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Toward a Discourse of Consent Mass Mobilization and Colonial Politics in Puerto Rico, 1932-1948

Gabriel Villaronga

Book Code: GM2423

ISBN: 0-313-32423-9

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-32423-9

DOI:

296 pages, n/a

Praeger Publishers

Publication: 8/30/2004

List Price: $71.95 (UK Sterling Price: £41.95)

Availability: In Stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: Contributions in Latin American Studies

Series Number: 23

Reviews:

[I]nstructive for students of Puerto Rican politics and the history of populism. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
—Choice April 2005
Villaronga's book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of twentieth-century Puerto Rican political history. Students of contemporary island party politics and political socialization will also find this work quite enlightening.
—American Historical Review June 2005

Description: A familiar feature of analyses about mass mobilization in Latin America between the 1930s and 1950s is an emphasis on manipulation and social control of leaders over their constituencies. This book addresses mass mobilization from a different angle by focusing less on the unidirectional action of leaders and the passivity of their followers and more on the interactive process between agents that informed their support for reform and the articulation of a political discourse based on notions of consent. Villaronga understands the consent of people and their discourse as both open support for socioeconomic improvement and as an agreement between multiple social and political groups about the need for change. To understand how consent produced a situation most beneficial for political leaders but effectively shaped by followers, this book focuses on the interaction between American authorities, the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), and its multiple supporters that informed colonial politics in Puerto Rico between 1932 and 1948. Villaronga examines how the PPD in conjunction with U.S. officials created a coalition of disparate sectors such as urban workers, rural laborers, the unemployed, religious groups, women, Communists, independentists, technocrats, and dissidents from other political parties. The emergence of consent entailed a process through which many sectors of Puerto Rican society overcame their exclusion from political debate and constituted themselves as a viable political force. Moreover, consent not only informed a broad coalition of interests in favor of U.S. policies of reform, but also enabled PPD leaders to become the main representatives of the island's mass movement.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Abbreviations
A Stage for Imagining Consent: Colonial Politics and U.S. Policies of Reform
Demands for Reform and the Rise of Political Leadership
From Turmoil to Turning Point: Political Change and the Sugar Strike of 1942
Visions of Consent and the Tactics of Political Displacement
Confronting Victory: Electoral Aftermath and the Ascendant Discourse of Consent
The Challenge of a New Political Logic
Selected Bibliography
Index

LC Card Number: 2003070685

LCC Class: JL1056

Dewey Class: 324


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