Editing Yashar 1998 (section)

===Prevailing Explanations of Indigenous Protest and Organizing===

'''Primordialism'''
*Primordialists argue that ethnic identities are deeply ingrained and shape individuals' primary loyalties and affinities. They view indigenous organizations and protests as natural expressions of these integral ethnic identities, particularly when communities perceive a disadvantage. However, primordial arguments often fail to explain why ethnic identities become central to political action in some cases but not in others. Moreover, they overlook the conditions under which ethnic loyalties translate into political organizing and action.

'''Instrumentalism'''
*Instrumentalist or rational choice analyses assume that individuals act rationally to maximize their political and material preferences. They question why individuals choose to act collectively when they can still benefit individually. Instrumentalists focus on the costs, benefits, and incentives associated with collective action, suggesting that the politicization of ethnicity is often instrumental in achieving other goals. However, this approach often neglects the historical and contextual factors influencing the emergence of ethnic identity as a basis for political action.
*Instrumentalism does not answer the question of why ethnic loyalties create political action during different periods of history but instead explain how organizations come about and are maintained.

'''Poststructuralism'''
*Poststructuralism assumes that identities are not inherently given but instead are actually constructed and can change by the subject reconstructing their identity as a worker, Indigenous person, woman, etc, in different social settings. 
*Poststructuralism allows ethnic identity to be seen not as primordial but instead as purposive and allows us to think about the context in which people go about reconstructing their identities. This then tells us Indigenous identity is constituted by social conditions and renegotiated by individuals.
*While the article draws on the idea that individuals have multiple socially constructed identities, poststructuralism cannot explain why ethnicity is an assumed salient political identity or describe the conditions that create ethnic organization.  
*Further, while all three approaches cannot individually explain political mobilization of indigenous identity, together they can help explain it.
'''The Argument'''
*Argue for a comparative historical approach, that is sensitive to the politics of identity, organizational capacity, and comparative politics of opportunities. This approach will link the politicization of indigenous identity and movements to state formation. 
*Formal institutional political power created through defining citizenship, delimiting civil society, and delivering political resources by political elites allows other social actors to challenge these institutions through contesting the terms of citizenship. 
*Political liberalization of the 1980s provided macro political opportunity for Indigenous groups to organize, as incentives to organize were created through state reforms that politically marginalized, disempowered, and challenged the material autonomy of Indigenous peoples. 
'''Changing Macropolitical Opportunities: Political Liberalization'''
*Political liberalization enabled the development of civil society and politics of identity as there were increasingly few constraints on expressing opinions, distributing information, community organization, and holding public protests. 
*Indigenous movements followed this era of political liberalization but it in itself cannot fully explain why specific social movements organized and why indigenous identity was not politicized in some cases. To explain this, we must distinguish recent rounds of political liberalization from others and figure out what motivated and allowed Indigenous people to organize in certain contexts. 
'''Incentives to Organize: State Reforms, National Access, and Local Autonomy'''
*Current political liberalization has disadvantaged indigenous communities as state reforms have unincorporated rural areas and in turn challenged access to political institutions and local indigenous autonomy, leading to an increase in Indigenous mobilization.
*State reforms in prior regimes created allegiance among rural communities that hoped to gain access to land and the state and encouraged indigenous peoples to define themselves as peasants to gain access to state resources
*State reforms unintentionally created greater local political and economic autonomy - greater state penetration into rural areas meant more protection from local landlords
*As a result of state reforms that nominally protected rural property rights, rural men and women assumed a peasant status in the eyes of the state and practiced an indigenous identity shaped by local practices
*Recent dismantling of rural programs have elicited uncertainty about property rights and indigenous peoples’ access to the state, prompting rural organizing and protest to (re)gain access to the state and to secure local autonomy
*Rural and demands are the symbolic glue that holds diverse indigenous communities together and neoliberal state reforms are their symbolic target
'''Capacity: Organizational Networks'''
*Indigenous communities have formed trans-community networks facilitated by states, churches, unions, nongovernmental organizations
*The state tried to garner support and suppress rebellion via land reforms, which led to rural organizing and cross community networks and centered the state as the target of organizing
*Churches provided means of communication/interaction and literacy skills
*Christian ideology encouraged activism and the emergence of lay leaders
'''Concluding with Democracy'''
*Latin America’s indigenous movements have emerged in response to state reforms that dismantle class rights and community autonomy, as well as incomplete political liberalization which has neglected to support indigenous rights
*Indigenous groups have mobilized around land rights to achieve survival and autonomy