pating. (Interview with union representative)
With regard to the people circuit, heavy constraints imposed by politi-

cal parties inhibit the rise of charismatic leaders who can overcome party
structures. In spite of this, Chuy represents an example of the rise of lead-
ers who are, to some degree, dissociated from classic voting channels, and
offer an entry point to the people circuit.
The project circuit is also not significantly prevalent, especially due to
the limited training of local cadres and the dependency on party struc-
tures. When analysing access to public positions, it becomes clear that
Uruguayan local politics has been marked by strong patronage and cli-
entelism (Castellano 1996). The strong presence of political parties and
their interests has meant that civil service career is not a viable option for
sub-national governments. Consequently, bureaucracy has lost ground in
the face of clientelist and discretional practices. According to Castellano,
“this situation deactivated the development of a Weberian bureaucracy
by blocking autonomous spaces in the face of partisan politics. In the
Uruguayan case, parties always imprint their interests and visions on state
actions” (1996, 22).
Nevertheless, certain characteristics associated with the project circuit
can be identified. In the Libertad case, it is possible to observe how pro-
grammes have been executed that provide local actors with the capac-
ity to access resources. Although final decisions emanate from the central
government, these are in the hands of key technical actors. Similarly, the
technical-bureaucratic circuit also reinforces the word circuit, as external
Table 4.1 Representation circuits in the case studies

Vote Force Project Word People
Chuy +++ −− −− ++ +
Libertad +++ −− + −− −−−
intervention of the central government depends, to a large degree, on the

involvement of local social actors in decision making.14
Finally, in reference to the word circuit, while institutionalized mecha-
nisms of participation depend on the political willingness of authorities, the
first experience of municipal governments has resulted in various spaces of
intermediation among the government, CSOs and citizens. While citizens
may enjoy varying degrees of decision-making capacity (more so in Chuy
than in Libertad), ultimately, municipal governments have created new
ways in which the State relates to civil society.
Table 4.1 depicts the prevalence of the different circuits for the two
municipalities. It shows how electoral representation is of the greatest
importance (+++) in both cases, although, in the case of Chuy, it coexists
with the word circuit (++), and, to a lesser degree (+), with the people
circuit. In the case of Libertad, the vote circuit coexists with the project
circuit to a lesser degree (+).
Conclusions
This chapter has shown that the political environment and the interac-
tion of local authorities (mayor and councillors) with other actors explain
the incentives to include, or not, new voices in local government deci-
sion making. Conflict is associated with the capacity of CSOs to intervene
in local matters, based on civil–political alliances. In this sense, it has been
shown how, in the same country, in two municipalities with similar socio-
economic and political contexts (institutional stability and clear rules of
the game), the degree of conflict (agonism–antagonism) varies according
to the type of leadership and the relationship that has been established
between political parties and CSOs.
Based on the substantive dimension of the CPI, the chapter’s analysis
underlined that conflict does not always have negative consequences that
must be eradicated. On the contrary, it has been shown here that politi-
cal disputes within the FA led to the creation of democratic innovation
spaces. In the case of Chuy, it cannot be argued that the authority (the
mayor) “ceded power”, but rather that certain bits of it were “taken”
from her by internal opposition actors from the same party (FA). In this
way, spaces of democratic innovation, namely participatory committees,
allied with the mayor’s rivals, gave rise to greater control over her manage-
ment. The case shows that incentives for broadening spaces of innovative
indirect intermediation occur when a certain degree of conflict exists that
prompts and widens the spectrum of political intermediation channels.
This chapter has also shown how the absence of conflict and the predomi-
nance of a harmonic and undisputed leadership, centred on the mayor,
as in the case of Libertad, de-incentivized the substantive broadening of
options for political intermediation.
In general, with reference to the Uruguayan case and its circuits of
representation at a local level, evidences presented in this chapter suggest
that decentralizing reforms do not appear to have given way to the prolif-
eration of relevant actors outside of party structures and classic representa-
tion circuits with strong veto power. The institutional locks placed on the
rise of actors outside of classic representation structures are strong,15 and
at the moment of designing the new level of government, the stability of
the party system was prioritized and understood as the engine for demo-
cratic life of the country.
While the shift towards decentralization has been a valuable opportunity
to deepen aspects of Uruguayan democratic life, this has only energized a
democratic structure that is highly conditioned to the action of political
parties. Despite the opportunity that resulted in institutionalized forms of
citizen and CSO engagement, with opportunities to influence local policy,
municipalities have not all responded equally (Freigedo 2015). The legal
framework offered municipal authorities the possibility of behaving in dif-
ferent ways, and this has left strategic actors with incentives to play a key
and discretionary role in creating participatory institutions.
It is not yet possible to predict whether the recent decentralization
policy and the creation of municipalities can really generate groundbreak-
ing change in local political life that could, in the future, broaden repre-
sentation circuits to include other voices. However, in certain cases, and
under certain conditions, the municipalities have generated incentives for
local political actors to open up “the playing field” so that other actors can
influence local government decisions.
Notes
1. The municipalities are similar in terms of socio-economic condi-
tions. Chuy is an eastern municipality on the border with Brazil.
Libertad is a southern municipality near Montevideo. Both were
selected from a conglomerate of municipalities that have an aver-
age of 9648 inhabitants (a medium population size in the context
of Uruguay) (Freigedo 2015).
2. The term institutionalized spaces of participation is defined as par-
ticipatory innovations formally implemented by following some
kind of local regulation or law (Avritzer 2009).
3. A hierarchical analysis carried out by the author that looked at
these variables allowed the identification of the similarities between
the two municipalities when compared within the universe of
Uruguayan local governments. Regarding research techniques,
two surveys and in-depth interviews were carried out with local
stakeholders. One of the surveys was applied to the mayors of 49
municipalities in order to gain a deeper understanding of the
mechanism of democratic innovation instruments and perceptions
of these. The unit of analysis for the second survey was civil society
organizations in the selected municipalities.
4. For example, regarding human rights, laws have been passed such
as the legalization of marihuana and approval of same-sex mar-
riages. The sexual and reproductive health law depenalized
abortion.
5. The case of Uruguayan municipalities is unique in that they do not
fit either of the two possible situations presented in the literature
to differentiate frameworks in which mechanisms of participation
arise. On the one hand are the cases where the obligation to create
interaction spaces is stipulated in national laws or regulations, and
in which the margin of manoeuvre for institutional differences is
practically non-existent. On the other hand are cases where their
creation is discretionary and no regulations exist for the implemen-
tation of democratic innovation mechanisms. Uruguayan munici-
palities are in a different situation: legal provisions exist for the
generalized implementation of institutional innovations for partici-
pation, but without binding laws.
6. In the survey with mayors, 87% of municipalities undertook this
type of activity (Freigedo 2015, 80).
7. Article 12 of the LD&PC establishes that municipalities must

undertake these activities annually where members of the Municipal
Council are accountable to citizens for actions taken.
8. Of the mayors interviewed, 37% alluded to the participatory bud-
gets in their municipalities (Freigedo 2015, 83).
9. This has resulted in great diversity within the committees: busi-
nesspeople, civil society organizations as well as citizens interested
in specific issues of the committees, while some councillors have
also participated in these meetings.
10. It is from these committees that the delegates emerge who choose
and select the party authorities, as well as discuss the FA program-
matic lines that will then be approved by the central committee of
the party. The grassroots committees comprise all adhering mem-
bers of the FA in the same area.
11. In fact, legal action has been taken between the mayor and the PN
councillors following accusations of management irregularities and
the misappropriation of funds (44 interviews were carried out in
different municipalities [Freigedo 2015]).
12. This reality, of minimal corporate power in local politics, does not
hold at the national political level, where these have significant
advocacy capacity.
13. José D’Elía was founder and honorary president of the Workers
Inter-union Plenary Centre for Workers of Uruguay (PIT-CNT).
He is recognized as the most important union leader in Uruguayan
history (Subillaga 1996).
14. Of the mayors surveyed, 56.5% expressed that they conduct the-
matic committees requested by central government (Freigedo
2015, 82).
15. For example, it is not possible to create local parties, as it happens
in other Latin American countries, and so far no discussion has
been opened regarding the possibility of candidates postulating in
municipal elections outside of party structures.
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de los factores instrumentales e ideológicos en los mecanismos españoles de
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Educación, UDELAR, Montevideo.
CHAPTER 5
Bolivia: “Social Control” as the Fourth State

Power 1994–2015
Moira Zuazo
Introduction
In the global arena, the first decade of the twenty-first century was charac-
terised by discontent around representative democracy. During this time,
a process of social implosion and state collapse occurred in Bolivia that
led to the adoption of a new Constitution. The dialogue that preceded
the adoption of the new fundamental Charter was both deeply rooted in
Bolivian past and charged with present dissatisfaction. As such, Bolivia
engaged with global challenges, presenting questions and offering solu-
tions for the crisis of democracy “from the bottom”.
On the path to the Constituent Assembly in Bolivia (2006–2009), a
system of “Social Control” was developed and put forward for consti-
tutional approval. This was expected to close the gap between the State,
perceived as distant and distrustful, and “real society”. It was thought to
be the panacea from which to achieve control by society over the State.
Social Control was considered the fourth State power, with the capacity to
oversee all State bodies.1
M. Zuazo (*)
Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universitaet, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
San Andres Major University, La Paz, Bolivia

96 M. ZUAZO
This chapter presents a historical narrative around Social Control from

its original appearance in the constitutional text to its failed implementa-
tion. Using the conceptual framework of the representation circuits, pre-
sented in the introduction to this book, three main historical processes are
identified in which the circuits of the word, force and vote are articulated
in different ways, and the articulation of the circuits generates different
results in terms of the promotion and later deterioration of Social Control.
The framework helps to identify actors, governing rules, repertoires of
action and spaces in which policy occurred. Finally, the observation of the
role of conflict in each of these circuits is discussed.
Using the conceptual framework of the cube of political intermedia-
tion (CPI), the chapter will discuss the impact that the cultural horizon of
the radical nature of indigenous communitarianism had upon the origins
of Social Control. The CPI provides an analytical instrument with which
to consider intermediation processes based on recognition versus non-
recognition, agonism as regulated conflict versus antagonism, and con-
straints versus discretion. The analysis of Social Control as the fourth State
power, in light of the CPI, shows that this institutional design attempted
to articulate unrestricted agonism, strong constraints and high, guided rec-
ognition—ideals inspired by the experience of local indigenous community
participation. This analysis also shows the difficulties in making these ideals
a reality, especially when moving from the local to the national scale.
Three historical processes are discussed in this chapter. The first pro-
cess (2004–2009) is the stage in which the concept of Social Control was
introduced and strengthened by the combined action of peasant unions
and indigenous actors, which together, in 2004, formed the Unity Pact
(PU is its acronym in Spanish).2 Social Control arose out of a particular
cultural horizon, based on “communities of face-to-face contact”,3 inher-
ent in local experiences of indigenous congregational democracy. In this
first process, the chapter shows how the PU articulated the word circuit in
conjunction with the force circuit.
Given the importance of the debate on the need for democratic
renewal, emphasis is put on communities of face-to-face contact which
contrast against imagined communities (Anderson 1991). Communities
of face-to- face contact and imagined communities reflect contextual
frameworks that have different implications for political participation and
social a ccountability. The word circuit, described in the first process, is the
carrier of a word imbued with the indigenous worldview related to ances-
tral ways of community participation, and connected to a congregational
tradition of Amerindian roots largely based on local experiences.
BOLIVIA: “SOCIAL CONTROL” AS THE FOURTH STATE POWER 1994–2015 97
In the second historical process (2007–2009), as a result of the dis-

articulation of the PU members, a new alliance emerged referred to as
the National Coordinator for Change (CONALCAM is its acronym in
Spanish). This grouped together social organisations and unions of a rural
and urban character, under the leadership of President Evo Morales. It is
suggested that many of the characteristics of the force circuit are prevalent
in this process, not necessarily directed against the State, but rather against
those regional and party opposition groups that resisted the Constituent
Assembly. Although this alliance would be effective in deactivating opposi-
tion groups, it also resulted in a decline in the autonomy of social organ-
isations. This in turn impacted negatively on the alliance between peasants
and indigenous peoples who advocated the Social Control project pro-
moted by the PU.
Finally, in the third process (2011 onwards), during the confrontation
in the defence of the Indegenous Territory of the Isidoro Sécure National
Park (TIPNIS is its acronym in Spanish), the chapter shows a rupture
between the word circuit (rooted in indigenous Amerindian congrega-
tional tradition) and the force circuit (rural and union-based). It is shown
how the vision of Social Control lost power vis-à-vis the executive branch
of the State, which through the vote circuit dominated and controlled the
protagonist actors leading the force circuit. The discussion shows how this
rupture resulted in the deactivation of the mechanism of Social Control
on a national scale.
The experience of indigenous direct democracy reproduces a commu-
nity of face-to-face contact. Considering that the original inspiration for
Social Control as a fourth power of the Bolivian State was direct democ-
racy, the chapter argues that the central tension of modern democracy in
the country is the unresolved linkage to indigenous congregational princi-
ples, which was used as a reference for the legitimisation of Social Control.
Direct democracy constitutes an external point of reference to represen-
tative democracy and the chapter shows how the bridge, metaphorically
speaking, that might have connected these two spaces turned into a ditch
in the Bolivian case.
The Archaeology of Social Control

Arising out of the legacy of its colonial origins and the hierarchical social
formation and violence that this brought, from its birth as a republic,
Bolivian society has reflected the presence of two political cultural tradi-
tions: the liberal democratic tradition and the community participatory
98 M. ZUAZO
tradition. The contention and interaction between these civilisations has

contributed to the constant presence of political instability with periods
of stability (Crabtree 2005; Mayorga 2011; Verdesoto and Zuazo 2006;
Zuazo et al. 2012).
From the origins of the republic the liberal democratic tradition encom-
passed in the electoral principle of “one person, one vote” was slowly
assimilated and appropriated as cultural legacy by the literate urban sec-
tors, increasingly mestizo, and was a “collective aspiration”4 for rural peas-
ant and indigenous sectors (Zavaleta 1983; Irurozqui 2000).
The participatory community tradition (Zuazo 2014) was preserved as
a condition for identity and cultural survival by the Amerindian sectors.
For peasant and urban-popular sectors, the tradition of community par-
ticipation in direct congregational democracy (Zuazo 2014) became a tra-
dition of protest, and provided substance to the concept of democracy for
the majority of Bolivians. The contestatory or protest tradition is one of
the central characteristics of Bolivian civil society and explains its strength
in the face of a weak State (Dunkerley 1987). Given that the construction
of democracy in Bolivia arises from its colonial origins and subsequent
context of social hierarchies, the political exchange has developed primar-
ily through intermediation permeated with distrust and, only occasion-
ally, as legitimate political representation. This limitation highlights the
relevance of intermediation as a concept better able to elucidate the com-
plex Bolivian reality than the restricted concept of political representation
associated with the vote circuit. This historical overview also shows the
central role played by trust and its abstract presence at different levels in
the conformation of a political community.
The weakness of the Bolivian state is expressed on two levels: first,
through the limited capacity of the State to integrate social groups by
guaranteeing access to state assets, which gave rise to a socially fragmented
society; and second, in the difficulty of the State to exert its presence on
the whole of Bolivian territory. The idea of “state voids” (PNUD 2007)
expresses the country’s reality and facilitates an understanding of the social
structure, comprised of concentric circles, with urban centres closer to the
seat of State power and peripheral rural areas further away from it.
Like in the context of a weak State, a national identity with voids (PNUD
2007) has been developed, and therefore it does not include the whole
population. During the 1980s when democracy returned to the country,
Bolivian citizens became both mobilised collective subjects and individ-
ual voters (Archondo 2010). These distinct cultural traditions constantly
interact, intertwine and overdetermine democracy. The result is the con-

struction of an “incomplete”5 democratic rule of law, in which distrust
towards the State is a constant, expressed by the social legitimacy of infor-
mality, with protest as the basic currency of sociopolitical exchange (Rojas
2015). This incomplete democracy predominates and overdetermines the
force circuit.
From Participatory Planning in the 1990s to Social

Control as the Fourth State Power
in the Constitution
An example that portrays the articulation of both traditions explained ear-

lier was the creation of municipalities by the Law for Popular Participation
(LPP) in 1994, which founded what would later become a municipal par-
ticipatory tradition. In rural Bolivia, the LPP, at the same time as it signalled
the arrival of the State to rural areas, sought to institutionalise the commu-
nity participatory tradition within a liberal frame. Participatory municipal-
isation introduced the liberal logic of the individual vote and implemented
municipal governments based on rural electoral representation.
At the same time, through recognition of indigenous social organisa-
tions such as the Grassroots Territorial Organisations (OTBs is its acronym
in Spanish),6 the LPP legalised the collective or congregational logic of
indigenous communities (ayllus, indigenous groups and peasant unions)
as a mode of participation. For the participation of local civil society, the
LPP created Monitoring Committees (CVs is its acronym in Spanish)7
comprised, in rural areas, of native communities, peasant unions and
indigenous populations. In urban areas, the CVs were made up of neigh-
bourhood assemblies. These were entrusted with controlling and moni-
toring the management of municipal governments (LPP No 1551, Article
10, sections a, b and c).
The LPP established that the Municipal Development Plans (PDMs is
its acronym in Spanish) should be made collectively in spaces of citizen
deliberation in which local society (i.e. CVs) would participate in medium-
term planning. Thus, participatory planning of municipal development in
rural areas was the doorway through which rural society could enter the
national political community.
Following the state crisis (2000–2005), thanks to the approval of the con-
stitutional text (2009) and the laws that derived from the new constitution,
the institutions that ruled social participation in municipal governments
100 M. ZUAZO
from the 1990s were modified. The most important of these reforms was
the abolition of the CVs. Nevertheless, participation in the debate and def-
inition of public resource allocation in municipalities remained ingrained
in the local political tradition as a right.
Twenty years on from this institutional reform, an intimate articulation
between representative democracy rooted in the liberal tradition (vote cir-
cuit) and congregational direct democracy rooted in the Amerindian tradi-
tion can be observed. This is enhanced by the communities of face-to-face
contact, the result of which is a rooted participatory tradition in municipal
government decision-making and the consolidation of the municipality as
an inclusive channel into the broader Bolivian political system. Currently,
it is common to find demand for greater participation through local public
arrangements which are open to dialogue. At a national level, through the
Constituent Assembly, this demand reached its climax back in 2009 with
the proposition of Social Control as the fourth State power.
First Process: The PU and Inclusion of Social Control

in the Constitution
The PU was the product of indigenous and peasant unity from both the
highlands and lowlands.8 It had a twofold objective: developing consensus
among its members on a proposal for constitutional reform and putting
pressure for its approval by the Constituent Assembly. The PU’s 2006
constitutional proposal remarks: “Our task has not concluded, the chal-
lenge now is to enrich our proposals in the debate, generate alliances with
social organisations of urban and rural sectors, and exercise the right to
participation, monitoring and social mobilisation in the search for gen-
eral well-being and the peaceful coexistence and solidarity between all
Bolivians” (Garcés 2010, 144; author’s emphasis).
This quote expresses the Amerindian imaginary (collective conscious-
ness) of democracy as the right to participation, monitoring and social
mobilisation, which legally would translate into the institutionalisation of
Social Control as an organism of State power. This reflects a constitutional
design of Social Control that incorporates guidelines stemming from the
word circuit specifically based on indigenous traditions. Regarding the
relationship between the individual and the State, practices which were
previously developed on the edges of institutional borders became instead
rights and provided content to the concept of citizenship, albeit from an
indigenous perspective.
Tracking the archaeological origins of Social Control, the indigenous

concept of democracy can be seen as direct congregational democracy,
with participation, monitoring and social mobilisation as its inherent
elements. The archaeology also highlights the artificial break between
representation and participation as the indigenous imaginary draws a con-
tinuous line between both.
In order to understand this imaginary, the idea of communities of face-
to-face contact is central. As opposed to the idea of imagined communities
(Anderson 1991) that exists only in the consciousness of all members of a
nation, the community of face-to-face contact refers to the community as
factum, where each person physically knows all members of their commu-
nity and some details of their lives, even if they do not know their names.
Research shows that this type of community enables indigenous direct
democracy and is the necessary condition for its reproduction (Zuazo
2014).
The idea of Social Control as the fourth State power arose from the PU
acting as the “collective organic intellectual” of the Bolivian indigenous
and peasant populations (Gramsci 1981). The PU’s constitutional pro-
posal stated in point 7—Structure and Powers of the State: “State powers
are the following: Executive Power, Legislative Power, Judicial Power and
Plurinational Social Power” (Garcés 2010, 148; author’s emphasis).
Point 7 shows Social Control as a fourth State power, as a “Superpower”,
expressing both people’s trust in Community Assemblies as sovereign
power, and their distrust in the State, which is also understood as a dis-
trust of representation. What emerges is the design of the articulation of
congregational direct democracy with electoral representative democracy
from the indigenous civilisatory horizon. It establishes that participants’
mandate-making of direct democracy assumes the monitoring role for a
republican order of representative democracy. Social Control as a fourth
power is rooted in the community view that differentiates and values the
capacity and power of collective decisions. This view establishes that native
authorities are elected by the community, are accountable to it and need
to consult community members before taking important decisions.9
The sovereign exercise of an Assembly is developed within the com-
munity in three different spheres: first, inside the community in the rela-
tionship between the Community Assembly and the organic authorities
assigned by the people; second, in the sphere of the relationship between
the community and other, external actors; and finally, in the sphere of the
relationship between the community and the Bolivian State.
102 M. ZUAZO
In the first sphere, the community, enabled by the community of

face-to-face contact, facilitates a close connection with the Community
Assembly, and this translates into a continuous accountability interpreted
as constrained intermediation. This connection is an internalised social
norm and is expressed in the perception of the obligation of indige-
nous authorities to consult and be accountable for their actions to the
Community Assembly, as something natural and expected. Against this
backdrop, it is understood how indigenous and peasant representatives in
the Constituent Assembly did not assume independence of political repre-
sentation, but rather constrained mandates or commands (Lazarte 2012).
For the indigenous population, the notion of collective territory is both
essential and constitutive of the local political structure and its institutions.
The collective territory determines the dependent nature of the relation-
ship between individual members and the community as well as ancestral
customs and traditions. When it is understood that the right to use col-
lective land is mediated by recognition and subordination of individual
members to the community, it is possible to comprehend that the collec-
tive territory stabilises the authority of the community over the individual.
The second sphere emerges out of the relationship between the com-
munity and other external individuals or collective actors who approach
the community’s territory (non-governmental organisations and private
individuals). The Community Assembly has the authority to approve this
relationship or not, and thereby to define the relationship with external
actors, while maintaining its authority over the community’s territory.
The third sphere emerges out of the relationship between the indig-
enous community and the Bolivian State. This relationship is characterised
by distrust and operates simultaneously under the logic of representa-
tion through the vote and force circuits. In analytical terms, based on the
model provided by the CPI, Social Control could be ideally seen as the
articulation between strong constraints, maximum recognition and unre-
stricted agonism. In communities of face-to-face contact, strong constraints
are inherent to community life, in which they are implemented as matters
of common sense. They are an obligation that does not require formalisa-
tion as they form part of customs and traditions. Hence, the social demand
for strong constraints reflects a continuity between participation in congre-
gational democracy and representative democracy and helps to understand
the historic origin of the tension between strong constraints and discre-
tion (CPI second dimension) in the Bolivian case. Discretion does not fall
within the realm of possibilities for communities of face-to-face contact.
The small size (ca. 3000) of communities of face-to-face contact

raises the impossibility of the absence of knowledge. On the contrary,
the Community Assembly as an organ of sovereign power of the whole
community offers maximum recognition of representatives appointed by
the Assembly. Taking into account that the legitimacy of decisions in the
Assembly is conditional upon the presence of all community members,
it can be concluded that, ideally, the Assembly would be the sphere of
deployment of unrestricted agonism as a right and an obligation of all to
take part in decision-making.10
In political terms, a review of actions by the PU allows an under-
standing of how Social Control as a fourth power was included in the
Constitution. The PU’s actions were developed simultaneously along two
paths. The first was through internal debate and construction of propos-
als for the redesign of the State. The second comprised of street protests
(street blockades, sit-ins outside the constituent conclave) that, at times,
pressured the Constituent Assembly and, at others, protected it from
reproaches of opposition social groups.
The relationship between the PU as a social movement and the
Movement to Socialism (MAS is its acronym in Spanish) was relatively
autonomous. Although many social leaders were also high-ranking leaders
of the MAS, the PU’s autonomy was evidenced by the occasional chal-
lenge to MAS assembly members, while avoiding an organic connection
with the party in order to strengthen its advocacy capacity when promot-
ing its vision of the country.
In 2009, after the new Constitution was approved, a consultation was
done with the indigenous population of the lowlands to evaluate the pro-
cess. This had moderately positive results (Garcés 2010, 88–90). Although
the indigenous populations were aware that not all of their aspirations
had been included in the newly approved Constitution, they nevertheless
valued the moderate progress and the constitutional recognition of their
rights. A member of an indigenous population from the lowlands and
Constitutional representative of CIDOB11 commented:
There is not total satisfaction, given that we wanted them to agree to the
customs and traditions of indigenous peoples for the election of candidates.
But they insisted on universal suffrage: we wanted, based on our customs
and traditions, to accredit our candidates via our organic structure that we
have in the CIDOB, which would be responsible, but the opposition was so
cruel, so hard, they did not accept that and they took everyone to universal
suffrage. (Garcés 2010, 90; author’s translation)
104 M. ZUAZO
An assembly member from the Guarani population of the lowlands

argued: “I think that we have progressed a bit, but I think that practically
60% of what we had in mind, was not heard” (Garcés 2010, 89).
On the contrary, representatives of colonisers12 and peasants gave a
generally positive assessment of the Constitutional text. The following
two examples are testimonies to this.
A peasant leader of the CSUTCB13 commented:
The Pact was a fundamental step. We had problems. We fought amongst

ourselves. We finally had to sit together and come to a consensus about the
articles we had conflict over and continue progressing in Sucre…80% of the
100% that we worked on was accepted, is included, so we should feel proud,
our leaders, our organisations, that we have achieved what we wanted within
the Constitution. (Garcés 2010, 88; author’s translation)
A peasant cocalero leader and assembly member commented:
There is a romantic, idealistic view that the revolution is enshrined in the

Constitutional text, that we achieved everything. We got to the text [of the
city] of Oruro with this vision, because there, really everything was included,
because as the Right did not attend, it was the ideal text. And really it was
(an ideal text), let’s say, the best that could happen in the sense that the
text was totally favourable to social organisations, the social world, that had
been excluded over the historical process of republican life, the model of the
Bolivian republic. (Garcés 2010, 90; author’s translation)
What is observed throughout these interviews is a provisionary and

heterogeneous consensus between peasants and indigenous leaders that
allows an articulation of the force and word circuits, incarnated in the
proposal of Social Control. This consensus would begin to crack as a result
of the alliance established between the government and CONALCAM.
Second Process: The CONALCAM Experience, Controlled Force

The CONALCAM’s creation was announced by Evo Morales in a com-
memoration ceremony for the first year of the MAS government, as a
coordination body “comprised of Executive and Legislative unionists” (La
Razón 2007). CONALCAM formed part of a dual governmental strategy:
first, it aimed to confront party and regional opposition (based in the
epicentre of Santa Cruz de la Sierra), by adopting the highlights of the
process of social promotion and empowerment in Bolivia (2000–2003),
but this time under government control. Second, it was a strategy that
provided substance to the idea of “government as social movement” by
establishing actions for social organisations within the government.
In the beginning, CONALCAM was comprised of organisations that
formed part of the PU, with the addition of a few urban organisations.
Subsequently, CONALCAM broadened to include many more social
urban organisations. In support of government measures, and in some
cases in opposition to other social actors, CONALCAM exerted pressure
from the streets, which paved the way to the transition from the sphere
of agonism of the PU to the sphere of antagonism, although not towards
the State, but towards groups that opposed the government-led project.
During the course of 2008, two factors contributed to the intensifi-
cation of political polarisation and conflict: civil–regional opposition in
Santa Cruz de la Sierra and street mobilisations. Regional opposition
radically resisted the process of change emanating from the Constituent
Assembly and gambled on blocking it. This opposition contributed to
the violent events of La Calancha.14 The approval of the constitutional
text in Chuquisaca, but without the presence of the opposition after La
Calancha events, and the foreseeable result of the recall referendum—
aiming to revoke the presidential, vice-presidential and prefecture man-
dates15—prompted the regional opposition to launch a violent takeover of
government institutions in the departments of the so-called Media Luna
(Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija). This, however, marked the political
suicide of the civil–regional opposition.
Resistance continued through mobilisations by social organisations
sieging Congress (preventing the opposition’s entrance to parliament16),
the march to Santa Cruz as well as the siege threat to this city. During
the march to Santa Cruz, between September and October 2008, Evo
Morales, as president and party leader, chaired some crucial meetings in
CONALCAM. The presidential control of social organisations grouped
under CONALCAM, provided substance to the phrase constantly repeated
by President Morales to “rule by obeying”. However, the result of these
discussions has been interpreted as an imposition of presidential decisions
(Mayorga 2009).
The climax of CONALCAM was also the beginning of its end, as for
an extended period of time after the march to Santa Cruz, no other sig-
nificant public intervention in the national process was carried out. The
experience of CONALCAM was, on the one hand, an experiment to enact
Social Control by leading social actors. On the other hand, it showed that
union organisations, belonging to the force circuit, could abandon their
106 M. ZUAZO
autonomy from the executive power. The latter became an important ele-
ment in understanding both the later separation of peasant unions and
indigenous leadership, and the deactivation of Social Control through its
subservience to the executive power.
Third Process: The TIPNIS, Dissolution of the PU and Sinking

of Social Control
For the indigenous population of the lowlands, the divergence of their
interests and vision against those of peasant and coloniser populations
from the highlands had historical antecedents. In 1990, the first indig-
enous march (I Marcha) launched the defence of the TIPNIS and contin-
ued up until 2010 via the eighth march (VIII Marcha).
The first march claiming “territory and dignity”, in protest against the
advance and encroachment of colonising peasants, demanded respect for
ancestral indigenous land and called for mediation by the Bolivian State.
I Marcha achieved recognition of territory through the Isiboro Sécure
National Park, where demarcation of a red line defined the borders of
indigenous land and that of cocalero-coloniser settlements. Two years
later, in 1992, Evo Morales, then representative of the migrant peasants,
known as “colonisers”,17 participated in discussions about the demarca-
tion of a more secure border between the indigenous and peasant popula-
tions (Tierra 2009).
With the ever-present memory of the conquest, colony and republic
that had brought dispossession and servitude, and the appreciation that
cultural tensions and differences of interests with peasants regarding the
use of land were a lesser evil, the indigenous population from the low-
lands opted to form part of an indigenous and peasant block within the
PU. Within a context of democracy and openness to promote rights, the
indigenous groups from the lowlands understood that the formation of a
historical united block would give them the opportunity to present their
worldview of the land to the rest of the country as mother nature. This
expressed the idea of rights protection derived from the Aymara tradition.
In contrast, the cocalero peasants saw the invitation to an open meeting of
Bolivian society as the revindication, recognition and assumption of their
indigenous origins, which included recognition of Bolivia’s complex eth-
nic and cultural diversity.
The TIPNIS conflict between the indigenous, peasants and colonisers
became a watershed moment as it demonstrated the developmental and
extractionist course taken by the MAS government, even at the cost of

becoming a government that opposed indigenous interests and their holis-
tic worldview. For the indigenous of the lowlands, it became increasingly
clear that the president was neither indigenous nor an ally. The rupture
in the indigenous and peasant block became evident when the TIPNIS
conflict broke out in 2011. Similar to the defence of ancestral lands under-
lined by I Marcha, indigenous groups decided to march to La Paz in
defence of their land and in protest against a government decision to build
a highway that ran through the heart of their territory (VIII Marcha). Of
the eight marches, the last one was the first to encounter brutal police
repression, ending the PU.
What followed the VIII Marcha was the consummation of what had
been brewing for years. In response to the regional–civil offensive, the
MAS government opted to abandon its project of a plurinational State,
which underscored diversity, the land as mother and participatory democ-
racy with horizontal mechanisms of dialogue between actors. Instead, it
favoured the construction of a developmental State, with the reference
of a policy of “Road Revolution for an integrated country: highways and
ports” (Porto-Gonçalves and Betancourt 2015), contained in the develop-
ment plan of 2010–2015. This national integration became a priority to be
developed through five road corridors, geographically responding to the
Initiative for the Integration of Regional South American Infrastructure
(IIRSA), a project led by Brazil. The project has aimed at continental
trade integration with Pacific markets, in particular with China.
Paradoxically, the first march can be seen as having deepened democracy
as it provided an opportunity to include the Amerindian participatory idea
in the design of representation. Twenty-one years later, the eighth march
showed the crisis in Bolivian democracy. Social Control was intended to
transfer and exercise indigenous congregational direct democracy to the
more general and more abstract sphere of the Bolivian State. However, the
PU’s rupture diluted indigenous expectations, clearly demonstrating that
congregational direct democracy presupposes the physical presence of the
authority, which only has been possible at the local level. The distant and
abstract level of national authorities, far from the local and concrete level
where direct democracy is practised in indigenous communities, meant
that Social Control as a fourth State power became an idea only present in
the Constitution. However, during its development, it became bereft of its
protagonic actors, the indigenous groups, interested in also pursuing the
implementation of Social Control at the national level.
108 M. ZUAZO
Social Control after the TIPNIS Conflict

The 2009 Constitution institutionalised societal participation in decision-
making.18 For this, a supranational organism was established with audit-
ing functions. The government created the National Mechanism for
Participation and Social Control (dependent on the Ministry of Transparency
and the Fight against Corruption), an agency charged with carrying out the
process of participation of “organised society”. This initiative was never
implemented and therefore lapsed into disuse. Following the TIPNIS con-
flict, and in accordance with the mandate of Articles 241 and 242 of the
Constitution, the Participation and Social Control Law 341 was approved
in 2012. This opened participation to both individual and collective actors,
and established permanent spaces for participation and social accountability
as well as spaces for dialogue. Although this law could be a positive step for
the future implementation of the fourth State power, currently, participa-
tion and Social Control only work at a municipal level where a tradition of
social participation, dating back to the 1990s, already exists.
State aggression against the indigenous VIII Marcha resulted in the
rupture of the popular block that brought MAS to power and led the rela-
tionship into societal distrust for national government. As a result, MAS
has passed from a situation of agonism, headed up by the PU, to one of
antagonism in its relationship with its former allies, by incorporating the
use of State repression. During the first process, the indigenous popula-
tions from the lowlands felt that they were the authors of the indigenous
and pluralist revindication of the State: “We are the authors of the pro-
cess of change” (Conversatorio FES 2016).19 Currently, however, they live
with a sense of defeat and exclusion and, it appears, are left with the lesson
that only by following the force circuit will they once again be respected.
In contrast, the government discourse has developed a rhetoric that
tends to intimidate those who defend social participation in debates
around key issues. Such is the case regarding the status of the protection
of national parks and the governmental decision to explore gas and petro-
leum within them. In this regard, president Morales stated:
I want to say that NGOs or foundations that prejudice the exploitation

of natural resources will be going from Bolivia. We have the obligation to
explore what we have; how much we have in our territory. The environment
is our obligation but we cannot be the park rangers of industrialised coun-
tries. (Cambio 2015; author’s translation)
The three historical processes described earlier are summarised in

Table 5.1.
Table 5.1 Synthesis of processes

1st process: Inclusion 2nd process: 3rd process: TIPNIS
and approval of Social Construction of conflict and the
Control in the CONALCAM, deactivation of Social
constitutional text, 2007–2009 Control, 2011 to date
2004–2009
Articulation Word circuit rooted Force circuit + vote Executive control over the
between on Amerindian circuit (executive force circuit undermining
circuits congregational figure) the articulation with the
democracy + force Opposition groups word circuit
circuit to Constituent Government repression
Project presented in Assembly deactivates the word circuit
the space of the vote Protection of Social Social Control inactive at a
circuit (Constituent Control but national level, but
Assembly) weakened autonomy maintained at a local level
of social unions
Actors PU: indigenous, Social unions/ Lowland indigenous,
peasants, colonisers organisations, highland peasants and
national executive, colonisers, national
opposition (actors executive
from the Santa Cruz
region)
Rules Customs and Rules that regulate Rules that regulate
traditions + rules of street protests (at demonstrations, violated by
electoral times, these governmental repression
representation overflow into
articulated through violent
Social Control confrontations)
Repertoires Discussion, debate, Demonstrations, Demonstration, protest
of action legal projects, voting protest, siege coupled with governmental
in the sphere of the repression
Constituent
Assembly
Note: I am grateful to the editors for preparing this table
Conclusions
Social Control, inscribed in the political 2009 Constitution and observed
from a historical perspective, shows the difficulties of articulating direct
congregational democracy of indigenous communities of face-face contact
and representative democracy. In using the model offered by the CPI, the
chapter analysed how in the attempt to institutionalise Social Control a
110 M. ZUAZO
case of unrestricted agonism, strong constraints and high, guided recog-

nition were being articulated. But the difficulties over time in up-scaling
the ideals of indigenous community participation from the local to the
national scale are also shown. These difficulties converted unrestricted
agonism into antagonism and dissolved the articulation between the word
and force circuits.
In Bolivia of the twenty-first century, the desire for the formation of
Social Control was born out of the distrust of indigenous populations and
first nations, in the face of a State that has been perceived as distant and
untrustworthy. The institutional overview of Social Control as the fourth
State power is anchored in citizen participation in municipal planning in
the 1990s, although it is not restricted to this institution. Social Control
expressed the desire to construct the State in the image and likeness of
the indigenous worldview. It has aimed to project congregational direct
democracy of communities of face-to-face contact onto the national and
more abstract sphere encompassing the country’s ten million inhabitants.
The PU was an experience in the unity of rural social actors who devel-
oped the proposal of Social Control while acting in an autonomous way;
whereas the experience of the CONALCAM was a participatory experi-
ence of urban and rural actors subordinated to the MAS government.
The rupture of the PU, resulting from the TIPNIS conflict, reflects the
explosion of the diversity of interests between indigenous, peasants and
colonisers. The disintegration of the PU also undermined the chances of
success for Social Control as a mechanism to be implemented at a national
level. The failure of Social Control at the national level began with the
loss of legitimacy of its intermediators from their own social constituency
and the subordination of social actors to the MAS government. Finally, it
ended with the repression of indigenous populations—from the case in
Chaparina in 2011 to the Takovo Mora case in August 2015. The rupture
of the PU and the subsequent deactivation of Social Control show both
the problems associated with the presence of a high degree of social het-
erogeneity and conflicting interests and the difficulty in transferring local
experiences onto a national scale in societies that, given their demographic
size, do not constitute, nor can constitute, communities of face-to-face
contact.
Overall, the analysis showed that in Bolivia of the twenty-first century,
the gap between the State and society is reflected in perplexed citizens
who move across three different logics: elector (vote circuit); mobiliser
(force circuit) in which citizens not only negotiate, but feel the need to
“seize” their rights away from the State; and finally, orator (word cir-
cuit) rooted in local experiences of indigenous direct democracy. This last

logic shows the difficult connection between the community member, for
whom collective reasoning predominates and provides legitimacy to the
social order, and the individual citizen, whose rights are guaranteed by
a State perceived as distant, and even alien, despite the recent process of
change which aimed to reinvert this perception.
Notes
1. In Bolivia, as in the rest of Latin America, “social control” rather
than “social accountability” means strong modes of social over-
sight. The latter (translated as rendición de cuentas) is often under-
stood as a weak, mainly informative and unidirectional process.
2. All peasant and indigenous sectors participated in this pact. For
more information visit: www.constituyentesoberana.org
3. This term is borrowed from Anderson’s (1991, 6) definition of
primordial villages of face-to-face contact, which is anchored in the
fact that each person physically knows all members of their com-
munity and the details of their lives, even if they “do not know the
names of each and every person”. This is possible given the small
number of inhabitants in the community (i.e. few thousands). In
contrast, imagined communities are found where citizens of a
nation will never “know, meet or hear about most of their fellow-
members, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their com-
munion”. In this type of community, the number of inhabitants is
large (i.e. millions).
4. “Collective aspiration” is a concept coined by Zavaleta (1983). As
a result of the dictatorship of the 1970s, an intellectual reform
occurred amongst the popular sectors of Bolivia which resulted in
the idea of representative democracy, which until then had been a
distant or unknown idea amongst the masses, becoming a popular
collective desire, a “collective aspiration”.
5. “Incomplete” democracy is understood as a situation in which the
legitimacy of the rule of law and the legitimacy of rules or parts of
these are not homogeneous for the entire population. On the con-
trary, for the majority of the sectors of the population, State laws
are experienced as impositions that lack legitimacy. Hence, their
breach is not seen as a transgression of legitimate order.
6. Organizaciones Territoriales de Base.
7. Comités de Vigilancia.
112 M. ZUAZO
8. The highlands refer to the western region that borders Bolivia with
Peru, Chile and Argentina, while the lowlands refer to the eastern
region of tropical plains that border with Brazil, Paraguay and
Argentina.
9. When the indigenous or peasant community designates or
chooses authorities, what follows is not a delegation of power,
but rather a mandate that is established in which the authority is
obliged to permanently consult. The Community Assembly is
comprised of the entire community (all married couples are mem-
bers). It is the body that has the final say in important decisions,
such as highway blockages, to protest against the State. In other
words, indigenous congregational democracy is fundamentally
direct democracy.
10. The search for the restoration of an equilibrium is one of the most
important objectives of the indigenous communities. Hence, the
indigenous “law” is restorative, not punitive (this contribution
from my colleague, Ramiro Molina Barrios). The mechanism for
the processing of conflict in the Assembly is consensual decision-
making, which, in extreme cases, can resolve to expel community
members and their families from the community.
11. CIDOB: Confederation of the Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia rep-
resented the Bolivian indigenous population from the high- and
lowlands.
12. The “colonisers” are indigenous peasants who have settled on land
outside of their original territory in a process of rural migration.
The route follows from the highlands (where Aymaras and Quechas
live) to the lowlands where the rest of the 34 minority indigenous
populations live.
13. Unique Union Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia

(CSUTCB is its acronym in Spanish).
14. La Calancha refers to the heavy confrontations between police and
military forces and the Sucre social movement, which resulted in
the death of three civilians in the area around the military college
where the Assembly had held its session.
15. In the recall referendum for the presidential, vice-presidential and
prefecture mandate of 10 August 2008, the MAS obtained 64%
support.
16. The most important siege of Congress occurred on 28 February
2008 to prevent opposition entrance to parliament and press for
the approval of three decisive laws, amongst which was the law call-
ing for a referendum to approve the Constitution (La Razón 2007).
17. Their official name after 2008 is Confederation of Intercultural
Communities of Bolivia.
18. Article 241, section II establishes the following: “Organised civil
society will exercise social control over public management at all
levels of the State and over public, mixed and private companies
and institutions that administer fiscal resources”. Section VI main-
tains that “State entities will generate spaces for participation and
social control”.
19. Testimony of Celso Padilla in Conversatorio FES 2016.
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CHAPTER 6
Citizen Security in Mexico: Examining

Municipal Bureaucracy from the View
of the Intermediation–Representation
Debate
This chapter aims to contribute to the intermediation–representation

debate by offering a discussion based on a tripartite relationship amongst
citizens or service users (hereafter citizen-users), local bureaucrats and
political representatives. In particular, street-level bureaucrats’ roles and
functions have been acknowledged as a link between citizens and poli-
ticians in their role as service providers (Lipsky 1980; Jacobsen 2012).
Although these functions have been overlooked by debates on representa-
tive democracy, debates on participatory democracy through non-elec-
toral (and informal) forms of representation in the provision of public
services have increasingly begun to acknowledge the importance of the
relationship between bureaucrats and citizen-users (Gurza Lavalle and
Zaremberg 2014; Isunza Vera and Gurza Lavalle 2011; Pitkin 2004;
Urbinati and Warren 2008; Zaremberg 2012). In particular, these debates
highlight the technical-bureaucratic circuit mentioned in the introduction
V. Guarneros-Meza (*)

116 V. GUARNEROS-MEZA
of the book. This circuit assumes that bureaucrats perform political inter-
mediation roles, which often democratic debates tend to overlook.
First, the chapter advocates the importance of the bureaucracy as a
political intermediary, especially when emphasis is put on the local scale.
In highlighting the role of street-level bureaucrats, interlinkages to the
cube of political intermediation (CPI) developed in the introduction are
identified. The following sections discuss the ways in which the CPI could
be applied to the citizen security programmes developed in a municipality
of the state of Veracruz, Mexico. This discussion provides initial reflection
on how bureaucracy fits into the intermediation analysis within contexts
where institutions of electoral representation are continuously shadow-
ing the role and functions of local bureaucrats and their relationship with
citizens.
The Importance of the (Local) Bureaucrat

as a Political Intermediary
The predominance of managerialism in the study of public administra-

tion is understandable in an era of consumer-oriented capitalism (Bauman
2000), in which individuals increasingly measure their happiness in relation
to their purchasing power of commodities and services. Public manage-
ment has been concerned since the 1980s with the effectiveness of service
delivery based on efficiency (cost savings) and standards of performance
(e.g. improved services via increased access and coverage, citizen-user sat-
isfaction). The emphasis on performance and outcomes has consequently
permeated the 2000s debates on governance arrangements where partner-
ship working amongst a myriad of stakeholders in the public, private and
third/community sectors collaborate to provide a public good (Klijn et al.
2010; Turrini et al. 2010).
Sorensen and Torfing (2005, 2007) argue that in the early 2000s the
inclusiveness and influence of civil society and citizens was overlooked
by academics in the debates on collaboration. They have criticized the
dominance of managerialism in the study of “network governance” in
Europe because it has mainly focused on the provision of public goods
and services through the assessment of performance and achievement of
outcomes. To counterbalance the latter, they have designed a democratic
anchorage model (Torfing et al. 2009) that aims to build linkages between
the administrative side of governance arrangements and the institutions
of electoral representation. Complementing their line of argument, other
CITIZEN SECURITY IN MEXICO: EXAMINING MUNICIPAL BUREAUCRACY... 117
scholars have started to address issues on deliberative and participatory

democracy and its overlaps with representative institutions (Blanco et al.
2011; Fung and Wright 2003; Klijn and Skelcher 2007; Stoker 2011).
Although the work developed by Sorensen and Torfing is laudable,
given its pioneering attempts to build linkages between democracy and
twenty-first-century collaborative networks, I argue that there are still rea-
sons to carry on focusing on the managerial aspects of governance, in
particular, its focus on the role of bureaucrats during policy implementa-
tion. There is a danger that in moving away from these procedural aspects
of network governance (i.e. studying their structures and management),
the role of bureaucrats as political intermediaries between citizen-users
and political representatives may be overlooked. Latinamericanists would
err in overlooking this aspect given the multiple institutions of partici-
patory democracy that have emerged since the 1990s and their linkages
to intermediation. The legacies of clientelism characterizing the region’s
former authoritarian and hierarchical regimes are not only important to
understand the limits of participatory forms of democracy (Cameron et al.
2012), but also significant to identify how aspects of political representa-
tion intersect with intermediation played by bureaucracies. In exploring
how the latter type of intersection develops, this chapter will use the CPI
to bring forward the discretion and power of bureaucrats into the debate
of representation–intermediation.
The procedural work and implementation of new participatory insti-
tutions and governance arrangements involves a significant amount of
resources (Sirianni 2009; Yang and Pandey 2011). These are needed to
provide an operational model that ensures policy processes are informa-
tive, transparent and inclusive of those directly affected in the design,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of a project or programme.
Resources are also needed to ensure that these experiences are successful
at gaining ground to influence the wider discourse driving policy-making.
The level of capacity required to develop and maintain these expectations
is highly reliant on the work of the administrative arm of government,
especially when bureaucrats themselves form part of those spaces of dis-
cussion and negotiation brought forward by participatory democracy.
A good example where this linkage has been observed is in the par-
ticipatory budgeting (PB) of Porto Alegre (1991–2004). In this case, the
importance of the bureaucracy undoubtedly allowed the development
of citizen voice and power. Baiocchi and Ganuza (2014) argue that the
empowerment dimension, which existed in this city, did not only rely on
the decisions made by the mayor or top management team about the por-
tion of the budget subjected to participation, but also on three other fac-
tors: the capacity of the municipal administration to receive participatory
inputs; the level of discretion of elected officials and bureaucrats over the
decisions made by the process; and the extent to which participants were
able to shape the rules of participation.
Obviously, the relevance of the bureaucrat–citizen relationship can be
found in other participatory spaces different to PB structures, such as
municipal planning or neighbourhood-based committees, in which co-
production of public services is increasingly found (see Chap. 3). However,
I argue that this relationship is also found in other traditional spaces still
dominated by legacies of clientelism, hierarchy and sectorial bureaucracy
(as opposed to transversal or joined-up), which have impacted on the
practices of the new participatory discourse.
Street-Level Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy is not a monolithic agency, and studies (Walker and Enticot
2004) underline the differences that exist within its hierarchy: senior or
corporate managers, middle managers (technical staff) and front-line offi-
cers. Generally, senior managers establish the system of rules and strategies
to operationalize a specific project, whereas middle managers coordinate
the day-to-day implementation and front-line officers are in charge of the
daily “donkey work”, which in many cases involve direct contact with
citizen-users when the service provided is at the front line or street level.
This chapter focuses on the work carried out by the front-line bureau-
cracy at the municipal level. Because this territorial and bureaucratic level
is the most proximate to the citizen, opportunities to identify linkages
between participation and electoral local representation are easier to grasp
through the intermediary role of street-level officers. This focus is rel-
evant to study the development of citizen security programmes, which are
highly related to the reimagining of neighbourhoods and service provision
(more below).
The work of Lipsky (1980) on street-level bureaucrats is useful to
emphasize the importance of front-line officers in their contribution to
policy-making through their daily working practices and behaviour. His
work recognizes that front-line officers have discretionary power to pro-
mote, bend or ignore a procedural rule for their own interest, for example
by making their work easier or more rewarding or by gaining some advan-
tage from the process. Building upon Lipsky’s work, Maynard-Moody

and Musheno (2000) argue that street-level officers work between the
crossroads of the bureaucratic and legal rules and the needs of individual
citizen-users. Hence they have to use their judgement to assess the worth
of an individual to decide if help or service can be provided. They argue
that street-level officers are driven by morality rather than rule following.
Their morality is built by values held by their own profession and peers,
cultural background and citizens’ views, especially when some empathy
has been established with the citizen.
Street-level bureaucrats have to allocate resources (not only financially
but also in kind) because it is common that government resources are
often inadequate or scarce. But there are cases when these officers give
the “extra mile” through their extra time or money to make sure that a
citizen-user is being served (Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2000). The
control over resources provides bureaucrats with a significant power over
citizen-users, in particular over the most disadvantaged, given their posi-
tion to choose who is to be helped, scrutinized or sanctioned. Finally,
bureaucrats can also strengthen their resources through the proselytizing
of party politics. Therefore bureaucrats are “enforcers of values” in so far
as “they are citizen-agents who help create and maintain the normative
order of society” (ibid., 356).
The degree of discretion that street-level bureaucrats have can either
be perverse or beneficial. Lipsky’s analysis is framed into the perverse or
corrupt interests of front-line bureaucrats and the extent to which their
vested interests distort policy objectives, whilst others (Tendler 1997;
Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2000) highlight the “win-win” scenarios
that benefit the system as well as citizen-users through the bureaucrats’
creativity to overcome institutional barriers and develop new practices,
which at a later stage can become institutionalized.
From the literature on front-line bureaucracy discussed earlier, three
points are relevant for the purposes of this chapter: the degree of discre-
tion that these agents have; the unequal power relations that they have
in relation to citizen-users; and their contribution to decision-making
through the creation or reinforcement of values, which can regard themes
such as fairness, democracy or violence. Interestingly, the three points
overlap with the debates on representation–intermediation developed by
Gurza Lavalle and Zaremberg (2014) and explained in the introduction.
The three dimensions of the cube are significant in bringing forward into
the debate of representation–intermediation the discretion and power of

bureaucrats and their “value creation” through a focus on implementation.
Building a Language of Political Intermediation

Gurza Lavalle and Zaremberg (2014) make a call for decentring inter-
mediation from electoral representation and clientelism. They argue that
intermediation runs in parallel to the historical importance acquired by
electoral representation in representative governments in Latin America.
For these authors, as explained in the introduction of this book, the defini-
tion of intermediation involves two meanings of intermediation: “to be in
the middle” and “to be a means to”. The implications behind these two
meanings coincide with two aspects that studies on front-line bureaucracy
acknowledge. The first refers to the intermediation of bureaucrats as cre-
ators of relationships with citizens or local politicians where gains or vested
interests are sought. These gains can be either negative—as is often the
association made with clientelism—or positive—as changing institutional
rules that benefit citizens and make the system of service provision more
effective (Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2000; Tendler 1997). The sec-
ond characteristic recognizes bureaucrats as actors with positional advan-
tages derived from power asymmetries in the access to resources required
to carry out their jobs. In other words, they play an intermediary role as a
means to the resources to deliver a service that citizens need.
The CPI has been designed as a model which can be used to apply the
concept of intermediation. Gurza Lavalle and Zaremberg (2014) provide
examples from political councils in Brazil, consejos comunales in Venezuela
and political elections in general. In these examples and by knowing the
background on how political councils in Brazil and Venezuelan consejos
comunales work, it can be inferred that the split between political repre-
sentation and political intermediation (bureaucracy) is blurred and fuzzy.
The blurriness that their examples allude to, given the theoretical nature
of their argument, does not provide sharp differentiations to make the
proposition evident. One way to overcome the lack of detail is by focusing
on the bureaucracy as an option to assess the value of the CPI.
Through data collected from Las Truchas municipality, in the state of
Veracruz, I attempt to apply the model proposed by the CPI. The implica-
tions of the continual presence of political representation over the working
practices of bureaucrats have been generally assumed, but not systemati-
cally studied in public policy. This chapter offers an exploratory analysis of
what these implications may be by focusing on the practices and behav-

iour of street-level officers in the implementation of a citizen security pro-
gramme and the degree of citizen participation found in the process.
Citizen Security in Mexico

Since the mid-2000s, and prompted by the Merida Initiative,1 power
relations in security policy across government tiers in Mexico have been
reconfiguring. This Initiative has contributed to the federal government’s
centralization of policy design and implementation; it has helped to
enhance the federal police and military vis-à-vis the state level and munici-
pal police. In response to the federal reforms in investigative and preven-
tive policing, state-level governments have also restructured and reformed
their security institutions, but, as in the federal case, these reforms have
targeted the investigative and preventive branches (state public security
ministries rather than the prosecutorial or state attorneys’ offices). Like
federal institutions, state-level governments have also begun to central-
ize the implementation of security, previously decentralized from some
municipalities in the mid-1990s as a sign of their strengthened municipal
autonomy (Rowland 2003, 339–371).
The centralization of security policy by the majority of state-level
governments has impacted the territorial restructuring of municipalities
through the creation of metropolitan or regional inter-municipal police
forces within one state. This type of restructuring has encountered barri-
ers. In the majority of cases, it has caused political havoc, which leads to
a lack of organizational coordination between security forces because of
the rivalries between political parties governing different tiers of govern-
ment (state vs. municipal) alongside the gradual militarization of police
(Zavaleta 2012, 45–73). Finally, the inter-municipal security programmes
have tended to be designed and implemented with a narrow focus on secu-
rity tending to exclude prevention, which calls for collaboration between
different policy areas (i.e. social services, regeneration) and sectors (busi-
nesses and civil society).
Governance arrangements such as public–civil society partnerships
and citizen participation have not been absent from the policy-making
discourse within the security field in the Mexican context. Its concep-
tual premises can be found in dispersed experiments of urban community
policing. For example, Todos Somos Juárez, which through a programme of
multi-agency collaboration aims to reduce levels of crime and violence, as
well as to repopulate and promote economic development and social well-

being (www.todossomosjuarez.gob.mx; INCIDE-Social n.d.). Similarly,
the regeneration of Mexico City’s downtown, which has taken more than
a decade to attract investment and reduce levels of crime, has been consid-
ered a relatively successful experiment because of its governance arrange-
ments through the creation of the Autoridad del Centro Histórico. The
Autoridad has achieved collaborative agreements backed up by its mem-
bers representing the city government, police, the private and voluntary
sectors and local residents (Davis 2012).
What these two cases highlight is that security programmes encompass
other services that go beyond the security forces. They bring forward the
participation of other local stakeholders and bureaucrats who provide ser-
vices that may help prevent crime and violence. The collaboration between
sectors, but particularly the collaboration between local public services,
also puts centre stage the relevance of bureaucrats’ beliefs and practices
in tackling or reifying understandings of security within a community or
neighbourhood. In particular, the limited competencies with which urban
municipalities have been left after the recent reforms at national and sub-
national levels, including the creation of subsidies to enhance municipal
security, have led municipal governments to focus on “citizen security”.
Citizen security has been a concept found in programmes against vio-
lence in Latin America led by the United Nations and World Bank since
the 1990s (Ballesteros 2014; UNDP 2012; WB 2003). In Mexico, it has
been included in national programmes such as Habitat, led by the Ministry
of Social Development, General’s Attorney Office (Jusidman et al. 2011)
and the National Programme for Preventing Social Violence and Crime
run by the Peña administration (CIPSVD 2013). It is a concept that over-
laps with public safety and security issues, but which can avoid the security
paradigm through a discourse of prevention through local regeneration.
Its distance from the core security policy renders the concept a subtle
instrument that seeks the legitimacy of the broader security paradigm
through the design of consensual programmes of citizen participation.
A broad understanding of citizen security refers to systems that provide
better quality of life to citizens. This includes the protection of citizens’
lives and assets from risks and threats generated by a wide range of factors,
which are related to economic, political and social rights, needed to achieve
an adequate functioning of community and society (INCIDE-Social n.d.).
In a narrower sense, which tends to be more commonly found in practice
(Davis 2012; Jusidman et al. 2011), citizen security is concerned with
the eradication of crime and fear of crime through local regeneration of

degraded areas and citizen participation: for example, through adequate
street lighting, clean public spaces (e.g. parks, bus stops, open squares),
regularized street vending and pedestrianization of streets, all in which the
role of local bureaucrats becomes more prominent. Either way, through
a narrower or broader understanding of citizen security, successful imple-
mentation calls for a joined-up government and strong collaboration
between government departments, agencies and sectors (SQW Consulting
2006; UNDP 2012). The complexity that the provision of security entails
calls, in particular, for collaboration between different public agencies and
other sectors of society (Laegreid et al. 2013).
Identifying the Links between Political

Intermediation and Political Representation:
The Case of Las Truchas2
The municipality of Las Truchas is a mix of an urban–rural area, with
86,000 inhabitants situated 10 km away from the capital city of Veracruz
State. The municipality was chosen because it is located in a region that has
been vulnerable to organized crime and other illegal activities associated
with it (e.g. smuggling of goods, human trafficking, extortion, kidnap-
pings). Hence the population’s perceptions of insecurity have increased,
especially between 2010 and 2014. Although the state government has
responded to the national security programme since 2011,3 the munici-
pality under study was marginalized from these changes at the time of
fieldwork (May 2013), in great part because the state government did
not have the capacity to respond to the municipality’s late interest (April
2013) in joining the security reforms and partly because local elections
were approaching (July 2013). Finally, since 2000, the municipality as
opposed to other neighbouring municipalities has been experiencing party
alternations between the centre-right Partido Revolucionario Institucional
(PRI) and the right wing Partido Acción Nacional (PAN). At the time
of fieldwork, PAN was ruling; this party has been characterized in the
municipality for its more organized administrations that tend to be more
open and transparent to public scrutiny than its priísta counterparts in the
region.
Inspired by descriptive interpretation and ethnography in contexts
of violence (Auyero et al. 2015), eight semi-structured interviews were
conducted with middle-rank officers working in municipal government,
which helped to map the responsibilities that each directorate carried

out, its relationship with other municipal directorates and governmental
agencies, and the general organizational structure within each directorate.
Additionally, 11 in-depth reflective interviews were conducted with front-
line officers, each with an average duration of two hours. The design of
these interviews was adopted from diagrams drawn by participants living
under contexts of violence during urban appraisal exercises (Moser and
McIlwaine 1999). The diagrams encouraged the identification of prob-
lems and the reflection about living and working in the municipality. It
was assumed that participants might find it difficult to communicate cer-
tain ideas because of the fear of repression or violence, especially if local
corruption or crime were to be revealed by participants. The added value
of these diagrams was the production of information that a standard inter-
view would not have revealed, such as self-reflection of the interviewee’s
own beliefs and practices and the actual expression of emotions (i.e. sym-
pathy, dismay, sadness or frustration) observed by the author resulting
from self-reflection. Although the number of participants is small to make
generalizations, the depth of the quality of the data collected, alongside
documentary review about the municipality, provides a solid foundation
to provide initial analysis.
Interviews were held and reflective diagrams created with officers
from the following directorates and para-municipal agencies: Urban
Development and Public Works (DUyOP is its acronym in Spanish),
Public Safety, Municipal Services (street lighting), Social Development-
(youth services), Finance (trade and standards), Family services (DIF
is its acronym in Spanish -human rights and education), Municipal
Commission for Water and Sanitation (CMAS is its acronym in Spanish
-education and citizen services). Given space restrictions, the discussion
below presents a series of activities carried out by five of the street-level
bureaucrats interviewed. Based on the front-line officer debate, the fol-
lowing paragraphs show the level of discretion and the type of resources
officers had access to and through certain practices of implementation
it is identified how their intermediary role, between politicians/political
parties and citizens, contributes to the broader understanding of citizen
security in the locality.
Street lighting: The street-level officer was in charge of replacing and
repairing street lamps. He had to carry out street patrols on a daily basis,
which were decided by his line manager. The level of discretion that this
officer had depended on the material resources he possessed at the time of
repairing street lamps that were not part of the daily route marked by his
line manager. There were occasions where residents would negotiate the
repair of certain lamps with him. He would agree to do so as long as the
repair was near the lamps scheduled for the day and did not require addi-
tional parts to be changed (e.g. fuse, ballast). Lamp parts were controlled
by an inventory which prevented officers at his level to use them in a dis-
criminatory way. If he decided not to help residents in this unplanned way,
he would advise them to go to the mayor or sign a petition. This officer
was a member of the public-service union, which had strong ties with a
local councillor, síndico, a priísta supporter.
During the time of fieldwork, some residents mentioned that the
municipal administration developed a bad reputation for not replacing
street lights in time. According to interviewees, the problems were gener-
ated because of the high levels of disagreement on planning costs to be
incurred each financial year between the Director of Finance and Sub-
director of Street Lighting. The existing financial tensions responded to
the tight budget that the municipal government had to accept over its
term in office. These delays indirectly affected the quality of the citizen
security programme, which was supposed to offer street lighting at nights
to make people feel safe.
Trade and standards: The street-level officer was a trade inspector
whose main job was to carry out street patrols and check that street ven-
dors did not stay in one spot or corner for more than 10 minutes. This
rule was an informal arrangement established between the Sub-direction
of Commerce and street vendors, who were known as ambulantes. The
officer’s level of discretion was centred on decisions to let vendors stay in
one place for more than 10 minutes or for just the amount of time estab-
lished by the rule. The power that he had upon vendors was the right to
confiscate their goods until the working day was finished and repression
if quarrels with vendors escalated to violence. Treatment towards vendors
was differentiated if they formed part of the street vendor association,
which protected their goods from being confiscated in exchange of a fee.
Historically, the street vendor union held clientelistic relationships with
the local PRI.
The experience of this officer pointed out the disjointed work between
the Sub-direction of Commerce and Direction of Public Safety, which
prevented trade officers and municipal police from working in a coordi-
nated way to maintain social order during violent encounters with street
vendors. Lack of coordination was also perceived between Commerce
and the DUyOP, which contributed to the lengthy processes for open-
ing new business in the municipality. Officers in Commerce believed that
these delays accentuated the mushrooming of informal (black market)
businesses, which were more vulnerable to establishing relationships with
criminal organizations. This lack of coordination undermines the founda-
tion of an effective citizen security programme, which in theory requires
collaboration between government departments when a problem, such
as violence and insecurity, transcends compartmentalized organizational
structures.
Youth services: The officer played a double role as a middle-rank and
street-level officer because of lack of staff. One of his main responsibilities
at the front-line was to prepare talks for primary and secondary schools in
the municipality to raise awareness about bullying as well as to promote
different academic grants provided by his unit via donations made by local
businesses or state subsidies. He also patrolled the streets handing out
pamphlets. The level of discretion was found in the schools and neigh-
bourhoods he visited and the criteria to decide which kid was provided
with a grant. Of all schools in the municipality, he managed to visit all but
one where the head of the school had a strong affiliation to the PRI. The
youth officer, coming from a PAN background, was therefore not invited
to deliver talks to students in that school. This officer carried out several
citizen workshops in coordination with Family Services and CMAS. These
events aimed to raise awareness about violence and the extent to which
school and domestic violence were interlinked with poor street mainte-
nance and waste management. Although the coordination of these events
responded to policies derived from the state government level, the initia-
tive to come together and coordinate efforts resulted from the discretion
of this front-line bureaucrat. This contributed positively to the citizen
security programme.
Urban works: The street-level officer was in charge of designing public
works, mainly roads, by following specific regulations set by state and fed-
eral agencies. The design works included pavements, drainage/sewerage
and street posts (which hold street lamps). Street lighting officers men-
tioned that they wished more coordination between the DUyOP and their
area existed to ensure that light posts were placed in convenient spots.
This comment confirmed the lack of coordination existing in the design
of the urban space, important in the implementation of citizen security.
The urban works officer had to supervise that private contractors built
the works as planned in his design. Although citizen committees had to
exist in each project developed by private contractors, there were a cou-

ple of instances where these committees were not formed. Through an
opportunity to join the supervising patrols carried out by this officer, I
observed that the residents who benefited from these works were those
located in more rural areas of the municipality (a requirement by federal
government) but who coincidentally had some level of relationship with
panista council members. The officer’s perception was that street com-
mittees which supported the PAN were easier to work with because they
“speak the same language” as he did. Alongside family services and CMAS
officers, this officer showed a strong commitment by working extra hours
to carry out his job.
Public safety: This first-ranked municipal police officer was in charge of
attending the emergency calls received on 066 phone number (coordi-
nated with the armed forces working at state government level). Over the
years, municipal police had diminished their workforce, partly because of
scarce resources from municipal government to recruit its police force and
maintain their salaries and partly because the force was weakened given the
security reforms derived from federal and state governments. The latter
limited the grants and competencies of municipalities that initially decided
to maintain their autonomy from state-level reforms, such as Las Truchas.
Furthermore, allegations that members of the municipal police force were
involved in a drug distribution scandal in spring 2013 did not contribute
to these officers’ reputation.
The level of discretion that this police officer had to respond to emer-
gency calls was limited by the criteria dictated by his line manager, which
were centred on the management of service with limited equipment and
poorly trained staff. In those cases where his team could not respond in
time to a call, they had the opportunity to apologize to the victims and
ask for some level of understanding. He was afflicted because of the lack
of trust that citizens had towards him and the rest of the force, and in
being limited to make things right, his only option was to be apologetic.
He, alongside his team, also had to decide whether to detain youths for
several hours when they were showing antisocial behaviour (e.g. drinking
alcohol in the streets) or whether to send them to the attorney’s office if
the felony involved issues that were borderline and surpassed preventive
measures, for example, drug possession. Although municipal police offi-
cers had limited competencies, the level of discretion to escalate a sanction
by passing it to higher tiers of the judicial system gave them some leverage
for victims/detainees to negotiate with them.
Party politics did not seem to be directly impacting the working prac-
tices of police officers in Public Safety; however, it did play a role in dis-
empowering the municipal police force. For example, comments by top
senior officers questioned the extent to which party politics and the rivalry
between the state government (PRI) and municipal government (PAN)
prolonged the indecision of the former to intervene in matters of security
provision requested by the mayor.
Limited Participation and Political Intermediation:

An Application of the CPI
The municipal administration at the time of fieldwork was able to out-
source the preparation of a diagnosis and plan of action to prevent
social violence and crime through citizen participation to a consultancy
based in Mexico City (GDL 2012a,b). The level of organization to
cooperate with different civil actors in the preparation for these docu-
ments—a requirement established by federal agencies—did not perme-
ate the working practices of the bureaucrats interviewed. Only two of
the five officers mentioned above attended the workshops of citizen
participation organized to produce the diagnosis and plan of action
reports. Hence, it was not surprising that the message the workshops
tried to emphasize on citizen participation did not reach the director-
ates or their staff who provided a front-line service, such as DUyOP,
Finance or Municipal Services.
In cases where interviewees mentioned participation, they alluded to
existing spaces where citizens could voice their needs, but the majority
of these spaces—denouncing crime to the 066 phone number, signing a
petition to demand street lighting, organizing committees to supervise
public works or approaching services that assisted citizens’ daily needs
(school grants/subsidies)—did not derive from the citizen security pro-
gramme run in Las Truchas. Except for the emergency number, these
spaces where citizen-users interacted with officers have been existing
since the 1990s or perhaps even pre-dated the wave of democratiza-
tion in Mexico. These spaces of participation reflect to some extent the
impact of the wider participatory discourse in the country. But these
interactions happened through an arm’s-length approach that distanced
front-line officers from the responsibility of co-working with citizen-
users in the design and implementation of a programme to prevent crime
or reduce violence.
The limited scenario of deliberative participation between citizen-users

and front-line bureaucrats allows me to reflect on the theoretical applica-
bility of the CPI. The data collected can infer some reflections, which still
require further research.
Recognition dimension: In general, the spaces in which citizens could
participate and work alongside municipal government were so distant
from the processes of the policy-making cycle in citizen security that it
was likely that citizen-users had very little knowledge, perhaps any at all,
about who the front-line bureaucrats were and what their responsibilities
were. However, paying attention to the particularities of some of the cases
mentioned above, it was found that where citizens had a close relationship
with bureaucrats, it tended to be during the implementation stage. For
example, in Trade and Standards or Urban Works, where vendors could
negotiate to stay over 10 minutes in one spot or residents could negoti-
ate for a disability ramp being built near their house door, respectively.
In a short-lived way—based on the time that the provision of the service
lasted—these bureaucrats were building their legitimacy towards or gain-
ing recognition from the local community. However, this recognition was
limited because it was not transcending the one-off implementation prac-
tice and influencing instead the planning stage of the policy cycle. Using
the circuit typology mentioned in the introduction, it can be said that in
this example the project circuit tended to be overshadowed by the word
circuit.
Constraint dimension: Data indicating that front-line officers had
a degree of discretion in doing their work, but did not have a strategic
impact on service delivery, raise questions on accountability. On the one
hand, some front-line bureaucrats were constrained by the hierarchical
accountability existing within the more traditional Weberian bureaucratic
models: for example, reporting to their line managers the amount of mate-
rials used per day to repair lamps or evidencing that contractors complied
with the urban works designed. On the other hand, citizen-users were not
even experiencing a situation in which they could ask bureaucrats to be
accountable for their acts or decisions. In other words, bureaucrats had
the opportunity to make discretional decisions, at least in the eyes of citi-
zens. The lack of citizen opportunity to hold bureaucrats accountable dur-
ing the implementation stage could be interpreted in a twofold way: first,
as the citizens’ lack of understanding of the responsibilities of the bureau-
cracy, which in turn accentuated the discretion that bureaucrats might
have had in, for example, repairing street lamps or distributing school
grants; and second, as a deliberate decision by citizens to stay ignorant

about the bureaucrats’ responsibilities. The mention by some interview-
ees of “citizens’ apathy” to participate alluded to this second interpreta-
tion and pointed out how citizens can sometimes create their own rules
enforced by daily collective routines to obtain more effective results. One
common practice being mentioned by urban works officers was the use
of buckets to restrict parking in front of people’s houses, which was more
effective than raising a complaint and letting bureaucrats to administer
the fine. To some extent, this apathy may respond to the lack of trust that
citizens had towards some bureaucrats’ decisions or the unreliability of
the processes followed, as was with the case of the police officer in dealing
with emergency calls.
Aspects of electoral representation impacting the daily working prac-
tices of these bureaucrats were also identified. This is interesting to see
as the discretion of bureaucrats is subordinated, at times, not only to the
classic, bureaucratic hierarchical model, but also to constraints raised by
elected politicians and party politics. Table 6.1 lists some examples.
Substantive content dimension: As mentioned above, the room of dis-
cretion that these bureaucrats had was limited by their line managers, poli-
ticians or citizens. Hence, when we turn into the conflict dimension of
the cube it can be said that the practices carried out by them presented a
slight degree of agonism. In the book’s introduction, agony is character-
ized by divisible conflicts that tend to reach temporary consensus through
negotiation. The relationships established by bureaucrats dealt with divis-
Table 6.1 Front-line officers’ level of discretion and party politics constraints
1. Street light officer: his commitment to his job was constrained by the negotiations
reached amongst his union, the síndico and the mayor and the rest of the elected
local council.
2. Trade officer: the reach and scope of the effectiveness of his work was constrained
to the level of agreement reached between unionized street vendors and the
political party in office.
3. Youth services officer: the scope and reach of his project was constrained by the
political party that different heads of schools supported.
4. Urban works officer: level of resident participation in the design of public works
depended on how close and sympathetic residents were to members of the local
council.
5. Public safety officer: constrained by the limited resources provided by state-level
government—which was led by the PRI and the isolation faced by the
administration of Las Truchas (PAN).
ible conflicts to achieve or satisfy material needs that helped citizens have
a better quality of life, albeit for a short time. To an extent, bureaucrats
were buffering citizen dissatisfaction, which would have been escalated if
they were not playing an intermediary role. Not always did bureaucrats’
decisions achieve a positive outcome, especially when procedures were too
lengthy or ineffective: for example, citizens circumventing the front-line
bureaucrat and instead dealing with matters directly with senior officers/
politicians or establishing informal rules of social order (e.g. bucket-park-
ing case). In both examples, the legitimacy of the bureaucrat was ques-
tioned, generating, as a result, a sub-type of conflict—an internal conflict
that the bureaucrats experienced within themselves (e.g. the police offi-
cer’s low self-esteem). Front-line officers had to juggle with multiple rela-
tionships: negotiate with citizens, report to their line managers and follow
partisan patronage to carry out their jobs. All these were important to
build their legitimacy and credibility during the delivery of services.
Conclusions
Through the practices and relationships built by front-line bureaucrats,
two factors have been identified that undermined the programme of citi-
zen security. Both relate to the degrees to which officers’ actions con-
tributed or halted the implementation of the programme in their daily
negotiations. First, the lack of coordination between directorates, includ-
ing coordination between Public Safety and the other areas mentioned,
was one of the main organizational barriers that undermined the imple-
mentation of citizen security. The lack of trust between staff accentuated
the tensions existing between directorates and their unwillingness to col-
laborate. Second, the lack of financial, material and human resources also
undermined the reach and timeliness of the programme. Overall, this
lack of coordination and resources showed a weak municipal capacity in
providing services, which consequently affected the effectiveness of the
implementation of citizen security. If citizen security was to be perceived
as a means to reduce violence in the municipality, officers implied that
it needed resources, the capacity to coordinate those resources and the
implementation of activities in a timely way to make it effective. Bearing
in mind the broader context of security and violence in the country, it can
be said that citizen security was portrayed as a programme that was domi-
nated by an attrition strategy—use of military tactics and an enhanced
penalization system—instead of promoting its preventive side as originally
stated by the broader international discourse that links citizen security to

human rights and participation.
This chapter has shown that several aspects covered by the public man-
agement literature can also be found in the intermediation–representation
debate. The CPI has been a useful analytical tool to study the role of front-
line bureaucrats as one way of non-electoral but political intermediation
between the (local) state and citizens. This debate is significant given that
democracy in Latin America has increasingly implied innovative forms of
participation that complement and circumvent electoral democracy.
Under the recognition dimension, the case study showed the impor-
tance of bureaucrats to make sense of their legitimacy in the citizens’
eyes during the implementation of a service. Their role was significant in
buffering citizen dissatisfaction by providing short-term solutions. With
regard to the constraints dimension, it was observed that the discretion
of front-line bureaucrats—understood as their degree of negotiation with
citizens and other municipal stakeholders—has been important to legit-
imize their job. By using the CPI, it has been possible to identify the
moments in which their negative or positive working practices contributed
to the quality of participative democracy as well as of policy implementa-
tion. Under this dimension it was also noted how certain values asso-
ciated with clientelism are still relevant in understanding the challenges
that these bureaucrats face in their daily work. This point in particular is
relevant to show how different circuits of representation—vote, word and
project as explained in the introduction—overlap. Finally, the substantive
content dimension helped to identify the buffering role that bureaucrats
carried out to minimize conflict in citizens’ attempts to achieve a better
quality of life, albeit for a short time. This dimension also showed how the
disregard of their jobs by citizens or by their line managers and politicians
could generate internal conflict that questioned the legitimacy and self-
confidence of the bureaucrat.
The CPI, when applied to research commonly approached by pub-
lic management, brings into light hidden aspects related to the multiple
dimensions of the bureaucrats’ intermediation role. The CPI has shown
that it opens new lines of inquiry that can be developed in future research,
such as the extent to which (a) clientelistic values limit the joined-up
governance that supposedly a successful citizen security programme

requires; (b) bureaucrats can defend and build a more genuine citizen
participation in the design of policy; or (c) buffer levels of conflict that
avoid falling into antagonic circumstances.
Notes
1. The Initiative is a partnership between Mexico and the United States
to fight organized crime and its associated violence.
2. Las Truchas is an invented name used to maintain confidentiality
and anonymity of informants.
3. Through, for example, its security development plan; the provision
of intelligent information to federal agencies; allocation of security
subsidies to the different municipalities; substitution and training of
security forces; and agreement to join a national unique police force.
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CHAPTER 7
Conflicts of Representation
and Redistribution in the Mexican
Labour World
Graciela Bensusán and Marta Subiñas
Introduction
Representation in the labour world has particular characteristics that dif-
ferentiate it from political representation. One of these is the regulated
sphere in which it occurs. In general, the monopolistic and coercive
power of unions is recognized and is intended to reduce the asymmetries
between labour and capital as well as between diverse categories of workers
(Freeman and Medoff 1984). However, in the context of globalization,
when social inequality has increased, the weakness of unions is an evident
tendency. This tendency, expressed in the decline of union density and the
exclusion of the most vulnerable workers from the decreasing benefits of
collective bargaining, has created a vacuum of representation accompanied
by a decline in conditions for the emergence of new actors who seek to ful-
fil this representative function, especially regarding unprotected groups.
G. Bensusán (*)
Autonomus Metropolitan University-Campus Xochimilco
Latin America Faculty of Social Sciences, Mexico City, Mexico
M. Subiñas
Latin America Faculty of Social Sciences, Mexico City, Mexico

138 G. BENSUSÁN AND M. SUBIÑAS
The degree of decline, and thus the crisis of representation of workers’

interests, varies depending on various economic, political or social factors,
in some cases leading to extreme situations where all possibility for rep-
resentation, at least with some reach and quality, is, in practice, formally
restricted or cancelled out. In the extreme cases, the question arises as to
the future of unions and whether other, more efficient options exist to
represent workers’ interests.
This chapter addresses the extreme situation in Mexico for which the
representation of workers’ interests, identified in the introduction to this
book as “force circuit”, is effectively blocked. Blockage is understood in
cases where unions, although formally holding the monopoly of workers’
representation, end up representing the interests of their leaders, govern-
ments or employers. Under these circumstances, the meaning of repre-
sentation is precluded from happening or blocked to the extent that it
inhibits the expression and resolution of redistributive conflicts, which are
characteristic of labour–capital relationships. The chapter argues that to
facilitate expression and resolution of this fundamental dimension of con-
flict in capitalist societies, another conflict needs to be resolved first: repre-
sentation. In other words, in the face of the existence of organizations that
formally block representation, the only alternative for ensuring that the
voice of workers is heard is to replace traditional unions with other types
of organization to overcome institutional barriers (formal and informal
rules). However, the role that can be played by other forms of interme-
diation—such as human rights organizations and community civil orga-
nizations—is very limited, but nonetheless relevant to be addressed. It is
worth noting that in Mexico those barriers form part of the authoritar-
ian and corporatist labour model that survived the democratic transition,
although it is now being challenged and is changing, as discussed below.
Against this backdrop the chapter analyses the implications that block-
age in the “force circuit” has on the substantive dimension of representa-
tion as specified by the cube of political intermediation (CPI). This analysis
is relevant given that the content of representation is built through an
inherent conflictive process. Through the three dimensions of the CPI,
we have developed a more in-depth analysis which has led us to identify
two types of conflicts across three examples. The first refers to the block/
unblock tactic used by trade union representation (conflict 1) and the
second, which is more structural in nature, related to redistribution dis-
putes between capital and labour (conflict 2). The chapter discusses how
representation is manifested and, where appropriate, how conflict between
CONFLICTS OF REPRESENTATION AND REDISTRIBUTION IN THE MEXICAN... 139
labour and capital and between union leaders and rank-and-file workers
can be overcome within a weak institutional environment (Levitsky and
Murillo 2013). The chapter first presents a brief outline of the debate
and a theoretical-methodological review of the terms used with particular
emphasis on actors and types of conflict. The Mexican context is then pre-
sented with an analysis of the effects of labour legislation and the broader
institutional environment upon the two types of conflict. Finally, the over-
all argument will be illustrated with three examples (minimum wage set
by the National Minimum Wage Commission, the agricultural labourer
movement of San Quintin and labour relations in Volkswagen Mexico
[VWM]).1
The first two examples illustrate the presence of an extended represen-
tative blockage of general worker interests and of the most vulnerable—
those who earn the least—respectively. In particular, the second example
shows the construction of a relatively innovative negotiation scenario,
alongside its limitations, developed in order to overcome representative
blockage, similar to what some have referred to as a “new stakeholder
order” (Heckscher 2008). The third example, that of workers in VWM,
shows an exceptional, but by no means unique case of the unblocking
tactic, characterizing independent unions.2 Its importance lies in how a
traditional actor can exercise effective representation in a highly competi-
tive economic context—the automobile industry—even though this is
limited to its members. This example could extend and become the gen-
eral trend in the country if certain rules and institutions are modified and
activated, and informal practices that currently tend to block representa-
tion are overcome. This suggestion is not merely a theoretical proposi-
tion; an initiative of a constitutional reform presented by President Peña
Nieto to the Senate, and approved unanimously in October 2016, points
in this direction. Should it be approved by Congress (lower house), it
would completely disrupt the corporatist pillars in the labour sphere
(Alcalde 2016).3
Representation and Intermediation: Actors,

Conflicts and Arbitrators in the Labour World
As argued in the introduction, the capacity of unions to represent workers
in highly competitive contexts has been questioned. From an essentially
economicist perspective, efforts to represent the most vulnerable workers,
by increasing their unionization, would be contrary to the main function

of unions, which is to negotiate advantages for its members. This is the
perspective of the English economist, Guy Standing (2011), who in his
book “The Precariat” argues that current conditions lead to anomie and
alienation, instead of representation of collective interests. According
to Standing, the only solution for improving the life conditions of this
“new emerging social class” and avoiding the “dangers” of their condition
would be to offer a basic guaranteed income. However, this is an alterna-
tive that undermines the need of labour representation.
In contrast, Hyman (2015, 14) understands unions as political actors
articulated with social movements to form a broad opposition movement
aimed at countering the most destructive tendencies of capitalism. He
argues that shaping a collective identity has been one of the most impor-
tant tasks of unions, which is not something new. Unions have a “dual
character” inasmuch as they fight within the economic system, but also
transform it. While this may well generate tensions, it can also mean that
one of those dual aims dominates. In either case, within this approach
there is consensus that unions, as traditional actors, first and foremost
need to transform themselves.
Although new forms of employment, arising out of technological
changes and decentralization of production processes, hamper the identi-
fication of common interests among different types of workers and, there-
fore, representation (conflict 1), theories of networks and social capital
offer an alternative to overcome this obstacle. Fiorito and Hardley (2008)
argue that, within this new context, a union that responds to both the
mobilization of its members and expanding levels of unionization among
the most vulnerable would support the creation of a new community
of interests by building a structure of dense networks and strong ties
between their members and other associated organizations in the envi-
ronment. Cowie (2016) proposes the emergence of “diffused leadership”
and “fluid alliances”, in territorial rather than sectoral spaces, that cam-
paign for the most vulnerable (such as minimum wage campaigns in the
USA and the case of San Quintin). Similarly, and pertinent to the Mexican
case, he proposes the emergence of a new stakeholder order that could
replace corporatist arrangements. Such an order supposes “changing old
stakeholders; developing new stakeholders; and formulating processes of
discussion and agreement” (Heckscher 2008, 369). These suggestions go
beyond traditional forms of collective bargaining controlled by state regu-
lations and traditional actors. They are a valid option for both developing
and developed countries, which until now have been unable to establish
effective systems of collective representation to defend workers’ interests
(Wulandari 2011; Webster 2015; Cowie 2016).
We argue that both strategies are useful: broadening the sphere of
representation by eliminating restrictions to union formation and creat-
ing new forms of organization to revitalize collective action in the labour
world. In either case, the behaviour of the union and their leaders, the
way in which they confront the challenges of globalization, members’
expectations and the response of employers and government to collective
action are strongly moulded by the institutional environment in which
they operate, in particular the national laws that define the “power of
association” of workers. Understanding workers’ associationalism requires
context-specific discussions of representation. Before embarking on this
discussion, the concepts used to frame the phenomenon of representation
in the labour world are presented.
Concepts in the Representation of Labour

The nature of representation exercised by unions is not the same as the
classic concept of political-electoral representation, as it has a functional
nature. It is characterized by the defence of a group’s interests, which
occupies a particular position in accordance with its members’ insertion in
the workplace or, more generally, of their standpoint as workers, and not
by the belonging to a nation or the will of the people as sovereign. In con-
trast to political-electoral representation (vote circuit) where the interests
of a nation or public goods are at stake, functional representation (force
circuit) deals with the interests of a group of people in accordance with
their economic position as workers.
In the labour sphere, functional representation assumes a com-
plex process in which the union replaces workers.4 It represents them
before employers or authorities, and decisions reached are binding with
a direct impact on the material conditions of the workers themselves.5
Therefore, representation is traditionally restricted to matters of the
workplace. Nevertheless, representation is also of a political nature as
it involves correlation of forces in dispute embedded in a redistributive
conflict between capital and labour. Furthermore, organized workers
also become political actors who seek not only material gains in virtue
of their collective working contract, but also to transform the system to
which they belong.
Another particular feature of union functional representation is its invol-

untary nature if workers do not freely exercise their right to r epresentation.
In certain labour regimes, such as the Mexican case, obligatory unioniza-
tion on entering a workplace (closed shop) still prevails. This implies the
formal recognition of broad coercive powers (unionization, collective bar-
gaining and strikes) of the trade union that seeks to or holds ownership
of the collective work contract. Taking into account this aspect of formal
authorization, functional representation should necessarily be elective in
order for representatives to be subject to certain constraints and, subse-
quently, for workers to be able to exercise recognized statutory rights.
This is not a requirement in other non-coercive forms of intermediation
in the labour sphere, where legitimacy and efficiency can derive from other
sources.
Finally, the function of representation in labour relations is also a form
of social representation. According to Richardson, “any citizen who
assume a legitimate role in public discourse, may make a legitimate claim
to represent the people” (cited in Pettit 2009, 62). In this way, from a
non-prescriptive perspective, other actors besides unions could, and do,
fulfil the same role of defending labour rights, such as community civil
organizations or networks of activists in the defence of human and labour
rights. However, this type of mediation is more limited in the labour
sphere as union organizations are the only associations with legal personal-
ity recognized to represent and negotiate on behalf of organized workers.
Nevertheless, beyond the regulatory restrictions, a new stakeholder order
and negotiation spaces may, in fact, emerge. While the union as functional
representative continues to hold formal interlocution, it is accompanied
by other non-union actors on a territorial rather than sectoral basis. For
example, while human and labour rights non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) may defend instrumental rights and offer solidarity, in reality,
they are unable to enter the redistributive conflict or replace unions. The
difference lies in the fact that unions exercise rights on behalf of those they
represent through mechanisms set out by law.
Conflicts and Arbitrators
Two types of conflicts exist in the labour sphere: conflict in the repre-
sentation of workers and the capital–labour conflict (of a redistributive
nature). In practice and with regard to the conflict in representation (con-
flict 1), there are a limited number of unions legitimized by rank workers.
This type of union faces challenges of expansion due to both institutional

restrictions and changes in the labour market, coupled with the threat of
liberalization of important sectors of the economy. When adding an arbi-
trator to the representation conflict with a clear bias for one of the parties,
the environment turns ripe for the emergence of diverse new actors. In
particular, these actors are NGOs (or centres for labour rights) or other
community organizations that defend labour rights and with whom dem-
ocratic unions have begun to establish alliances through joint campaigns.
In this way, unions have broadened the struggle beyond the workplace,
positioning it in communities and interweaving labour demands with oth-
ers such as water, housing or garbage collection. As a result, voice to the
most vulnerable workers is achieved as is illustrated in the example of agri-
culture labourers of San Quintin.
The class conflict (conflict 2) develops either through negotiations
between employers and worker representatives regarding labour condi-
tions (in which, among other aspects of collective bargaining, salaries are
set) or through other public bodies that determine labour conditions
(administrative or legal). In this conflict, it is expected that the arbitrator
would intervene from a neutral standpoint. However, the reality is that the
public-sector mediator can intervene with a pro-business bias in line with
the neoliberal economic model that currently underlies a great majority of
governments, including the Mexican.
The two types of conflict call for the consideration of different ways of
resolving tensions around the definition of the substance of representa-
tion and intermediation. Those tensions are characterized by different
degrees of constraints, recognition and agonism, and by the importance
of the deliberative dimension with regard to workers’ interests as well.
The substance of representation in the CPI ranges from irrestrictive
agonism to antagonism. Therefore, we argue that in the labour sphere,
agonism and antagonism imply that the defence of workers’ rights is
a process where actors assume distinct positions along a continuum in
which conflict is always present. On the extreme of antagonism, actors
confront one another without recognizing the existence of the other
who has different or opposing interests, values and ideas. In particular,
this occurs in conflict 2 (capital–labour redistribution) when negotia-
tion, which is part of the mechanism of institutionalized and shared rules
for the defence of workers’ demands, fails. Instead, pressure is exerted,
threatening adversaries with destruction, as in the case of indefinite
strikes curtailing property rights (whether or not legally recognized by
the authority-arbitrator). Pressure of this type lacks institutional chan-

nels to resolve issues, and it is thereby common that in some cases either
of the two conflicting parties may resort to violence. When antagonism
is present, labour demands do not have a resolution but by imposed
force or the silencing of the other.
On the opposite extreme—agonism—conflict is legitimized through
the shared use of rules by conflicting actors, preventing the destruction of
either party. This translates into a reduction in the use of violence, or self-
restriction in the use of resources that lead to the destruction of the other
party (i.e. long-lasting strikes with no possibility of resolution). Here the
opposing actor is recognized as an adversary and not as an antagonist
or enemy to be destroyed. Different agonism positions can be expressed
through the negotiation process within a framework of shared rules. Such
is the case of capital–labour tensions (conflict 2) resolved by labour law
(i.e. call to strike as a time pressure weapon, collective bargaining, legal
prosecution, arbitration, etc.) which should not be confused with conflict
in representation of workers’ interests (conflict 1). In fact, agonism in
the resolution of worker conflicts does not necessarily result in greater
representation and protection of labour rights. Instead, conflict 1 brings
an enriched substance of intermediation, similar to the presence of delib-
eration in conflict resolution scenarios. In other words, the substance is
enriched by deliberative intermediation.
In a middle ground between the two extremes, unrestricted agonism,
agency and intermediators’ capacity for expression are permitted under
certain circumstances, thus tensions in the redistributive conflict find
forms of limited expression. This position largely depends on the degree
of agonism/antagonism allowed in the modality of intermediation in
question (NGOs, independent union organizations, corporatist unions,
etc.) as well as on the degree of asymmetry of forces that could cancel out
the intermediator agency and the redistributive conflict.
Union Representation and Labour Conflict

in Mexico: Broad Coercive Union Powers in a Weak
Institutional Environment
The Mexican case is unique as the design of the labour law (1917–1931)
(and, in general, the whole institutional framework) was the result of a
revolutionary process. It was forged as part of an authoritarian political
system that entrusted and recognized unions’ broad coercive powers to

be imposed on employer counterparts. However, power was concentrated
at the top of union organizations and a broad margin of discretion was
given to the labour authority to decide to whom to grant access to these
powers and prevent the exercising of these powers from impacting the
interests of sectors that, like employers, could be negatively affected by
this radical legislation. The neoliberal economic model disinterested in the
development of internal markets and the prevalence of a weak institutional
environment, helped to propel blockage of representation.
Mexican labour law is one of the most radical legislations in the world.
First, the condition by unions of imposing obligatory worker affiliation
and the demand to employers in signing a collective agreement, without
first demonstrating that the union has a majority, provide a clear evidence
of this. Striking also implies a total and indefinite suspension of labour.
Second, although arbitration is allowed, the intervention of authori-
ties is only permitted to qualify the exercising of this right after a strike
has already started. No possibility exists to impose obligatory arbitra-
tion either before or after the strike, unless workers agree. This was, and
continues to be, the “Achilles heel” of the Mexican labour model as it
extremely limits the possibility of ending conflict in an agonist way, unless
there is control of unions. Given that salaries are the main comparative
advantage of the country, representation is a simulation of representation,
promoted by employers themselves or by those who formally hold union
registration, which is granted by governmental authorities. Therefore,
employer protection unions constitute a form of “inverted representa-
tion”. Representatives do not defend workers’ interests, but rather those
of employers and, in some cases, of government (Bensusán and Subiñas
2014).
Inverted representation is far from the idea of democratic functional
representation, given the imposition of self-interests or the employer’s
will. At best, one could speak of the existence of a legal or formal rep-
resentation of workers, as it complies with requirements established by
law. However, “ghost” unions can have a legally valid registration when
collective agreement has been signed and approved by the authorities.
From the formalistic view, representation (Pitkin 1985) is legal, but from
the standpoint of substantive representation it is a fraud as it is driven by
employers through their choosing of union organizations that are not rec-
ognized by workers and do not comply with the mission of defending the
latter’s interests. A dispute thereby arises regarding the definition of repre-

sentation. Alternative forms of intermediation emerge that seek to replace
these shortfalls by facilitating a prominent role for the deliberative dimen-
sion of representation (Urbinati 2000), or, in our terms, the unblock-
ing of representation in the force circuit. The conceptual framework (see
Fig. 7.1) thereby becomes more complex when representatives or formal
intermediaries are not receptive to the interests of the represented (Pitkin
1985, 125).
Functional intermediation within the labour world is also associated
with corporatist unionism in which workers are formally represented,
but within a pyramid structure that is neither transparent nor responsive.
The top organizations that most clearly reflect this form of traditional
corporatist intermediation are the Confederation of Mexican Workers
(CTM), the Regional Confederation of Mexican Labourers (CROM) and
Fig. 7.1 Chart of intermediation actors in the Mexican labour world

the Revolutionary Confederation of Labourers and Peasants (CROC),

among others. They all continue to hold collective contracts of impor-
tant companies in diverse sectors of the economy, such as the automobile
industry. In twentieth-century Mexico (up until the 1980s), this form of
intermediation offered various advantages for the represented, but inhib-
ited a genuine functional representation, intensely democratic and com-
bative. These top organizations currently have unions within production
plants in important sectors of the economy that fall within the modality of
inverted representation.6
Figure 7.1 shows the plurality of actors evident in intermediation and
representation within the labour world. Conflict 1 and conflict 2 are inti-
mately related in terms of the Mexican institutional framework. While
employers should not be involved in the conflict for representation, in
reality, and in virtue of the normative framework, they intervene directly
in conflict 1 by choosing the union organization with which they negoti-
ate or by preventing the expression of redistributive conflict, included in
workers’ contracts. Figure 7.1 shows how the dotted line should over-
come conflict between workers and government authorities to legitimatize
a union truly representing the former’s interests (type 1). The continuous
line illustrates how conflict 1 works in practice. Employers and govern-
ment recognize the union, charged with representation, but subject to
their own interests.
Conflict 2 (see Fig. 7.2) shows the convergence among employers,
labour authorities and unions. It shows that there is no counterpart rep-
resenting workers. In this type of conflict, workers’ interests should be
sought; however, this does not happen because of the blockage in rep-
resentation. Thereby a formal worker representation is present, but it is
simultaneously absent in substantive terms, given the existence of inverted
representation. Hence, conflict 2 is heard through just one voice—that of
employers, supported by authorities and co-opted or allied unions. The
shaded area in Fig. 7.2 depicts how conflict 1 affects conflict 2 because
the actors who block representation in conflict 1 are the same who do not
allow workers’ interests to be expressed in conflict 2.
The State—through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security (STPS
is its acronym in Spanish) and in its participation in tripartite bodies such
as the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JFCA is its acronym
in Spanish) or the National Minimum Wage Commission (CNSM is its
acronym in Spanish)—acts as an arbitrator and mediator of conflicts.
Fig. 7.2 Map of intermediators in the Mexican labour sphere (conflict 2)
Ideally, its position should be equidistant from the two opposing par-
ties, or, at least, not influenced by either party. This means that labour
relations have an arbitrator that intermediates and that, by law (Federal
Labour Law; LFT is its acronym in Spanish), plays a double role: political
when arbitrating a redistributive conflict and “technical-administrative”
when recognizing unions and their leaders. Nevertheless, this latter role
also becomes political inasmuch as the State prevents the formation of
independent unions and leaders. In summary, the analytical model dis-
cussed in this section provides a framework for a wider understanding of
intermediation in the labour sphere beyond traditional functional repre-
sentation. Various expressions of political intermediation may arise, but
are not recognized and hold different degrees of recognition, constraint
and agonism.
Redistributive Conflicts and Tensions

around Union Representation: Illustrative
Examples
Within the broad framework of Mexican corporatism, our three examples
illustrate how tensions and contradictions intersect and are prevented and
resolved within distributive conflicts between representatives and repre-
sented (representation conflicts).7 The aim is to exemplify situations where
workers’ interests in the force circuit are blocked or unblocked, using the
three dimensions of the CPI model as a guide.
Example 1. Imposition of Antagonism: Three Parties and a Single

Voice in Minimum Wage Policy
Both the Mexican Constitution and the LFT, when defining procedures
to set the minimum wage, recognize tripartism in the CNSM as a way
of resolving redistributive conflict. Given that the representation circuit
is blocked (corporatist unionism with formal authorization, vertical rec-
ognition and moderate constraints), antagonism is imposed both in the
conflict in representation (type 1) and in the redistributive conflict (type
2). The Federal Executive Power takes discretionary decisions through
antidemocratic mechanisms, based on simulation in which one single
voice and one type of interest are heeded—that of employers and allied
governmental bodies.
The Council of Representatives is the highest body of the CNSM, com-
prised of nine councillors from each sector and one from the federal gov-
ernment. Worker representation is exclusively by representatives of unions
connected to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and subordinated
to government. No representatives of independent unions participate, and
no other voices are admitted. Over time, the government has been able to
choose between different options that vary from (i) effective compliance
of constitutional criteria to determine minimum wage (up until 1976)
to (ii) direct violation of these criteria without legal consequences (from
1976) and with full support by corporatist unions. The inversion of func-
tional representation in the tripartite bodies does not make redistributive
conflict agonist, but rather simply prevents its expression and resolution
in a new equilibrium, impacting not only the seven million recipients of
minimum wage in the country, but the whole wage structure. Despite
an intense campaign in 2014 by Mexico City Government, alongside the
participation of social and political actors, which aimed at opening new

negotiation spaces for wage policy, the representation within the force
circuit continued to be blocked and the efforts pushing for change were
thwarted (Mancera 2015).8
The capital–labour redistributive conflict, exemplified by the CNSM,
shows that an antagonist equilibrium exists precisely because of three fac-
tors: absence of an impartial arbitrator, formal representation of workers
does not fulfil its function and one of the key actors, democratic unions, is
weakened and prevented from participating. Figure 7.3 shows how con-
flict 2 remains blocked in an antagonist equilibrium, while an agonist solu-
tion would depend on resolving first the functional representation conflict
(type 1) in the CNSM.9 Figure 7.3 also shows that from the perspective of
conflict 1 there is a moderate degree of recognition. Although authorities
demand for legal prerequisites to legitimate worker representation, these
do not comply with the democratic process established by the LFT. In
relation to constraints, a high discretion by union leaders predominates
after they obtain formal recognition by governmental authorities. There is
no accountability in the core of the corporatist union or individual unions
affiliated to the former, albeit some exceptions.
Antagonism in conflict 1 and 2, characterized by the workers’ silence, is
also present in the peasants of San Quintin described later and illustrated
in Fig. 7.3 for comparative purposes.
Fig. 7.3 Blockage of representation in the CNSM and agricultural labourer

movement (stage 1)
Example 2. San Quintin Labourers, from an Unstable Double

Antagonism to an Unrestricted Agonism
The main difference between the conflict discussed in the CNSM and San
Quintin labourers is the blockage in representation. In the previous exam-
ple, the representation within the force circuit, subject to the strict institu-
tional channels in which it developed, ended being continuously blocked
(stage 1). San Quintin labourers initially overcame the blockage in repre-
sentation because they used extra institutional channels (more later). As
a result, the redistributive struggle to achieve wage increases and better
working conditions had to be accepted by authorities and employers.
Many different stakeholders intervened on behalf of the San Quintin
labourers’ movement to achieve better salaries and work conditions (see
Fig. 7.4, three stages). The most important of these was the Alliance of
National, State and Municipal Organizations for Social Justice (hence-
forth the Alliance, represented with “M” in Fig. 7.4). It was comprised
of various indigenous community representatives with experience in social
struggles for basic services (water and garbage collection). The movement
began in March 2015, out of a legal strike and roadblocks of an impor-
tant highway. This struggle led the unblocking of the labour representa-
tion circuit, previously controlled by unions supported by official union
confederations (and biased towards employers’ interests), authorities and
employers. What is interesting about this example is the transition from
double antagonism in both types of conflict (stage 1) to an unrestricted
Fig. 7.4 Unblockage of conflict 1 by the labourer movement of San Quintin

Valley (stages 2 and 3)
agonism in the representation conflict (conflict 1), all without the disap-
pearance of employer-biased unions. Recognition of new stakeholders was
first achieved, followed by an agonist response to the redistributive conflict
(stage 2). This experience also shows how the emergence of a new actor,
the Alliance, was able to obtain the support from broader sociopolitical
and transnational coalitions, which establish an agenda for the protection
of human rights beyond the workplace. This was made possible by strate-
gies of coordinated action that were far more challenging for employers:
closures of highways used fundamentally for the export of goods to the
USA, standstill of labour during the harvesting period and consumer boy-
cott against multinationals, such as Wal-Mart (Jaloma 2016). Finally, this
example shows the building of new negotiation spaces, whose main pro-
tagonist was a community organization, with both the direct and indirect
presence (through solidarity) of other stakeholders at various moments.
Without ignoring the mobilization resource, the labour conditions of
the agricultural labourers were made visible, beyond the Valle de San
Quintin, by counting on the support or participation of external political
actors, such as the then Mayor of the Federal District, representatives of
the National Human Rights Commission, various public officials, legisla-
tors, labour lawyers, political party leaders and human rights organizations
(Jaloma 2016, 124).
The interesting aspect of this experience is the transition from demands
for basic services (more agonist conflicts) to an intense mobilization
around work conditions (redistributive conflict). Another interesting
political process was the emergence of two unions (represented as “SE”
in Fig. 7.4, stage 3), which, despite formal recognition by the authorities,
will not be formally empowered to negotiate until they are able to gain the
collective labour contract (currently in the hands of corporatist unions).
Although the capital–labour conflict was expressed and improvements in
favour of workers were achieved through the exceptional and heroic acts
of agricultural labourers to unblock representation, this equilibrium was
destabilized over time. Their strength as a social movement allowed, in a
first stage, to achieve public debate in relation to conflict 1. However, it is
only union corporatist confederations that hold collective bargaining, and
are therefore legally capable of mediating conflict 2. This partial achieve-
ment also resulted from the employers’ decision to concede better work-
ing conditions on a unilateral scale in order to weaken the labourer social
movement and discourage other groups from imitating similar unblocking
tactics in the force circuit (Jaloma 2016). This experience illustrates how
in the face of double antagonism in both types of conflicts the only way
out was the use of other non-institutionalized mechanisms of pressure,
such as roadblocks on highways and boycotts, as well as the inclusion of a
plurality of actors that made this conflict more visible.
Finally, this example indicates an inconclusive resolution of conflict 2
(allegedly a fourth stage) regarding the dispute on the formalization of
work contracts between (i) organized unions allied to employers and (ii)
the new independent unions created by peasant workers. If the former
win, the double antagonism shown in Fig. 7.3 will prevail. In contrast,
if the latter win, a double agonism would be possible as discussed in the
next example.
Example 3. VWM-SITIAVWM: Successful Experience of Double

Agonism
The example of VWM and its union (SITIAVWM10) is, to a certain degree,
exceptional in the Mexican context for at least two reasons: first, because
VWM has recognized an independent union and the right of workers to
strike as a legal and legitimate measure for exerting pressure for improve-
ments in labour conditions; and second, because SITIAVWM is autono-
mous and has an intensely democratic internal life based on (i) regular and
democratic elections and procedures that impose important constraints,
while allowing internal processing of conflicts between leaders and ranks,
and (ii) a complex representation structure where assistant secretaries
and representatives constitute an intermediate body of representation.11
Furthermore, it is not an isolated case, but rather representative of what
occurs, to a large degree, in independent unions affiliated to the National
Workers Union, an organization that began in 1997 as an expression of
“new unionism”.
In contrast to Figs. 7.3 and 7.4, Fig. 7.5 illustrates an opportunity for
workers to replace their leaders through democratic and truly contested
elections when they feel that their interests have been betrayed or are no
longer represented. Workers did not need to leave the union or create
another, as was the experience of the agricultural labourers. Furthermore,
differences are processed democratically and the will of the workers’
assembly may decide against the view of its representatives without caus-
ing ruptures. This scenario portrays effective substantive representation
Fig. 7.5 Conflict experienced by the SITIAVWM workers
of workers’ interests at the same time that it allows classical redistributive

conflicts to be processed in an agonist way. These workers who are the
second highest paid in the Mexican automobile industry have carried out
strikes and both partial triumphs and defeats have been achieved. On the
one hand, the union self-restricts the exercising labour rights and, on the
other, the company understands that the suspension of labour activities is
an isolated and sometimes necessary occurrence that creates pressure for
serious and opportune negotiations.
The main limitation within this traditional form of representation is
the difficultly experienced by SITIAVWM in affiliating most vulnerable
workers who are part of the VWM value chain and in the automobile
industry more broadly. This is reflected in other sectors (telecommunica-
tions, private insurance, aviation) with independent unions that lose affili-
ates due to subcontracting processes. Nevertheless, the VWM example is
important as it proves that, even within the current Mexican institutional
framework, there is margin for unblocking the representation circuit with-
out this necessarily leading to the destruction of adversaries. Speculatively,
it can be anticipated that an institutional reform, included in the presi-
dential initiative of May 2016, will benefit from the VWM experience to
design a new labour model that does not block the labour representation
circuit. The VWM experience feeds particularly into the proposal to create
an independent body for union registration and collective contracts and an
impartial labour law system.
Conclusions
The study of blocking/unblocking representation in the force cir-
cuit (labour sphere) allowed us to identify various situations in which
worker interests are intermediated and defended in the Mexican con-
text. Through the third dimension of the CPI, we developed a more
in-depth analysis of conflict which underlines signs of innovation despite
that unions as collective actors continue to be the only actors with
formal legitimacy to undertake (restricted) functional representation
on behalf of unionized workers. Innovation is evident in the example
of the labourers of San Quintin, who, although able to overcome the
double antagonism imposed by the conflict in representation (type 1)
and redistribution (type 2), had to shift their organization from a social
movement to the formation of a community organization and, subse-
quently, into two independent unions. This example illustrates how the
institutional order strongly conditions actors’ strategies in the labour
sphere. The other two experiences, the CNSM and SITIAVWM, show
two extremes based on our dual classification of conflict: in the former,
a double institutionalized antagonism prevails given the vertical control
of old corporatist unionism and, in the latter, a double agonism exists
in an atypical experience of democratic unionism and effective collec-
tive bargaining. Despite the positive traits of SITIAVWM, the example
also confirms the limitations of union organizations, which, in a more
traditional sense, encounter challenges in expanding representation to
include the interests of workers who are not affiliated members.
Notes
1. Due to space restrictions, these are not presented as case studies
but rather as examples that illustrate three different situations pres-
ent in the Mexican labour scenario.
2. Although the VWM union represents a little under 10,000 work-
ers, it forms part of a broader organization, the National Workers
Union, whose members exercise authentic representation and has
over 300,000 unionized workers.
3. This institutional reform transfers labour law to the Judiciary, elim-
inating Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, the basis of corporat-
ist tripartism in Mexico. Instead, independent organisms to register
unions and collective agreements would be created. The latter will
ensure workers’ direct and secret voting while acknowledging con-

flict of representation in collective bargaining. This reform would
mark a phase of labour’s political liberalization, a necessary but not
sufficient condition for its democratization.
4. Another type of actor that exercises (non-formal) functional repre-
sentation are non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which
according to their aims, orient their work in virtue of principles,
values and rights (i.e. human and labour rights).
5. In exercising functional representation, the union is a representa-
tive of workers’ interests before employers or authorities. For
Schmitter et al. (1992), when such unions do not represent, but
rather “mediate”, they no longer act as representatives as they are
no longer aware of the interests of their members.
6. See Bensusán and Middlebrook (2013) regarding union situation
in Mexico.
7. See Bensusán and Middlebrook (2013).
8. This campaign promoted a gradual increase in the minimum wage
to overcome the poverty line, which from 1982 was considered to
have lost two thirds of its purchasing power. However, although it
was possible to dissociate the minimum wage amount from other
contributions through constitutional reforms alongside the cre-
ation of a series of sub-commissions tendered by the CNSM to
assess wage level recovery, to date no final decision has been
achieved.
9. For a detailed explanation on conflict of representation and redis-
tributive conflict in the CNSM, see Bensusán (2015).
10. SITIAVWM stands for Independent Workers Union of Volkswagen
Automotive Mexican.
11. See Bensusán and Gómez (2017) for details on this conflict.
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CHAPTER 8
The Political–Legal Representation Circuit

of Human Rights Politics
Karina Ansolabehere and Paula Valle de Bethencourt
The objective of this chapter is to analyse the defence of human rights

as a form of political intermediation in order to complement studies
on the politics of human rights. It is argued that the defence of human
rights can be modelled on a hybrid intermediation circuit in which
legal representation and political brokerage intersect. Its particular
characteristics will be analysed using variations of legal and political
representation as parameters, while following the model of the cube
of political intermediation (CPI) proposed in the introduction to this
book.
Taking account of the concern around political representation in con-
temporary societies, the chapter makes a call for the advocacy model and
legal concepts normally used to understand the role of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) in general, and human rights NGOs in particular,
to be reviewed in relation to the defence1 of human rights. The defence of
human rights involves a combination of legal representation and political
brokerage. This gives rise to the identification of a specific representation
K. Ansolabehere (*)
Latin America Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), Guatemala, Mexico
P.V. de Bethencourt
Autonomous University of Guerrero, Guerrero, Mexico

160 K. ANSOLABEHERE AND P.V. DE BETHENCOURT
circuit that adopts the attributes of both the word and project circuits (see
introduction), giving rise to a circuit that has here been coined the politi-
cal–legal circuit.
The need for proposing this new circuit is based on three consider-
ations. First, some cases of human rights defence involve mobilising not
only political claims, but also actions that relate to legal representation,2
requiring specific, expert (legal) knowledge. Second, in the defence of
victims of human rights violations (i.e. supporting families of disappeared
people), political intermediation practices are carried out by NGOs that
are not always unconnected to the groups in whose name the claim is
being made. In accordance with the CPI dimensions, defensive actions of
human rights organisations can be located at coordinates that do not nec-
essarily coincide with those that characterise the advocacy3 model. That is,
there are specific ways of consulting those being defended and authoris-
ing the role of the defender. Third, these political mediation practices
are not exclusively guided by principles and values, as would normally be
the case with human rights politics (advocacy model). Instead, actions of
human rights defence imply the political processing of demands that aim
to achieve tangible results which represent interests.
This chapter builds upon the study of human rights politics, based on
the defence of rights and legal representation, by using the frame of politi-
cal intermediation in order to capture more accurately the type of repre-
sentation circuit activated in the relationship among NGOs, victims of
human rights violations and state agencies. This analysis entails a shift in
focus from movements and networks to NGOs as intermediators between
victims of human rights violations and state agencies.
Thus, the chapter seeks to provide a more textured understanding
of human rights politics in light of political representation literature,
and thereby enable a more complex analysis of NGOs’ intermediation
practices and their experiences of human rights defence. It is assumed
that the role of human rights NGOs is one modality of organising poli-
tics within a broader spectrum available in contemporary societies (Sorj
and Martuccelli 2008). It is a modality in which specific processes of
defence, in addition to promoting moral politics (denouncing the “bad”
and promoting the “good”), develop result-driven politics, where con-
flicting interests are processed (or annulled). It is a politics in which legal
representation and political representation intersect or hybridise. The
resulting specific representation circuit is close to what has been referred
to as the word, although it also incorporates the technical component (in
THE POLITICAL–LEGAL REPRESENTATION CIRCUIT OF HUMAN RIGHTS... 161
this case, judicial-legal) of the project circuit. Finally, within this analy-
sis, mediators gain special attention, in particular, those human rights
organisations or specific leaders who act as “transmission belts” between
victims of human rights violations (individuals or groups) and different
state agencies, international bodies or the general public. Legitimacy for
mediation is acquired from a moral, rather than functional recognition,
that nevertheless is jointly constructed by organisations, groups of vic-
tims and state agencies.
In order to apply the framework discussed here, the chapter will
study the construction of the political–legal intermediation circuit by
the human rights organisation Citizens in Support of Human Rights
(CADHAC is its acronym in Spanish) in Nuevo León, Mexico. The
intermediation was done between the Group of Organized Women
for the Executed, Kidnapped and Disappeared People of Nuevo León
(AMORES is its acronym in Spanish), a group comprising families of
disappeared people, and the Attorney General of Nuevo León State. The
objective of the intermediation was to establish the whereabouts of the
disappeared people, and subsequently develop preventative policies for
early searches as well as legislative changes to determine the legal status
of disappeared people.
First, a review of the literature on the politics of human rights defence
will be presented, while complementing the latter with reflections on
political intermediation. Second, categories of analysis will be developed
with which to study the relationship among AMORES, CADHAC and
the Attorney General of Nuevo León. Finally, the case study will be dis-
cussed and final considerations presented.
Enabling Complexity in Understanding the Politics

of Human Rights Defence
A complex understanding of the politics of human rights is necessary,

given that, under certain circumstances, multiple, rather that single, strat-
egies in different directions predominate the intermediation of NGOs
between victims and state agencies. These strategies prompt complexity
in the politics of dissemination of values and principles, that the literature
identifies as a central part of human rights organisations, as they combine
legal representation strategies with contentious politics, such as marches,
solemn processions or negotiations aiming to achieve a concrete objective
(Keck and Sikkink 1998).
The politics of human rights defence developed by NGOs has been

studied from various perspectives within the social sciences: transnational
activist networks; social movements; poststructuralist studies on human
rights; transitional legal processes; democratisation and the role of civil
society organisations (CSOs); and studies on legal representation.4 The
contributions of these perspectives, while fundamental for understanding
contemporary politics of human rights, are developed at levels of analyses
where organisational dynamics, in particular the intermediation practices
of NGOs, receive only marginal attention. The way in which NGOs carry
out their work has been less studied, and, in fact, no theory exists in this
regard. Through the theory of political representation, a new lens is pro-
vided to overcome the lack of attention paid to the role played by human
rights defence NGOs, intermediating between victims of human rights
violations and state agencies.
Studies of transnational defence networks, framed within the interna-
tional relations field, highlight the way in which these networks, drawing
on the dissemination of values underpinned by principles, contribute to
the socialisation of human rights standards. Their main focus has been on
the relationship between national and international organisations (Keck
and Sikkink 1998; Anaya Muñoz 2012), in authoritarian contexts or
democratic transitions, to pressure governments on human rights matters.
Within this field, the point of interest is the relationships between local
and international organisations, and how effective these are in producing
change in matters of human rights. The way in which local NGOs, embed-
ded in transnational networks, have undertaken their work in defending
rights has remained outside the focus of attention.
Meanwhile, human rights literature based on the perspective of social
movements, protest repertoires or resource mobilisation has focused on
various phenomena. First, strategies of the human rights movement have
been studied, following two main tendencies. On the one hand, there is
the strategy of “naming, blaming and claiming”. Felstiner et al. (1980)
identify actions of denunciation, either written or in the form of dem-
onstrations, as central strategies of the human rights movements, both
nationally and transnationally (Keck and Sikkink 1998). On the other
hand, much attention has been given to advocacy strategies (Mertus
2004), which emphasise the influence of movements on public agendas
as mechanisms for producing political transformation. Regardless of the
perspective, the use of rights, either symbolically and/or materially, has
become an inevitable dimension of the study of the human rights move-
ment (McCann 2006).
Second, the international character of human rights movements has

been highlighted, arising from the need to consider problems globally
(Neier 2012) while being located within transnational activism (Tarrow
2005). Third, human rights movements have also been portrayed as local
phenomena whose mobilisation processes appeal to global discourse
(Estévez 2008). Analyses on the institutionalisation of the demand for
rights also concerns social movements locally; they bring forward power
relations between human rights movements and the responses of the state
(Stammers 2009). In all this literature, while human rights NGOs are vis-
ible, they are actors in a broader political process who connect with the
state to achieve institutional recognition of their demands. However, the
purpose of intermediation between organisations and groups on whose
behalf demands are claimed has not been sufficiently problematised. The
way interests are defended through representation or intermediation in
the politics of human rights is not part of this agenda. In fact, Tilly (1984,
297–317), in a classic definition of social movements, argues that one of
its characteristics is the absence of a formal connection of representation
given that those who speak on behalf of a group do not formally represent
it.
Poststructuralist and critical studies of human rights take note of the
local dimension in the construction of human rights, emphasising the con-
textual construction of the demand for rights. The vernacularisation of
global ideas related to human rights (Merry 2003) considers the mediation
role of local organisations in the reception of global ideas. Nevertheless,
the political representation or intermediation of the demands of groups in
whose name a right is claimed has not received attention.
Studies in transitional justice (Teitel 2003) have analysed the impor-
tance of CSOs in processes that seek truth, justice and reparation for
human rights violations (Lessa et al. 2014; Collins 2010; González
Ocantos 2014; Smultovitz 2012). These studies point out the impor-
tance of both victims and support organisations that develop relationships
among different victim organisations. However, little emphasis is placed
on the intermediation role played by NGOs between victims and state
agencies as a variation of possible forms of political intermediation.
Moreover, the role of NGOs in linking different human rights demands
as the only way of developing contentious demands has been questioned
(Franklin 2014), given the diversity of actors carrying out these types of
actions. Thus, while organisations may receive attention, this is with regard
to their role as spokespeople for general demands, disregarding their inter-
mediation or brokerage role with victims in both legal and political terms.
In view of the importance of legal representation in human rights

defence, the literature that points out expert legal knowledge as a dis-
tinctive feature of human rights cannot be ignored. The role of law-
yers within human rights movements is discussed, pointing out the
difference between traditional law practice and the way in which it is
practised within these movements, where lawyers defend causes rather
than (Sarat and Scheingold 1998) clients or processes of social change
(Johnson 1999). The central point of this literature questions the power
asymmetry between lawyers and members of disadvantaged groups that
undermines “client” autonomy, and it also casts light on the different
proposals for the practice of law to overcome this. From this question-
ing, various denominations of lawyers arise: cause lawyers, social interest
lawyers, facilitating lawyers (Marsico 1994). While human rights lawyers
are not immune to this asymmetry and the tensions this brings (Chama
2010; Santamaría and Vecchioli 2008), they cannot be disassociated
either from other forms of non-legal political brokerage developed by
human rights organisations. Thus the need to consider a representation
circuit that combines both forms of legal and non-legal political broker-
age (McCann 1994).
Finally, studies of democratisation place importance on civil society and
its organisations (Cohen and Arato 1994) as spaces of deliberation vis-à-vis
bargaining and negotiation processes that are characteristic of traditional
politics. However, it was not long before critiques appeared responding to
the idealised understanding of civil society. Criticisms were based on the
empirical study of countries experiencing democratisation (Brysk 2000;
Sorj and Martuccelli 2008), in which the deficits of the representation by
CSOs (including human rights organisations) were highlighted in contrast
to traditional models of political representation. However, these criticisms
do not identify actions of intermediation carried out by CSOs. When
mechanisms of intermediation of human rights NGOs are given atten-
tion, they are analysed as a model similar to that of electoral representa-
tion in democratic regimes which are centred on electoral parameters of
legitimacy and the absence of a specific mandate (authorisation) from the
represented. However, as argued by Gurza Lavalle (2014), the legitimacy
of the representation offered by human rights organisations on the “true
interests” of groups, who would otherwise have no voice, is being revised
in light of the pluralisation of representation in contemporary societies.
This chapter aims to contribute to this debate.
In reviewing the literature, it can be concluded that while NGOs

occupy a central role in the defence of human rights, analyses overlook
their work at the local level, confining NGOs to the simple, single cen-
tred role of transmission of international ideas, advocacy for change or
defence of victims. Hence the need and relevance to study the ways in
which human rights organisations intermediate between victims of human
rights violations and government agencies. The frame of political interme-
diation opens an unexplored research area that re-politicises the study of
the politics of human rights defence.
In a nutshell, the importance of studying the ways in which inter-
mediation is exercised by NGOs in defence of human rights is centred
on the argument that studies are necessary to differentiate intermedia-
tion not only from traditional models of electoral representation, but
also from the conventional assumption about organisations in defence
of human rights, which is based on the advocacy model (acting on
behalf of those who have no voice, without their knowledge or con-
sent, although legitimised by the moral importance of their actions).
Furthermore, it must not be forgotten that legal representation strat-
egies are an important component of the defence of human rights.
To develop this argument, the intermediation exercised by CADHAC
between families of disappeared people in Nuevo León State and the
Attorney General’s Office will be analysed by incorporating these actors
into the continuum of the CPI, while analysing the defence of rights
via circuits of intermediation.
Intermediation of Human Rights Organisations

Between Victims, State Agencies and the Public
According to the advocacy model of intermediation, CSOs (a) are defined
as bodies that defend causes without the consent or knowledge of those
people or groups involved in these causes (Sorj and Martuccelli 2008);
(b) have broad discretion regarding their decisions (Brysk 2000); and (c)
have an antagonistic approach to the state as their demands are based on
non-negotiable principles and values.
However, this model does not accurately reflect the nature of human
rights NGOs defence actions. While it is an intermediation model, it is
not the only possible one; nor does it reflect most clearly the difficulties
of intermediation. Our in-depth analysis of the modes of operation of
human rights organisations shows forms of intermediation that differ from

the advocacy model and resemble a more sophisticated form, where the
voice of victims assumes importance and a hybrid circuit of representation
emerges, combining legal representation and political brokerage.5 Indeed,
from an intermediation point of view (and beyond the advocacy model),
human rights organisations, in their defence of victims, mediate in two
ways: legally representing victims of human rights violations, and politically
brokering to achieve concrete resolutions towards the demands of victims
and social change objectives. When combined, the political–legal inter-
mediation circuit is created. Its factors and interactions are analysed next.
The first mediating form of the hybrid circuit is legal representation/
counselling. Based on the CPI, legal representation is located at one
extreme of the cube and the so-called social interest lawyer (including
cause lawyers) at the other extreme. According to traditional models
of legal representation, a lawyer represents a client that grants him/
her the power to act in his/her name in order to resolve a determined
legal problem; there is consent and knowledge of the representation. In
the substantive dimension, there is weak agonism towards legal insti-
tutions inasmuch as the main interest is the resolution of the client’s
legal problem, and for which conflicts are not exacerbated, but rather
institutional shortcuts are sought to fulfil the legal commitment. The
lawyer is accountable to the client, although constraint is moderate given
the asymmetries of information and knowledge. At the other extreme is
the social interest lawyer or facilitator, who aims to contribute to social
change. This type of representation also involves the knowledge and
consent of the represented, but here, the lawyer seeks to stimulate the
participation of the client in the development of the cause; its substan-
tive dimensions indicate strong agonism to the degree that the objective
of the mediation is social transformation by providing a voice to the
voiceless. In the relationship with legal institutions, lawyers seek to prove
the injustice that has been committed or that can be committed, rather
than to identify institutional shortcuts that may result in tension with
legal institutions. Finally, constraint, through accountability, is strong to
the degree that one of the identifying characteristics of this type of legal
defence is the empowerment of the disadvantaged.
The second mediating form of the hybrid is political brokerage.
According to the CPI’s coordinates, on one extreme is the electoral rep-
resentation model and, on the other, the advocacy model. The first model
is characterised by recognition, where the represented know of and give
consent to the representative; antagonism inasmuch as the relationship

with other representatives is articulated by conflict and possibilities of con-
flict solution; and moderate constraints placed on the representative by the
represented, fundamentally in the form of a vote. On the other extreme is
advocacy, the traditional model from which human rights NGOs’ political
mediation is normally understood. In this model, representatives speak
on behalf of the represented without the latter’s consent, and often from
a position of strong agonism or antagonism against state agencies, while
representatives are not subject to constraints from the represented, that is,
the former may act at their discretion.
In presenting the two mediating forms, political and legal, mention
needs to be made of the fact that these interact with each other in various
ways: each mediating form can boost, annul or damage the other. For
example, legal representation can open up (or close) political opportuni-
ties in the same way that political brokerage can open up (or close) legal
opportunities. In this sense, organisations use litigation strategies whose
power rests not only on the skilful use of technical expertise, but also on
the strategy of political demand, whose language enriches the aridity of
technical jargon through the voluptuousness of claim-making that accom-
panies human rights. These linguistic tensions may be found, for example,
in institutional legal spaces, such as in courts. Figure 8.1 schematises the
interactions of the political–legal circuit.
Gurza and Zaremberg (2014) define the “political” nature of interme-
diation as a vertical and ascending mediation undertaken by actors that, by
virtue of existing power asymmetries, occupies an advantageous position
in relation to the intermediated individuals or groups. Without denying
these features, human rights organisations not only promote third-party
interests vis-à-vis different actors, mostly authorities, but also mediate
politically by directing their actions, at times with (moderate or strong)
constraint mechanisms, towards tangible results in which opposing inter-
ests are processed (or annulled). In this way, human rights NGOs are
occasionally able to achieve social change and concrete results for victims’
demands.
Human rights NGOs move in a hybrid representation circuit (the polit-
ical–legal), in which legal institutions, politics and the public space are
stages for the defence of victims of human rights violations. The CPI will
be used as a frame to analyse the concrete case of how CADHAC operates.
The CPI’s dimensions will be used in the following way: (a) “recognition
of the intermediary” (to what degree are the represented aware of the
legal
representaon
polical polical
mediaon mediaon
legal legal
representaon representaon
polical
mediaon
Fig. 8.1 Political–legal intermediation circuit
actions done on their behalf and provide consent?); (b) “accountability”

(to what degree can the represented control, or appeal to some form of
control of, the representative?); and (c) “content of the mediation” (to
what degree does the representative propose an agonist or antagonist way
of constructing the demand or interest of the represented?).
Based on the reconstruction of the legal intermediation role of
CADHAC, we seek to show the existence of a “hybrid circuit that com-
bines variations of legal representation and political brokerage”. Emphasis
will be laid on the intermediation process that CADHAC undertook
between the families of disappeared people in Nuevo León and the State
Attorney General between 2009 and 2015. The starting point of the pro-
cess is the first request from the mother of a disappeared person to the
organisation for support in finding her son. The process ends when the
Law for the Declaration of Missing People in the State of Nuevo León is
approved. This law was promoted by CADHAC, alongside AMORES,
a self-organised group of families of disappeared people who became a

political actor with CADHAC’s support, while seeking truth and justice
for the disappeared.
CADHAC’s operation will be discussed using actors, institutions (rules)
and actions/repertoires pointed out in the typology of representation cir-
cuits (see introduction). As mentioned earlier, the political–legal circuit
for the defence of human rights builds upon the circuits of word and
project. However, some actions also include repertoires from the circuits
of vote and force. The next section discusses what has been summarised
in Table 8.1. It focuses on the intermediation by CADHAC and on the
nature of the relationship and actions established with AMORES and the
Nuevo León Attorney General’s Office.
Table 8.1 Summary of actors by representation circuits

Vote Force Word Project (legal
technique)
Actors CADHAC AMORES CADHAC CADHAC

Legislators AMORES N. L. Attorney
Executive N. L. Attorney General General
National and
international networks
in defence of human
rights
Rules State Laws Laws on the Laws of civil society Laws of legal
for the right to organisation advice and
presentation protest and Laws of access and human rights
and approval freedom of pursuit of justice defence
of legislative expression
proposals
Repertoires Proposal and Public Meetings, briefings and CADHAC: Legal
approval of awareness follow-up of cases and psychosocial
the Law of the marches on among families, aid,
Declaration of key days CADHAC and the documentation
Missing Attorney General and attention to
People International complaints on
presentation of human rights,
experiences language
Policy proposals to translation and
prevent and investigate bureaucratic legal
disappeared people times
Source: Prepared by authors

CADHAC and Victims of Forced Disappearances

in Nuevo León: The Political–Legal Circuit
in Action
The focus of analysis is the intermediation role undertaken by CADHAC,

based on the features of the models of legal and political representation.
The results of the analysis show, first, the presence of a hybrid representa-
tion circuit; and, second, through the actions of the human rights organ-
isation in relation to the group of victims, the existence of another model
that differs from the traditional legal representation and advocacy models,
which re-politicises the defence of human rights.
CADHAC and AMORES have worked on approximately 1249 cases of
disappeared people between 2009 and 2014 (of which, approximately 26%
were committed by state agents and 74% allegedly by organised crime),
as well as on promoting specific policies such as the declaration of miss-
ing people by reason of forced disappearance. As a result of their efforts,
104 people have been found, 59 alive and 45 through genetic testing;
an early search mechanism for disappeared people has been implemented
(CADHAC 2015); and in April 2015, the approval of the Law for the
Declaration of Missing People by Reason of Forced Disappearance in
Nuevo León State6 was achieved (CADHAC 2015).
CADHAC
Consensus exists among human rights scholars in Mexico that the first
wave of human rights organisations emerged towards the end of the 1980s
and the beginning of the 1990s, and that many of them were linked to
liberation theology groups (Estévez 2007). CADHAC is no exception.
It began in 1993 out of grassroots ecclesiastic community work. It is a
doyenne of human rights at the local level, and has taken a protagonist
role in the state of Nuevo León. It is noted for both its national and inter-
national connections. It forms part of the All Rights for All network, the
Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, and has close connections
with international organisations such as Amnesty International, the Office
of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico
(OACNUDH is its acronym in Spanish) and the United Nations Working
Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, among others.
The organisation, directed by its founder, Sister Consuelo Morales
Elizondo, offers both legal and psychosocial assistance to victims of human
rights violations, as well as advocacy in public policy. CADHAC, under

the direction of Morales, is an example of an organisation with important
local, national and international connections, both official and unofficial.
The multidirectional nature of its connections, and its particular features
as an organisation, makes it an interesting case. While the organisation’s
original involvement in the field was related to human rights education, in
more recent years its main line of work has been the defence of victims of
physical integrity violations, with emphasis on forced disappeared people
in Nuevo León.
One of the traditional ways of human rights defence is the reception
of complaints of violations. CADHAC documented its first case of disap-
pearance in 2009, although cases fundamentally increased between 2010
and 2011 (CADHAC 2015). These first cases were brought to the organ-
isation by mothers whose children had disappeared since 2007 and who
had received no response from authorities regarding their whereabouts.
Regular meetings were organised with these mothers in order to provide
legal follow-up to their cases. This was initially without the involvement
of the State Attorney General, although close discussions with this body
began in 2011.
AMORES
In the face of rising numbers of cases, CADHAC opened its facilities for
weekly meetings in order for families to get to know each other and orga-
nise themselves. AMORES was founded from work with families of disap-
peared people that approached CADHAC for legal assistance. Currently,
this group remains closely linked to CADHAC, and undertakes tasks of
awareness-building, meetings with people who have experienced similar
situations and provides psychological assistance to children and families.7
It is worth highlighting that during this time, beyond its connection
with CADHAC, the group has acquired its own identity and developed its
own symbols. It has gained experience of communication with the State
Attorney General and other political bodies.
AMORES, in addition to looking for their family members and dis-
covering their fate, is involved in the development of broader policies for
both the prevention and investigation of disappeared people, in order to
recognise the status of victims of human rights violations as well as the
legal status of disappeared people through the Declaration of Missing
People.
The Process: From CADHAC to CADHAC +

AMORES + Attorney General of Nuevo León
CADHAC’s origins, foundation and development have followed a similar
path to other organisations in the country. However, as observed in the
case of AMORES, an important feature of its mediation was that it con-
tributed to victims’ empowerment, and was not limited to providing legal
assistance.
The question, then, is what mechanisms contributed to the way in
which CADHAC transitioned to the legal–political intermediation circuit:
one that closely resembles social interest legal representation as well as
forms of political brokerage that provide victims with a broad margin of
recognition and consent? Reconstruction of the process shows that the
mechanisms for understanding this particular form of intermediation are
related, in the first place, to the trajectory of grassroots education and
organisation, framed under grassroots ecclesiastic communities. This tra-
jectory meant that for CADHAC’s leadership, popular organisation was
closely linked to its own vision of human rights defence. A group of fami-
lies, in approaching the organisation, prompted CADHAC to transition
from individual searches to collective demands.
These particular features are what activated the political–legal repre-
sentation circuit. The first stage began in 2009, the first year in which
CADHAC received requests from mothers of people who had disappeared
in 2007 and 2008 and had not received any official response regarding
the whereabouts of their children. Cases of disappeared people were dealt
with by the registry of legal representation. These requests were sent to
the legal area of CADHAC for review and follow-up in meetings with the
families. It was also during this year that the group of families was formally
constituted into AMORES.
The second stage occurred between 2010 and 2011. Appeals to
CADHAC from victims of forced disappearances increased, although there
was still no communication with the State Attorney General’s Office. In
view of the increasing demand, the organisation adjusted its representa-
tion/legal assistance strategy for victims, in order to improve the attention
given to complaints by family members.
The third stage occurred with the arrival of the national Movement
for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) caravan in Monterrey in June
2011. With the intervention of the movement leaders, Javier Sicilia and
Emilio Alvarez Icaza, the first contact was made among victims, CADHAC
and the State Attorney General. In this initial meeting, the following
requests were made: (a) the immediate location of disappeared people;
and (b) the technical revision of files. That is, the appeal was connected
to legal representation. However, the linkage was made possible by vir-
tue of MPJD’s political brokerage and CADHAC’s connection with this
movement. Without this intermediation, the progress made by the legal
representation would not have been possible.
The fourth stage occurred when meetings among the groups of fami-
lies, CADHAC and the Attorney General became regular events. From
June 2011, meetings were held every two months in order to check prog-
ress on case files. Progress in the form of legal representation led to politi-
cal strategies that opened legal opportunities. As a result, a procedure
for the immediate search of disappeared people was improved and better
skills were developed for investigating these types of cases by the Attorney
General. In addition, AMORES and CADHAC deployed political advo-
cacy strategies to achieve key legislative changes: definition of “crime
of forced disappearance of people” and a new clause in the Law of the
Declaration of Missing People that allows family members of the disap-
peared to resolve their legal situation and to access benefits, such as pen-
sions, without having to declare the person deceased. AMORES c arried
out awareness-raising actions in public spaces every Sunday as well as dem-
onstrations on key dates (such as Mother’s Day) to seek information on
the whereabouts of their children.
In 2015, the experience was presented publicly, with wide media cov-
erage as well as local and international authorities. The year ended with
Sister Morales being awarded the National Human Rights Prize. One
of the most interesting aspects of this event was the identification of a
multi-sector workgroup that, with the political and legal mediation of
CADHAC, combined the search for results with the reaffirmation of prin-
ciples. During the course of this process, the legal representation and polit-
ical brokerage strategies of the organisation were significantly engrained
as a result of feedback received. It was a transformation that reflected the
importance of the political–legal intermediation circuit.
At the centre of traditional legal intermediation is the figure of the
lawyer, owner of specialised knowledge, who defends the interests of his/
her client. Both knowledge and consent exist regarding the tasks of the
intermediator by the intermediated, but the former acts almost discretion-
ally in the exercising of his/her functions. In the case study, the first stage
of legal assistance to the families of victims of violation of physical integ-
rity followed this model: it consisted of the reception of the complaint by

the legal area and the following of institutional channels and traditional
legal processes as well as the presentation of the claim and follow-up with
the office of the corresponding Attorney General. However, as joint work
with the families developed, progress was made towards a model of legal
representation with strong constraints, to the extent that family mem-
bers appropriated their own case files. Not only were these files requested
from the Attorney General, but families also got involved in their revision
and marked annotations regarding questions that appear relevant to them.
Following this, lawyers revised the files in conjunction with family mem-
bers, discussed actions taken and conducted a technical analysis to identify
the possible options for each case.
These processes show how, by involving the victims, the legal repre-
sentation of CADHAC moved away from the traditional advocacy form.
There is recognition of the actions of specialised mediators, based on
knowledge and consent. In addition, legal representation, as developed in
this organisation due to participatory constraints, loses a degree of discre-
tion and creates space for accountability to the families, albeit based on
trust, rather than legal obligation. It is an accountability articulated in dia-
logue and joint evaluation of the possibilities and risks of the legal strategy.
Together with the participation of family members in the development
of each case, a fundamental element that creates a hybrid—and politi-
cised—process of legal representation is the preparation meetings held
between the Attorney General and the CADHAC team (lawyers and direc-
tor). Both the leadership of CADHAC and officials from the Attorney
General’s Office (regional coordinators of the public prosecutor’s office,
directors of Preliminary Investigations and Homicide, etc.) participate in
these meetings, the purpose of which is to review agreements and prepare
meetings with the families. In summary, the mediators facilitate and seek
to maintain the monitoring process in search of disappeared people.
The not solely legal intermediation role is mostly reflected in meetings
among the families, the Attorney General and CADHAC. Each family,
accompanied by a CADHAC lawyer, has a session with an agent from the
public prosecutor in charge of their case who informs them of the investi-
gations carried out. The presence of the CADHAC lawyer guarantees that
the families’ concerns are addressed and that the communication is effec-
tive. This way, the intermediation of the organisation translates the lan-
guage of the represented victims and ensures that both the content of the
mediation and the relationship among the various parts acquires an agonis-
tic character. CADHAC’s actions do not negate the conflict between the
different parts: on the one hand, the families, who do not always receive
institutional answers that ensure justice regarding the human rights viola-
tions suffered by their family members; and, on the other hand, public
prosecutor agents, who form part of a bureaucracy whose time and inter-
ests do not coincide with those of the families. CADHAC facilitates ways
of political processing that are no longer simply legal and moderates pos-
sible antagonisms. In this case, the NGO’s political–legal representation
circuit functions as a translator between two languages (loss and bureau-
cracy) and two time frames (urgency and procedures) that, at times, can
be irreconcilable.
Following these meetings, the CADHAC team meets again with that
of the prosecutors and establishes agreements to be reached in the fol-
lowing meeting. The families, members of the public prosecutors and the
CADHAC team then meet with the public prosecutor in order that he/
she becomes a participant in the agreements. To conclude, a press confer-
ence is held which publicises the actions and makes the process visible,
beyond the parties involved. The latter is important as it shows that the
intermediation work of the organisation involves the public, and is not
limited to the victims and state agencies.
The advisory process and legal representation is inextricably linked to
the process of political brokerage that arose out of the political organisa-
tion of the victims, overcoming a context of fragmented claims through
the creation of AMORES. This organisational process led not only to psy-
chological assistance, but also to awareness-raising in public spaces: for
example, demonstrations were held outside the prosecutor’s office while
meetings were in progress. Among the activities of political advocacy, the
mobilisation of cultural resources needs to be mentioned. This took the
form of theatre plays or religious services that increased public awareness
of the situation.
Throughout this process, CADHAC was a key actor for victims, who
were supported not only legally, but also in their process of politicisation
or constitutionalising as political actors fighting for the cause of forced
disappearances of people. CADHAC’s form of mediation, reflects the way
different keys of intermediation, in this case the political and the legal,
are interconnected, and in their interaction, are distanced both from the
traditional legal representation and advocacy models. The particular char-
acteristics of this circuit, embedded in the CPI, for the case of AMORES
and CADHAC are summarised in Table 8.2.
Table 8.2 Political and legal intermediation by CPI dimension

Legal Political brokerage Political–legal circuit
representation
Recognition Knowledge and Knowledge and Virtuous circle of legal

consent by training consent, plus and political
victims to be able empowerment and empowerment of the
to participate in political organisation “represented”
the process of of the victims
defence
Accountability Strong constraints Strong constraints by Strong constraints on the
(constraints) by victims to the victims in relation to mediator due to the
degree that they their political strategy of legal and
actively participate organisation and political empowerment
in the cause empowerment
Substantive Strong agonism: Strong agonism: Strong agonism oriented
dimension parties maintain Parties hold towards seeking legal and
radically different conflictual positions political results, individual
positions but the but the intermediation and collective. Openness
mediator facilitates contributes to victims and use of political and
the tensions being directly heard legal opportunities
Source: Prepared by authors
Conclusions
The empirical analysis of the defence of human rights in cases of victims
of forced disappearances highlighted two issues. First, regarding political
intermediation, it is necessary to focus on the actions of human rights
organisations, and reflect not only on their connections with authorities
and transnational networks, but also on their local intermediation func-
tion. In addition, the importance of considering a hybrid model was pro-
posed and exemplified, in which legal representation, that constitutes a
fundamental component of the defence of human rights, is combined with
the political mediating form. The political–legal hybrid helped to deploy
actors, rules and repertoires of action that incorporated characteristics of
both the word and project circuits (in this case, centred on technical legal
knowledge). Furthermore, certain repertoires of action touched upon the
circuits of vote and force.
Second, it was shown that in the defence of human rights by NGOs,
two interconnected processes of intermediation constituted the politi-
cal–legal circuit: legal representation and political brokerage. The first
is associated with the resolution of cases. The second, seen through the
CPI, deploys mechanisms of recognition and constraint on the actions
of the intermediator, transforms potentially antagonistic content into
agonist relationships and contributes to politicising victims by convert-
ing cases into causes to be defended. While both components (legal and
political) go hand in hand, each responds to a logic that could either
result in tension or, as occurred in this case, form a virtuous circle in
which actors are able to communicate in institutional spaces, albeit in
different languages.
The case of CADHAC and its intermediation function in defence of
the rights of victims of forced disappearances illustrated the importance
of reviewing the politics of human rights defence by NGOs from a politi-
cal intermediation lens. This entry point identified how political interme-
diation models acquire hybrid forms where tangible results are reached
and voices of victims are heard, translated and included in decisions that
involve them, while at the same time, victims’ formation as political actors
is encouraged.
Notes
1. In the human rights literature, a classic distinction is made between
defence and promotion of human rights. In this study, the defence
of human rights is considered.
2. Legal representation is understood as an act by which a person is
invested with the power to legally act on behalf of another, in
which the legal provisions of the actions of the representative fall
on the represented. This delegation of responsibilities can be vol-
untary—the represented gives power to the representative—or
legally mandated, in which the legal framework establishes facul-
ties for legal representation to specific people in the event of a
disappearance or absence, incapacity, minor and so on. For exam-
ple, a common form of legal-mandated representation is that done
in court by lawyers for their clients (Diccionario Jurídico Mexicano,
SCJ, 1526).
3. The advocacy model assumes a specific intersection of the three
dimensions of the CPI that underlie the analysis of this work: the
absence of knowledge or consent of the mediator’s activity by the
represented; the absence of mechanisms of direct or indirect control
of the mediator by the represented; and, finally, the construction of
mediation from an antagonist position between the true interests of

the represented and state authorities. In the case of human rights
organisations, this last dimension is related to the development of
moral politics based on values and principles.
4. The literature on legal representation, which includes the defence of
human rights, has emphasised the differences between “client”-
based lawyers and lawyers for a cause or social interest or facilitators,
where the relationship with the group or those legally represented
has received much attention.
5. Although with a different purpose, Janice Gallegher’s (2014) stud-
ies of Mexico and Colombia are examples of this tendency.
6. Approval of the Law for the Declaration of Missing People of Nuevo
León http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=402539 (last accessed 28
July 2015).
7. http://www.cadhac.org/amores/ (last accessed 27 July 2015).
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CHAPTER 9
Conclusions and Future Research Agenda
Gisela Zaremberg, Adrián Gurza Lavalle,
and Valeria Guarneros-Meza
This book grew out of two initial proposals. The first aimed to broaden the
view of representation beyond the strictly electoral circuit. Based on the
typology of circuits of representation and the concept of intermediation,
G. Zaremberg (*)
A. Gurza Lavalle
Department of Political Science, University of São Paulo (USP),
São Paulo, Brazil
V. Guarneros-Meza

new objects of study were proposed. These proved to be innovative

because unprecedented forms of intermediation (e.g. the new role played
by social organizations in defence of human and labour rights) call for the
analysis of those aspects of representation that form part of this endeavour,
as well as because old forms of intermediation (such as the role of com-
mon officials in the provision of public services) demand that these aspects
are made visible.
The second, drawing on other representation circuits, aimed to allow
comparisons and contrasts based on the cube of political intermediation
(CPI). The challenge, as observed in the different chapters, consisted in
putting the dimensions of the CPI (recognition, constraint and substan-
tive dimension) into action; establishing cognitive connections that run
back and forth between the practice and process of observed intermedia-
tion and the concepts implicit within each dimension.
The results and challenges arising from the implementation of both
these proposals are contained in the chapters of this book. Based on these,
some innovative findings arising from the analyses are highlighted here.
This is followed by the identification of some limitations of the analytical
proposals that point the way to a future research agenda.
An emerging point from the application of the circuits of representa-
tion is their mixture and combination shown in the analyses of concrete
cases. Different actors may use distinct structural principles of the circuits
at the same time, and even in the same space. In this way, technical knowl-
edge associated with the so-called project circuit, participation of ordinary
citizens in assemblies related to the “people circuit”, participation in insti-
tutions associated with the “word circuit” and protest as a constitutive
element of the “force circuit” can be used by different actors in the same
space and time. Equally, a single actor can occupy different roles in the
different circuits in which they operate.
Thus, as is illustrated in the chapter by Romão, Gurza Lavalle and
Zaremberg, in one participative institution (i.e. a health conference or
council in Brazil), actors can team up under the premise of participation,
while circulating in other circuits at the same time, such as unions or the
technical bureaucracy or government officers. Something similar occurs
with the interface between the project and people circuits mentioned in
the chapters written by Martin and Freigedo regarding the cases of La
Silsa, Caracas, Venezuela and Chuy in Uruguay, respectively. Under the
aegis of a technical project, the roles of intermediation make reference
both to this knowledge and other cognitive elements that correspond to
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA 183
the popular circuit. Finally, the case presented by Ansolabehere and Valle
also shows how technical legal knowledge in defence of victims of disap-
peared people in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, is based on the premise of the
“word”.
It is important to note that the principles of each circuit (protest/
negotiation, bureaucratic technical knowledge, participation and charis-
matic relation between leader and people) become significant when they
allow the structuring of a triadic relationship of stable intermediation.
That is, they allow the establishment of a regular or systematic pattern
of asymmetrical indirect relationships and thereby political relationships
(as defined in the introduction) among the intermediated, an intermedia-
tor and a higher actor that holds the resources necessary for accessing or
defending a right, including the concrete provision of specific goods or
public services associated with this right. In other words, the presence of
force, word, project or people does not necessarily imply representation.
This only occurs when a stable pattern of triadic intermediation has been
built using some of the rules or repertoires of action that form part of
these principles. Although “force” can be observed in the form of protest,
such as when Ansolabehere and Valle analyse how families of disappeared
people protested in the streets of Nuevo Leon, this does not automatically
imply that the circuit of intermediation described was structured predomi-
nately around protest characterizing the force circuit. Rather, it appears
that protest was a complementary resource to strengthen intermediation
centred on the dialogic role undertaken by the human rights defence
organization (CADHAC is its acronym in Spanish).
It is also important to note that principles and repertoires of circuits
are situational, that is, combinable in different ways by the same actor in
different moments and places. Thus, rich diagnoses regarding the plurality
of political intermediation emerge from the analyses, in which actors do
not adhere to a prescribed role that is theoretically associated to be their
profile (eminently representative, participative, of advocacy or mobiliza-
tional, etc.).
The degree to which a principle, or mixture of principles, metaphori-
cally presented as “force”, “word”, “project” and “people” structures
a circuit of representation in a stable way is a complex methodologi-
cal problem. In the work included in this book, built mainly around a
qualitative and ethnographic information base, the key to the classifica-
tion of circuits or blends of circuits has been guided, fundamentally, by
the application of classic typological criteria (Weber 1964; Aronson and
Weisz 2007). This means that in order to detect the presence or absence
of a particular circuit, it is necessary to “remove” hypothetically the attri-
butes of the principle in question and then ask whether the type of cir-
cuit would change under these circumstances. Should this operation (of
removal) show that the systematic characteristic of the circuit is not sub-
stantially modified, the intermediation cannot be structurally associated
with such a principle. For example, if the circuit established between
victims, human rights defence organizations and the Attorney General,
mentioned earlier, is imagined without protests, it would, in any case,
be concluded that the work was centred on legal knowledge and the
word would continue to structurally sustain the triadic intermediation
established among these actors. Thus, the circuit cannot be catalogued
under the predominant metaphor of force. Alternatively, if on removing
the principle, it is assumed that the circuit de-structures itself completely,
then, in fact, what is observed is the key that defines constitutively the
intermediation in question. This test of hypothetical aggregation or sub-
traction is what finally guides the location of the object of study classified
as intermediation in one or more circuits.
This methodological mechanism acts as an antidote to conceptual over-
stretching. Only when an element is structural and continuous in time,
establishing patterns of triadic intermediation, can it be said that an object
of study exists that belongs to one or other type of circuit. As was stated
in the introduction, this triadic political intermediation is of a vertical
nature. Processes of horizontal intermediation have not been included in
the book’s analyses, nor have those between actors that occupy symmetri-
cal positions, in equitable situations.
It should be noted that the use of these circuits has not been only
for descriptive purposes to locate a particular object of study, but also
for causal purposes during the narration of historical processes. Thus, the
chapter written by Freigedo on Uruguay analyses how, from an antagonis-
tic conflict resulting from the election of a mayor who sought to impose
a popular style of intermediation, opposition currents within the same
political party managed to impose participative institutions (committees
and councils) in order to counterbalance her power. Furthermore, Zuazo
describes a word circuit related to the Amerindian congregational tradi-
tion that, in a first historic moment, joined the force circuit protagonized
by unions and peasant organizations. However, the combination of these
two circuits was disregarded in favour of the vote circuit in a second and
third historical moment.
Finally, among the combinations of circuits mentioned earlier, the mal-

leability of the technical knowledge (in its various versions: legal, architec-
tural, administrative, etc.) is particularly noteworthy. As the dominion of
technical knowledge is an unequally distributed attribute, it refers to an
asymmetrical triadic logic and often appears associated with the justifica-
tion of political intermediation practices. This leads to the next point of
the conclusion: the way in which the different chapters operationalized
the dimensions of the CPI.
Recognition: One of the most repeated observable empirical manifesta-
tions of the recognition dimension has been the notion of proximity. In
general, allusion to proximity refers to the possibility of the intermediated
to recognize the intermediaries as “one of their own”. This possibility of
allowing some appropriation of intermediation alludes to representation
understood as reflection (both physical and symbolic) dealt with assidu-
ously within the literature (Pitkin 1967; Mansbridge 1999; Phillips 2009;
Williams 1998).
Sources of proximity, as a sense of closeness, can be geographic, as in
the sharing of a common local space (i.e. the case of the spokespeople
of the community councils analysed by Martin in La Silsa, Venezuela),
but they are wider. Another important source of proximity is the shared
history of building a common project resulting from belonging to the
same social movement, or a related project in the fight for rights, as in
the case of the health movements presented by Romão and colleagues.
More intensely, the closeness of the community of face-to-face contact,
underlying the model of Social Control of the fourth power in Bolivia as
shown by Zuazo, combines micro-geography with symbolic construction
of worldviews and even of cosmogonies.
Proximity can be accompanied by knowledge. When this element
is added, it appears to strengthen the consent for intermediators. This
occurred in the case of the specialization of councillors in the health sector
in Brazil, or of the lawyers that belonged to CADHAC and their work in
defence of human rights in Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
However, occupying a technical position associated with certain knowl-
edge does not necessarily imply that this consent in fact happens. Possible
processes of distancing, operating despite their closeness, can counteract
proximity. This is especially notable when the closeness effects are eroded
by distrust. As shown in the chapter by Guarneros-Meza, officers respon-
sible for different operations of the security programme in Veracruz did
not necessarily gain the consent of the benefited population. This was
largely because of the breakdown of bonds of trust that occurred in a

local territory characterized by a fragile state, signs of clientelism and the
advance of the monopoly of unlawful and criminal violence. The idea of
distrust in contexts of low statehood is also abundantly mentioned by
Zuazo in the Bolivian case. The problem of trust associated with different
interpretations of a weak state is, without a doubt, a first-order problem
that recurrently appears in the different types of intermediation analysed
in this book. This suggests a new line of future research (more below).
Another element taken up in various chapters with regard to recogni-
tion is the distinction between formal and informal mechanisms of rec-
ognition. While the concepts of formal and informal are not theoretically
defined in the cases dealt with in this book, in reference neither to the state
nor (and less so) to legality (Helmke and Levitsky 2002), an empirical
connection is shown between an environment of weak statehood and the
low quality of formal rules.
Interestingly, most of the chapters show how the vote tends to be a for-
mal mechanism that, for most authors, has positive connotations (except
in the context of the cultural clash between indigenous customs and tradi-
tions and elections in Bolivia). The electoral mechanism provides generally
strong proof of knowledge on the part of the intermediated, given that it
is practically impossible to consider that they can vote without knowing,
even minimally, for what or for whom they are voting. The results of the
act of voting, especially if the system regulating this is effective, tend to
have public visibility that contributes to its formality and permits openly
public knowledge of a collective decision (Hart 1961).
Nevertheless, some chapters also show that it is perfectly possible for
the vote to be unaccompanied by high levels of recognition. Furthermore,
on some occasions, informal elements (present around proximity and
knowledge) can elevate levels of recognition above those present in the
vote. Thus, the dimension of recognition is not solely associated with pro-
cedures. A broader valence exists that refers to other sources of knowl-
edge and consent anchored in proximity, recent history and demonstrated
experience or trajectory.
The case of San Quintin, analysed by Bensusán and Subiñas, is elo-
quent in showing this case. Legislation regarding unionization in Mexico
establishes that union organizations recognized officially by the state are
those whose leaders have been elected by vote (although how this vote is
expressed is not necessarily indicated: i.e. raising hands, ballot or other).
However, as a result of the degree to which this type of election has been
deteriorated, together with the co-opting of leadership by the state and

employers, rank-and-file workers and peasants have sought the interme-
diation of social organizations that are attributed with a higher degree of
recognition. This results from factors not related to formality, but rather
to shared history or experience demonstrated by these organizations in
similar struggles for rights. Despite this recognition not being officially
granted by state agencies, it nevertheless occurs, and results in acute
conflict embedded in the centre of the triadic intermediation during the
struggle for labour rights.
In contrast, in other cases, voting perfectly complements and empowers
informal mechanisms of recognition. The election of councillors by way of
the vote in union organizations of health workers, mentioned by Romão
and colleagues, strengthened the informal factors of social proximity and
similar life paths, as well as specialized knowledge and life experiences, as
components of recognition. The following paragraphs present a synthesis
of the analyses developed by the different authors to account for the two
remaining dimensions of the CPI.
Constraints: It is interesting to note how chapters in the book alluded
to reputation in their analyses of the constraint dimension. The evidence
presented shows how the possibility of controlling the actions of inter-
mediators and adjusting the direction of decisions taken are related to
reputational costs. Actors for whom the cost to their reputation would
be particularly high act under greater constraints. Furthermore, these
costs tend to be higher in conditions of proximity between the interme-
diated and the intermediator. Congregational democracy, rooted in the
Amerindian tradition examined by Zuazo, is an emblematic case of how
expensive reputational costs can become in closely bonded communities.
Furthermore, intermediators that have historically belonged to a move-
ment (such as the case of the health workers in Brazil) and have been part
of a consolidated and stable common project (such as the Unified Health
System) will tend to take greater care of their reputation before the inter-
mediated, on whom they depend for future joint work. Reputation there-
fore implies that the intermediated and the intermediator are immersed
in both current and future relationships; thus, should intermediators dis-
tance themselves from the demands and interests of the intermediated,
they may not only be punished by the latter but it may also result in nega-
tive consequences for the future.
Another interesting aspect that emerges from the chapters of this book
is that constraint is related to the size of the referenced communities.
The case of the political councils of women, analysed by Romão and col-
leagues, provides an example. In these councils, the limited number of
women belonging to the feminist movement made the follow-up of deci-
sions more feasible. In the chapter by Zuazo, allusion is also made on vari-
ous occasions to the difficulties encountered by the mechanism of Social
Control, inspired by the experiences of small indigenous communities,
when it was up-scaled to the national level.
Size alludes to a recurrent thesis in political science literature as well
as that on social capital and social networks. On the one hand, the classic
proposition that specifies that the probabilities of desertion (no coopera-
tion) increase in large groups (Olson 1965) is well known. On the other
hand, a common argument indicates that monitoring the fulfilment of
contracts is more feasible in dense networks, with these being more prob-
able in small social environments (Coleman 2000). Without attempting
to assess this literature, greater opportunities for constraint in small and
densely related groups are credible in the cases of the women’s councils in
Brazil and the communities of face-to-face contact in Bolivia. However,
constraint is equally high in the case of the Brazilian national health coun-
cils that respond to a broader policy community. Thus, it is evident that
deficiencies that result from growth in group size can be compensated by
other elements that have already been mentioned earlier (historical trajec-
tory, shared projects, and the current and future nature of the relation-
ships involved).
Finally, constraint is characterized by the way in which specific moments,
within a time cycle, are established for evaluating intermediators’ perfor-
mance. In classic literature, electoral cycles have been repeatedly high-
lighted for this purpose. The possibility of voting cyclically (i.e. every
four or six years in presidential elections, depending on the country) is a
key component. Specifically, the literature suggests that voting works as
a “punishment” or “reward” mechanism that facilitates vertical account-
ability between electors and the elected. The vote thus influences the
behaviour of representatives, given that they, within an electoral cycle, will
consider future elections in their calculations regarding current decisions.
Without delving further into the various discussions around this issue, it
is nevertheless important to note that the variable of time has always been
present in classic literature dealing with electoral representation.1
The cases analysed in this book show that actors construct vari-
ous formal and informal inter-temporal mechanisms, not limited to the
well-known electoral cycle. Moments of evaluation are established both
between the intermediated and intermediators, as well as between higher

actors in the triadic relationship and intermediators. The evaluation may
also be done in unison among the three actors involved in the interme-
diation triad. The chapter by Ansolabehere and Valle explains how, after
each management session held between the human rights defence orga-
nization, CADHAC (intermediators) and the Attorney General (higher
actor), a subsequent session was established in which families of the vic-
tims (intermediated) would participate directly in follow-up agreements.
This continuous cycle of moments for intermediation and moments for
follow-up strengthened the constraint between intermediators and inter-
mediated and, crucially, allowed for the consolidation of bonds of trust.
An inter-temporal dynamic is also evident in the case of the feedback and
follow-up between policy councils and conferences in Brazil, analysed by
Romão and colleagues. In this sense, the way in which temporal cycles
are organized, centred on the expression and transmission of demands,
followed by cycles of management and, subsequently (or in parallel), by
evaluation, follow-up and monitoring, is central for the dimension of con-
straint, and is not found only in cycles of electoral representation. The
temporal function of intermediation thereby offers an agenda for future
research.
Substantive representation: Different elements can be noted at various
levels regarding the operationalization of the substantive dimension of
the CPI. First, the most common observations regarding this dimen-
sion refer to the presence or absence of negotiation as an indicator of
agonism. Conversely, the presence of expressions or acts that allude to
the exclusion of opponents is also identified as an observable empirical
manifestation that reflects this dimension. The case of La Silsa, Caracas,
is a clear example of this operationalization. However, despite being
the most evident in this respect, mention of the presence of negotia-
tion or consensus is also broadly made in other chapters. The chapter
by Freigedo looks at the absence of negotiation as an indicator of the
antagonistic “style” of an unexpected political actor at the municipal
level who, given her populist roots, threatens her opponents within the
same party, with exclusion.
Observations of agonism/antagonism were also dealt with through the
Hirschmanian differentiation between divisible and non-divisible conflicts,
discussed in the introduction. In this respect, Bensusán and Subiñas argue
that intermediations that develop absolutist content regarding labour con-
flict (and thus, also, absolute winners and losers), incapable of achieving
partial and provisional agreements (characteristic of divisible conflicts

associated with agonism), are located on the antagonist scale.
Having said that, it should be noted that, on a second level, the pan-
orama regarding this substantive dimension becomes more complex.
Chapters’ references to content-processing rules for representation, used
by actors in antagonist or agonist codes, show that they can be deployed at
different levels or orders. For example, a substantive process can be issued
in an agonist way at a specific level (substantive representation of the first
order), but can be completely antagonist at a broader level (substantive
representation of the second order).
As political intermediation is defined by its triadic logic, it is possible
to deploy it at a higher degree when intermediation exercised by differ-
ent actors at a specific level results in a decision whose effectivity depends
on the interplay of interests and intermediations on a higher plain. This
is the case presented by the women’s conferences in Brazil, analysed in
the first chapter of the book. Although within the space in which the
conferences took place, a small but reciprocally ensured political com-
munity negotiated decisions to incorporate progressive content in favour
of women rights (first order); these decisions were transformed into com-
pletely indivisible situations, and therefore antagonist in content (in the
Hirschmanian sense) at a higher level (second order). This transforma-
tion takes place through the actions of profoundly conservative and often
religious actors also present in the environment surrounding these con-
ferences. This is specifically the case of the legislative power, as the agree-
ments produced in the conferences depend on conservative legislators to
obtain a binding character for the society as a whole. It can be plausibly
assumed that although higher-level conservative actors are not physically
present in these spaces (councils and conferences), they are politically
present, given the veto power they exercise at a later stage.
The unfolding of a similar situation regarding the substantive dimen-
sion of representation, deployed in first- and second-order intermedia-
tion, can be observed in the chapter written by Bensusán and Subiñas,
who explicitly present a distinction between what is denominated conflict
1 (regarding the relationship between intermediated and intermediators)
and conflict 2 (between capital and labour). Differences between the two
orders can also be identified in service provision dealt by Guarneros-Meza,
where the bureaucracy–citizen relationship is of the first order, and the
bureaucracy–political relationship of the second order.
As stated in the introduction, to a large degree, the distinction between

the first and second order in this substantive dimension arises from the
understanding of intermediation not as a dyadic relationship, as has been
argued in classic literature, but rather as a triadic one, acknowledged in
contemporary debates on the theory of representation (Saward 2010;
Alcoff 1992). Triadic intermediation, the perspective adopted in this
book, is built by three nodes (i.e. actors, organizations, individuals) in
a relationship composed of an intermediator, who bridges populations,
groups or common citizens with actors or agents in positions of higher
authority who influence the access to or guarantee rights.
However, the book’s perspective entails certain complexities that are
evident, as is to be expected, when dialogue is established between the
analytical (theoretical) proposal and observed processes of intermedia-
tion (reality). Part of this complexity was empirically fleshed out by the
observation of contradictions and discrepancies between the two paths
in the triadic relationship: between the intermediated and intermediators
and between intermediators immersed in intermediation practices of the
first-order and higher-level actors located in positions of intermediation of
the second order.
Considering the triadic figure in the introduction, the dynamic of the
two orders is illustrated in Fig. 9.1: if intermediation implies connect-
ing vertically actors that do not have direct contact among themselves
and that are positioned asymmetrically, it is plausible that, as in the case
of the women’s conferences in Brazil, consensus building between the
intermediated and intermediator may become indivisible along the shift
between the first path and the second path of the triadic relationship. In
such a situation, intermediators may find themselves in a contradictory
and tension-filled trap between two worlds, upsetting, as a result, content
construction in favour of one of the orders which is linked presumably
to higher actors’ interests, as was shown with union leaders analysed by
Bensusán and Subiñas and with political leaders and bureaucrats in the
chapter by Guarneros-Meza.
The empirical analyses offered in this book underline an important dif-
ferentiation between a first and second order in which the substance of
intermediation is processed. The different levels at play in the construction
of intermediation lead to a profoundly active conception of the character
of the intermediator (Fig. 9.1).
Fig. 9.1 Triadic first

and second order sub- Higher level actor
stantive representation
Antagonism
Intermediator
Intermediated Agonism
Translation, Enabling, Trust and Time: Future

Research Agenda
The analyses offered in the chapters of this book focused particularly on
a vision that values the “actors’ perspective”, which considers the hetero-
geneity of agency deployed by actors when being intermediated or acting
as intermediators. These analyses emphasize findings with an innovative
focus on intermediation.
The person playing the intermediator role is not simply a character
responsible for holding a transmission belt that “makes present what is
absent” (Pitkin 1967, discussed by Manin 1997). As recent literature on
the theory of representation has begun to highlight (Urbinati 2006; Brito
and Rucinman 2008),2 and as has been established in the etymological
review of the term (Gurza Lavalle and Zaremberg 2014), to intermediate
constitutes an activity related to agency. To intermediate does not imply
only “to be in the middle”, but also “to be a means to”, a vehicle giving
rise to something new. Pitkin (1967, 209–210) had already identified the
double agency of the representative (independent) and the represented
(who maintains the capacity to judge and dissent) as part of political repre-
sentation, but did not recognize the creative nature of this double agency.
In this book, the potential of agency appears not only as a characteristic
that transforms intermediators themselves, but also as an action performed
by them on the intermediated, who, in turn, possesses the capacity of
agency over the former. Furthermore, and beyond more traditional for-
mulations, the same can be said about the relationship that connects the
intermediators with higher actors who influence the access and success of
rights. In the cases covered in this book, and specifically in the analyses of
intermediators, two characters express this agency potential and its inno-
vative aspects: the intermediator as “translator” and as “enabler or facilita-
tor” of the agency performed by the intermediated.
The first character alludes not only to the intermediator’s position as a
bridge that connects actors with different resources and hierarchies who
would otherwise remain disconnected, but also as a fundamental actor
in the mediation between languages and worlds with different meanings.
The chapter by Ansolabehere and Valle is clear in this respect through their
analytical description of how the human rights organizations that inter-
mediate between victims and the Attorney General’s Office connect two
completely different and even opposed languages. On the one hand is the
language of unspeakable pain, unique and particular to families of missing
people and the urgency of their search. On the other hand is the language
of the sluggish bureaucratic processes that form part of the Mexican jus-
tice system and the routine, cold nature that these agencies tend to show
for individual cases that constitute part of what they habitually do. In
addition, this chapter shows how the close and timely accompaniment of
lawyers belonging to the civil organization contributed to processing in an
agonist manner the substantive content of the intermediation of human
rights—an atypical feature not found in similar situations in the country
characterized generally by violence and confrontation between family vic-
tims and government agencies.
Something similar was evident in the case analysed by Guarneros-Meza.
The author shows how front-line bureaucrats intermediated between the
language of local regulation, individual morality and the reality of citizens
who were subjects of security policy. In this encounter, bureaucrats act as
the intermediators of different understandings. They attempt to manage
situations in an agonist manner that can, in an extreme case, explode,
given the weak municipal capacity and resources of security policies on
the one hand and the severity of the insecurity suffered by the population
on the other hand. In the case of La Silsa, analysed by Martin, the com-
munity spokespeople assigned to the technical tables developed ways of
translating the language of needs felt by the population into the technical
language of expert officials assigned to the local projects.
In turn, actions of translation link to mechanisms that enable the agency
of the intermediated. This can be seen in cases that provide insight into
grassroots communities. The organizations in San Quintin promote the
strengthening of peasants by sharing demonstrations and communication
strategies used in similar rights struggles. The human rights organizations

in Nuevo Leon offer a space for families to meet, accompany them in
decision-making and facilitate psychological processing of the tragedy: this
empowers victims. Technicians in La Silsa shared knowledge with commu-
nity spokespeople and population, thereby increasing the capacity of the
latter to present projects and identify needs. Actions of the intermediators
are thereby imprinted on the intermediated and this enhances their ability
to manage public projects.
Furthermore, these roles of translation and agency-enabling require
bonds of trust. This attribute was mentioned in most of the chapters of
this book. The question of trust is an important one for future research
in relation to intermediation. In the chapters alluding to trust, constant
reference was made to state weakness and the degree to which it is pos-
sible to effectively endorse rights in specific territories (O’Donnell 2004).
The cases analysed in the book highlight that the strength of intermedia-
tion, and specifically of recognition, is not in any way independent of the
context of state strength or weakness, understood not only as an admin-
istrative apparatus or as a body of national political representation, but
also as the rule of law. Future research should continue to analyse to what
degree, and in what way, a weak state implies greater weakness in terms of
the diverse modalities of representation that occur outside of the electoral
sphere.
If it is considered that one of the most common definitions of trust
refers to a trade-off between an interpersonal and inter-temporal commit-
ment in which, initially, cooperation is agreed on without the expectation
of a current benefit, but rather, reciprocity for a future moment—or in
the next play of the game (Axelrod 1984)—it is possible to understand
how, within the context of a weak state where the probability of achieving
cooperation and reciprocity is low, gaining recognition from the interme-
diated implies less of building immediate consent and more of opening a
process during which this recognition can be “won” or “recovered” by
the intermediators. “Being in the middle” and “acting as a means”, the
two basic components of the book’s definition of intermediation, mean,
on the one hand, to be at the centre of continuous suspicion and, on
the other, to use large amounts of creative energy in being the vehicle
of mechanisms that enable or legitimize the position of intermediation.
The characters of trustees are commonly used in arguments of represen-
tation theory to define the relationship between the representative and
the represented. However, the intermediator is not a trustee, but rather
someone positioning himself/herself in an asymmetrical vertical relation-

ship that, depending on the case, is more or less vulnerable to the distrust
of the intermediated.
The case analysed by Ansolabehere and Valle shows the complexity
of the mechanism that the human rights organization had to design and
implement to achieve not only the recognition of victims, but also that
of state agencies. A similar situation occurred in the analysis of municipal
officers working in the technical hall and the community of La Silsa. The
chapter addressing the case of San Quintin shows how, when the represen-
tation offered by official union actors was blocked, workers began to seek
new, more trustworthy actors who could represent them.
As has been mentioned above, the management of time cycles was
important for the dimension of constraint as well as for building trust
between actors within the intermediation triad. Particular consideration
has been given to the variable of time in the analysis of electoral represen-
tation. Recently, however, time has been highlighted in a more innovative
way, as a virtuous component of representation (indirect) versus participa-
tion (direct) in which the “immediacy of passions” or strength through
numbers in assemblies prevails (Urbinati 2006; Young 2002). In contrast,
representation involves a series of processes that unfold in time and that
permit a more thoughtful consideration of the contents of representation.
Based on the book’s analyses, it is suggested that the combination of
different actions involved in intermediation (expressing demands, choice
of intermediators, discussion of content, managing content before higher
actors, follow-up and monitoring, evaluation of agreements and commit-
ments, etc.) at different moments in time increases the creative possibilities
of intermediation and, without a doubt, can be an important component
in building trust (as well as dismantling trust, as shown in Zuazo’s chap-
ter). The construction of combined mechanisms (including those that mix
participation with representation) with adequately stipulated time frames
constitutes an ingredient worth studying in more detail. What type of time
frames guarantee a more effective intermediation? What are the factors
that give rise to the presence or absence of certain opportunities (i.e. the
greater or lesser presence of monitoring or evaluation periods)? What time
sequencing is most effective for ordering different actions implicit in inter-
mediation? These are some of the questions that future case comparisons
can help to answer.
Overall, the discussions throughout the book reinforce the analytical
and practical virtues of the combination of circuits, dimensions and time-
frames related to intermediation. A good part of the literature on repre-

sentation presents a dichotomy between representation and participation,
between the pragmatism of elections and the romanticism of assemblies,
between the independence of representatives and the imperative mandate
of the represented, or between national interests and local interests of the
represented. Assuming that the boundaries between these dichotomies are
more blurred than they appear could lead to abandoning sterile arguments
and barely democratic propositions such as those that attempt to impose
certain models over others in the name of particular ideals. The path
carved by the analyses undertaken in this book leads to an alternative: one
that moves away from annulment or imposition. The non-exclusive com-
bination between representation circuits, between dimensions of interme-
diation and between time frames constitutes a viable proposition and in
fact, under certain conditions, configures experiences that may contribute
to improving possible horizons for democracy.
Epilogue/Reflections
The development of this book has resulted in learning regarding the appli-
cation of the CPI as a three-dimensional framework where different cir-
cuits of intermediation intersect. The analytical advantages expressed in
the conclusions with respect to each dimension, together with the points
for future agendas, would not have been possible without the interdisci-
plinary debate that occurred in the stages preceding the writing of this
book. The expertise in industrial relations of Bensusán and Subiñas ques-
tioned the definition and content of the third dimension (substance of
representation). Primarily, their distinction between conflict 1 and conflict
2 helped to concretize the difference between types of conflicts (divis-
ible/indivisible) and the coexistence of agonism and antagonism in dif-
ferent orders or levels in cases outside of the labour sphere. Similarly, the
knowledge of Ansolabehere and Valle on human rights and legislation
consolidated ideas with regard to the mixture between circuits given the
expertise of agents with intellectual and material resources that can be
used in their role as intermediators. Finally, the analysis by Guarneros-
Meza, based on public administration, portrayed the similarity of topics
between traditional bureaucracy—discretion, unequal power and val-
ues—and its direct association with the three dimension of the CPI. It
is believed that these interdisciplinary discussions are of great use as they
enhance the study of processes involved in current events that characterize
Latin America (insecurity, violation of rights, validity of the neoliberal dis-

course, as well as the broadening of participation and social control). The
discussions question mono-disciplinary perspectives that tend to permeate
traditional debates around democracy, participation and representation.
The comparison that accompanied the interdisciplinary nature of this
book also contributed to envisaging how the debate around the CPI
and the variety of representation circuits can be helpful in other regions
beyond Latin America. For example, in Europe, the theoretical framework
offered by the book complements debates around participatory gover-
nance, where positions of power and conflict between citizens, civil soci-
ety organizations, bureaucrats and politicians are being questioned. These
conflicts have been exacerbated by fiscal austerity programmes and region-
alism that have characterized various countries during the 2010s. In par-
ticular, interpretive studies (Bevir and Rhodes 2010; Fischer and Gottweis
2012; Wagenaar 2011; Yanow 1996) that have focused on the perspective
of agents could benefit from the debate presented in this volume.
It is unquestionable that democratic innovation has multiplied experi-
ences of intermediation, aimed at broadening the role of citizens and civil
society in both hemispheres (Fung and Wright 2003; Zittel and Dieter
2007; Smith 2009), and that the debate around these experiences, their
potential and limitations, at times trapped by the representation/partici-
pation dichotomy, could benefit by the introduction of the intermedia-
tion perspective. This is not only because this analytical viewpoint dilutes
the dichotomy and avoids assuming that electoral representation functions
as an implicit parameter for normative evaluation of such innovations,
but also because the empirical variation of these innovations is such that
researchers often lack analytical tools, such as the CPI, to develop a more
fructiferous comparison.
Notes
1. Although Manin (1997) claims originality in his treatment of elec-

tions as a cyclical event.
2. Although the creative role of the representation can be traced to
Hobbes’s (1996[1651]) famous formulation (“It is, in effect, the
unit of the representative, not the unit of the represented that makes
a person one” p. 135). The consideration of this characteristic as
something positive is recent.
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Index
A authoritarian political system, 144–5

accountability, 15–16, 63–4, 168, 176 authority, 15
“Achilles heel” of the Mexican labour authorization, 142, 149
model, 145
Acosta Rico, M.E., 55
advocacy model, 159, 177n3 B
advocacy model of intermediation, Baiocchi, G., 117–18
165 Barone, S.L., 33
agency, 187, 192–5 Bensusán, G., 156n6, 156n7, 156n11
agonism, 18–20, 144, 153–4 blockage, 138
agonist, 168, 177 of representation in CNSM, 150
agricultural labourer movement, 150 block/unblock tactic, 138, 155
Aibar, J., 23n7 Bolivia
AMORES, 170–6 analysis of Social Control, 96
Ansolabehere, 21 CONALCAM, 97
antagonism, 18–20, 144 concept of democracy, 98
imposition of, 149–50 Constituent Assembly, 95
antagonism-pluralist agonism, 67 TIPNIS, 97
antagonistic, 165, 177 Unity Pact (PU), 96
arbitrators Brasil, F., 49n1
conflicts and, 142–4 Brazilian health movement, 23n6
Arditi, B., 23n7 Brazilian Social Democratic Party
authoritarian and corporatist labour (PSDB), 35
model, 138
Note: Page numbers followed by “n” refers to notes.

Latin America, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51538-0
202 INDEX
brokerage, 159, 163, 164, 166–8, protest/negotiation, 6, 183

172, 173, 175, 176 circuits of representation
bureaucracy, 118. See also street-level (representation circuits)
bureaucracy “actors’ perspective,” 5, 9–10
bureaucrat–citizen relationship, 118 democratic innovation institutions,
Burke, E., 24n12 5
Burke’s doctrine, 16 mixture of, 182, 183
“second level, register or circuit,” 5
typology of, 5–9, 181–5
C citizen committees, 126–7
CADHAC. See Citizens in Support of citizen participation, 121–3, 128,
Human Rights (CADHAC) 132
Capella, A.C., 49n1 “Citizens’ Assembly,” 54–5
capital–labour citizen security
conflict, 142, 152 in Mexico, 121–3
redistributive conflict, 150 citizenship, 23n3
tensions, 144 Citizens in Support of Human Rights
Chavismo (CADHAC), 161, 165, 167–77,
(re)conceptualisation of state–civil 183, 185, 189
society relations, 55–6 City Council, 82, 86–7
participatory mechanisms, 67, 71 civil society, 36–7, 50n4
“twenty-first-century socialism,” 55, civil society organizations (CSOs), 3,
66 6, 14–15, 41–3, 46, 48–9, 81,
Chuy (Uruguay), 78, 83, 86–90, 91n3, 92n9, 162, 164, 197
91n1, 182 definition, 165
circuits, 68–70 human rights organisations, 164
circuitous dialogue, 62 social actors, 82, 87
force, 138, 146, 155 transitional justice, 163
iterative interface, 62 class conflict, 143
people, 68–70 clientelism, 16, 186
project, 8–9, 21, 70, 72, 88–9, 129, CNSM. See National Minimum Wage
160–1, 176, 182 Commission (CNSM)
vote, 132 collaborative agreements, 122
word, 32, 49, 88–9, 98–9, 100, collective identity, 140
104, 109, 129, 182, 184 collective labour contract, 152
“circuit of project,” 69 Colorado Party (PC), 79
circuit principles communal state, 53, 55, 66, 69
bureaucratic technical knowledge, 8, communities
183 Community Assembly, 101–3,
charismatic relation between leader 112n9
and people, 183 face to face contact, 96–7, 100–3,
participation, 9 110, 111n3, 185, 188
INDEX 203
imagined communities, 96, 101, consolidated councils (Type 1), 37–8

111n3 1988 Constitution, 35
Community Assembly, 101–3, 112n9 constraint dimension, 129–30
community development initiatives, 59 distinctions of, 44
community liaison officers, 60 health conferences, 44–5
community representatives, 60, 69, constraints, 166, 167, 174, 177,
151 187–9, 195
community staff, 61, 64, 66 dense networks/groups, 188
comunas reputational costs, 187
Citizen’s Assembly, 64 consumer-oriented capitalism, era of,
creation of, 56 116
functions, 55 context of globalization, 137
in La Silsa, 69, 71 contexts of violence, 123–4
CONALCAM. See National “Control Social”, 21
Coordination for Change co-optation, 54, 56, 68
(CONALCAM) corporate (union) representation, 2, 6
concept of intermediation council-driven model, 36
analytical range of intermediation, 5 Council of Representatives, 149
concept of representative circuits, 4 councils, 182, 184, 188–90
cube of political intermediation, 4–5 community, 185
definitions, 4 health and policy, 189
Confederation of Mexican Workers national health, 188
(CTM), 146 political, 188
conferences women’s, 188
of agenda disputes, 40 Cowie, J., 140
functions, 39 CPI. See cube of political
health, 182 intermediation (CPI)
institutionalized, 40 CROM. See Regional Confederation of
mobilization, 40–1 Mexican Labourers (CROM)
participatory processes, 39 CSOs. See civil society organizations
women’s, 189–91 (CSOs)
conflicts CTM. See Confederation of Mexican
and arbitrators, 142–4 Workers (CTM)
of representation, 139–44 cube of political intermediation (CPI)
congregational case of intermediation/
democarcy, 187 representation, 71
tradition, 184 circuits of representation, 55–6
consejos comunales (CCs) dimensions of, 32–4, 46, 78, 138,
indirect politics, 56 149
spokespeople, 55, 59–62, 65–6, force vectors, 19–20
68–9 functions of, 41
in Venezuela, 120 La Sil sa, Caracas, 56–67
204 INDEX
cube of political intermediation constraint, 15–16, 187–9

(CPI) (cont.) recognition, 15, 185–7
policy sector, 47 substantive dimension, 17–20,
political and legal intermediation by, 189–93
176 DUyOP, 124, 126, 128
public management, 132
substantive dimension, 78, 89
E
eight semi-structured interviews, 123
D electoral circuit, 181
de Bethencourt, P.V., 21, 159–78 electoral representation, 130
decentralization electoral (party) representation, 2–3
approval of LD&PC, 81 electrical circuits, concept of, 5
creation of municipalities, 80 Elizondo, C.M., 170, 173
of local politics, 81 enhanced penalization system, 131
Decentralization and Citizen Europe
Participation Law (LD&PC as in network governance in, 116
Spanish), 80 extra-parliamentary
defence of human rights, 159, 160 new mechanisms of, 3
defence of rights, 160
degree of decline, 138
degree of discretion, 123 F
de Melo Romão, W., 31–50 Federal Conciliation and Arbitration
democracy, concept of, 98 Board, 147
democratic functional representation, Federal Executive Power, 149
145 Felstiner, W., 162
democratic innovation feminist movement, 43–6, 49, 188
civil society organizations, 3, 6, Fiorito, J., 140
14–15, 41–3, 46, 48–9, 81–2, force circuit, 138, 146, 155, 184
91n3, 92n9, 197 corporations, 6
committees, 83–4 force, 6–8, 183
consultative mechanisms, 83 protest, 6, 182
councils, 83–4 fourth power
participatory budgets, 83 Social Control as, 185
participatory institutions, 3, 32, fourth state/purinational state
78–9, 85–6, 90, 117 abolition of CVs, 100
democratic-participative innovations, analysis of Social Control, 95–6
3–4 Bolivian political system, 100
“democratic revolutionary indigenous social organisations, 99
protagonism,” 54 municipal participatory tradition, 99
dimensions cube of political Freigedo Peláez, M., 21, 77–92
intermediation Frente Amplio (FA), 77, 79
INDEX 205
front-line bureaucracy, 120, 131 human rights defence

front-line officers, 131 legal representation in, 164
level of discretion and party politics politics of, 161–5
constraints, 130 human rights literature, 162, 177n1
front-line service, 128 human rights movements, 163
functional intermediation, 146 international character of, 163
functional representation, 141, 155, human rights NGOs, 160, 163,
156n5 164
in labour relations, 142 political mediation, 167
human rights organisations, 161,
165–9
G hybrid circuit, 166
Gallegher, J., 178n5 Hyman, R., 140
Ganuza, E., 117–18
Gómez, W., 156n11
governance arrangements, 121 I
Grassroots Territorial Organisations, 99 Icaza, E. A., 172
Group of Organized Women for the immediacy of passions, 195
Executed, Kidnapped and Indigenous Territory Isidoro Securé
Disappeared People of Nuevo National Park (TIPNIS)
León (AMORES), 161 conflict, 106–9
Guarneros-Meza, V., 22, 181–97 I Marcha, 106–7
Gurza Lavalle, A., 77, 119, 120, 164, synthesis of processes, 108, 109
167, 181–97 indirect politics, 2, 19, 56
institutionalization
degree of, 5, 32
H and integration, 39–40
Hardley, P., 140 institutionalized councils (Type 2),
healthcare reform movement, 45 37–8
health movement, 185 Institutional Revolutionary Party
health policy, 36, 42, 44–5 (PRI), 149
Hirschman, A., 25n16 Integral Barrio Transformation (IBT),
Hobbes, T., 197n2 59
human and labour rights non- interdisciplinary, 196–7
governmental organizations, 142 intermediaries
human rights CCs and comuna, 53–6
defence of, 159, 160 constraints to, 63–5
politics of, 161–5 in La Silsa, Caracas, 68
poststructuralist and critical studies “peoples” circuit of representation,
of, 163 68
victims of violations of, 160–2, recognition of, 61–3
165–7, 170–1 substantive content, 65–7
206 INDEX
intermediation, 181–97 labour world

advocacy model of, 165 actors, conflicts and arbitrators in,
asymmetrical relationships, 183, 139–44
185, 191, 195 representation in, 137
concept of, 4, 120, 181 lack of coordination, 125–6, 131
cube of political intermediation, lack of financial, 131
182, 185, 187, 189, 196, 197 Laclau, E., 18, 23n7, 25n17
definition of, 10–11 La Silsa (Caracas, Venezuela), 182,
dyadic relationship, 191 185, 189, 193–5
forms of, 138 area description and selection, 56,
representation and, 139–44 59–60
triad, 189 comuna, 71–2
triadic relationship, 183–5, 187, intermediaries in, 57–8, 60–7
189–92 Las Truchas, 120
intermediation circuit case of, 123–8, 133n2
hybrid, 159 Latin America, 197
intermediators, 160, 183, 185, Lavalle, A.G., 1–25, 31–50
187–96 Law for Popular Participation (LPP),
inter-municipal security programmes, 99
121 Law of the Declaration of Missing
inverted representation, 145 People, 173
issue networks, 34, 49n1 legal–political intermediation circuit,
Isunza, E.A., 77 172
legal representation, 160, 177n2
traditional models of, 166
K level of discretion, 126, 127
Kingdon, J.W., 33–4 front-line officers, 130
Libertad, 78, 83–6, 88–90, 91n1
Lipsky, M., 118, 119
L Lowi, T., 33
labour
capital–labour conflict, 142, 152
legislation, 139 M
labour authority, 145 managerialism, 116
labour conflict Manin, B., 197n1
in Mexico, 144–8 Martin, G., 21
labourer movement Maynard-Moody, S., 119
San Quintin, 151–3, 155 mediation, 142
labour law (1917–1931), 144 Merida Initiative, 121
labour relations Mexican automobile industry, 154
function of representation in, 142 Mexican case, 144
labour sphere, 141 Mexican Constitution, 149
INDEX 207
Mexican context, 139, 155 national Movement for Peace with

Mexican corporatism, 149 Justice and Dignity (MPJD), 172,
Mexican institutional framework, 147, 173
154 National Party (PN), 79
Mexican labour law, 145 national policy conferences, 32
Mexican labour sphere National Workers Union, 153,
map of intermediators in, 148 155n2
Mexican labour world nature of representation, 141
chart of intermediation actors in, neighbourhood “popular” committees,
146 87
Mexico, 128, 138, 149 neoliberal economic model, 145
citizen security in, 121 network governance in Europe, 116
union representation and labour new participatory institutions, 78, 86,
conflict in, 144–8 117
Meza, V.G., 1–25 “new socialist communities,” 59
Middlebrook, K., 156n6, 156n7 NGOs. See non-governmental
military tactics, 131 organisations (NGOs)
Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Nieto, P., 139
147 non-coercive forms of intermediation,
Mouffe, C., 18 142
Movement to Socialism (MAS), non-governmental organisations
103–4, 107–8, 110, 112n15 (NGOs), 159, 162, 163, 165
MPJD. See national Movement for defence of human rights by, 176
Peace with Justice and Dignity political–legal representation circuit
(MPJD) functions, 175
municipal authorities, 78, 81, 90 non-legal political brokerage, 164
Municipal Development Plans Nuevo León (México), 161, 165, 168,
(PDMs), 99 170–6
Musheno, M., 119
O
N Officers in Commerce, 126
National Coordination for Change
(CONALCAM), 97, 104–6,
109–10 P
National Council for Women participation, 182–4, 189, 195–7
(CNDM), 43–4 CCs and comunas, 62, 70
National Fund for Socialist Agrarian circuit, 182
Development (FONDAS), 2 “democratic revolutionary
National Minimum Wage protagonism,” 54
Commission (CNSM), 147, direct vs. indirect representation,
149, 150, 156n8 195
208 INDEX
participation (cont.) shared management, 36

institutionalized spaces, 78, 85, 89, traditional, or fully consolidated, 37
91n2, 91n5, 182 policy management councils, 32
of “organised society,” 108 policy networks, 34
workshops of, 128 political actors, 81
participative institution, 182, 184 political conflict, 24n14, 45, 78, 84–5,
participatory budgeting (PB), 117, 118 87
participatory democratic innovations, political-electoral representation, 141
32, 77 political intermediation, 176, 182–5,
participatory institutions (PIs), 3, 32, 190
78–9, 85–6, 90, 117 acting as a means to, 12–13, 194
elimination of, 35 being in the middle, 12–13, 194
typologies of, 32 language of, 120–1
word circuit, 32, 49 limited participation and, 128–31
Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), 123, and political representation, links
126–8 between, 123–8
Partido Revolucionario Institucional political-legal circuit, 160, 167,
(PRI), 123, 126, 128 169–71, 176
party politics constraints political–legal hybrid, 176
front-line officers, 130 political–legal intermediation circuit,
PB. See participatory budgeting (PB) 166, 168
PCs. See policy communities (PCs) political opposition, 82, 84–5
people, 6–7, 9 political representation
people circuit, 68–70, 182 circuits of, 4
charismatic relation, 7 and political intermediation, links
people, 183 between, 123–8
popular, 7, 9, 183 politics of human rights defence,
personalism, 87 161–165
PIs. See participatory institutions (PIs) “popular power,” 9, 55, 68, 73n6
Pitkin, F.H., 192 “The Precariat” (Standing), 140
Pitkin, H., 24n13 PRI. See Partido Revolucionario
“Plan Socialista Caracas”, 59 Institucional (PRI)
plural agonism, 71 private trusts, 46
policy communities (PCs), 49n1 project circuit
characteristics of, 33–4, 35 legal knowledge, 8, 183, 184
heterogeneous, 34, 38 project, 8–9, 183
homogeneous, 34, 38 technical knowledge, 8, 182, 183,
policy proto-communities, 34–5, 38 185
policy councils technical project, 182–3
civil society, 36–7 public interest civil society
council-driven model, 36 organizations (PICSOs), 46
moderately consolidated, 37 public management, 116, 132
INDEX 209
public policy labourers, 151–3, 155

frontiers of, 23n5 Schmitter, P., 156n5
institutional characteristics, 35 security policy, centralization of, 121
public safety, 127 Shaw, L., 24n8
public-sector mediator, 143 Sicilia, J., 172
public services, 115, 118, 122 Sigal, S., 24n7
punishment, voring as, 188 SITIAVWM workers, conflict
experienced by, 154
social accountability, 2, 16, 42, 96,
R 108, 111n1
re-centralization process, 80 social actors, 82
recognition dimension, 129, 132, 166, Social Control, 188
174, 177 archaeology of, 97–9
CNDM, creation of, 43–4 failure of, 106–7, 110
councils and conferences, 48 of fourth power, 185
mechanisms of formal, 186, 187 inclusion of, 100–4
mechanisms of informal, 186, 187 institutional overview, 109–10
policy communities, 42 social interest lawyer, 166
positions of, 42 social organizations (SOs), 46
proximity, 185–7 Sorensen, E., 116, 117
re-democratization, 39 spokespeople, 55, 59–62, 65–6,
Regional Confederation of Mexican 68–9
Labourers (CROM), 146 Standing, G., 140
representation, 181–3, 185, 188–97 state, 187, 195
representation blockage, 139, 145, fragile, 186
147, 150, 151 weak, 186, 194
representation circuits, 160, 164, 169 “state voids,” 98
representation–intermediation, debate state weakness, 194
of, 117 Stovel, K., 24n8
representation of labour, concepts in, street-level bureaucracy, 116, 118–20
141–2 street-level officer, 124–6
resource mobilisation, 162 Sub-direction of Commerce and
Revolutionary Confederation of Direction of Public Safety, 125
Labourers and Peasants (CROC), sub-national policy
147 Colorado Party (PC), 79
reward, voting as, 188 “consensual particracy,” 79
The Robinson Mission, 2, 22n2 direct democracy, 80
Frente Amplio (FA), 79
National Party (PN), 79
S Uruguayan political system, 81
Sala Técnica (ST), 59, 61 substantive content dimension,
San Quintin, 186–7, 193–5 130–1
210 INDEX
substantive dimension translator, 193

antagonism, 45 trust, 192–6
CNDM, 46–7 transnational activism, 163
conferences and councils, health and transnational defence networks, 162
women’s rights, 45–7 trust, 189, 194
restricted agonism, 45 distrust, 185, 186, 195
unrestricted agonism, 45, 49 trustworthy, 195
substantive representation, 189–92 “twenty-first-century socialism,” 55,
agonism/antagonism, 85, 189–90, 66
192, 196 typology
divisible/non-divisible conflicts, criteria, 183–4
189–91, 196
first order/second order, 190–2,
196 U
two orders, 190, 191 Unified Health System (SUS), 36, 40,
“Subversión Agraria” movement, 2 42, 44–6, 48–9, 187
union functional representation, 142
union representation
T in Mexico, 144–8
technical staff, 56, 60–1, 63–4, 71, redistributive conflicts, 149–4
118 United Nations, 122
theory of networks, 23n4 United Nations High Commissioner
Tilly, C., 163 for Human Rights in Mexico, 170
time, 192–6 Unity Pact (PU)
inter-temporal, 188, 189, 194 concept of citizenship, 100
moments in, 188, 195 concept of democracy, 101
sequencing, 195 Constituent Assembly, 100–1
TIPNIS. See Indigenous Territory electoral representative democracy,
Isidoro Securé National Park 101
(TIPNIS) face-to-face contact, 101–3
Torfing, J., 116, 117 new Constitution, 103–4
trade unions notion of collective territory, 102
ghost, 145 urban works, 126–7
ownership, 142 Uruguayan municipalities, 78, 82–4,
traditional corporatist intermediation, 91n5
146
traditional functional representation,
148 V
traditional models Vázquez, L.D., 23n7
of legal representation, 166 Veracruz, Mexico, 116, 120, 123, 185
of political representation, 164 Verón, E., 24n7
translation virtual representation, 24n12
INDEX 211
Volkswagen Mexico (VWM), 139 participative institutions, 21

vote circuit, 88–9, 184 word, 21, 183
voting Workers Party (PT), 35
as punishment, 188 World Bank, 122
as reward, 188
VWM. See Volkswagen Mexico (VWM)
VWM-SITIAVWM, 153–4 Y
youth services, 126
W
Weberian bureaucratic models, 129 Z
women’s rights movement, 43, 48–9 Zaremberg, G., 1–25, 31–50, 60, 62,
women’s rights policy, 33, 41–7 68–9, 119, 120, 167, 181–97
word circuit, 182, 184 Zavaleta, R., 111n4
participation, 21, 183 Zuazo, M., 21, 95–113

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(Studies of The Americas) Gisela Zaremberg, Valeria Guarneros-Meza, Adrián Gurza Lavalle (Eds.) - Intermediation and Representation in Latin Ame

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STUDIES OF THE AMERICAS

Editors Gisela Zaremberg,

More information about this series at

Studies of the Americas

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017932745

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover image © RTimages / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

Political democracy around the globe seems to be coming under increas-

similarly suffering various forms of democratic malaise. Although it is not

we generally ignore. Growing citizen frustration, if not anger, suggests

The three coordinators of the book, Gisela Zaremberg, Valeria Guarneros-­

1 Introduction: Beyond Elections: Representation Circuits

2 Political Intermediation and Public Policy in Brazil:

3 Establishing Intermediaries in Developing Mechanisms

4 Political Rights and Intermediation: Municipal

5 Bolivia: “Social Control” as the Fourth State Power

6 Citizen Security in Mexico: Examining Municipal

7 Conflicts of Representation and Redistribution in

8 The Political–Legal Representation Circuit of Human

9 Conclusions and Future Research Agenda 181

Karina Ansolabehere is professor and fellow researcher at the Latin American

Adrián Gurza Lavalle is a professor at the Political Science Department of the

AMORES Group of Organized Women for the Executed, Kidnapped

MAS Movement to Socialism

Fig. 1.1 Intermediation as a triadic relationship 13

Table 1.1 Types of representation circuits 7

Introduction: Beyond Elections:

Jonas, member of an indigenous community in the state of Oaxaca,

© The Author(s) 2017 1

Resources. She spoke on behalf of the community.1 In another part of the

Furthermore, broad structural features of twentieth-century industrial

experiences of democratic innovation and not an operation to embel-

special attention to the substantive dimension of representation. Finally, in

Representation Circuits: Widening the Scope

The emergence of democratic innovation institutions and new roles played

Repertoire Election Strikes Technical training Participation in Participation in

INTRODUCTION: BEYOND ELECTIONS: REPRESENTATION CIRCUITS...

The “project” circuit, characterized by the metaphor, includes a

“grey areas” or blurred boundaries between decision and implementa-

them illegitimate, incomplete or inferior. It is thus necessary to go beyond

ingenious, mischievous. Related, in turn, to the word medos, meaning

connects citizens, collective actors or organizations, on the one hand, and

Three Analytical Dimensions of Political Intermediation

Fig. 1.2 Dimension of recognition

and representation, possibly given the convenience of its democratic prin-

Fig. 1.3 Dimension of constraint

any type of political intermediation is hardly exempted from any consid-

The tension between true and apparent interests, as an inherent con-

The Cube of Political Intermediation (CPI)

Fig. 1.4 Substantive dimension of representation

Fig. 1.5 Cube of political intermediation (CPI)

included in the first section emphasize intermediation within the con-

tive content within the context of extreme violence of northern Mexico.

literature covering this issue. In the field of enunciation, the work

diction between liberalism and democracy. Albert Hirschman’s

Burt, R. 1992. Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge:

de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Diccionario de Mitología Griega y Romana, Pierre Grimal, Buenos Aires, Paidos-­

Political Intermediation and Public Policy

W. de Melo Romão (*)

© The Author(s) 2017 31

The three coordinators of the book, Gisela Zaremberg, Valeria Guarneros-

1 Introduction: Beyond Elections: Representation Circuits

2 Political Intermediation and Public Policy in Brazil:

3 Establishing Intermediaries in Developing Mechanisms

4 Political Rights and Intermediation: Municipal

5 Bolivia: “Social Control” as the Fourth State Power

6 Citizen Security in Mexico: Examining Municipal

7 Conflicts of Representation and Redistribution in

8 The Political–Legal Representation Circuit of Human

9 Conclusions and Future Research Agenda 181

AMORES Group of Organized Women for the Executed, Kidnapped

Fig. 1.1 Intermediation as a triadic relationship 13

Table 1.1 Types of representation circuits 7

Diccionario de Mitología Griega y Romana, Pierre Grimal, Buenos Aires, Paidos-

for inter-institutional dialogue and articulation between federal tiers in

basis (i.e. non-compulsory and non-paid). The “Citizens’ Assembly” is

xis 1. Recognition of Intermediaries

xis 2. Constraints to Intermediaries

xis 3. Substantive Content

the creation of participatory institutions has not been homogeneous;

intermediation spaces. When the relationship between actors is based