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In order to explore the relationship between political violence and social protest, this paper deals with the subject matter from the theoretical perspective of the political process and the mobilization of resources in a case study: the alterglobalist mobilizations in the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco in the context of the III Summit of the Heads of State and Government of Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean (alcuE) in May of 2004. Through a qualitative research design, it analyzes the complex interrelationship between the organizations and globalist collectives, their cultural frames and history of contention, and the dynamics of the local political process, in order to understand how these factors influenced the dynamics of the protest events and conditioned the episodes of political violence in its two main forms: physical and symbolic.

The Brazilian electrical sector, with a predominant hydric matrix, generates social and environmental impacts, among which stands out the compulsory displacement of local populations. The de-territorialization and re-territorialization caused by hydroelectric plants produce a process characterized by “multiterritorialization” of conflict. This paper discusses this conflict, which involves consortiums of construction companies and the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), as a contesting movement. The objective is to analyze to what extent resettlements produced by the construction of hydroelectric dams and organized by MAB potentiate actions against future constructions. Combining qualitative research with quantitative data, we present the case of the Uruguay basin, in order to demonstrate that, although they represent empowerment points, the potential of resettlements must be relativized from the standpoint of a broader social process.

This paper addresses the problem of re-signification comprehended as a societal category according to the theoretical frame of Niklas Luhmanns systems theory, adopting as background the political dynamics between the new social movements (designated protest movements) and the official mechanisms for the making of collective binding decisions (procedures). Taken together, protest movements and procedures shape a paradoxical logic which puts in check the prospective of social change. A second order observation capable of apprehending the joint development of these phenomena in their reciprocal determinations allows a description of the ways in which social conflicts are re-signified in favor of the functionally differentiated society.