Populism in Action: Laws that Respond to Social Demands in Kirchner Governments (2003- 2015)

Abstract

In this paper we propose an analysis of the national legislation enacted during the presidential periods of the governments led by Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina Fernández (2007-2011/ 2011-2015), to problematize the role of civil society society in them, and mainly the response of the Argentine political system to these demands emanated from different mobilized groups of society. For this we performed a survey of laws that responded to social demands present in the public debate. In a first inquiry we selected 53 cases of national laws out of a total of 1506 sanctioned during the period. From the empirical evidence, we constructed three indicators: type of law, area of coverage and type of SCOs and collective action. From the combination of these indicators with a fundamental one, we constructed a first general characterization of the place occupied by the demands of SCO in legislation during Kirchnerism, and in each particular government. In light of the cases analyzed in this paper, we can conclude that the place occupied by civil society in the legislative policy is a process of incipient development, but with a gradual growth, and that can play an important role in the processes of expansion of rights and creation of new institutions.