Peasant organizations in Paraguay: The forgotten actors of the democratic transition (1989-2019)

In February 2019, Paraguay celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the coup that ended the Stroessner dictatorship and inaugurated a chaotic yet effective process of democratic transition. This article focuses on a forgotten actor of Paraguay's institutional and political renewal: the peasant movement. In fact, in a country considered as one of the most unequal in the world in terms of land distribution, the political imprint of the peasant movement actually seems negligible, despite its numerical importance and its great mobilizing capacity. Based on a thorough reading of the academic literature on the subject, we try to understand the reasons behind the impotence of the peasant movement when it comes to influencing the political agenda.