Ajuste estructural y política en la Provincia de San Juan. El primer sanjuanazo

Abstract

We analyze in this piece the tensions and conflicts that took place in the mid-1990s in the province of San Juan, which culminated in the massive social mobilizations later on known as the first sanjuanazo. Focusing on the way the transformations in the province’s socioeconomic structure, added to the emergence of new political actors -including military interventions and delegates as well structural adjustment technicians both coming from the central government- building for the conditions for increasing social protests together with deepening political instability thus leading to the sanjuanazo, in a way which in more than one point resemble social upheavals experienced in other Argentine provinces by the same time. While an effect and a reaction to Neoliberal structural adjustment policies, the specific traits differentiating it from the latter are interpreted as the effect of the particular structural, social, political and institutional conditions which evolved in San Juan over the previous decades. Relying on indepth interviews to many of the actors directly involved in both sanjuanazo and its aftermath, as well on regional newspapers archives, the article provides, in addition to an interpretation of the events under scrutiny, a close approach to the unfolding of a regional society.