6 - Associationalism (1983–2013)

Summary

Chapter 6 “Associationalism (1983–2013)” reveals the limits of RJ’s institutionalization, and further highlights the ambiguity and reciprocity of the IRI’s state-society relations and associational life. While many of RJ’s former revolutionary activists and war veterans were absorbed into the expanding bureaucracy, some of them established and joined volunteer groups and civic associations at the grassroots level. Though claiming to be politically and financially independent, these organizations were established with the encouragement and backing of the IRI’s factionalized elites. While appropriating RJ’s developmental and populist rhetoric, ideology, and practice, these organizations helped political elites in their efforts to gain popular legitimacy, political support, and electoral votes by mobilizing and socializing youth, students, veterans, villagers, and other citizens. As an unintended consequence, these organizations exerted bottom-up pressures and demands on the political elites whom they had supported for increased and improved public goods and social services, and, in the process, represented a seedbed of authentic and autonomous activism and lobbying.