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Urbanization and Political Demand Making: Political Participation Among the Migrant Poor in Latin American Cities*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Wayne A. Cornelius
Wayne A. Cornelius
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Abstract

This paper investigates the proposition that rapid urbanization produces significant changes in the kinds, volume, and intensity of demand making aimed at local and national governments, leading to political system “overload” and pressure for major shifts in resource allocation. Drawing upon data gathered among low-income migrants to Mexico City and other Latin American cities, the paper analyzes the process through which objective needs are converted into demands upon government. The findings indicate that there are often major lags in the process of demand creation among cityward migrants, and that many kinds of felt needs are viewed by migrants as needs to be satisfied primarily through individual rather than governmental action.

Data are presented on the incidence of demand making among the migrant population and the substantive nature of the demands they make upon government. Strategies used in attempting to influence government decisions are described, and the attitudes and perceptions underlying the migrant's preference among alternative strategies are analyzed. The long-term propensity of migrants and their offspring to engage in demand making with regard to broad social and economic issues rather than individual or community-related needs is assessed.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , September 1974 , pp. 1125 - 1146
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1974

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References

1 See the discussion of contacting of officials as a mode of political participation in Verba, Sidney and Nie, Norman H., Participation in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 52Google Scholar.

2 On the distinction between “instrumental” and "expressive” political participation, see Milbrath, Lester, Political Participation (Chicago: Rand MeNally, 1965), p. 12Google Scholar. Verba, and Nie, (Participation in America, p. 2)Google Scholar also differentiate between instrumental participation and “ceremonial” or “support” participation, in which “citizens ‘take part’ by expressing support for the government, by marching in parades, by working hard in developmental projects, by participating in youth groups organized by the government, or by voting in ceremonial elections.” See also the discussion of ritualistic and system-supportive participation in the Mexican political system, in Fagen, Richard R. and Tuohy, William S., Politics and Privilege in a Mexican City (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1972), pp. 38–39Google Scholar.

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6 Pseudonyms have been used to identify all of the research communities. The formation and subsequent development of each community are described in Cornelius, Wayne A., Political Learning Among the Migrant Poor: The Impact of Residential Context (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1973 [Sage Professional Papers in Comparative Politics, Vol. 4, No. 01–037]), pp. 10–15Google Scholar.

7 Field work was conducted in Mexico City from January to December, 1970, with supplemental data gathering in 1971 and 1972. For a more detailed description of the design and methodology of the study, see Chapter 1 and Appendix “D” in Cornelius, Wayne A., “Poverty and Politics in Urban Mexico: Political Learning Among the Migrant Poor” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1973)Google Scholar.

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9 See Dietz, Henry A., “Becoming a Poblador: Political Adjustment to the Lima Urban Environment” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1973)Google Scholar. Additional data from the Lima survey are presented in Wayne A. Cornelius and Henry A. Dietz, “Urbanization, Demand-Making, and Political System ‘Overload’: Political Participation Among the Migrant Poor in Latin American Cities,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, September, 1973.

10 For an alternative conceptualization of the process of demand creation at the level of the individual, see Medler, Jerry F., “Negative Sanctions: Their Perception and Effect in the Political System” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon, 1966), chapter 5Google Scholar. My model of the process differs from that of Medler primarily in the lesser importance which I attribute to cognitive involvement in politics and a sense of individual political efficacy as preconditions of the act of demand makng. See also George J. Graham, Jr. and Richard A. Pride, “Styles of Political Participation, Want Conversion, and Political Support among Adults and Students in a Metropolitan Community,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September, 1971.

11 The extremely low proportion of migrants having formal, “definitive” title to their land reflects not only the illegal origins of three of the communities but a lack of money to pay the fees involved in obtaining an officially recognized property title, even after all necessary payments for the cost of the land have been made.

12 Butterworth, Douglas, “Squatters or Suburbanites? The Growth of Shantytowns in Oaxaca, Mexico,” in Scott, Latin American Modernization Problems, p. 231Google Scholar; Andrews, Frank M. and Phillips, George W., “The Squatters of Lima: Who They Are and What They Want,” Journal of Developing Areas, 4 (January, 1970), pp. 217–218Google Scholar; Cornelius, and Dietz, , “Urbanization, Demand-Making, and Political System Overload,” p. 8, Table 2Google Scholar; Turner, John F. C., “Barriers and Channels for Housing Development in Modernizing Countries,” in Peasants in-Cities, ed. Mangin, William (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

13 See Andrews, and Phillips, , “The Squatters of Lima,” p. 216Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., p. 220; and Turner, “Barriers and Channels in Housing Development,” pp. 10–15Google Scholar.

15 Squatter settlement residents in Ecuador, Chile, and Venezuela have also tended to place a relatively low valuation on self-help efforts. See Lutz, Thomas M., “Self-Help Neighborhood Organizations, Political Socialization, and the Developing Political Orientations of Urban Squatters in Latin America: Contrasting Patterns from Case Studies in Panama City, Guayaquil, and Lima” (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 1970), pp. 156–158Google Scholar; and Ray, Talton F., The Politics of the Barrios of Venezuela (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 85Google Scholar. (But compare, with regard to Venezuela, Karst, Kenneth L., Schwartz, Murray L., and Schwartz, Audrey J., The Evolution of Law in the Barrios of Caracas [Los Angeles: Latin American Center, University of California, 1973], pp. 50–51, 76–77.)Google Scholar

16 See Powell, Sandra, “Political Participation in the Barriadas: A Case Study,” Comparative Political Studies, 2 (July, 1969), 211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Collier, David, “Squatter Settlement Formation and the Politics of Co-optation in Peru” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1971), p. 76Google Scholar; Maruska, Donald L., “Government Policy and Neighborhood Organizations in the Squatter Settlements of Lima” (Honors Thesis, Department of Government, Harvard University, 1972), p. 6Google Scholar; Rodríguez, Alfredo et al. , “De invasores a invadidos,” Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales, 2, No. 6 (November, 1972), 101–142Google Scholar; Henry A. Dietz, “The Office and the Poblador: Perceptions and Manipulations of Housing Authorities by the Lima Urban Poor,” paper presented at the Meeting of the American Society for Public Administration, Los Angeles, Calif., April 3, 1973, pp. 3, 10–11; and Michl, Sara, “Urban Squatter Organization as a National Government Tool: The Case of Lima, Peru,” in Latin American Urban Research, Volume III, ed. Rabinovitz, Francine R. and Trueblood, F. M. (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1973), pp. 155–178Google Scholar.

17 Similar responses have been observed among Venezuelan officials. See Ray, , Politics of the Barrios of Venezuela, pp. 89–90Google Scholar.

18 See Cornelius, Wayne A., “Contemporary Mexico: A Structural Analysis of Urban Caciquismo,” in The Caciques: Oligarchical Politics and the Sys-tem of Caciquismo in the Luso-Hispanic World, ed. Kern, Robert (Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1973), pp. 145–146Google Scholar.

19 See Samuel P. Huntington and Joan M. Nelson, “Socio-Economic Change and Political Participation: Report to the Civic Participation Division of the Agency for International Development,” Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, September, 1973, p. 5–33.

20 For a fuller discussion of the dimensions of governmental performance affecting low-income residents of Mexico City, see Cornelius, Wayne A., “The Impact of Governmental Performance on Political Attitudes and Behavior: The Case of the Urban Poor in Mexico City,” in Latin American Urban Research, Volume III, ed. Rabinovitz, and Trueblood, , pp. 213–251Google Scholar.

21 Peattie, Lisa R., The View from the Barrio (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), p. 67Google Scholar.

22 See especially Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 262–265CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Erbe, William, “Social Involvement and Political Activity: A Replication and Elaboration,” American Sociological Review, 29 (April, 1964), 198CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nie, Norman H., Powell, G. Bingham, and Prewitt, Kenneth, “Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relationships,” American Political Science Review, 63 (September, 1969), 813CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Form, William H. and Huber, Joan, “Income, Race, and the Ideology of Political Efficacy,” Journal of Politics, 33 (August, 1971), 688CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Verba, and Nie, , Participation in America, pp. 174–208Google Scholar; and Burstein, Paul, “Social Structure and Individual Political Participation in Five Countries,” American Journal of Sociology, 77 (May, 1972), 1087CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 McKenney, James W., “Voluntary Associations and Political Integration: An Exploratory Study of the Role of Voluntary Association Membership in the Political Socialization of Urban Lower-Class Residents of Santiago, Chile, and Lima, Peru” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon, 1969), p. 184Google Scholar; Goldrich, Daniel M., “Political Organization and the Politicization of the Poblador,” Comparative Political Studies, 3 (July, 1970), 192CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pratt, Raymond B., “Community Political Organizations and Lower Class Politization in Two Latin American Cities,” Journal of Developing Nations, 5 (July, 1971), 536–537Google Scholar.

24 Cf. Goldrich, , “Political Organization,” p. 192Google Scholar; Pratt, , “Community Political Organizations,” p. 537Google Scholar.

25 Mathiason, John R. and Powell, John D., “Participation and Efficacy: Aspects of Peasant Involvement in Political Mobilization,” Comparative Politics, 4 (April, 1972), 327CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Due to the wording of the relevant survey questions, all of these reported contacts with officials involved a personal visit to the office of some functionary of the government or the official party. Thus the data do not reflect contacting through letters or petitions signed by community residents and sent to government officials. The actual wording of the questions is as follows: “Have you ever gone to an office of the P.R.I.? [If Yes:] For What purpose?”; “Have you ever personally—either alone or with other residents of the community—gone to see some official of [in Colonia Texcoco: the Municipal Government; elsewhere: the Department of the Federal District], or some other person of influence in the government, about some problem or need?”

27 Verba, and Nie, , Participation in America, p. 67Google Scholar.

28 Among the reported contacts with functionaries of the official party, about 13 per cent had a particularistic (personal or family) referent; but contacts with P.R.I, officials represent only 9 per cent of the total number of demand-making attempts reported by the respondents.

29 Fagen and Tuohy also found that among residents of the city of Jalapa, Mexico, “the major source of personal difficulties—the economic situation, and specifically the matter of jobs—is still widely perceived in the first instance as a private or individual domain. Individual mobility in the context of aggregate national growth is seen as the mechanism through which economic conditions will be ameliorated. A sense of personal blame and responsibility thus colors perceptions of these problems. … When Jalapeños were asked, ‘If a man is unemployed, who has the chief responsibility for finding work for him?,’ over 70 per cent said that the man himself had that responsibility. Five per cent said ‘friends and relatives’ and 23 per cent mentioned the government or some other organization. … Despite substantial diffuse reliance on government, economics has not been connected with politics in ways that lead the average citizen to seek political redress for economic grievances” (Fagen and Tuohy, Politics and Privilege in a Mexican City, pp. 142–143). Similarly privatized perceptions of the problem of unemployment have been observed among residents of squatter settlements in Lima, Peru (Rodriguez, et al. , “De invasores a invadidos,” p. 131)Google Scholar.

Such perceptions and expectations may help to explain the rarity of collective political action organized around the issue of unemployment among lowincome residents of Latin American cities. Cf. Gutkind, Peter C. W., “From the Energy of Despair to the Anger of Despair: The Transition from Social Circulation to Political Consciousness among the Urban Poor in Africa,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 7, No. 2 (1973), 179–198Google Scholar.

30 Individual negotiations to secure land titles have apparently been feasible and successful in some Third World cities with large squatter populations. See, for example, Joan M. Nelson, “Migration, Integration of Migrants, and the Problem of Squatter Settlements in Seoul, Korea: Report on. a Field Study for the Smithsonian Institution,” mimeographed, Washington, D.C., July, 1972, p. 20.

31 See Peattie, , The View from the Barrio, p. 67Google Scholar; Leeds, Anthony, “The Significant Variables Determining the Character of Squatter Settlements,” América Latina, 12 (July-September, 1969), pp. 78–79Google Scholar; and Epstein, David G., Brasília: Plan and Reality (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 113, 130–131Google Scholar. Cf. Laquian, Aprodicio A., “Slums and Squatters in South and Southeast Asia,” in Urbanization and National Development: South and Southeast Asia Urban Affairs Annual, Vol. I, ed. Jakobson, Leo and Prakash, Ved (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1972), p. 199Google Scholar; and Karpat, Kemal H., “The Politics of Transition: Political Attitudes and Party Affiliation in Turkish Gecekondu,” unpublished paper, Department of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1972, p. 26Google Scholar.

32 See Peattie, , The View from the Barrio, pp. 69–70Google Scholar; Ray, , Politics of the Barrios of Venezuela, pp. 80, 98–127Google Scholar; Powell, “Political Participation in the Barriadas”; Lutz, , “Self-Help Neighborhood Organizations,” pp. 194–195Google Scholar; Pratt, Raymond B., “Parties, Neighborhood Associations, and the Politicization of the Urban Poor in Latin America,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 15 (August, 1971), 509–510CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pratt, , “Community Political Organizations,” p. 538Google Scholar; Uzzell, John D., “Bound for Places I'm Not Known To: Adaptation of Migrants and Residence in Four Irregular Settlements in Lima, Peru” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, Austin, 1972), p. 240Google Scholar; Eckstein, Susan, “The Poverty of Revolution: A Study of Social, Economic, and Political Inequality in a Central City Area, a Squatter Settlement, and a Low Cost Housing Project in Mexico City” (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1972)Google Scholar.

33 Fagen, and Tuohy, , Politics and Privilege in a Mexican City, pp. 30–31Google Scholar. Cf. Ugalde, Antonio, Power and Conflict in a Mexican Community (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1970), pp. 139–149Google Scholar; and Ugalde, Antonio, Olson, Leslie, Schers, David, and Von Hoegen, Miguel, The Urbanization Process of a Poor Mexican Neighborhood: The Case of San Felipe del Real Adicional, Juarez (Austin, Texas: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1974)Google Scholar.

34 Drawing primarily upon research conducted in the provincial city of Jalapa, Mexico, one investigator has concluded that “Only persons and organizations which lack adequate political resources articulate demands to and through the Party. And since it is not a major decision-maker, those articulators can only hope for the Party's services as a broker or intermediary connected with the government.” See Tuohy, William S., “Centralism and Political Elite Behavior in Mexico,” in Development Administration in Latin America, ed. Thurber, C. E. and Graham, Lawrence (Durham, N.C.: Duke University 1973)Google Scholar. See also Schers, David, The Popular Sector of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional in Mexico (Tel Aviv: The David Horowitz Institute for the Research of Developing Countries, Tel Aviv University, Research Report No. 1, November, 1972), p. 68Google Scholar.

35 The reluctance of residents of low-income neighborhoods to formally protest or complain about deficiencies in public services is strikingly reflected in a recent compilation of data on citizen complaints received by the city government and Mexico City newspapers and television stations. During the period from January through June, 1973, more than 61 per cent of the complaints received were concerned with trash collection (a problem with very low priority in most low-income neighborhoods); and more than three-quarters of all complaints came from people residing in predominantly upper or middle-income sections of the city. See El Dìa (Mexico City), July 8, 1973, p. 13Google Scholar.

36 Butterworth, Douglas, “Two Small Groups: A Comparison of Migrants and Non-Migrants in Mexico City,” Urban Anthropology, 1 (Spring, 1972), 41Google Scholar.

37 Portes, Alejandro, “Rationality in the Slum,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 14 (June, 1972), 284CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 On the involvement of government bureaucrats and politicians in urban land invasions in Chile, Peru, and Venezuela, see Vanderschueren, Franz, “Political Significance of Neighborhood Committees in the Settlements of Santiago,” in The Chilean Road to Socialism, ed. Johnson, Dale L. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday-Anchor Books, 1973), pp. 267–268Google Scholar; Collier, “Squatter Settlement Formation and the Politics of Co-optation in Peru,” passim; and Ray, , Politics of the Barrios of Venezuela, pp. 33–37, 42–43Google Scholar.

39 In a recent analysis of historical trends in the use of violence as a repressive tool by Mexican authorities, Evelyn P. Stevens notes that such practices are still fairly common at the local level in rural areas and even at the level of state governments in some parts of the country. See Stevens, E. P., Protest and Response in Mexico (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1974), chap. 9Google Scholar. The use of small-scale violence against peasants in rural areas is discussed further in Cockcroft, James D., “Coercion and Ideology in Mexican Politics,” in Dependence and Under-development: Latin America's Political Economy, ed. Cockcroft, J. D., Johnson, Dale L., and Frank, Andre Gunder (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday-Anchor Books, 1972), p. 254Google Scholar. Cf. Fagen, and Tuohy, , Politics and Privilege in a Mexican City, p. 27Google Scholar.

40 See Eisinger, Peter K., “The Conditions of Protest Behavior in American Cities,” American Political Science Review, 67 (March, 1973), 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Fear of physical and economic coercion has also depressed political participation among minority groups in the U.S. South. See the empirical analysis reported in Salamon, Lester M. and van Evera, Steven, “Fear, Apathy, and Discrimination: A Test of Three Explanations of Political Participation,” American Political Science Review, 67 (December, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Fagen, and Tuohy, , Politics and Privilege in a Mexican City, p. 71Google Scholar.

42 See Cornelius, , “Impact of Governmental Performance on Political Attitudes and Behavior,” p. 224Google Scholar.

43 Lest it be assumed that the research communities in Mexico City have benefitted from an atypically high level of governmental responsiveness, it should be noted that most of the benefits which they have received are the outcomes of difficult and protracted demand-making experiences, often extending over a period of five to ten years. Moreover, many serious needs of the communities have gone unmet. Even today, functioning sewerage systems, schools, public markets, and health care facilities are inadequate or non-existent in three of the six communities. In some cases these unmet needs reflect an absence or suspension of demand-making efforts by residents of the community; in others, a lack of skill or commitment among community leaders has led to unsuccessful negotiations with the authorities. Still other unmet needs reflect a sheer lack of responsiveness by government officials to persistent demand-making attempts.

44 Cf. Alejandro Portes, “Cuatro poblaciones: informe preliminar sobre situatión y aspiraciones de grupos marginados en el gran Santiago,” Centro de Estudios Socio-economicos de la Universidad de Chile, August, 1969, pp. 39–39A.

45 Of course, numerous factors beyond governmental neglect may contribute to a decision to abandon a community suffering from insecurity of tenure or service deprivation. A useful conceptualization of the cost/benefit calculations performed by low-income migrants to Lima, Peru, with regard to intra-city residential mobility is provided in Uzzell, Douglas, “The Interaction of Population and Locality in the Development of Squatter Settlements in Lima,” in Anthropological Perspectives on Latin American Urbanization: Latin American Urban Research, Volume IV, ed. Cornelius, Wayne A. and Trueblood, Felicity M. (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1974)Google Scholar. Much of Uzzell's analysis seems applicable to the population under study in this paper. Cf. Orbell, John M. and Uno, Toro, “A Theory of Neighborhood Problem-Solving: Political Action vs. Residential Mobility,” American Political Science Review, 66 (June, 1972), 471–489CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Fagen, and Tuohy, , Politics and Privilege in a Mexican City, p. 23Google Scholar. For more detailed discussions of the mechanisms and consequences of political centralism in Mexico, see Tuohy, “Centralism and Political Elite Behavior in Mexico”; William L. Furlong, “Obstacles to Political Development: Case Studies of Center and Periphery in Northern Mexico,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September, 1972; and Purcell, Susan K. and Purcell, John F. H., “Community Power and Benefits from the Nation: The Case of Mexico,” in Rabinovitz, and Trueblood, , eds., Latin American Urban Research, Volume III, pp. 49–76Google Scholar.

47 Cf. Peattie, , The View from the Barrio, p. 75Google Scholar; Ray, , Politics of the Barrios of Venezuela, pp. 96–97Google Scholar.

48 Repeated contacts with the same official also I serve importantly to fix in his mind the history and J problems of the demand-making community, thus enabling him to distinguish more readily the petitions of that specific community from those of numerous similar communities competing for his attention. See Dietz, , “The Office and the Poblador,” p. 20Google Scholar.

49 Fagen, and Tuohy, , Politics and Privilege in a Mexican City, pp. 28–29Google Scholar.

50 See Fried, Robert C., “Mexico City,” in Robson, William A. and Regan, D. E., eds., Great Cities of the World, 2 vols., 3rd ed. (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1972), p. 680Google Scholar; Rabinovitz, Francine F., “Urban Development Decision-Making in the Mexican Federal District,” in Programs for Urban Development in Latin America (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Agency for International Development, 1965)Google Scholar; and Harris, Louis, “Government for the People of Mexico City” (Ph.D., dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1956), chap. 5Google Scholar.

51 One investigator has noted that functionaries of the official party are aware that neighborhood leaders “know very well how to make use of this situation [to] ‘get things done’ (Schers, , The Popular Sector of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, pp. 71–72)Google Scholar. Other observers have also documented the advantages offered to petitioners from low-income neighborhoods in Lima, Peru, and Guatemala City, by ambiguities in the jurisdictions of various government officials and agencies. See Dietz, “The Office and the Poblador”; Douglas Uzzell, “Bureaus and the Urban Poor in Lima,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, November-December 1973; and Bryan R. Roberts, “The Interrelationships of City and Provinces in Peru and Guatemala,” in Anthropological Perspectives on Latin American Urbanization: Latin American Urban Research, Volume IV, ed. Cornelius and Trueblood.

52 Peattie, , The View from the Barrio, p. 89Google Scholar.

53 Laquian, , “Slums and Squatters in South and Southeast Asia,” pp. 199–200Google Scholar.

54 Data from the Mexico City study also indicate that the adult sons of migrants to the city are less likely than their parents to engage in demand making and other forms of political participation. See Cornelius, Wayne A., “The Cityward Movement: Some Political Implications,” in Changing Latin America: New Interpretations of Its Politics and Society, ed. Chalmers, Douglas A. (New York: Academy of Political Science, Columbia University, 1972), pp. 38–39Google Scholar.

55 See, for example, Goldrich, “Political Organization,” pp. 186–187.

56 Cf. Ross, Marc H., “Community Formation in an Urban Squatter Settlement,” Comparative Political Studies, 6, No. 3 (October, 1973), 312–313CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 This pattern is often reinforced by private and public development agencies operating in low-income communities. Such agencies encourage a perception of the community as an entity isolated from the rest of the city in which it is located, with problems and solutions particular to that community. Commenting on the activities of “community development” and social service workers in squatter settlements of Lima, Peru, one investigator notes that by relating the settlements to a larger social reality, such workers might enable the residents to understand that the problems experienced by their community (e.g., insecurity of land tenure) are caused by basic problems at the city or national level (e.g., inequities in the land tenure system). Instead, they tend to define the problems confronting a settlement in highly parochial terms, thus “insuring … that the residents' organization will be limited to demand making focused only on immediate [community-specific] interests” (Rodríguez, “De invasores a invadidos,” pp. 113, 130–131).

58 Although we lack specific data on this point, it could be argued that their behavior is conditioned importantly by recognition of the low receptivity of Mexican political leaders to influence attempts on the “input” side of the decision-making process. As Robert Scott has recently observed, “Mexico's present political system is based on a petitioning pattern and not a bargaining process. Most citizens still see government (or more precisely, some individual, particularly the President) as dispensing favors to a petitioner on a personal and paternalistic basis rather than as a mechanism that implements policy decisions reached by a ritualized legal process of give and take among competing interests. So do most party and government functionaries.” See Scott, Robert E., “Politics in Mexico,” in Comparative Politics Today: A World View, ed. Almond, Gabriel A. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974)Google Scholar.

59 See, for example, Hillman, Arthur and Seever, Frank, “Elements of Community Organization,” in Cox, Fred M. et al. , eds., Strategies of Community Organization (Itasca, III.: Peacock, 1970), pp. 284–285Google Scholar; Kramer, Ralph M., Participation of the Poor (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969), pp. 235–237Google Scholar; and John H. Mollenkopf, “On the Causes and Consequences of Neighborhood Political Mobilization,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, La., September, 1973. The present study does indicate, however, that low-income migrants in Mexico City possess a greater capability for organizing themselves for demand making with regard to community-specific needs and problems than has often been observed among the urban poor in the United States. For example, contrast the preceding discussion of demand-making skills and experience among residents of the communities included in this study with the following description, drawn from a study of neighborhood self-improvement associations in U.S. cities during the 1960s: “They had not developed clear goals. Interviews with club members, as well as those with the community organizers, indicated that most of the club members had no conception of the type of activities necessary to put pressure upon governmental or commercial agencies, to say nothing of knowing how to organize and implement such activities. … They apparently lack knowledge of how to deal effectively with the sources of dissatisfaction. Even very small and limited goals are rarely accomplished. … Drop-outs are frequent. … [The attempt] to develop local neighborhood self-improvement associations through the efforts of an indigenous community organizer … was a failure.” See Gove, Walter and Costner, Herbert, “Organizing the Poor: An Evaluation of a Strategy,” Social Science Quarterly, 50 (December, 1969), 643–656Google Scholar.

60 On the Chilean campamentos, see Petras, James F., “Chile: Nationalization, Socio-Economic Change, and Popular Participation,” in Latin America: From Dependence to Revolution, ed. Petras, J. F. (New York: Wiley, 1973), pp. 58–60Google Scholar; Vanderschueren, , “Political Significance of Neighborhood Committees,” pp. 281–282Google Scholar; Duque, Joaquin and Pastrana, Ernesto, “La movilización reivindicativa de los sectores populares en Chile, 1964–1972,” Revista Uruguaya de Ciencias Sociales, 1, No. 2 (August-October, 1972)Google Scholar; Equipo de Estudios Poblacionales del CIDU, “Pobladores y administratión de justicia,” Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales, 3, No. 5 (July, 1972), 135–148Google Scholar; Equipo de Estudios Poblacionales del CIDU, “Revindication urbana y lucha politica: Los campamentos de pobladores en Santiago de Chile,” Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales, 3, No. 6 (November, 1972), 55–81Google Scholar; Castells, Manuel, Alvarado, Luis, Quevedo, Santiago, Sader, Eder, Fiori, Jorge, and María, Ignacio Santa, Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales, 3, No. 7 (April, 1973), 9–112Google Scholar (special issue on low-income urban settlements in Chile). The following discussion of demand making by campamento residents is based primarily on these sources and supplemental information provided by Richard R. Fagen. For a detailed analysis of demand making by squatter settlement residents in Santiago during the Frei administration (1965–1970), which stresses the nearly total preoccupation of the demand makers with land tenure problems, see Cleaves, Peter S., “Bureaucratic Politics and Administration in Chile” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1972), pp. 548–606Google Scholar. On political organization of low-income neighborhoods in Havana, Cuba, see Butterworth, Douglas, “Grass Roots Political Organizations in Cuba: The Case of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution,” in Cornelius, and True-blood, , eds., Latin American Urban Research, Volume IV, chap. 8Google Scholar.

61 In Chile the word “toma” is- also used to refer to illegal seizures of land for permanent occupation by urban squatters. These tomas do not represent political demand making as defined in this paper, although they may lead to such behavior, with the object of securing land titles, basic urban services, and other improvements for the invaded land.

62 The obstacles to demand making by low-income migrants based on perceived class interests are legion, but perhaps the most important derive from the extreme occupational heterogeneity of the migrant population and their concentration within the tertiary sector of the urban economy. For discussions of these and other factors inhibiting class-based demand making by the poor in contemporary Latin American cities, see Goldrich, Daniel, “Toward the Comparative Study of Politicization in Latin America,” in Contemporary Cultures and Societies of Latin America, ed. Heath, Dwight B. and Adams, Richard N. (New York: Random House, 1965), pp. 368–371Google Scholar; Touraine, Alaine and Pécaut, Daniel, “Working-Class Consciousness and Economic Development in Latin America,” Studies in Comparative International Development, 3, No. 4 (1967–1968), 71–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Casanova, Pablo González, “Dynamics of the Class Structure,” in Comparative Perspectives on Stratification, ed. Kahl, Joseph A. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), pp. 76–80Google Scholar; Petras, James F., Politics and Social Structure in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), pp. 13–23Google Scholar; Hamburg, Roger, “Urbanization, Industrialization, and Modernization in Latin America: Soviet Views,” Studies in Comparative Communism, 5 (Spring, 1972), 18–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Huntington, and Nelson, , “Socio-Economic Change and Political Participation,” pp. 5–21—5–29Google Scholar; and Sandbrook, Richard, “The Working Class in the Future of the Third World,” World Politics, 25 (July, 1973), pp. 469–478CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Huntington, and Nelson, , “Socio-Economic Change and Political Participation,” p. 5–51Google Scholar. Bryan Roberts, on the basis of field work in Guatemala City and Lima, Peru, concludes that even though residents of low-income neighborhoods in these cities are often able to take advantage of ambiguities in the urban power structure to obtain needed services, these manipulative strategies “have little lasting impact on the existing structure of power or on the distribution of resources. … The major impact of these local-level political activities … is that of creating a state of political uncertainty for those who control political and economic resources.” See Roberts, “The Interrelationships of City and Provinces in Peru and Guatemala,” and idem, Organizing Strangers: Poor Families in Guatemala City (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973), pp. 307–337.

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