The tension between local and global: neoliberal modernization and Central resistors

Abstract

The article criticizes the dominant vision which minimizes sociopolitical conflicts in the processes of capitalist neoliberal transformation and studies some forms of collective action which took place in Central American after the civil wars. The author argues that the axis of social conflict, created by the dynamics of capitalist transformation on world scale, are "transnational" and have pushed the social movements in the region toward forms of collective action and protest which include more than one social sector and tend to cross national borders. At the same time the retreat of national governments out of local spaces leads to the revitalization of local identities as communities organize to defend their resources.