Abstract

LEYVA, Santiago. Crisis or Continuity? A Discussion About Power in Medellin Since the 1970's. Estud. Polit. [online]. 2014, n.44, pp.115-138. ISSN 0121-5167.

This article reviews the academic literature on urban elites in Medellin in the last decades of the twentieth century in order to offer new interpretations from a Cultural Political Economy perspective. The article suggests a transition from an organic elite to a fragmented and more competitive order, characterized by the emergence of different powerful groups. In this sense, it illustrates that changes in the mode of accumulation favored new sectors -different from industry- due to rapid formal and informal urbanization, the increase in state financing, the emergence of drug trafficking and the diversification of urban society. Finally, it suggests the need for new forms of political analyses that help understand the fragmentation of urban political and economic power, without falling into a pluralistic approach that assumes an ongoing open competition and does not acknowledge that resources are asymmetrically distributed. It is suggested that a new approach should help to understand the structuring capacities of the state in power relations.

Keywords : Cultural Political Economy; Urban Power; Urban Politics; Elite; Hegemony; Crisis; Medellín.

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