Between defeat and the late-modern illusion: "Crowds" in Latin American sociological narratives in times of "democratic transition"

Abstract

During the 1980s and earlies 1990s, the sociologies of the “North” and the “South” of the Western Hemisphere defined, with greater or lesser divergences, if not the decline, then the pronounced crisis of “salary”, “mass” or “insurance” society, characteristic of the mode of capitalism of the second post-war period. The present work aims to make some contributions on the drift of the concept of “masses” in key texts of Latin American sociologies of the last part of the 20th century (1983-1996). More precisely, it seeks to articulate this term with that of “transition”, on the one hand, and “democracy” (contemporary, late-modern), on the other hand. Regardless of national particularisms, we are fundamentally interested in analyzing the insertion of the concept of “masses”, and other articulated ones (from “working class” or “subaltern”,  to “authority” or “discipline”), in a historical narrative that pivots on an epochal diagnosis: the gradual or abrupt deterioration of the material and symbolic environments and resources that facilitated the construction, celebration and reproduction of the “masses” –and the processes of “massification”– in the mobilized societies of the 20th century.  The conclusions invite us to reflect on the intellectual and thematic contributions that, over thirty years, sociologies of democratic transition bring around current mass movements and leaderships.