Collective Action and Radicalism in Brazil: Women, Urban Housing and Rural Movements 9781442673090

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COLLECTIVE ACTION AND RADICALISM IN BRAZIL

Studies in Comparative Political Economy and Public Policy Editors: michael howlett, david laycock, stephen mcbride, Simon Fraser University Studies in Comparative Political Economy and Public Policy is designed to showcase innovative approaches to political economy and public policy from a comparative perspective. While originating in Canada, the series will provide attractive offerings to a wide international audience, featuring studies with local, subnational, cross-national, and international empirical bases and theoretical frameworks. Editorial Advisory Board colin bennett, University of Victoria william carroll, University of Victoria william coleman, McMaster University barry eichengreen, University of California (Berkeley) jane jenson, Université de Montréal rianne mahon, Carleton University lars osberg, Dalhousie University jamie peck, Manchester University john ravenhill, University of Edinburgh robert russell, University of Saskatchewan grace skogstad, University of Toronto rand smith, Lake Forest College kent weaver, Brookings Institution For a list of books published in the series, see p. 219.

MICHEL DUQUETTE, MAURILIO GALDINO, CHARMAIN LEVY, BÉRENGÈRE MARQUESPEREIRA, and FLORENCE RAES

Collective Action and Radicalism in Brazil Women, Urban Housing, and Rural Movements

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2005 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBM 0-8020-3907-3

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Collective action and radicalism in Brazil : women, urban housing and rural movements / Michel Duquette ... [et al.]. (Studies in comparative political economy and public policy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3907-3 1. Social movements – Brazil – History – 20th century. 2. Brazil – Social conditions – 1985– 3. Women in politics – Brazil. 4. Radicalism – Brazil. 5. Housing – Brazil. 6. Brazil – Politics and government – 1985– I. Duquette, Michel, 1947– II. Series. HN290.Z9R3 2005

981.06

C2005-900343-X

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Department Program (BPIDP). University of Toronto Press and the authors appreciate the financial contribution of the Faculté des Arts et des Sciences (FAS) of l’Université de Montréal.

To our students, who deserve the best of what we can do in the field of research, if only to feed their hopes

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Contents

acknowledgments ix abbreviations xiii

Introduction: The Rise of Public Protest

michel duquette 3

1 Social Movements and Radicalism: The Brazilian Context michel duquette 25 2 Women’s Movements: From Local Action to Internationalization of the Repertoire bérengère marques-pereira and florence raes 66 3 The Housing Movement in the City of São Paulo: Crisis and Revival charmain levy 97 4 The Return of Radicalism to the Countryside: The Landless Movement maurilio galdino 130 5 Collective Action at the Crossroads: The Empowerment of the Left michel duquette, maurilio galdino, charmain levy, bérengère marques-pereira, and florence raes 156

contributors index 208

207

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Acknowledgments

The project leading to this publication, hatched as a personal action and carried out collectively, had as its aim to disclose the results of ten years of research on the effects of structural adjustment reforms on democratic practice in Latin America. In 1999, thanks to support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and to the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme of the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, Building New Democracies: Economic and Social Reform in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico was published by the University of Toronto Press. That volume dealt with the current dynamics of market reforms in three countries where I had carried out extensive fieldwork. The book having met with a most gratifying response, I was encouraged to extend my research to encompass questions of a more ethical nature which were raised by the political context of market reforms. The next step was to assemble a small team of colleagues willing to bring to bear their academic knowledge, their experience as educators and activists, and their intimate acquaintance with this area of research, on a collective project which was based on a shared intuition. A further triennial subsidy from the SSHRC, granted in 1998 for the purpose of exploring the impact of these reforms on civil society, allowed me to undertake a program of enquiry entitled Social Transitions beyond Neoliberalism: The Case of Social Movements in Brazil. Its aim was to demonstrate how, in a democratic context with an unstable economy, Brazilian civil society was reorganizing. I wished to examine its organizational methods, the nature of the discourse whereby its complaints were expressed, and its strategies for visibility and public intervention. Given civil society’s apparent release from persecution

x Acknowledgments

and from authoritarian rule, I wanted to assess its influence on decision-making, specifically in the area of social policy. What was the status of popular associations today? What was the nature of their intervention, what was their impact on the democratic life of the country? And how directly did leaders of these movements share in policy-making? The number of pressure groups in place made a selection among them imperative, and the following criteria were applied: the quality and insight of the researchers’ analyses must be high; the findings of the specific case studies should be able to serve as a basis for generalizations applicable to the understanding of how the political system of Brazilian democracy functions as a whole; and finally trustworthy data must be available. The paucity of such data, because of a lack of financial resources for its collection over time, is a well-known impediment in such research, as are the difficulties of fieldwork in an environment marked by violence and human rights abuses. The research agenda of Bérengère Marques-Pereira, professor at l’Université Libre de Bruxelles, then president of the Association belge de science politique, met these criteria admirably, and I had a strong desire to enlist her collaboration, although we were at the time imperfectly acquainted. In spite of a very heavy schedule, Professor Marques-Pereira agreed to the collaboration and produced, with assistance from her doctoral student Florence Raes, the extensive chapter on women’s movements in Brazil, as well as contributing to the concluding chapter of this book. I wish to express here the great pleasure afforded me by our discussions over the work in progress, and my appreciation of the unflagging good will with which she responded to the particular constraints arising from the production of this work. My gratitude and admiration must be expressed here to Charmain Levy who, burdened with a demanding schedule of her own, penned a detailed and many-faceted portrait of the dynamics of the urban housing movement, first explored in the course of her doctoral studies, which she agreed to bring up to date in the framework of our collaborative effort. Both of us were well aware that this area of study had been overlooked and presented considerable difficulties. Its contours are hazy, the situation is ever-changing and difficult to encompass, and its history has been subjected to apparently inexplicable reversals. Levy’s intimate knowledge of the field was invaluable in bringing light to this complex area, and I am infinitely beholden to her for the accuracy of her research and the quality of her overall contribution.

Acknowledgments xi

Maurilio Galdino, now settled in Montreal after a course of studies at Toronto’s York University, hardly needs introduction to a Canadian public which has had many opportunities to appreciate this speaker’s fervent and lucid enthusiasm in a variety of academic and social forums. His knowledge of the grassroots and political structures of Brazilian agrarian movements stems from intimate participation, both as a courageous activist and an attentive intellectual observer, over the course of more than a dozen years. It is my honour to have him under my supervision as a doctoral candidate at the Université de Montréal. I am deeply in his debt for his close collaboration to the design and organization of the collective project which led to this book. He presented pellucid and convincing arguments as to the crucial importance of the Landless Peasant Movement, which I had theretofore underestimated; this movement played a pivotal role in the organizing and in giving a political voice to a marginalized population which had been sorely neglected by the government initiatives on the reformist agenda of the ‘New Republic’ of Brazil. Galdino’s articulate theories concerning, among other things, the nature of militant radicalism in Brazil stimulated extensive thought and debate, and indeed became the guiding focus of our collective project. A loyal and inspiring collaborator, he has been the best of interlocutors in sometimes difficult circumstances, and has left a strong imprint on the overall work. I finally wish to express my humble gratitude to professor Michael Löwy of Université de Paris VIII Saint-Denis for his notable contribution in Chapter 5 to the understanding of the Workers Party leadership, organization, and dynamics in the framework of contemporary Brazilian politics. To our faithful translator and revisor Yannick deLancey Morin, I wish to extend heartfelt thanks for her steadfast and painstaking care, her sound grasp of the subject at hand, and her persistent, probing, and always relevant questions and comments. Last but not least, I owe a debt of gratitude to my colleague Professor Daniel Van Euwen, director of the Centre de Recherches sur l’Amérique Latine et la Caraïbe of the Institut d’Études Politiques (IEP) of Aix-en-Provence, who so generously welcomed me as guest professor, from 2000 to 2002, and later as intramural researcher in the centre he runs with such passion and intelligence. I extend my thanks as well to his wife Yolande who, like Daniel himself, shared with me numerous challenging ideas concerning this writing project. I am grateful as well that the seminars conducted for the students of the IEP’s Latin America option, where the indefatigable Bérengère Marques-Pereira

xii

Acknowledgments

came often to share her intelligence with us, proved to be such fertile ground for the theoretical approaches first broached there among colleagues and students, and now explored here in more elaborate form. Michel Duquette La Naubine, Laurens, France March 2005

Abbreviations

ABRA AMB ANAMPOS

ANPRU ANSUR AP APOIO

CAMDE CCA

CDHU

CDRU

Associação Brasileira de Reforma Agrária (Brazilian Association of Agrarian Reform) Articulação de Mulheres Brasileiras (Federation of Brazilian Women) Associação Nacional de Movimentos Populares (National Federation of Popular Movements, activists were affiliated with CUT and PT) Associação Nacional dos Produtores Rurais (National Association of Agrarian Producers) Associação Nacional do Solo Urbano (National Association of Urban Landowners) Ação Popular (Popular Action; peasant movement founded in the 1950s) Associação de Auxílio Mútuo da Região Leste (Mutual Aid Association in the Eastern Region of São Paulo; founded in 1992, financially supported by international Catholic development agencies; apoio, Portuguese for ‘help’ or ‘support’) Campanha da Mulher pela Democrácia (Women’s Campaign for Democracy) Cooperativas de Crédito dos Assentados (Settlers Credit Co-operatives; MST’s eight credit co-operatives) Companhia de Desenvolvimento Habitacional e Urbano do Estado de São Paulo (Urban and Housing Development Corporation of São Paulo) Concessão de Direito Real de Uso (bill concerning the concession of full rights to the use of land)

xiv Abbreviations

CEB CEDAW CEPAL

CEPIS

CERIS CIDSE

CMD CMP

CNA CNBB CNDM CNQMTR

CNST CONAM

CONAMU CONCRAB

Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (Christian Base communities) Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (U.N., 1979) Comissão Econômica para a América Latina e o Caribe (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) Centro de Estudios e Processamento de Informação de Saude (Centre for the Study and Processing of Health Information) Centro de Estadística Religiosa e Investigações Sociais (Centre for Religious Statistics and Social Research) Cooperação Internacional para Desenvolvimento e Solidariedade (International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity) Cidadanas en Movimento pela Democrácia (Female Citizens for Democracy) Central dos Movimentos Populares (Popular Movements Central, an outgrowth of Pro-Central, founded in 1993 and structured like a trade union central) Confederação Nacional da Agricultura (National Agrarian Federation) Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil (National Conference of Brazilian Bishops) Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Mulher (National Council on Women’s Rights, established in 1985) Comissão Nacional da Questão da Mulher Trabalhadora Rural (National Commission on the Status of Female Rural Workers, attached to DNTR) Confederação Nacional dos Sindicatos Brasileiros (National Confederation of Brazilian Labour Unions) Confederação Nacional de Associações de Moradores (National Confederation of Housing Associations, affiliated with Pro-Central) Consejo Nacional de la Mujer (National Council of Women, Argentina, created in 1992) Confederação Nacional das Cooperativas de Reforma Agrária do Brasil (National Confederation of Agrarian Reform Co-operatives; MST’s National Co-operative Federation)

Abbreviations

CONTAG

CPA CPT CRC

CUT DNTR-CUT

ECLAC EMBRAER EU FAO FASE

FAT

FDC FIPE FMF FNRU FTAA IACHR IACW IBAMA

xv

Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura (National Federation of Agrarian Workers, composed of PCdoB and ex-AP rural leaders) Cooperativas de Produção Agropecuária (MST’s 100 regional production co-operatives) Comissão Pastoral da Terra (Land Pastoral Commission of the Catholic Church) Cooperativas Regionais de Comercialização e Prestação de Servicios (MST’s regional service cooperatives) Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (United Labour Federation) Departamento Nacional dos Trabalhadores Rurais (National Department of Rural Workers, within CUT) Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (U.N. body) Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (Brazilian Aeronautic Corporation) European Union Food and Agriculture Organization (U.N. body) Federação de Orgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional (Federation of Organizations for Social and Educational Assistance) Fundo de Amparo ao Trabalhador (Workers Relief Fund, created in 1990 to support policies such as unemployment insurance, pensions, training) Forum dos Cortiços (Slumdwellers Forum) Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Econômicas (Economic Research Institute Foundation) Frente das Mulheres Feministas (Feminist Women’s Front) Forum Nacional de Reforma Urbana (National Forum for Urban Reform) Free Trade Area of the Americas Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Inter-American Commission of Women (created 1928, since 1948 within OAS) Instituto Brasileiro do Meio-Ambiente (Brazilian Institute for the Environment)

xvi Abbreviations

IBGE IBOPE IBRD IDB IMF INCRA

INESC INSS ISI

ITR IURD LIMDE MAF MASTER

MDB MDF

MERCOSUR MLD

MMC

Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estadística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) Instituto Brasileiro de Opinião Pública e Estadística (Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics) International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (part of the World Bank) Inter-American Development Bank International Monetary Fund Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária (National Agrarian Reform and Colonization Institute) Instituto Nacional de Estudos Socioeconómicos (National Institute of Social and Economic Studies) Instituto Nacional de Seguro Social (National Institute of Social Security) Import-substituting industrialization (a nationalist development model involving the replacement of imports by goods produced domestically) Instituto da Taxação Rural (Land Taxation Institute) Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (evangelical church founded in Brazil in 1977) Liga das Mulheres Democráticas (League of Democratic Women, rightist) Movimento de Arregimentação Feminina (Feminine Mobilization Organization, rightist) Movimento dos Agricultores Sem Terra do Rio Grande do Sul (Landless Peasant Movement of Rio Grande do Sul) Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (Brazilian Democratic Movement) Movimento de Defesa dos Favelados (Shantytown Dwellers Defence Movement, in the eastern zone of the city of São Paulo) Mercado Común del Sur (Common Market of the Southern Cone countries, established 1991) Movimento das Mulheres en Luta pela Democrácia (Women’s Struggle for Democracy, created in 1988 to protest against electoral fraud) Movimento dos Moradores do Centro (Movement of Downtown Inhabitants)

Abbreviations xvii

MNLM MOMUPO MR-8 MST MSTC MUF

NAFTA NGO OAB OAS PAC PAN PCB PCdoB PDS PDT

PETROBAS PFL PL PMDB PNRA PP PPB

Movimento Nacional de Luta pela Moradia (National Housing Movement, affiliated with Pro-Central) Movimiento de Mujeres Pobladores (Women Shantytown Dwellers Movement, Chile) Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro (Movement of the Revolution of 8 October) Movimento dos Sem Terra (Landless Peasant Movement) Movimento dos Sem Teto do Centro (Downtown Homeless Movement) Movimento Unificado dos Favelados (Unified Shantytown Dwellers Movement, in the south and southeast zones of the city of São Paulo) North American Free Trade Agreement Non-governmental organization Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil (Brazilian Lawyers Organization) Organization of American States Plano de Atuação em Cortiços (Plan for Upgrading Cortiços) Partido de Acción Nacional (National Action Party, Mexico, led by Vicente Fox) Partido Comunista Brasileiro (Brazilian Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist) Partido Comunista do Brasil (Communist Party of Brazil, Maoist) Partido Democrático Social (Party for Social Democracy, conservative) Partido Democrático Trabalhista (Workers Democratic Party, led by Leonel Brizola; successor to PTB) Petrôleos Brasilieros (Brazilian Petroleum) Partido da Frente Liberal (Party of the Liberal Front, comprised of elites of the rural northeast) Partido Liberal (Liberal Party) Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (MDB Party) Plano Nacional de Reforma Agrária (National Agrarian Reform Plan) Partido Progressista (Progressive Party) Partido Progressista Brasileiro (Progressive Party of

xviii

Abbreviations

Brazil, founded 1995; inheritors of the military dictatorship, born of the fusion of PPR and PP) PPR Partido Progressista Reformador (Progress Reform Party) PPS Partido Popular Socialista (Popular Socialist Party, founded in 1992 at 10th PCB Congress) PRD Partido de la Revolución Democrática (Democratic Revolution Party, Mexico, led by Cuauthemoc Cárdenas) PRI Partido Revolutionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, Mexico, held power uninterruptedly from 1929 to 2000) PROALCOOL Programa Nacional do Álcool (program aimed at creating a gasoline alternative) Pro-Central Pro-Central de Movimentos Populares (Pro-Central of Popular Movements; later became CMP) PROCERA Programa de Crédito Especial para Reforma Agrária (Special Credit for Agrarian Reform Program) PRONAF Programa Nacional de Apoio à Agricultura Familiar (National Program of Family Support for Agriculture) PSD Partido Social Democrático (Social Democratic Party; centre-left, led first by Gutilio Vargas, later by Juscelino Kubitschek) PSDB Partido da Social-Democrácia Brasileira (Social Democractic Party of Brazil, led by Fernando Henrique Cardoso) PT Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party) PTB Partido Trabalhista do Brasil (Labour Party of Brazil, led by João Goulart) REDEH Rede de Desenvolvimento Humano (Human Development Network) REPEM Rede de Educação Popular entre Mulheres (Women’s Popular Education Network) SAB Sociedades Amigos de Bairro (Friends of the Neighbourhood Society) SERNAM Servicio Nacional de la Mujer (National Service for Women, Chile, created in 1991) UCF União Cívica Feminina (Women’s Civic Union, rightist) UDR União Democrática Ruralista (Democratic Rural Union)

Abbreviations

ULC UMM UNDP UNIFEM UPM WTO

xix

Unificação das Lutas de Cortiços (United Slumdwellers Union) União dos Movimentos de Moradia (Union of Housing Movements) United Nations Development Program United Nations Development Fund for Women Urban popular movement World Trade Organization

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COLLECTIVE ACTION AND RADICALISM IN BRAZIL

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Introduction: The Rise of Public Protest MICHEL DUQUETTE

The military dictatorships of Latin America, floundering in the exercise of the power which – most notably in Argentina – they had abused so egregiously and without meeting the minimal requirements of durable growth, gave way in fairly rapid succession to democratic experiments. Although not reaching the levels of success wished for by developed nations, these experiments nevertheless made marked progress. A new generation of intellectuals, politicians, and activists, receptive to the calls for an opening up to the outside world and determined to lay the foundations of a long-awaited economic and social catch-up, played a crucial role in this difficult transition (Duquette, 1999). The challenge was made all the greater by the simultaneous presence on the new democracies’ heavily laden agenda of two distinct items. First was the task of setting up new representational institutions – an elected presidency, open political parties, an independent judiciary, and outspoken parliamentary assemblies – in order to establish a newfound credibility in the eyes of international partners who wished to see an opening of channels among the bureaucracy, the new entrepreneurs, and a heterogeneous civil society long relegated to the margins of power. Second was the task of laying sound foundations for a more open, functional, and competitive economy in a rapidly expanding global market. To complicate matters further, it was also imperative that these nations free themselves from their crushing burden of debt – amounting to more than U.S.$250 billion, in the case of Brazil – as well as find the means to check relentless inflation. As Lawrence Whitehead (1996) has so succinctly put it, the hopes of democracy were tempered by a particularly unfavourable set of circumstances.

4 Michel Duquette

This is not the place for an audit of the first two decades of democratic transition. We refer the reader to studies (Couffignal, 1997; Chalmers et al., 1996; Whitehead, 1996) that shed light on what Dabène (1997) calls the incompleteness of national reconciliation and the aggravation of inequalities characteristic of this model. Rather, the present volume aims to provide, through case studies and the authors’ conclusions, a sound understanding of the dynamics at work within civil society during the transition process. Although the period was marked by redeployment of the elites who were committed to the ideas of democracy, it also gave rise to a strong wave of popular mobilization, which took some unexpected forms. The familiar cycle of inter-elite dealings that started once again in the 1990s, with the aim of pursuing traditional Latin American corporatism, has been fully documented. The locus of debate here is therefore transferred towards collective action and contemporary grassroots movements so richly deserving of the focused attention of researchers. There are authors who, although progressive, consider the rise of public protest to be the greatest menace confronting the new democracies today, and they go so far as to counsel severely distancing any and all ‘radicals’ from the political process. They reason that if civil society wishes to participate in high-level decisions, it must divest itself of confrontational attitudes, select accommodating leaders willing to participate in a top-down decision-making pyramid, and, in this fashion, join the ever-growing ranks of moderate elites who fall into step with what they call a ‘realistic program’ of reforms, with a view to ensuring the success of democratic transition in the long term. This vision of an institutional democratic framework can be described as purely instrumental. It is meant to yield quick decisions made by a narrow circle of policymakers, regarding goals already set by the blueprint of market adjustment programs. Radicals do not satisfy such expectations. Others recognize this upsurge of protest, which Petras (1997) and others refer to as the ‘third wave’ of the Latin American left, as a direct consequence of the economic policies implemented in the 1990s by the then elites, the so-called reformers. They go further and point to the undeniably authoritarian practices adopted by new democracies when faced with a civil society mobilizing on multiple fronts and defying the forces of order though the occupation of workplaces, idle lands, or government buildings. Petras suggests that a climate of incipient

Introduction 5

revolt, which heretofore had been confined to countries in more precarious situations, such as Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, is becoming increasingly palpable in the peripheral regions of Latin America. Analysts may argue the greater or lesser levels of authoritarianism and openness of the new democratic regimes. Nevertheless, the fact remains that, insofar as they resort to strong-arm tactics, authorities cannot but rouse the bitter memory of recent persecutions – most notably those carried out in the Brazilian Araguaia region – that remain very much alive in those areas left behind in the rush towards economic growth. Need it be recalled that in Brazil the great majority of civil society is made up of the dispossessed and the disempowered? Naturally enough they will lean towards the autonomous forms of organization in which these social categories are traditionally rooted. This tradition is made up of practices and models of communication which will necessarily inform their repertoire of actions. The more autonomous and marginalized the organizations are, the less room there will be in their repertoire of institutional transactions. The distance separating certain social categories from the state apparatus is in itself an impediment to their joining the chorus of actors in the democratic transition and to their participating in sectoral public policies. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, this line of reasoning would lead one to say that, insofar as civil society is unable to understand global politics which affect people’s daily lives and present hardship, this situation will persist and become entrenched, and policy decisions will be made without the collaboration of civil society and most probably against its better interest. A new democracy committed to market reform cannot accommodate bottom-to-top decision-making; it would upset the very nature of the economic model so painstakingly set up through the structural adjustment process, and which moves forward – sometimes fighting every inch of the way – one minuscule step at a time. Defining the Moderates What remains of the notion of ‘moderate democracy,’ the idea that garnered such support in this context of rapid change? O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead’s (1986) hypothesis goes some way towards explaining the erosion of legitimacy that has befallen the concept. These authors contend that it is up to democrats or ‘moderate’ reformers to carry out the delicate task of consolidating new democracies

6 Michel Duquette

while navigating between the twin dangers presented by rightist hardliners and leftist radicals. Does this hypothesis remain valid, in light of twenty years of democratic practice and attempts at economic liberalization where elites have had ample time to formulate their programs and establish policies reflecting their aspirations? How can one best understand the rise of radical movements in an environment apparently dominated by moderates involved in a patient quest for consensus and institutional consolidation? Petras and Harding (2000) assert that the generation of 1970s radicals had, by the 1990s, become an elite of moderate reformers. Castañeda (1993) shares this view. In Mexico, Cuauthemoc Cárdenas’s Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) made an uneasy peace with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) project and came to advocate a return to a system of inter-elite coalitions which typified the Partido Revoluciónaro Institucional (PRI) regime from the 1930s to the 1980s. In Brazil, architects of dependency theory such as Fernando Henrique Cardoso have been willing to plunge deeply into structural adjustment experiments under the aegis of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), or World Bank experts, thereby slowing down the social reform projects that had initially been the spearhead of their attacks upon the military regime. First, it is useful to recall that ‘moderates’ can only be described as such within an internal dynamic of political representation where diverse political visions are at work: the program advocated by moderate power elites distinguishes them from the polarized categories of the political arena, as Schmitter quite rightly has noted. It is therefore natural enough that the political mechanisms they set up in such a situation be temperate in comparison with those which would have been advocated by either hardliners or radicals, had these been in power. Only in a context such as this can their policy position be described as moderate, since it is a position born of a negotiated compromise arrived at in the national political arena, resulting in this alternative being chosen in preference to others. In other words, both hardliners and radicals were necessarily marginalized by the institutional framework as well as by the majority of public opinion. We are of the opinion that the power bases of extremist factions will weaken, and no longer appear to be such a destabilizing menace, once the emerging centrist power base gains its rightful place and is able to deploy its vision by launching public policies.

Introduction 7

Delineating Public Policies Undertaken by Moderates What makes for moderate policies or practices? The ‘social audit’ of the transition must take into account the visible consequences of the implementation of structural adjustment programs, whose objective, at the close of the period centred on import-substituting industrialization (ISI), had been to anchor Latin American economies more firmly to global markets, for example, by smoothing the path for capitalism to penetrate sectors seen as ‘backward’ and link them more tightly to the exigencies of the flow of capital.1 This is the phenomenon, still imperfectly clear, at work behind the ever-fuzzy term ‘globalization.’ As to the ‘political audit,’ it must take into account the warnings appearing in comparative studies (e.g., O’Donnell, 1994) about the dangers of a ‘delegative’ democracy. A presidentialist and restrictive form of power inherited from the authoritarian times effectively excludes the public from policy decisions that affect it, in the name of ‘necessary restructuring’ prescribed by international agencies. Can such reforms claim to strengthen the bases of democracy? Inspired by the Spanish precedent, Maravall and Santamaría (1986) propose a means of fostering democracy, as formulated in reports issuing from the task force of the Woodrow Wilson Center on democratization in Southern Europe and Latin America. The fundamental elements are the establishment and strengthening of a large middle class, through a process of including the marginal fringes by means of policies that ensure a top-down transfer of the bases of economic wealth. A war on poverty coupled with modernization of the marginalized enclaves is also fundamental to such structural reforms. Moderate policy lines require, then, a compromise between the extreme alternatives that would lead to consequences made more distinct by current socioeconomic conditions: either a return to oligarchic authoritarianism or an anticapitalist revolution. Such a compromise cannot operate in the absence of profound transformations. The new democracies have no choice but to adopt this agenda, as has been made clear by recent studies based on the experience of past attempts at reform. A single example will suffice to illustrate this point; it is the case of land reform, which remains topical in all developing countries: ‘Land reform is not necessarily radical. U.S. scholars such as Barrington Moore and Samuel Huntington have used the concept of land reform to measure vulnerability to social revolution in developing countries. In Brazil during João Goulart’s presidency (1962–64), popular mobili-

8 Michel Duquette

zation focused on land reform as the key to democratization and modification of the social structure’ (Martins, 2000). Kay (1998) willingly admits that considerable efforts have been deployed over the past thirty years in a fairly wide range of countries to address issues of inequalities in rural areas, access to employment, and urbanization. He also recognizes that such efforts have been hindered by a series of factors. First, the reformers’ lack of zeal for widereaching reforms has translated into technical, rather than visionary, approaches whose foremost concern was to circumvent fundamental questions and avoid exacerbating already rampant conflicts, which have taken on extreme forms in Brazil. Second, there is the unremitting need to court the electorate, in particular the networks around the regional caciques in the nordeste (northeastern Brazil). Last, in the area of implementation, a combination of administrative laxity, limited financial means, and insufficient technical support for beneficiaries of government programs has joined forces to lessen the impact of these programs. The results of all this were unsurprising: the only groups to profit from reform initiatives were the upper reaches of the urban middle classes, while the ranks of the dispossessed grew significantly. In rural areas, poverty rates rose from 46 per cent in 1980 to 50 per cent in 1995 (ECLAC, 1996). This egregious trend in itself justifies the publication of this book. Obviously any policies, moderate or otherwise, dealing with reform and the transfer of socioeconomic power will have some impact on the rich, the middle class, the poor, or the marginal, any of whom may then rebel against the government, either by exercising their right to vote or, in the worst case, by extra-parliamentary means such as a coup d’état provoked by hardliners and their allies or a popular revolt provoked by radical factions. To ward off these destabilizing consequences and ensure the survival of new democracies, provision must be made in the form of specific remedies (see Przeworski, 1991). Whatever shape the reform takes, some compensation for the losers will have to be extracted from the very advantages gained by the winners, if one is to avoid a situation where the losers, seeing themselves relegated to the margins, are left with no option but to question the legitimacy of the regime. Przeworski has ably demonstrated that within the framework of reform policies, the members of an oligarchy stand to lose the most and therefore must be richly compensated, whereas the excluded – the natural clientele of the radicals – having next to nothing, stand to lose

Introduction 9

nothing, and are therefore not in a position to demand anything in the way of compensation. This being the case, decision-makers will naturally prefer to protect the privileges of the rich in order to avoid the obligation of compensating them, while blithely reorganizing the living conditions of those whom they will not need to compensate in return. The temptation to mobilize and restructure the working capacity of the dispossessed is thus likely to win out over the will to deprive those who are endowed with everything, including the means of being represented in courts of law and of calling on powerful allies in the upper levels of the state apparatus and the military. As a result, unless they are endowed with sufficient financial means and political will, governments find it difficult if not impossible to attack the foundations of the accumulative wealth of the fortunate. If democratic consolidation is to be carried out successfully by moderate means, it must satisfy a primary condition: the new democracies must be endowed with enough political and financial elbow room, first, to undertake a reform of the socioeconomic balance between the haves and the have-nots and, second, to absorb the costs of compensating for the tangible impact of such policies. In the absence of such political and financial means, it is fairly certain that the only road open to them is a pursuit of the status quo. Ignorance of this fact leads to a confusion between a moderate reform program and the persistence of the status quo, a confusion that may blur our perception of the public policies in new democracies and our judgment over the performance of moderate reformers. Involving International Forces In this light, O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead’s contention – that moderates must distance themselves from both hardliners and radicals – refers to a theoretical model of equilibrium that focuses on domestic forces: social groups, political reformers, political parties. Moreover, this model must include the international actors and forces which, in such cases, alone possess the means to compensate for the costs related to the ‘fallout’ of reforms. These authors’ rationale, although valuable, is framed in an ideal-type situation wherein decision-makers are faced with several viable alternatives. In fact some alternatives may simply not be open. If one is to alter the ground rules and transform societal structures through the implementation of a moderate alternative, one will need a democracy increasingly based on continuous negotiation

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between the state and civil society, as is the custom in wealthy developed nations where the means of redistribution are already in place and in regular use, thanks to the stability of the state and the existence of elaborate and fairly efficacious systems of taxation and resource allocation. An interesting precedent is illustrated by the experiment carried out in southern European countries in the process of democratization. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Spain, Portugal, and Greece were successful in restructuring their economies and in incorporating into the political process those categories made up of the poor and the marginal, thanks to subsidies – structural and regional funds – provided by the European Community (now the European Union). They were thus spared an acute power struggle between the haves and the havenots which could have shaken their very foundations. The former retained their advantages, while the latter gained access to the consumer society through the injection of external resources. The subsequent accession of these countries to the EC confirmed the value of a strategy that created no losers, while at the same time profiting northern European enterprises in search of emergent markets. Invoking historical and institutional factors, Lawrence Whitehead (1992) usefully points out the relevant distinction to be made between the ‘classical’ democratization processes of Western Europe or North America and the democratic transitions now occurring in Latin America and Eastern Europe, which he calls ‘the third wave of democratization.’ We are of the opinion that these differences are mainly attributable to the general socioeconomic conditions prevailing in the latter societies, as well as to the support afforded them – or not – by the international financial community. The absence of outside financial support, in making it impossible to carry out a transition strategy without disrupting the ground rules, will harden the radical factions of the developing nations. It is the forceful, even violent reclamation of the right to participate in the political arena, voiced by those traditionally excluded from doing so, that we see as the will to ‘disrupt the ground rules.’ We are not alone in this contention. In his report for the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) evaluating thirty years of land reform in Latin America, Kay (1998) states the following: ‘While agrarian reforms marked a watershed in the history of rural society in many Latin American countries, the root causes of social and political instability will remain as long as relatively high levels of rural poverty and peasant marginalization persist.’

Introduction 11

Two additional issues have become central to global preoccupations. The status of women has deteriorated over the past decades for two reasons: first, a change in women’s identity going hand in hand with their rapid ascension in the marketplace, as well as a dislocation of family life accompanied by lowered standards of living. Single women, especially those with children, are generally the first victims of family dislocation. The second, additional issue is the condition of the environment, which has increasingly deteriorated as a result of the abusive exploitation of soils and forests and, in turn, has led to ever-increasing deforestation and to an uninterrupted flow of migration towards the sprawling urban centres. These major issues have cried out for attention, and justify our selection of two of the three case studies presented in this book: the women’s movement and the urban housing movement. Beyond the reach of this volume, but still calling for future research, is the paramount issue of attempted emigration towards developed countries – a problem reaching epidemic proportions in southern European countries and on the Mexican-U.S. border. These are but some of the better-documented consequences of attempts at reform carried out in the absence of adequate means and expertise. Accession to a more participatory form of democracy cannot occur without sustained dialogue with civil society and due attention to its demands. Such dialogue will have to be nourished by resources which are, for the moment at least, scarce and conditional. The United States of America is generous neither to its brothers in South America nor to international agencies. In the past, the U.S. policymakers have seldom made the distinction between the call for redistribution of wealth or land reform in Latin America and a socialist vision of society: ‘Substantial redistributive programs attack the fundamental interests of powerful groups, which will use their power to oppose major reforms. The result will be considerable political conflict. Because compensation in cash is not feasible for large widespread expropriations, such reforms will be portrayed as attacks on the principle of private property. Consequently, their opponents can find receptive audiences in the United States for claims that they are socialist in nature and harmful to economic development’ (Brockett, 1988: 200). International agencies such as the World Bank, however, can be remarkably generous towards governments undertaking economic or social reforms that do not threaten property values. This support can make a difference between successful or failed reforms and, consequently, the political survival of local reformers. But the burden of debt

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remains a paramount obstacle to a major and sustained effort in the social area. In these societies, if left on their own, the moderate alternative can only triumph to the detriment of the privileged classes, since a weakening of the basis of their economic power is inherent in the transfer of significant resources towards the have-nots. And so it is not against both the hardline and the radical alternatives that the moderates must simultaneously fight, but only, rather, against the economic bases of the hard alternative which perpetuates the situation ex ante. This fact was firmly grasped by the politicians of the new democracies, among them the neo-Marxist sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who was all the more conversant with its theory for having thought and written extensively on this topic,2 and it was Cardoso’s interest in farreaching economic and social reform that led him to later undertake a career in politics. Had it been pursued in favourable financial conditions, this objective would eventually have had the effect of undermining the bases of power of the oligarchy and of preventing a return to the hardline political alternative: an authoritarian regime. It appears that profound and necessary reforms simply cannot be expected from new regimes lacking adequate financial means for their implementation. When, in the absence of the means to do otherwise, as a compromise fostered by unfavourable economic conditions, public intervention of a ‘centrist’ nature is applied, it consists largely in maintaining a fair balance between hardliners and radicals while pursuing a ‘one step at a time’ policy. Moreover, under the influence of international agencies biased towards market-friendly policies that they are eager to finance, the ‘centrist’ standpoint in fact turns to a ‘conservative’ one, as happens when policymakers launch large-scale projects that involve considerable capital and focus on the export rather than the redistribution of goods. Such intervention can be equated with preserving or even adding to the advantages of the elites and perpetuating the economic submission and political impotence of the have-nots. While appearing to adopt a moderate stance, in its discourse and good intentions, such public intervention would be doing no more than preserving the status quo. We believe that this is precisely what has happened in Brazil. To demonstrate this, it is important to understand the policies that have been pursued over the past years, which both Kay (1998) and Martins (2000) label ‘neoliberal.’ These policies are not widely understood, and it seemed premature to submit them to an audit at so close a time-range. They do provide, however, the context of the case studies we present here. We see them as sectoral, hastily designed public policies under-

Introduction

13

taken in response to international pressures. These policies, we suggest, are being increasingly challenged by episodes of popular mobilization. Defining Contemporary Radicalism Because they come from an urban technocratic or business environment, moderate reformers are in the main ignorant of the conditions and traditions of people who live on the land, particularly when the latter are barely integrated into the urban cash economy. Their critique of urban migrant or agrarian advocacy is consequently superficial; they consider it marginal, even obsolescent. Their vision of a modernizing society privileges formal education, industrial training, the market economy, and the achievement of individual goals and values over community values, oral culture, religion, and the heritage of popular, non-European traditions. This is the ‘triumph of modernization over parochialism,’ found in the early literature on development. The phenomenon of radicalism has been dismissed by complacent commentators on democratic transition as essentially psychosocial and born of endogenous, traditional characteristics. This criticism bases its arguments on the very early and now discredited studies of the sociology of mobilization. Without establishing any kind of relationship with the context in which it seems to thrive, it questions the legitimacy of three organizational dimensions of the radicalism of social movements: its leaders, its discourse, and its strategy; in other words, the conduct, discourse, and mobilization practices of radical associations. This criticism then compares this unconventional repertoire to the accepted rules of democracy and, not surprisingly, dismisses it. Such critics speak of movement leaders either as ‘prophets’ or as would-be tyrants holding an uneducated and desperate constituency hostage. As to radical discourse, critics decree that its antagonistic and even revolutionary tone is a priori unacceptable. The Marxist-flavoured rhetoric is seen as a provocation causing offence to public opinion and a challenge to the institutions of liberal democracy, similar in quality to the radical Islamic discourse in the Near East. Yet a 1997 survey of Brazilian public opinion regarding the Landless Peasant Movement or Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) indicates that a majority of respondents, located in urban centres, understood the demands of rural squatters and wanted authorities to respond to them with adequate solutions. Such support was even stronger in intellectual and artistic circles, whose members participated actively in demonstrations or

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organized benefits in support of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and popular associations engaged in the process of mobilizing their forces. This begs the question of the tolerance level of moderate democrats in the context of their attempt at consolidating democratic institutions. By what right should the discourse specific to popular associations, which voice sensibilities no less legitimate for being those of a minority, and which enjoy wide currency among constitutional states in Western Europe and North America, be in other nations stigmatized and ostracized? Is this simply one more manifestation of authoritarianism, using as its pretext a distaste for an ‘unpleasant’ formulation of demands for recognition and equity? More worthy of consideration is the criticism directed at strategies such as hooliganism, urban and rural guerrilla movements, and physical confrontations with the forces of order, as opposed to attempts at dialogue and inter-elite bargaining. These tactics are described as a menace to democracy, perpetrated by radicalism – by its leaders, its discourse, and its strategies. From this position the authors dealing with democratic consolidation will not budge. According to them, the new democracies are at present neither free enough nor resilient enough to sustain a true test of strength in the field between autonomous movements – such as striking workers, landless peasants, or homeless migrants – and the forces of order. This seems yet another instance of authoritarianism, implying that perhaps the new democracies cannot yet afford to indulge in the extended practices of democracy (Przeworski, 1995). A more favourable reading is suggested by Petras, who sees radical leaders as members of a younger generation advocating leftist demands and who, free from the ideological biases and opaque practices of the preceding generation, are first and foremost concerned with defending their constituency. Focus is thus shifted from the general to the local, from central bureaucracies to the actors of collective action. In this reading it is the brutality exercised upon movement leaders and their constituents that forces them into radical action, in self-defence. The renewal and even the simple survival of movements bearing a radical message is possible only where the necessary objective conditions are present. Is it the case, then, that the fundamental or structural conditions underlying social and political instability in Latin America – conditions fully documented and identified by both Schmitter and Maravall as the greatest obstacles to democratization – have begun to

Introduction

15

dissipate? Or have these conditions, rather, been exacerbated by the recent wave of democratization?3 Government interest has focused on a wide array of interventions, from aiding industrial conglomerates through export subsidies – the aircraft manufacturer Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER) being an example – and the modernization of the traditional latifúndio (neofeudal estates with extensive unused land), which seems an inexhaustible motor for the concentration of riches in tropical countries. Have the reforms – aimed at market liberalization and economic restructuring, as carried out by the new democracies over the past twenty years – mitigated, or on the contrary, either preserved or reinforced the economic and political power bases of the social categories, making a return to the hardline alternative even today appear to be at least remotely plausible? If the answer were that structural adjustment policies have indeed weakened this power base, one would expect the radical alternative to have lost its momentum or at least no longer to represent a threat to the new democracies. If, however, these policies have contributed to preserving or even reinforcing these power bases, it is natural enough for social movements that advocate the radical alternative to have raised their voices once more and to have increased their level of militancy to garner active supporters to express even more loudly, clearly, and determinedly a dissent that, to the social categories they represent, constitutes the only possible answer to the power of the oligarchy which increased unabated in the course of the democratic reforms. This appears to be a plausible reading of the suggestion made by Smith, Acuña, and Gamarra (1993) following a comprehensive survey of various countries in the region. They have suggested that episodes of popular mobilization and socioeconomic protest – such as marches, confrontations with police, strikes, and land occupations – appear to be linked to the final phases of structural adjustment reforms rather than to their initial phase, as had been feared by the liberal economists mandated to implement them. This unexpected phenomenon – popular forces not reacting to reforms that touch them directly and deeply – becomes more understandable in the light of our previous statements. Explaining Social Unrest It seems appropriate at this point to set forth an initial hypothesis, stating that the transition process was guided, or at the very least heavily influenced, by actors and factors external to the relevant social forma-

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tions, owing to the debt crisis which in the early 1980s placed Latin American societies in a highly vulnerable position within the international environment. The result was a frail democracy with little room to manoeuvre, where policymaking was heavily influenced by exogenous factors and influences. We see shadowy and unascribed interactions between civil elites inexperienced in the ways of democracy, and thus severely limited both in capacity and means, and international forces which had no such limitations. We are thinking here of the development of financial agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the economic and diplomatic forces of dominant countries, and even of the attractive power exercised by zones of integration uniting developed countries – NAFTA and the EU, for example – in highly normative and therefore exclusive commercial alliances. In the early stages of democratization, which began in the 1980s, the active component of democracy was clearly imported, with the political forces and the civil society of these countries reduced to a defensive posture. Twenty years have passed since then. The liberalization and economic stabilization programs have produced what fruit they could; these are now under evaluation, and the results are far from conclusive. Furthermore, because their implementation polarized public opinion, these programs discouraged an institutionalized and fruitful process of interaction between social forces at work within the domestic arena, thus weakening the credibility of political elites. Influential as they may seem, however, the exogenous factors, whether external debt, conditional aid, or pressure from international agencies, are counterbalanced by domestic factors. Thus our second hypothesis proposes that the objectives and practices of power at the domestic level are also influenced, and perhaps even realigned, by the expressions of a civil society now reorganized into a social movement and mobilized within a cycle of protest that attains the level of a political alternative. Social mobilization is fuelled and justified by the failure of liberalization and adjustment programs. Equipped with unprecedented means of collective expression and communication, dissident voices can now make themselves heard, and popular mobilization can adopt varied forms expressing new aspirations – waking old demons in the process. The moment civil society becomes mobilized, power elites tax it with radicalism, in accord with the centuries-old tradition of excluding the masses that has left as its legacy a roughness of speech and an uneasy cohabitation among actors. With time and the adapta-

Introduction

17

tion of social movements to the rules of democracy, their leaders eventually make their way into the state apparatus, as we shall see to some extent in our case studies. The central topic of this book is an examination of the thorny problem, which is often termed ‘radicalism,’ presented to the political elites by the current rise of unwelcome popular participation among three movements of Brazil’s civil society. We shall examine the women’s movement, the housing movement, and the Landless Peasant Movement. The authors, all Brazilianists, have conducted extensive field research within these groups, and they seek to relate the dynamics at work within these movements to the general framework of Brazilian politics. We believe that these three movements are representative of a more general trend towards public protest and are the result of a convergence of factors. Some are drawn from the internal dynamics of group identity and from a felt need for closer support and solidarity, given people’s poor living conditions. Other factors are related to the global context of debt and market adjustment. We seek to understand how endogenous and exogenous factors intertwine to define and shape the rise and expression of popular protest. By endogenous, we mean factors intrinsic to the groups and to their immediate institutional setting, as provided by the democratic transition. This will lead us to examine the origins of group protest, its leadership, its discourse, and the level of political participation of its social and activist base. We consider these in the framework of new political opportunities that opened up at precise turning points such as the 1988 Constitution or, later on, the end of the presidency of Collor de Melo in 1992 and the events that marked the Cardoso administration. There are reasons to believe that exogenous factors played a major role in the behaviour of the Brazilian decision-makers. As a consequence, leaders provided, or imposed an agenda of so-called reforms within the institutional framework in which the social debate was then unfolding. The reforms, in turn, realigned the priorities of the social movements. These factors include the following: structural and situational determinants such as the cycles of global growth and recession, conditional aid leading to a tight selection of government interventions in the social field, and the requirements set by international agencies such as the IMF to further cut public spending and restore budget equilibrium, as well as internationally monitored currency reform and experiments in structural adjustment. These were occasions that spawned the unprecedented expansion of protest and, in our

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view, shaped its main characteristics, among them a sharp tendency to radicalize both discourse and action. There is no doubt that these conditions provided social movements with opportunities to renew their repertoire and methods and, therefore, that the interplay between the exogenous and endogenous factors at work is worthy of close analytical and interpretative scrutiny. The Structure of This Book Our purpose is to identify, by analysing the dynamics of the most significant social movements – in terms of identification, organization, and political participation – the origins and expression of radicalism in Brazil. The distinct yet complementary phases of their development unfold, we believe, in phases which Sidney Tarrow (1991) attributes to the ‘cycle of protest.’ The passage from one phase to the next seems to us to be dictated by the convergence of two essential sets of factors: first, an increase in membership in and a structural diversification of these movements, and second, the conflicts that arise between these movements and the market models which go hand in hand with the implementation of structural adjustments. Therefore, there are links to be established between the dynamics of social movements arising from membership and evolving forms of organization and leadership and the dynamics of national politics, the nature and scope of reforms undertaken, the characteristics of political leadership, and the degree of openness to social issues. In Chapter 1, Michel Duquette provides an overview of current theoretical research into social movements in the context of democratic transition. In his review of the literature, he attempts an explanation of the recent renewal of radicalism, identified by Petras as early as 1997. He looks back to the first wave of democratization in Brazil, which took place in the early 1960s and led, according to the mainstream literature, to both a marked rise in radicalism and a military coup d’état. Then he turns to the second wave of democratization, which started in 1984 and evolved from public participation in the process of developing a new constitution to radicalization of the social movement, especially in the rural sector of society. Here Duquette is concerned with establishing, through an examination of the discourse and tactics adopted, whether we are, in fact, faced with true radicalism, in the light of relevant theoretical work that addresses this very question and proposes often fundamentally opposed analyses.

Introduction

19

The literature reviewed focuses on two avenues of research. The first concentrates on the internal dynamics of social movements and the maturation of their ‘cycle of protest.’ In this reading, the radicalization of aims and means is attributable to the evolution of leadership and to a mutating repertoire of actions, both of which occur in response to a context of political opportunities itself subject to change. The seminal works of Tilly and of Tarrow, for instance, help us grasp the current dynamics of social groups and their ‘radicalization.’ The second focuses on the context of democratic transition and its inherent phases. It is important to understand how structural adjustment reforms modify the living conditions of marginalized social groups and to identify the issues involved in market-driven development programs, both urban and rural. It is useful, as well, to assess the level of political will and the true capacity of the state, as these will vary according to circumstances and be subject to changes brought about by the imperatives of economic restructuring reforms. This might, for example, lead authorities to neglect efforts to integrate marginal populations or to retain (in the absence of concrete means to do otherwise) archaic structural forms in the rural settings where they are deemed irremediable. According to O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead’s thesis, we will find the following dilemma underlying and guiding the objectives and means of would-be democratic leaders: how does one navigate without giving in to either the hardliners of the right, who are advocating a return to totalitarianism, or the radicals of the left, who are open to the seduction of popular mobilization? Duquette then turns to recent Brazilian political history and interprets the varying forms of popular expression and protest with their constant adaptation to the changing context of national politics. Leading the reader from the authoritarian scenario that strengthened group identity and radicalized tactics, he moves to the democratic transition period which was marked by external influences and broken promises. Thus reinforced by new channels of expression, and adopting a radicalized tone, popular groups paved the ground for a new scenario: the empowerment of the left. In Chapter 2, Bérengère Marques-Pereira and Florence Raes trace the evolution and mutations of women’s movements in Brazil since the dawn of democratization, movements which, in their most recent form, have displayed a radicalization of both the actors and their demands. During the democratization process, numerous women’s groups and leading personalities were active in redefining the Consti-

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tution and in the struggle to extend human rights to neglected groups. Yet hopes raised in the early years were not always fulfilled. The authors clearly identify the links between given movements and their specific political expression, and, in revealing the workings of collaborative networks of women within Brazil as well as throughout Latin America, they show how women’s movements have taken full advantage of the opportunities created by democratization and increasing public awareness of social issues. In Chapter 3, Charmain Levy examines the evolution of associative urban groups in the context of democratization, showing that compromises they have entered into with power elites have not always led to tangible benefits for their membership. She shows that some leaders of urban popular movements (UPMs), who migrated towards governmental offices during the 1980s, turned their backs on their social bases after accepting positions and responsibilities. But, she concludes, even these compromises were of little avail, since the financial constraints of the period prevented the fulfilment of earlier promises. Hence, there was a rising sentiment of distrust towards the authorities and a resurgence of radicalism seen as a tool for attracting attention and changing the rules of the game. In Chapter 4, Maurilio Galdino offers a detailed study of the inception, expansion, and present-day influence of the Landless Peasant Movement (MST), in the context of a rapid mutation of rural areas that was brought about by development plans initiated by the Brazilian government and later taken over by the World Bank. He demonstrates how the marginalization of the movement and its current recourse to radical tactics are consequences of the inadequacies of the rural development models that were adopted in the framework of structural adjustments. His chapter brings to life the political networks that arise naturally from the day-to-day work of rural peasant organizations and gradually extend to the level of national politics. Goldino makes it clear that a social movement is constantly adapting to decisions taken by political authorities, redefining its tactics and discourse in response to the challenges posed by international groups and agencies, while also challenging an order of things that is unresponsive to the demands of the movement’s constituency. The social movement can therefore be considered a full-fledged player in the construction of national policies, although the road leading to true political participation and genuine public influence is uneasy at best. Chapter 5 provides a critical and comparative synthesis of the field

Introduction

21

research presented by each of the contributors to this volume and sets out an innovative analytical framework for understanding the phenomenon of Brazilian radicalism. Comparisons are drawn among groups to better assess degrees of cohesiveness, the behaviour of leaders and actors, and their changing political programs and socioeconomic proposals made in response to the challenge of market-friendly policies. We try to explain the conditions, some of them created by exogenous factors and others relevant to domestic politics, that have triggered radicalism in Brazil, through the events marking its current history. Chapter 5 also reports and analyses the first months of President Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva’s administration. We have been especially interested in documenting the early stages of a ‘quiet revolution’ that sees, for the second time in the history of the Republic of Brazil, the arrival of the left at the federal level of government. In this connection we broaden our analysis to encompass the wider perspective opened up by this development. We sketch the dynamic and difficult history of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party, or PT) which from the outset had established close links with social movements, and we argue that these links have evolved with recent events. Some factors contributing to the PT’s electoral success are analysed, as are the first decisions taken by the new administration in the areas of macro-economic policies and balancing the national budget. We offer a glimpse of the legacy left by the previous administration and its effects on current deficits and social policies. President da Silva has clearly expressed his will to establish a social compact with civil society regarding the application of redistribution policies within a realistic financial framework which is known to be constrained, conditioned as it is by difficult budgetary and other circumstances. The president’s task is made the more delicate by the presence of a strong and well-organized radical faction within and around the PT. We examine the restoration of networks of collaboration between the government and the social movements and try to determine the extent to which popular associations participate in the making of new policies that can be said to constitute social reform. Steps have already been taken in the areas of housing and agrarian reform and by a highly symbolic Campaign against Hunger launched by the president’s visit to the poorer northeastern states. This is in itself testimony to the bold and innovative approach the newly elected PT administration wishes to adopt on social issues. As we know, in Brazilian history there is a precedent of a government committed to social reform. It is a sad tale that ended in a mili-

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tary takeover. The inconclusive legacy of João Goulart’s short-lived administration (1962–4) is still remembered nowadays by Brazilians, many of them thinking that it might prove impossible for a leftist political team to go forward with a consistent agenda of social reform without running the risk of a new coup d’état. For that reason, Brazilians minimize the capacity of Lula to undertake major changes. They also point out that this capacity is lessened by the fact that few of the states of Brazil are governed by PT administrations. Thus, the states may be reluctant to engage in changes that could affect the relationship with their respective clienteles. The complexities of the Brazilian situation may, in addition, point to some avenues relevant to the study of other Latin American countries. notes 1 A considerable number of works on the topic of structural adjustment programs appeared in the first half of the 1990s; the following stand out as essential reading: Nelson (1990), Haggard and Kaufmann (1992), Williamson (1994). 2 Fernando Henrique Cardoso was one of the main contributors to dependency theory; see his joint publication with Enzo Faletto (1968). 3 It is worthwhile to examine the predictions made in the synthesis presented by O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, vol. 5 (1986).

references Brockett, Charles D. 1988. Land, Power, and Poverty: Agrarian Transformation and Political Conflict in Central America. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Castañeda, Jorge G. 1993. Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War. New York: A.A. Knopf. Cardoso, Fernando H., and Enzo Faletto. 1968. Desarrollo y dependencia en América Latina. Mexico, Buenos Aires, and Santiago: Ediciones Siglo XXI. Chalmers, Douglas, et al. eds. 1996. The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America: Rethinking Participation and Representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Couffignal, Georges, ed. 1997. Amérique latine: Tournant de siècle. Paris: La Découverte. Dabène, Olivier. 1997. Amérique latine, la démocratie dégradée. Paris: Éditions Complexe, Collection Espace international.

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Duquette, Michel. 1999. Building New Democracies: Economic and Social Reform in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ECLAC. 1996. Tendências Econômicas e Sociais na América Latina e no Caribe em Gráficos. Rio de Janeiro: ECLAC/CEPAL–IBGE–Corecon Rio. Haggard, Stephen, and Robert Kaufman. 1992. The Politics of Economic Adjustment: International Constraints, Distributive Conflicts, and the State. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kay, C. 1998. ‘Latin America’s agrarian reform: lights and shadows.’ Réforme agraire. Colonisation et coopératives agricoles 2: 9–31. Rome: FAO Information Division. Martins, Monica Diaz. 2000. ‘The MST Challenge to Neoliberalism.’ Radical Left Response to Global Impoverishment. Special Issue of Latin American Perspectives 27/ 5 (Sept.): 33–45. Maravall, José María, and Julian Santamaría. 1986. ‘Political Change in Spain and the Prospects for Democracy.’ In Guillermo O’Donnell, Phillipe Schmitter, and Lawrence Whitehead, eds. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. Vol. 2. Southern Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 71–108. Nelson, Joan M., ed. 1990. Economic Policy and Policy Choice: The Politics of Adjustment in the Third World. Princeton : Princeton University Press. O’Donnell, Guillermo. 1994. ‘Delegative Demoracy?’ Journal of Democracy 5/1: 55–69. – Phillipe Schmitter and Lawrence Whitehead, eds. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. Vol. 5. Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Petras, James. 1997. ‘Latin America: The Resurgence of the Left.’ New Left Review, no. 223 (May–June): 17–47. – and Timothy F. Harding. 2000. ‘Introduction.’ Radical Left Response to Global Impoverishment. Special Issue of Latin American Perspectives 27/5 (Sept.): 1–11. Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge University Press. – ed. 1995. Sustainable Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, William C., Carlos H. Acuña, and Eduardo A. Gamarra. 1993. Democracy, Markets, and Structural Reform in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. New Brunswick, N.J., and London: Transaction Publishers / North-South Center. Tarrow, Sidney. 1991. Struggle, Politics, and Reform: Collective Action, Social Movements, and Cycles of Protest. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Tilly, Charles. 1976. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley.

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Whitehead, Lawrence. 1992. ‘The Alternatives to Liberal Democracy: A Latin American Perspective.’ Political Studies 40/2: 277–308. – ed. 1996. The International Dimensions of Democratizations: Europe and the Americas. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williamson, John, ed. 1994. The Political Economy of Policy Reform. Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics.

1 Social Movements and Radicalism: The Brazilian Context MICHEL DUQUETTE

Social Movements and the Nature of Radicalism Today The two research avenues identified in the Introduction – endogenous and exogenous factors accounting for the expression of public protest – are distinct, and yet they intersect. The first approaches our topic through an examination of the microsociology of organizations: it explores the origin, nature, structure, and evolution of social movements and contends that at a certain point in their evolution they will display radical characteristics. Radicalism, like the traits linked to other stages, is seen by many authors to stem from the endogenous dynamic of a movement rather than from exogenous stimuli, or even from sufficient cause. The will to unite and to organize seems primordial, the cause secondary. In its exploration of the structural and organizational aspects of collective action, the resource mobilization school asks how a movement emerges, not why it does so. This approach points to a group’s characteristics: its size attaining critical mass (Marwell and Oliver, 1993); the necessary organization and mobilization of material resources by actors ready to engage in social action (Zald and McCarthy, 1979); the rationale of the actors (Olson, 1978); the degree of solidarity, the reliability of networks, and the crucial importance of group strategy (Tilly, 1976). Admirably summarized by Lafargue (1998: 9–37), in his overview of the work of scholars examining psychosocial and resource mobilization issues, their contributions afford a solid basis for analysing endogenous factors within member groups of a social movement. If, in concurring with the disparaging rhetoric of some governments, we were inclined to reduce radicalism to no more than a manifestation of irrational collective behaviour – hotheaded leaders, extremist activ-

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ists, mass behaviour attributable to illiterate populations – we would simply be in agreement with Kornhauser (1959).1 Fortunately, however, there is an abundance of more constructive models that do not disregard the political context in explaining the driving forces behind popular mobilization. Oberschall (1973), for example, repositions collective mobilization within an environment marked by conflict and a framework of confrontation with the establishment, emphasizing the importance of the nature of internal organization in explaining the extent of mobilization. Groups set up horizontal exchanges, in the form of mutual aid networks, and more hierarchical, or even vertical, exchanges with umbrella organizations, including labour federations, opposition political parties, churches, and international NGOs. The very breadth of such fellowships tends to reduce the extent of their members’ participation in political activity at the national level, that is, in conventional politics where empowered groups hold sway. Oberschall’s argument is valuable in discarding as invalid theories that reduce mobilization to a ‘spontaneous’ phenomenon merely reflecting deprivation or despair. Furthermore, Obserschall identifies the autonomous nature of social movements – separate from the familiar political institutions – and their community networks as two conditions necessary for successful collective action. The Makeup of Collective Identity The manner of recruitment has an important role in the solidity of a group, and it is generally admitted that recruitment occurs as a function of the framing of identity. But is identity based on individual or collective values? Are social movements a mere gathering of individuals seeking personal advantages through collective action? Touraine (1988: 95) considers these questions. How is the passage effected, from individual experience to collective action? The Western view intuitively states that it is their common interest which rallies individuals to the cause, by removing each from his or her particular professional or familial experience. From liberals to marxists, many voices have stated that social movements are nothing more than a collective defence of interests which are fundamentally individual. The truth of the matter is far from being so simple. In fact, collective action runs counter to individual interests, since it would be in the interest of the individual to profit from the effects of organized action without running

Social Movements and Radicalism 27 its risks; moreover mobilization is only strong when it calls upon the values of actors, their solidarity, their representations, as well as to interests often difficult or impossible to define. It is far easier to know against whom or with whom one is undertaking a struggle than to specify the material gains one hopes to obtain thereby [translation].

For Touraine, these values and representations are class-based. The repertoire gradually developed by the social movement is drawn from the experience of a social class which has come into existence because of historical and socioeconomic determinants. Oberschall’s model does not delve into the dichotomy between class movements uniting around socioeconomic issues and individual persons seeking belonging through identification. This is taken up by Melucci (1992), who has carefully explored the makeup of collective identity, a topic previously neglected by scholars for the most part. In a departure from Touraine’s strict naturalist perspective, which views social movements as vectors for the identity of historically delimited social classes (e.g., labourers or peasants), Melucci describes this identification process as a system where aims, obstacles, and resources converge as situations evolve and within given systems of both opportunities and constraints. Thus, identification is a process of constitution occurring within and around itself through continuous recourse to outside sources of information. The gradual collective edification of this identity – the identity that will come to define the position of the collective actor – follows upon these six representations: (1) The definition of the social group [e.g., labourers, women, shantytown dwellers, peasants, the unemployed] in whose name actions are undertaken determines the limits of collective identity and the legitimacy of the movement. (2) The undesirable situation which has given rise to the need for collective action is attributed to an adversary, usually identified in non-social terms, without any legitimacy [e.g., a national political leader, a state governor, a multinational corporation, a public nuclear production facility, the military-industrial complex, landowners] (3) Objectives, or desirable goals exist for society as a whole, for which it is necessary to fight. (4) There is a positive relationship between the actor and the general goals of the society, and therefore the actions of the movement go beyond the particular interests of the actor. (5) The adversary is seen as an obstacle to the general goals of the society. (6) Thus there is an irreconcilable opposition between actor and adversary. (Melucci, 1992: 57–8)

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Originally applied to an examination of the French labour movement, which makes constant reference to the French Revolution, this definition of the framing of identity and the characteristics of its makeup appears best able to encompass a movement whose identity is oriented towards so-called radicalism. But what structure would be best suited to uniting the actors of such a movement? A social movement focuses on objectives and on the construction of an evolving project. Given the extent of the challenge and the level of credibility necessary to ensure its legitimacy in the power struggle, according to Melucci (1983: 14), it would have to be a space allowing for inclusion – a sort of diffuse or segmented framework – rather than a highly structured organization because the group’s solidarity is predicated upon the individual quest for improved conditions. This diffuse nature makes such a movement capable of wide extension and gives it a near limitless capacity to develop networks in preparation for a power struggle; therein lies the threat posed to defenders of the status quo. Given its objectives, however, a social movement is vulnerable to chance factors in at least two ways. First, democratically run elections may entail a change in political leadership, depriving a movement of the specific adversary which had hitherto served as an essential focus of mobilization and thus as a factor of cohesion. Second, the failure of any given mobilizing operation may bring about a loss of legitimacy in the eyes of supporters and lead to mass desertion in the ranks. These must be counted among the risks balancing the advantages of a social mobilization willing to resort to what Melucci refers to as dissent and which we will tentatively link to the concept of radicalism. Interacting with the Political System The second approach, adopting the viewpoint of political sociology, is gaining ground among researchers. It examines social movements as they interact with the political universe, with the twinned intents of denunciation and participation. Here the political universe in its various manifestations is explored, including leadership, membership and platforms of political parties, decision-making processes, and last but not least, public policies seen as the occasional productions of the political universe. It is useful to distinguish within the political sphere between politics, that is, party platforms and strategies, and policies, which are sectoral in nature, dealing, for example, with industry, education, agriculture, or foreign trade.

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In addition to the interplay between politics and policies, we must take into account the will of organized groups to change sectoral policies, which have expanded so significantly in the post–Second World War years, restructuring social experience in every field of economic endeavour and, in fact, tending to encompass sociological categories that have been left nearly untouched by modernization and the cash economy. The experience of France is relevant here: since the 1960s, its ‘unified agricultural policy’ (Politique Agricole Commune) has profoundly altered the conditions of agricultural production, in turn, significantly transforming the role and strategy of the French peasantry. Peasant movements have responded by vigorous mobilization and have persistently defended their interests at national as well as local levels. We can expect globalization to broaden noticeably the extent of such interactions. This broadening carries a potential for still greater conflict, although conflict resolution is by no means unthinkable in a world already institutionalized or in the process of becoming so. This process is identified by Neveu (1996: 15) as ‘the trend of increasing politicization of social movements,’ and he describes it as follows: ‘The “trend of increasing politicization of social movements” hypothesis is at least twofold. By setting up stable opportunities and procedures for negotiations where government will play a key role, around issues specific to each social micro-universe, every new public policy kindles the desire of mobilized groups to be recognized as a legitimate interlocutor by this or that state bureaucracy, and highlights the imperative of being counted among the strategic actors, if one is to affect decisions. But above all, public policies are formidable instruments of opacity: they appear, to the uninitiated, to be a haggling carried out between multiple groups endowed with mystifying acronyms [my translation].’ This sheds some light on the intersection of social movements with the world of public policy formulation. Although the former attempt to maintain values and operational modes foreign to the latter, because they are rooted in an endogenous tradition, social movements must nevertheless remain compatible with this political universe whose aim is to act on and restructure the social sphere. If social movements are to establish their prestige or even ensure their own survival, their discourse and actions must be tailored to the productions of the political universe. Any study of social movements, including their radical manifestations which we are exploring here, cannot be complete without constant reference to the world of public policy and its actors.2

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One possibility open to such ever-threatened protest groups is, as Tilly (1984) has convincingly shown, insertion into what he calls ‘the political system.’ This, he contends, is made up of the government, along with groups having privileged access to power, and an adversary force comprising protest or radical movements. Tilly distinguishes between the mobilization system, which he defines in much the same way that Oberschall does, and the more comprehensive political system. Tilly’s argument that confrontation occurs not only between but within these systems makes it possible to observe and explain some of the finer dynamics at work: alternation between elites in power turning to ‘musical chair politics,’ selection of groups favoured by a regime, and changes of leadership in each of these categories. Such a reading moderates polarization between systems and alleviates the potential for confrontation through the concept of ‘repertoire.’ This concept allows us to take into account the theoretical existence of a host of alternatives open to actors and drawn from their own tradition – from the memory of their own triumphs or defeats – but also deliberately selected in awareness of the potential gains of a particular protest versus its political costs, given the current level of organization and the solidity of the movements. Tilly submits that social movements evaluate costs and benefits in their choice of strategies directed at meeting their goals. Furthermore, he endows each of the protagonists with a rational knowledge of the opponent and with the capacity to adjust actions according to circumstances, without being held prisoner by ultimate aims. Lastly, Tilly allows for obvious lines between political action and collective protest, between the struggle for power and circumstantial mobilization (Lafargue, 1998: 37). Although Tilly’s views were widely criticized by theorists of the ‘new social movements,’ flourishing since the 1970s in the more participatory democracies of Europe and North America, they nevertheless remain relevant to the study of traditional class-based movements manoeuvring in polarized political environments. What sets traditional social movements apart from new social movements is centralized decisionmaking, the preservation of an esprit de corps rooted in straightforward identification, and a hierarchical mode of discipline whose effectiveness becomes obvious in the event of specific mobilizations or in sharply polarized situations.3 This is a far cry from the ‘post-materialist values,’ be they aesthetic or intellectual, so dear to Inglehart (1977). Tilly’s model, suggesting as it does the existence of a general system to which social movements belong – although they may belong with-

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out their consent – raises the question of their institutionalization within the political domain (which Touraine’s strict conceptualization is unable to accommodate). From this perspective, Klandemans (1990) and Kitchelt (1990) demonstrate, through case studies of environmental and anti-nuclear movements in Europe, the requirement that social movements elevate their actions to the level of the national political arena. The limitations of spontaneous action, the heterogeneous and issue-driven nature of groups assembled for a given protest, the ad hoc and reactive nature of mobilizations – dictated as they are by the agenda of nuclear energy firms, by military interventions in the third world, or by ecological disasters – all militate in favour of institutionalized political parties capable of taking on a permanent watchdog function carried out by political personnel, that is, professionals and experts assigned to the parliamentary arena. To activists disappointed by inconclusive field gains, and intent on making themselves heard in higher circles, it seems the only way of raising the level of debate among the opposition to a national level while at the same time reducing the likelihood of demobilization in the event of repeated failures in the field. By way of this integration such ‘politicization’ of social movements has – because of the very real risks of ideological co-optation that it entails – fuelled bitter quarrels in Europe between Green parties and other ecological movements. In France, for example, the inclusion of the Verts within the ‘plural majority’ of Lionel Jospin’s administration (1997–2002) led ecology critics to accuse environment minister Dominique Voinet of seeking personal power in preference to furthering ecological values; true ecologists, they maintain, ought to remain outside of government. The Cycle of Protest Unfolds in a Structure of Opportunities Wishing to encompass the full span of dissent, which comprises the emergence, growth, diversification, and finally the politicization of a social movement, Tarrow (1991) makes a daring synthesis that manages to reconcile apparently contradictory realities. He accounts for the mutations that collective action undergoes with the concept of ‘maturation of the cycle of protest.’ Although social movements challenge existing institutions and established elites, it has never been their aim to destroy them, nor even to dislodge them by violent means. Tarrow distinguishes between ‘protest’ and ‘revolution.’ Even the more intense forms of protest, those we are identifying here as ‘radicalism,’

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play a role within the cycle of protest and not at its margins, that is, outside the political system as defined by Oberschall. What is this role? What functions does radicalism fulfil in the framework of the uneasy transactions between democratic institutions and particular categories of civil society dissatisfied enough with their conditions to resort to such protest? This question is central to our approach. Protest moves through a three-phase cycle: an ascending phase, an optimal phase, and a descending phase. In its ascending phase, protest spreads through the population and gains followers among intellectuals and sympathizers. Protest also spreads geographically throughout the country and becomes recognized as a major issue, gaining support from public opinion and increasingly polarizing the elites. Subsequently, movement leaders are gradually co-opted by sympathizers among the elites and integrated into public policy frameworks; they may contribute to the formulation of sectoral public policies in their field and join the ranks of whichever bureaucracy is responsible for their implementation. The initial demands of the social movement are more or less satisfactorily met in the optimal phase. In its declining phase, the social movement is gradually demobilized because of the transfer of a considerable number of its leaders to conventional politics. Let us review these processes in greater detail. The ascending phase of the protest cycle is a response to major and unwonted stresses, for example, an economic crisis, an authoritarian regime, economic reforms that compound longstanding or traditional duress (such as poverty and vulnerability, chronic unemployment, and/or marginality) that force the actors into forming a movement. Under such conditions, the social movement can be equated with a survival initiative, since circumstances pose a serious threat to the very life of the given group or category. The actors publicize their concerns using all means available, especially when a democratic transition is under way, and the press may be enjoying some freedom. The movement’s numbers grow and links are established with emerging or peripheral groups. Horizontal relationships multiply, well before vertical or hierarchical links with established groups of national and international scope, e.g., religious institutions, political parties, international NGOs, are even thought of. During the social movement’s optimal phase, increased levels of conflict are experienced between the authorities and the groups involved. Political life is perturbed as public policies are successfully challenged and their implementation, stalled. One may see a move

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away from conventional forms of protest – such as strikes and public meetings – in favour of unaccustomed forms of mobilization. The social movement’s legitimacy is put in question because of the means it employs. There is open struggle between protest groups and the establishment. Some of the social movement’s members, in a quest for powerful support, will push for alliances and networks of a vertical or hierarchical nature, while others will fight to protect the movement’s autonomy. Various scenarios become possible, and we will explore these further, within our studies of the Brazilian case. In the descending phase of the protest cycle wide diversification among protagonists occurs, and distinct and often contradictory approaches emerge as to objectives and means to achieve them. Among those who opt for more vertical networking, protest actions are institutionalized and subjected to the routine and machinery of government. For groups less satisfied with their positions in the hierarchy of power, who have yet to obtain the support of authorities for their social constituency, a radicalization of tactics seems required. The social movement’s repertoire becomes splintered. Well-positioned activists may succeed in influencing public policy, and insofar as this influence is played out in favourable circumstances, such as economic growth or constitutional reform, gains are made by the social movement: ‘seeing their demands more or less met, the actors gradually withdraw from the movement as soon as costs are likely to begin to outweigh expected benefits [translation]’ (Lafargue, 1998: 64). Then the activists may withdraw. However, the withdrawal may not be wholesale, as disenfranchized groups may maintain the vigil and pursue the fight. Let us keep in mind that, in the event of the institutionalization of a social movement, this last option remains open. Drawing lessons from an ensemble of Westest European experiences, Della Porta and Diani (1999) introduce minor changes into the concept of protest cycle, allowing for several, sometimes recurrent stages of protest to take place within a given cycle; their model is even less formally defined and predictable than Tarrow’s. The maturing of the protest cycle depends as much on government response to protest, and other contextual variables, as it does on internal organization and the nature of the movement’s changing leadership: Protest cycles, then, correspond with moments of intensified collective action. As in culture and the economy, there is a recurrent dynamic ebb and flow in collective mobilization. In particular, by demonstrating the

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The making of group identity and the rise of radicalism become linked. The personality of social leaders who place themselves at the forefront of collective action and their strategic choices can be explained as an ‘evolution in protest tactics’ that ‘accompanies changes in the external environment’: ‘New actors invent new tactics; the collective identities which are in the process of forming require radical action’ (Pizzorno, 1978). Della Porta and Diani, like Tarrow, presuppose a structure of political opportunities fuzzy enough to be subject both to multiple interpretations4 and to variations resulting from factors such as the stability of institutions, the level of a society’s overall wealth, the quality of leadership, and how well the machinery of government functions. Fuzzy-enough political opportunities implies that the cycle of protest can only be conceived in a context that is sufficiently open to permit diverse political actions – whether compromise between adversaries or radicalization of popular mobilization. European history may suggest that only consolidated democracy or advanced democratic transitions can provide this context. The following section describes the structure of political opportunities that in Brazil provided the framework for the emergence and development of social movements; these were the political opportunities that provided social movements in Brazil with the latitude to affirm their identity and mobilize in the field. The Brazilian context, most assuredly, is not one of a consolidated democracy. In the case of Brazil, the structure of opportunities has been shaped by the weakness of the party system, by loosely defined rules and institutions, and by prevailing conditions associated with archaic socioeconomic structures. Brockett (1988) provides an insightful reading of the political dynamics in their socioeconomic context, and from a historical perspective, of the whole Latin American situation. Brockett’s model can be fully applied to Brazil.

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In Latin American countries, the inadequate size of a domestic market in the early phase of industrialization, argues Brockett, resulted in too little demand to stimulate agricultural production and therefore economic growth. Land-based elites developed goods for foreign markets, and their success as exporters of sugar, rubber, coffee, and other staples enabled them to consolidate their influence in national politics. The state itself furthered the interests of these elites and confirmed their property rights over large estates. Population growth throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries increased poverty in the countryside and forced large numbers of peasants off their land. They became migrants and gathered in and around cities, settling in shantytowns. Millions of ‘urban marginals,’ experienced every-worsening housing, sanitation, and educational problems. These populations started to organize themselves around values of their own – values that had little in common with the lifestyle of the ruling classes (invariably imported from Europe and, later on, from North America). Increasing interaction with the political system was transformative and gradually shifted the marginals’ attitudes from fatalistic to activist. Small grassroots groups coalesced into social movements, and these began to participate in opposition to ruling political parties. Church people became involved in this process, as did non-religious leftists who advocated drastic changes in politics and society. By the early 1960s, this social movement was out in the open, and it began to challenge the foundations of the traditional order (Brockett, 1988: 199). Nascent Institutional Contexts: The Two Waves of Democratization Government leaders of the past half-century or so sometimes found themselves to be partners, sometimes adversaries, of indigenous social movements born of the new situations that have altered forever the structure of political opportunities in Brazil. Contemporary Brazil can claim two distinct waves of democratization: the years soon after the Second World War (1945–64) and the years (since 1984) following the transition from military government. Both waves followed upon authoritarian rule, and both resulted in what Tilly would characterize to be a genuine ‘political system.’ Tilly’s concept of ‘political system’ serves here as the arena within which Brazil’s cycle of protest unfolds; furthermore, to some degree the political system is itself modified and shaped by the cycle of protest. In considering Brazil, the political system consists of the dynamic

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interaction between new power elites, and the institutions welcoming them, in a context of nascent democracy. Although the elites may be new, the institutions are less so. The institutions were inherited from the previous authoritarian system, and although they are evolving towards greater transparency and efficiency, they do still display authoritarian characteristics and thus may remain inefficient with respect to the goals pursued by the new elites in power, as well as by their social base. This possibility helps us make sense of certain governmental initiatives in the field. For example, as is well known, social issues present new (and older) democracies with sizeable challenges that invariably take them beyond their institutional and financial capacities. This leads us to the central topic of the present work. Social policy remains the poor relation among governmental priorities. It seems condemned to progress solely with sustained international assistance and the untiring efforts of NGOs. When it comes to social policy, the local government is only one player among many others; not the main one, and possibly not even a major one. This is the contradiction and the paradox of new democracies. Nowhere more than in Brazil is this paradox apparent. The First Wave of Democratization This is not the place for a detailed history of Brazil from the end of the New State until the military takeover. However, a few points can be made concerning the role of the elites in some areas on the agenda of reforms, for example, in agrarian unionization and reform; in the actions of popular movements and their support of reform initiatives; and in the emergence, discourse, and limitations of radicalism as a characteristic phenomenon of these times, particularly in the latter years. In 1930 in the economic aftershock of the Wall Street crash, which put an end to Brazilian coffee exports to developed countries, selfproclaimed president Getulio Vargas set Brazil on the path of importsubstituting industrialization (ISI) by means of a political centralization process generally referred to as Estado Nôvo or the ‘New State.’5 Vargas put an end to the República Velha or ‘Old Republic’ (1889–1930) which, led by highly regionalized – and unscrupulous – business elites, had been loath to promote modernization of institutions, and less than willing to undertake economic or social reform. The crash of 1929 was, in fact, the death-knell of the Old Republic. The new regime was carried to power with the support of middle-level army officers. It

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was consolidated on a personal basis and overthrown without bloodshed in 1945 by the military, led by General Eurico Gaspar Dutra, who promptly reinstated liberalism as the state’s political philosophy. No doubt it was for this reason that Dutra, who also had an eye to pleasing the United States, in a postwar context favourable to the emergence of democracies, tolerated the presence of a nationalist opposition grouped around Vargas. Soon after being deposed, Vargas set up what was to be the first democratic-style opposition political system (in Tilly’s terms) in Brazil’s history. It was composed of two new political parties presumed to mirror the sensibilities of the organized and representative Brazilian opposition. In fact, however, these parties had been designed to collaborate with, rather than to oppose each other. The first of these, the Partido Social Democrático (PSD) grouped at least some of the left-ofcentre elites, under the personal leadership of Vargas himself. The second, the Partido Trabalhista do Brasil (PTB), leaned more to the left and controlled the trade unions. Mussolini’s corporatist model served as the blueprint: in the 1930s, when Vargas was in power, he took his inspiration from the labour laws introduced in Italy to control the workers movements. Obsessed with personal power, Vargas had not allowed the free expression of popular demands. Instead, he had set up a mechanism facilitating dealings among the various elites that was very similar to the system then current in Mexico. Under the guise of their opposition politics the PSD and the PTB were doing nothing more than occupying the totality of the political space. Indeed, the 1950 elections gave them an absolute majority, and the everpopular Vargas returned to power. This marked the inauguration of the first phase of his political system. Among several other projects with a strong nationalist flavour, the ageing president pushed through the nationalization of the oil industry by founding Petrôleos Brasileiros (PETROBRAS) in 1953. Alhough this can be said to mark the foundation of the modern Brazilian state, it immediately cost Vargas the trust of the conservative business sector of São Paulo. He soon lost whatever leeway he may have had in dealing with the army and in short order was forced to surrender. He preferred death to resignation, and on 24 June 1954 he took his life in the cabinet council chamber of the Catete Palace in Rio de Janeiro. This act of despair distressed and aroused the nation and was disconcerting to the military and the right which, faced with street riots, did not dare to capitalize on their success. Elections were held the following year, and Juscelino Kubitschek, leader of the PSD and

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a pure product of the Vargas political system, came to power. His presidency was marked by mega-projects such as the construction of the new capital, Brasília, and the consolidation of PETROBRAS, but also by the same level of corruption that had characterized the personal leadership of his sponsor Gutilio Vargas (Niedergang, 1969: 95–103). The second phase saw the triumph – more apparent than real – of forces grouped under the PTB banner. The boundless energy and oratorical skill of its charismatic leader Leonel Brizola brought about the election of João Goulart as a successor to Janio Quadros, who had resigned in 1961 for reasons that remain obscure. The years from 1961 to 1964 saw the rise of the militant left, of labour and peasant organizations, but also a growing polarization between forces of the left and the right. In spite of setbacks and challenges, the political system survived its creator Vargas and, in fact, dominated political life until 1964. Within this framework the most dynamic protest elements – trade unions, student movements, and peasant associations – came into being. President Goulart became something of a professional leftist because, in spite of his latifundiário background and technocratic training, Vargas had set him to work, at age twenty, among the trade unions. Goulart chose as his prime minister Tancredo Neves, justice minister under Vargas; Neves was to make a return in 1984, in the early days of the second wave of democratization. The administration quickly aroused the mistrust of the new leaders of the masses, who had emerged from the social movements, and of the activists of the extreme left who were inspired by the Cuban revolution.6 It was also hated by both the right and the military. Its uncomfortable centrist position could give it but slim hopes of lasting in power. The Goulart government attempted to survive by vacillating, alternating between leftist and rightist positions according to circumstances, and attempting to alienate no one. The initiative shifted to other hands, however. Popular forces extended their organization, while the somewhat disoriented military, inspired by the fight against communism, attempted to unite under conservative leadership. With regard to the popular forces, two complementary mobilization dynamics were unfolding, although they were quite isolated from each other: labour unions and peasant movements. Leonel Brizola, previously labourite governor of the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, upon arrival in Rio de Janeiro shamelessly exploited the Vargas political system using the labour unions as a lever for his political aims. Brizola’s flamboyant rhetoric and generous but unrealistic social

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projects were aimed at encouraging the unions to feel a sense of their own power, thus checking the power of the military. However, while ostensibly supporting Goulart, Brizola was busy with his own private agenda to assume power himself. He calculated that because of their early history, labour unions favoured tight relations with the postVargist state. He assumed that this would be even more the case if the president of Brazil also happened to be president of the Labour Party of Brazil (PTB). The understanding was that, in return for the support of workers and for the political services rendered by Brizola, Goulart would demand, in the name of the working classes, improvements to the situation of labour unions. In this way, the unions thus lost whatever independence they had once enjoyed, and became merely a militant arm serving to protect the president against the incessant intrigues of the right. Furthermore, the peasant masses – whose status was nothing if not precarious – began to organize. In particular, in the State of Pernambuco, both Governor Miguel Arrães and humanist lawyer Francisco Julião were pushing for agrarian reform on their behalf. But here in the seriously underdeveloped nordeste, far from the dominance of the capital city, political conditions prevented peasant mobilization from coalescing and thus from having a determinant influence on events. Nevertheless, early in 1964, it was President Goulart’s highly trumpeted agrarian reform policies that exasperated the right and caused the downfall of his government: On 1 April 1964 the military seized power and gave the presidency to Marshal Humberto Alencar de Castelo Branco. The most prominent leftist personalities were exiled or held incommunicado. Goulart fled to Uruguay, while Celso Furtado (the finance minister), and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (a professor and theoretician of the moderate left), exiled themselves to Paris, where they remained until an amnesty was proclaimed in 1979. Although the labour unions had offered token resistance, Francisco Julião’s peasant leagues remained silent. In the end, the social movement born of the political system initiated by Getulio Vargas was incapable of developing a viable program that could be held together with sufficient support and mobilization of its members. Later, both Goulart and Brizola stood accused of pointless radicalism in their discourse, of incoherence in their actions, and of cowardice in their resistance. Less dramatically, one can say that the entire political system was made up of a relatively small number of leaders who not only came from the privileged classes, but from the peripheral province of Rio Grande do

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Sul. The social movement had remained a kind of vassal to corporatism, manipulated and weakly mobilized by often inexperienced leaders with unrealistic expectations – what is worse – preoccupied with ensuring its own political survival than with improving the condition of the workers or peasants. One of the effects carried over from this period was a lasting prejudice, obvious in subsequent Brazilian literature, against any and all manifestations of radicalism. Radicalism was held responsible for the failure of the first wave of democratization in Brazil, and the notion of radicalism became restricted to the contradictory declarations made by Goulart and to the calls to insurrection made by Brizola. Analysts have neglected the fact that the popular associations of the day were little more than political instruments, both strongly hierarchical and far from democratic. Later, it would be on entirely new foundations that civil society would come into its own. The new foundations were laid by the military regime itself: conservative, authoritarian, elitist, and technocratic, the military regime enforced social policies so retrograde that they did nothing but accentuate poverty and isolate the already marginalized classes. Consequently, the foremost organizational principle adopted by a civil society steeped in mistrust of government would be autonomy from the political sphere; this it perceived to be the only guarantee of maintaining its identity and its liberty to organize. The military government, willy-nilly, certainly encouraged this development by its total and contemptuous disregard for workers and peasants and by cutting off all dialogue with their more or less clandestine leaders, for a period of twenty years. One of these early leaders has – for good reason – since become especially famous: Luis Inácio da Silva, nicknamed Lula, or ‘the squid,’ in tribute to his legendary talent for escaping the clutches of the military police in his early years as an activist. The second organizational principle was solidarity and organizational solidity. Where a social movement was able to hold to these principles, it emerged as a force able to gather the neglected, the luckless, the ‘forgotten ones’ of this non-system. As it turned out, the military would not, as Vargas had done, create a political system. Instead, its energy was poured into setting up a bureaucratic-authoritarian regime that was highly elitist and tightly restricted.7 The Authoritarian Interregnum The failed populist experiment opened onto an authoritarian scenario.

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The military regime turned a deaf ear to the claims of social movements. It was convinced of the danger they represented to their own power and thus began to sanction the use of force to impose the market reform model that had been designed by Finance Minister Roberto Campos. No attempt was made at any comprehensive reform of socioeconomic structures. The regime hardened its positions in 1967, increased its military presence, confirmed its prerogatives through a set of presidential decrees, and in every way worked to maintain at any cost the status quo which guaranteed its privileged relationship with the São Paulo business elite and with international actors. This was the course chosen by the Brazilian military regime between 1964 and 1984, as it was more recently by President Alberto Fujimori’s regime in Peru. It has been described by some as authoritarian or hard line and by others as dictatorial. It presented a harsh challenge to any theory of Latin American democracy. In this scenario, one might say that the polarization hypothesized by O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead resulted in a rough and unexpected shift to the right, because there was no longer any genuine political manoeuvring room open to populist reformers. The hardliners had well and truly taken back the reins of power. The opposition had vanished from the streets. During the rule of generals Ernesto Geisel (1974–9) and João Baptista Figueiredo (1980– 4) it reorganized in the underground. In 1977, the movement attempted to come into the open: an alliance of São Paulo metallurgical workers went on strike with Lula as its most prominent leader, but shortly after, following repeated death threats made by the regime, it went underground again. The authoritarian interregnum illustrates an obvious link between the return to power of the hardliners and the rise of a radical left. This buttresses our earlier contention that there can be no radical alternative without the objective conditions that provoke its rise and that focus its attention on resistance against said conditions. Radical mobilization can occur solely within a specific context where the moderate elites lose prestige, thus leading domestic politics towards an authoritarian program that is to the advantage of the hardliners’ power base, urban business elites and landowners. Under such conditions, a new political hierarchy arises, whereby leading hardliners integrate into the state apparatus the remaining elements of the moderates, either in the inferior ranks of bureaucracy or in the educational system. In these lower strata of decision-making, the moderates are deprived of freedom of expression and any significant means of action.

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There is a twin dynamic, as O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead’s hypothesis would have it, whereby hardliners in power and radicals in the underground each dominate the field on either side of a greatly reduced moderate political space. For this reason, the second wave of democracy was marked by an attempt on the part of the moderate elites to free themselves from the authoritarian leadership, while keeping their distance from the mounting radical groups. The urban middle classes, whose economic condition improved in the 1970s, developed a wait-and-see, conservative attitude and reaffirmed their desire to see reinstated the protective and clientelist role of the state. State interventionism in support of industrialization and urban clienteles therefore intensified, especially under the presidency of Ernesto Geisel. The regime evolved from an anticommunist, narrow coalition of bureaucrats and military, towards a broader alliance comprised of multinational and national entrepreneurs shielded from foreign competition by protectionist regulations and state incentives (Evans, 1979). More marginal categories, rural populations among them, were in the main ignored in developmental policies. Those that had the ill-luck to be caught up in capitalist deployment initiatives in rural areas were either shunted aside and excluded or enrolled in the workforce of these ventures, under conditions so insecure as to be worse than their previous means of livelihood. None of the vast array of sectoral indicators, regional indicators, and certainly, social indicators available for the period point to any progress in terms of income, access to property, or access to individual investment for the poor. Current indicators point to relative success in modernizing the economy, high rates of growth around urban clusters of industrialization, and the failure of state intervention in terms of correcting the prevailing socioeconomic imbalances. The population of Brazil has grown from 95 to 140 million since the 1970s, increasing pressure in the underdeveloped northeast as well as in the favelas (shantytowns) around Brazil’s main cities and middle-sized towns; millions of people have migrated to the Amazon region to become nothing more than squatters. Encouraged by the early successes of an export sector opening onto global markets, the traditional alliance between bureaucrats, substantial landowners, and urban elites has been re-established – if indeed it was ever in jeopardy. This alliance will consolidate precisely in response to the perceived danger of impending power-sharing with popular movements. This phenomenon is not without precedent. In discussing Chile in the 1970s, Kay (1998: 16) remarks: ‘Political links between landlords

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and the urban bourgeoisie were far closer than commonly thought, and the bourgeoisie generally placed their political interests before shortterm economic gains ... The increasing demands and mobilization of rural and urban workers strengthened the alliance of the rural and urban bourgeoisie, including some middle-class sectors.’ Clientelist networks have been restored according to well-known patterns, and decision-making increasingly reflects the will of bureaucrats and local entrepreneurs anxious to participate in the global economy. Thus can be explained by the wave of massive capitalist ventures, such as the expansion of the public oligopoly PETROBRAS, as well as an ambitious nuclear program in association with Germany, the PROALCOOL program, which is aimed at substituting fuel produced from locally produced sugar-cane alcohol for gasoline in cars, and the colonization of border lands in the Amazon. This is where their ambitions ran into the opposition of self-organized social groups, which heretofore had been left to themselves, untouched by capitalist projects. The battle unfolded in innumerable and sometimes bloody episodes. Starting in 1972, there were clashes between new landowners and investors in the Amazon, on the one side, and migrant squatterpeasants from the northeast in the Araguáia basin, on the other. The 1970s saw the first uprisings of sugar-cane ‘slave workers’ in the latifúndio estates of the southeast region and the first strikes of the automobile industry workers around São Paulo, which was to become the cradle of the PT organization. The political consequences of this phenomenon are considerable, and they have been thoroughly explored by theorists using the bureaucratic-authoritarian model. A first set of consequences is linked to the regime’s base of legitimacy, which remains relatively narrow and totally dependent on external factors such as global growth. When growth comes to an end, as it did in the early 1980s, support for the regime dwindles. Furthermore, a regime of bureaucrats wherein no marked progress towards equality occurs can expect no allies among popular forces; this deficiency will only bind those in power more tightly into a relationship where they become hostages of international actors, a situation they entered into against their will, because of the debt crisis. On the domestic front, in this situation governing bodies sink back into their old ways, referred to by O’Donnell (1994) as the essential root of ‘presidentialist government’ or government by decree; this path always seems easier and more inviting than a presumably disruptive gradual broadening of the clan made up of the elites to

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include new members who seem all at once culturally distant, politically unpredictable, and insufficiently amenable (especially) following the traditional and oligarchic leaders representative of conventional politics. The second set of consequences made itself felt among the upper middle classes and contributed to distancing them from the marketfriendly experiment, which had seemed so seductive in the first decade of Brazil’s military regime. As we shall see in the following chapters, some attempts at forging alliances did occur here and there, most often haphazardly, between middle-class representatives and popular movements. These were left to their own devices outside the circle of centralized power, with its ideology of market liberalism and its limited channels of organization. Overall, however, the situation of the military regime became hopeless. The next section examines the second wave of democratization and explores its significance within the process of participative democracy in Brazil. Some caution is advised. It should come as no surprise that public policies put forward in the transition phase towards democracy, through imprecise goals and indecisive action, bear the mark of incomplete autonomy vis-à-vis the traditional elites. In a crisis-induced transition, the new democratic reformers will experience substantial problems of economic management. This situation can render them unable to capitalize effectively on the political goodwill generated by the transition, as has been revealed in so many conclusive studies (e.g., Haggard and Kaufman, 1995: 183–227). The following section will serve as a demonstration of this. The Second Wave of Democratization Some areas of Brazilian politics are more polarized than others. During the period marked by active colonization of the Amazon basin, it became increasingly difficult for central authorities to exercise any form of control over the abuses perpetrated by landholders in Brazil’s hinterlands. The country’s burden of debt reached unprecedented levels with the building of hydroelectric dams and nuclear facilities. Inflation was back again, putting an end to Brazil’s 1973–81 ‘economic miracle.’ A period of recession followed, from which Brazil has never fully recovered (Lesbaupin and Mineiro, 2002: 8).8 Under the last and more benevolent military president, João Baptista Figueiredo, the press enjoyed a newfound freedom. The Folha de São

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Paulo put forth the principle of justice through the consolidation of courts that would be freer to exercise their prerogatives and willing to shed light on past human rights abuses. This influential newspaper, as well as others, played a central role in raising political awareness through the vigorous campaigns with which they greeted the dawn of a ‘political opening’ or abertura in 1981; they raised the call for universal suffrage as early as in 1984. Trade unions found their voice again after the long silence under totalitarianism. Unions became central players in Brazilian politics, leading to the entry of the PT into the federal arena. Civil society had not sat on its hands waiting for the demise of the dictatorship. Associations multiplied in the late 1970s and early 1980s, extending civil networks and attempting to take up the slack from a struggling regime short on money, prestige, and internal organizational strength. Brazil’s second wave of democratization started in the early 1980s. In 1984, the old and respected Minas Gerais–born Tancredo Neves, who had been justice minister under Getulio Vargas and later finance minister and later still prime minister under populist president João Goulart, was chosen as the first civilian president by an electoral committee closely monitored by the military. Neves’s unexpected death after only one month in office left Vice-President José Sarney with the responsibility of defining the rules of the New Republic. A constitutional amendment in May 1985 changed the manipulative and restrictive electoral rules. It abolished the strict party requirements imposed by the military, allowed representatives to change parties at will, permitted interparty alliances, and loosened the requirements for attaining representation in the Congresso Nacional (federal parliament). Permissive as it was, this amendment resulted in extreme fragmentation of the party system: ‘In the other more developed countries of Latin America, after the recent experience of authoritarian rule, the party systems more or less resembled the pre-authoritarian ones, and the same parties resurfaced as dominant. In Brazil, notwithstanding important continuities in the style of the catchall parties, none of the major pre-1964 parties survived ... Although the parties have changed, party fragility has persisted and is manifest in rapid changes in the post-1985 party system of the New Republic, reflecting the inability of the major parties to retain popular confidence and sympathies’ (Mainwaring, 1995: 369). As Mainwaring makes clear, a fragile, loosely organized party system gives the state all the leeway it needs to reshape the rules and fos-

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ters the power of the president. Under much pressure from all sides, President Sarney called on a Constituent Assembly, which was composed of intellectuals and civilian politicians who, generally speaking, had no previous relationship to the military regime. The moderate left was well represented, with delegates of the surviving, and rapidly disintegrating opposition party, the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB). Many would leave the PMDB to create the Partido da Social Democrácia Brasileira (PSDB) under the intellectual leadership of federal senator Fernando Henrique Cardoso and his rising affiliates, among them José Serra, who would later become a presidential candidate.9 The old PTB was now renamed Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT), but still led by the aged and ever flamboyant Leonel Brizola and his political heir Ivete Vargas, daughter of the deceased dictator, also joined the assembly. On this team one could also find respected academics such as Maria da Conceição Tavares, who was loosely related to the nascent PT, and Mario Covas (PMDB), a rising political figure from the state of São Paulo. Against the backdrop of the slow and inexorable deterioration of living standards under the military regime, it is only fair to call attention to the multitude of political opportunities offered by the early phase of transition. The general context of the 1988 Constitution showed a tendency towards moderate and appeasing initiatives as the only practicable means of carrying out desirable reforms. Hailed as beacons of democracy, the rising political leaders – the providential, improvising and short-lived Neves and his less committed successor Sarney – were, when initiating popular instruments such as the Constituent Assembly or making concessions to social groups under the 1986 Plano Cruzado, not just banking on a moderate approach: they were also establishing the institutional instruments of democracy. It is in this way that the Constitution was elaborated. This had a major impact on economic management, reversing the trend towards a highly centralized state in favour of more decentralized activities, particularly at the municipal level. The constitutional process addressed several demands of the left and issued a framework for an agrarian reform that would redistribute idle latifúndio land among rural communities. It protected the bulk of the public sector against privatization, recommending national ownership of the country’s industry, particularly in energy and information technology. It imposed formal barriers against foreign capital and tariffs on imports. It prohibited the takeover of national assets, whether public or private, by multinational corporations, and it adhered to the princi-

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ple of tariff protection against competition in sensitive areas, such as the burgeoning armament and computer industries. The constitutional process also echoed many demands of the right and harked back to older times, to the provincialism of the República Velha (1889–1930). It managed to secure the over-representation of the backward northeast to the detriment of the industrialized southeast, to foster the network of influence of rising political figures: first the president, a native of Maranhão, with his clientele of new deputies who joined the PMDB and made it a party of the centre-right; second, the leaders of the truly conservative Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL), made up of nordestino political leaders prone to clientelist practices (Du-quette, 1999: 216). Gradually, these forces managed to build a common front against a left that was at that time split between the PT and the Partido da Social-Democrácia Brasileira (PSDB). Once in command, the right opened the way to experiments in structural adjustment – heavily inspired by the World Bank and its neo-conservative ideologists. The Constituent Assembly promulgated a Constitution that fundamentally altered the balance between national and local jurisdictions. It also served to defuse the antagonism directed at the federal government, to encourage the popular aspirations of urban programs, and to make territory-based distinctions, for example, among responses to civil society, according to the characteristics of regional governments – some of which were to undertake experiments of a stronger social flavour than others.10 All this was accomplished through strategic alliances with popular movements which were freshly emerging from an awkward coexistence with the authoritarian regime. Accustomed to the rigours of exclusion, demanding little for having been long deprived, these movements cast themselves in subordinate roles – docile participants at best, bit players at worst – in the emerging rituals of democracy. The first sectoral policies were adopted, there was talk of investing in the improvement of shantytowns and in land reform, and popular education and professional training programs for the underprivileged were established. The results of these shifts were roughly the same in all cases. Civil society was seduced into participating in governmental planning, the top-to-bottom command structure was reinforced, and social movements left the ascendant for the optimal phase of the protest cycle. Many adopted the regime’s goals, although others remained reticent. Such adopted elites gave the regime the degree of legitimacy it so sorely needed. Thus its power base spread towards the middle levels

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of society, especially among the urban classes close to the machinery of government, in addition to benefiting from the momentum given the export sector by liberalization policies that boosted trade and consumerism. A burgeoning prosperity – particularly during the Plano Cruzado years (1986–9) – led to the perception that moderates were firmly at the helm with both hardliners and radicals held in check by the wide coalition, touted as a consensus, that held power. Some writers were taken in by this illusion, perhaps in the belief that they were seeing O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead’s hypothesis unfold and that the moderate alternative, buttressed by economic growth, was winning out over the polarized factions whose return had been feared (Bresser Pereira et al., 1993). In all good faith, they consequently advocated an extension of the reform model to a still deficient social practice, without realizing that the reforms undertaken so far had served only to maintain the socioeconomic bases of the traditional business oligarchy. The traditional oligarchy was now operating on a more global field, without ever having upset the power relationships at work or attacking the structural causes of inequality. It is clear to us, however, and European and North American history supports this belief, that true social practice can never be equated with the exercise of a benign patronage or philanthropy by powerful, if moderate, political elites in favour of the dispossessed when, and if, circumstances allow it – which in any event was not the case in Brazil. Petras and Harding (2000) are harsher yet when they speak of a shift in the politics of the new democracies from an original perspective of in-depth reforms to one of simple redistribution of the fruits of growth. The latter certainly represents a reductive and tempered version of the initial project of social reform. The concrete practice of democracy can only be the result of political transactions among the forces involved, and these must first be mediated and then translated into public intervention programs, through sound institutions. Social practice is merely the expression of the actual relative positions of social forces and social categories in a society. Social practice is the balance, to a certain extent, of the socioeconomic power bases of the establishment elites, on the one hand, and, on the other, popular associations, with trade unions being a particular example. The classic theory of democracy does not sui generis bring into being a theory of equality. The latter, unlike the former, is born of objective circumstances and conditions favourable to its experimentation. We have elsewhere demonstrated (Duquette, 1999: 97–107) that since

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structural adjustments guarantee neither growth nor a generalized increased material wealth in a society marked by underdevelopment, nothing should have led us to believe that these adjustments in Brazil were capable of even more, such as a shift in the balance of power between the different social categories. Indeed, this was never their objective. The splintering among the left explains, in good part, the unpredictable context in which presidential candidate Fernando Collor de Melo, who was an almost unknown personality from the northeast, managed to attract a majority vote and unexpectedly come to power in 1989, after José Sarney’s term in office. The road was open to a marketfriendly policy including privatization of public firms and liberalization of the domestic market which was deemed essential by the president’s close circle of advisers inspired by international lending agencies. The progressive forces re-elected in opposition – moderates of the PSDB and radicals surrounding the PT – gave voice to the pleas expressed in all quarters. Foremost was the plea to safeguard the budding democracy. In addition, they wanted the promises made in the new Constitution to be realized. But much like the social categories and organized groups that they represented, the progressives each had distinct ways of expressing their dissent, and they never managed to come together around a common program. The impeachment of President Collor de Melo in 1992 on charges of corruption made way for Vice-President Itamar Franco, whose shortlived administration was marked by indecisive action. Privatization operations were halted, and the relationship the previous administration had established with international agencies was loosened. Inflation soared to unprecedented levels, reaching 2,300 per cent by 1994, at the same time that Mexico was reeling under the peso crisis. This unstable context opened a breach for the PSDB and its leader Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a well-known and much respected figure in Brazil as well as abroad. Cardoso, whose platform favoured a centre-left reform program, won the October 1994 presidential election. The first Cardoso administration (1995–8) proved to be one of incremental improvements in the area of Brazil’s public policies. The general context was unfavourable at best. The short-term imperative of the newly elected administration was to check the skyrocketing inflation. Argentina’s solution, in 1991, had been to decree parity of the peso with the U.S. dollar; this measure held up for just over ten years. Inspired by the Argentinean precedent, Cardoso started implementing

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the Plano Real, which included a bold monetary reform – creation of a new currency, the real, equated with the U.S. dollar – and cautious moves towards social reform. The Plano Real gradually eliminated the public subsidies that had long been fuelling inflation, stabilized the economy, and pleased the business community. Next Cardoso consolidated a newborn private banking sector, welcoming foreign capital that served to guarantee the strength of the new currency. The notion of government independence from the Central Bank progressed, while still allowing for the application – flexible in practice, because of financial fragility – of regulative monetarist intervention as needed. The temptation for foreigners to speculate in investment markets was an enduring characteristic of the period, as demonstrated by the successive crises of the Brazilian real in 1998 and again in 2001. Brazil, like any Latin American country, was vulnerable to the vagaries of world investment, which are only amplified by the expansion of information technologies. Brazil learned earlier than most countries that it would have to fight for the international regulation of investments and the establishment of instruments to do so. Cardoso’s first mandate was marked by contradictions and mixed signals to both national and regional elites and to civil society. Although a primary difficulty resided in coordinating the efforts of various levels of government, the greater problem lay in the excessive politicization of social issues. This became a divisive factor among power elites and minimized concrete progress. Simply put, the sphere of social issues is extensive, objectives inscribed in the Constitution remained poorly defined, and the means for realizing them insufficient. Within the Cardoso administration, it was widely believed that definitive remedies required joint action on the part of civil society, international development aid agencies, and national and local authorities. This necessary consensus was absent, in a context marked by apparently irreconcilable visions of society. In the area of health care, for example, the first health minister, Adib Jatene, put forward in 1996 a new tax designed to upgrade the public health system. Of special interest to Jatene was the implementation of a new program to counteract the spread of dengue fever. The disease, eradicated in the late 1950s, had returned in epidemic proportions in many regions of Brazil, including heavily populated Rio de Janeiro. It appears that the finance department simply diverted 95 per cent of the new monies so raised to servicing the foreign debt. Understandably, Jatene was soon forced to resign (Lesbaupin and Mineiro, 2002: 42).

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Little progress was made in the areas of housing and agrarian reform, although popular demands, as we shall see, gained momentum. To compensate for declining public investment in the rural sector, the government asked the World Bank to run agrarian reform projects which were based on the recognition of smallholders’ property titles, on their insertion into the cash economy, and on an initial round of investments. Non-governmental organizations and mutual assistance associations, following up on the work of Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (Christian Base Communities or CEBs), were increasingly active, formulating alternatives for the residents of suburban areas; this was also being done at the state level where leftist administrations were elected in the late 1990s (i.e., Rio Grande do Sul, Matto Grosso do Sul, and Amapá). There was, in fact, a noticeable distance between municipal, state, and federal politics. In 1999, the twin principles of participative planning and participative budget or Orçamento Participativo were put forth by the PT administration of the State of Rio Grande do Sul. This led to increased social investments (Franche, 2000: 31–48). In 1996, in the highly populated (3,000,000 inhabitants) suburban ring of São Paulo, a regional chamber of fifteen mayors started implementing a plan designed to enhance health conditions, provide widespread information on social and medical services, support small and middlesized businesses, and even promote local tourism on a national scale (Daniel, 1996). In an attempt to sidestep the weakness of a party system with poorly defined program outlines, Brazilian voters went for continuity and in 1999 re-elected Cardoso for a second four-year term. However, the structural adjustment process had been on the rails since the early 1990s, and Brazil was undergoing both a profound reorganization of the state and the liberalization of its economy. The administration made its main goal clear. With slumping growth rates throughout the decade and a rising burden of debt, payments on the foreign debt had risen steadily, from 42 per cent of total federal spending in 1998 to 66 per cent in 2000. This is the main reason that, during the second Cardoso mandate, ambitious attempts were made to associate Brazil’s states with international agencies on the basis of strengthening the rules of the market. All the while, there was a multiplication of attempts at self-organization based on the tradition of grassroots groups linking up to create networks of social movements involved in local politics. As we will see in the coming chapters, in the course of Cardoso’s second mandate, an uneasy dialogue between these diverse

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actors was established, characterized, on the one hand, by promising attempts at social integration, and on the other, by considerable misunderstandings regarding the final objectives of social intervention. This same challenging set of circumstances is now confronting the Lula administration. Grassroots support for both leaders of social movements and the elites declined. Although they had agreed, in the name of emerging democracy and in hopes of gains for their respective clienteles, to participate in federal politics and the establishment of a liberal economic model, the grassroots saw no improvement in their socioeconomic situation. We will see examples of this phenomenon in the case studies presented in this volume, in communities and among movements both urban and rural.11 At the same time, new groups were getting attention. Groups hitherto left untouched by the modernization process, and which had in no way participated in the structural adjustment model, came to the forefront of the political agenda. Their voices had no respect for the unspoken rules of democracy, and expressed heterodox claims that were incompatible with the requirements of the proposed reform model. This occurred when mega-projects, such as mining or some new agroindustrial development that had been decided upon by the government or other elites, began to reach into areas as yet untouched by the fallout of liberalization. This gave birth to a new spiral of political polarization. Hardliners, including armed groups and local caciques which were still all-powerful in these isolated border areas made their muscle felt and launched criminal attacks against popular groups and prominent personalities, such as Chico Mendes. The Cardoso administration never succeeded in disarming these paramilitary groups. In response both to these attacks and to an absence of authentic reforms, mobilization and politically articulated protest increased. This was in direct measure to the feeling of insecurity, the pauperization of the majority, and the number of new capitalist ventures which were seen as attempts to disrupt community lifestyles. Could the adjective ‘moderate’ still be used to describe these elites? The public policies pursued, as their main objective, the concentration of capital to the detriment of the ecosystem, and only served to foster a backward system of traditional alliances. As a consequence, this scenario had the urban elites taking a turn to the right. This was perceived by the majority of Brazilians – with the exception of some of the elite’s urban and bureaucratic clienteles – as

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the realization of the ‘hardline’ alternative. It was felt all the harder by people in those social categories that were poorly informed and poorly integrated into national political life, while at the same time bearing the brunt of forced implementation of this option in the field – this situation served only to fuel their resentment. Implementation of primitive forms of capitalism in the hinterlands – including intensive oligo-export farming, agro-pastoral enclaves, deforestation in the Amazon, forcible removal of indigenous and traditional populations – fuelled an incendiary rhetoric and often strong-armed intervention. Against these advocates of a radical alternative, the powerful seemed all but unable to protect themselves. Their multipartisan ranks lacked strong cohesion and a solid consensus around the liberal models of development. This tends to confirm the notion that the elites in power become isolated. A significant portion of public opinion comes to accuse them of giving in to international actors and fostering a situation detrimental to the country’s best interests. Added to this is the potential for a spread of radical actions should general macroeconomic conditions worsen as the result, say, of a recession in global markets. All of this goes to show how vulnerable Brazil remains, in the face of the vagaries of market fluctuations, and how ill-equipped moderate reformers are to re-establish order under unstable conditions. One can fear that this marks the limit of their capacity to reform the traditional socioeconomic framework. The second Cardoso administration was confronted with a breakdown on the social front. At its peril, the administration had turned a blind eye to the perverse effects of its economic model on the miserable populations of suburban favelas and the rural interior. Democratic transition analysts had also deemed these perverse effects unworthy of attention, so archaic and lacking in significance did they seem. Apparently Cordoso’s people had prematurely declared the death of a peasantry, inherited from the past, assuming it to be insignificant in the days of globalization. The moderate reformers in Brasília rightly feared that these movements, and their apparently uncontrollable mobilizing actions, would compromise the kind of democracy counselled by U.S. policymakers. In fact, these movements are no more than faithful mirrors of the exasperation of social categories swept aside by capitalist export-driven agricultural mega-projects and by government programs set up for the exclusive benefit of more or less unscrupulous entrepreneurs. The area of privatization fully illustrates this point. The process of

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privatization was initiated under President Collor de Melo and gained momentum under Cardoso. By 2002, 76 per cent of public firms, valued at U.S.$35 billion, had come under private ownership, leaving only PETROBRAS, Banco do Brasil, the Caixa Econômica Federal, and the national postal agency (Corrêos do Brasil) in the public domain. Moreover, to close the sales, most buyer firms contracted loans at below-market interest rates from Banco do Brasil. In addition, most of these firms had to be upgraded before the sales could take place. The telecommunication firm Telebras was the object of special government attention: it received U.S.$9 billion to extend its infrastructure facilities and transmission networks. The government also paid its debt of U.S.$1 billion. Telebras was then sold for U.S.$10.2 billion. When the severance pay given to workers and management dismissed by Telebras is added to the total expenditures, it is clear that this whole operation was unprofitable to the public treasury (Biondi, 1999). Examples abound of recently privatized firms, such as the power utility Light, which received generous loans from state banks because it was unable to generate any profit and was going bankrupt. As early as 2000, numerous power failures and treated water supply shortages in many metropolitan areas had forced the government to set up rationing. Brazil was reverting to conditions it had not known for half a century. Assessing Brazilian Democracy At the onset of the twenty-first century, the new Republic of Brazil could be described as semi-successful. Some of its substantial achievements deserve to be recorded. On more than one occasion, Brazil has shown a sense of leadership in the regional arena and challenged the United States on a series of trade issues. One interesting initiative, carried out over nearly a dozen years, has been the increase in free trade and economic agreements among countries sharing a geopolitical area and comparable levels of development. The 1991 Asuncion Treaty led to the establishment of Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR or the common market of Southern Cone countries) which includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This treaty led to unprecedented levels of commercial exchanges among these countries, with Chile and Bolivia participating as associate nations. Unification of their interior territories is at the top of MERCOSUR’s long agenda. The agenda also includes gas and oil pipelines to link Chile with Argentina and Brazil with Bolivia; mutual investments in retail and agricultural trade across

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the Andes; revitalization of border areas such as Río de la Plata and Río Paraná through the construction of super-ports; and the modernization of land and water transport. Everywhere we see plans for an increase of what these emerging economies had so sorely lacked: an equitable sharing of natural resources, industrial complementarity, common production standards, and modern management practices. The need to upgrade human and institutional resources has led to technical cooperation agreements with developed nations, such as the one linking MERCOSUR with the European Union, signed in June 2000 in Rio de Janeiro under Brazilian leadership. It is to be hoped that such treaties will include discussions on labour and environmental standards, which are still not protected by any comprehensive plan, however minimal. All in all, it can be asserted that the new Brazilian democracy has been more successful abroad, in regional diplomacy and cooperation with foreign countries and international agencies, than on the domestic front, where reforms have been carried out in an ad hoc, improvised fashion (see, e.g., Nelson, 1990; Kaufman, 1990; Schneider, 1992; Williamson, 1994; Haggard and Webb, 1994; Haggard and Kaufman, 1995; Duquette, 1999). These reforms included repeated attempts at monetary stabilization, the phasing out of protectionist practices, privatization of public firms, and allowing more foreign investment, especially from the European Union. But the real gradually lost more value against the U.S. dollar, many issues were left unattended, and social disorder grew along with the unfulfilled rising expectations of the majority. Although today the defining institutions of democracy appear to be generally functional (with stable presidentialism, continuity of legislative assemblies, and universal suffrage with recurrent balloting), some other instruments of representation (such as the press and other media, political parties, and associative networks) remain in some difficulty. Some of them do not meet all their objectives related to broadening the participation of constituencies in the decisions that durably affect people’s daily lives. These emerging institutions play only a modest role in both the global design and the implementation of public policies. Political corruption is still widespread, and this both paralyzes institutions and incapacitates efforts aimed at necessary reforms. Brazil’s national treasury is nearly bare, encumbered as it is by a huge burden of debt – with about 50 per cent of public revenue allotted to servicing the debt in 2004.

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These conditions have given rise to an increasingly confined view of public action, marked by decision-making that privileges short-term actions and occasional recourse to crisis-driven expedients and palliative measures. Our case studies will point out inconsistencies in both the design and implementation of government programs, as well as the contradictory signals sent to business and to representatives of civil society that testify to confrontations between leaders and political entities at the national and regional levels. These leaders and their parties have frequently found themselves either in opposite camps over programmatic and organizational matters or in unlikely alliances with regional elites.12 International agencies, while offering almost unconditional support to the efforts of Latin American governments, are forced in their audits to signal the disappointing performance of public interventions. One of the constants of Brazilian political life is once again rearing its head: a sociological climate marked by disillusionment among the citizenry and by dithering at the highest levels of power, punctuated by acrimonious posturing around projects within political parties and echoed by the press in its quest for freedom and readership. The limitations in the area of reform are too well documented to be ignored in current academic research. Other limitations subsequent to the first must also be considered. These include the increased frustration of social categories inadequately involved in the democratic process and insufficiently affected by public intervention, and more generally speaking, the distant and haphazard relationship between popular demands, as voiced by social movements, and the functioning of a government machinery that lacks the political will, efficient administrative tools, and financial means needed for intervention – deficiencies made all the more acute by government budget cuts. In this environment marked by scarcity of resources, dominated by the dictates of the market, and suffering a chronic debt crisis, the fear arises that the traditional alliance between state bureaucracy and the urban middle and upper classes, so characteristic of former regimes (whether populist or authoritarian), is being reinstated under the cover of a democratization – which we will refer to here as ‘formal democracy’ – to the detriment of the legitimate demands expressed by those who are excluded. The objective of general economic and social reform, once central to the aspirations of the Constituent Assembly, is giving way to objectives restricted to the liberalization of the export economy, and this simply makes the already rich richer. Too little is being done to address the basic needs of society: access to housing and

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to land, more equitable income, more autonomous and efficient channels of representation, and respect for the principles of selforganization and free association as appropriate to the culture and to the limited means at the disposal of communities situated on the margins of economic and political power. New Political Opportunities: The Coming to Power of the Left The groups that had agreed in the 1980s to participate in the political process were in danger of losing their following, in the absence of dividends gained for them from the regime. Nevertheless, the experience gained by their leaders within government circles would later prove useful in organizing dissent on a larger scale. A significant number of them began to withdraw from governmental initiatives. As a consequence, many leaders were looking for a new affiliation, and the PT welcomed reinforcements from disillusioned civil servants and technicians, many coming from privatized firms. Another phenomenon was at work, which is of the highest theoretical and practical interest: increasingly we find opposition intellectuals forming movements and joining leftist parties, particularly the PT, running for election, and serving in regional governments, in the same motivated and decentralizing spirit that prevailed, for example, at the time of the formulation of the 1988 Constitution. Calling for a broadening of political participation, in a context where their own leeway is necessarily restricted, many of these leaders have chosen to create alliances with social associations and movements – even the most radical among them – with an eye to opportunities for concrete experiments and the definition of a more visible power relationship with central authorities. At the close of the 1990s, and at the end of President Cardoso’s second mandate, social groups were audibly expressing their frustration. Although some groups had lost their leadership and dispersed, others, particularly in rural areas, had tightened their ranks and rose against the government. More importantly, the middle classes began to lose confidence in the moderate reformers. They were starting to envision the PT and its leader, Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, as a viable alternative to the PSDB. Under these semi-auspicious conditions social instability grew apace, as began to occur simultaneously in Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela. At this stage – and this is where we see appearing a more participative form of democracy – elites as well as most other social

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categories began to lose faith in the promises of the reform projects of the Cardoso era. Furthermore, economic audits and data collected by international agencies offer ample proof that in the past two decades income indicators have shown next to no change, save only for a gradual intensification of poverty. This is particularly the case for periods of implementation of monetary stabilization and the fight against inflation, initiatives that were termed either ‘shocks’ or ‘plans’ (ECLAC, 1997). Only general macroeconomic figures display a trend towards monetary stabilization in the middle term, and less frequently in the short term. There has also been a steady improvement in exports, although this has been more significant in the case of Mexico than Brazil. The well-endowed classes have seen their income increase in step with the degree of openness of regional markets to the global market blocks such as MERCOSUR, NAFTA, and the EU which have afforded them new business opportunities. It is on this rough terrain of transition from democracy in its incipient phase to its deepening that we intend to explore the place and role of the radical alternative, or at least to the alternative referred to as such in the present-day literature that deals with democratization in Latin America. MST, as one example, displays the characteristics of a radical movement of Marxist nature in the context of a hardening of the elites coupled with a feeling of desperation among wide sectors of civil society. We will, additionally, examine the cohesiveness and the solidity of its proposals in our study of MST’s relationship with other forces of civil society, specifically with women’s movements and urban movements on which it has exercized a significant influence. MST’s links with political parties (in particular with the opposition PT) and with other civil society associations of Brazil, acting sometimes on the political field and sometimes at the level of day-to-day organization, will shed some light on the unique place occupied by the Landless Peasant Movement in the current context and on the ambiguous response MST elicits in centrist factions. Compared with the social movements active in the 1970s and 1980s, these new ones are seen by some as a throwback to the past. For others they represent legitimate retaliation on the part of civil society in the face of social dislocation born of market-driven structural adjustments (Petras, 1997). In all cases these movements seem to be waking old demons that had been believed to have quit Latin America for good. This is all the more surprising in Brazil, an industrialized country that appeared to be almost fully integrated into world markets. The pres-

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ence and the activity of such movements signal the unfinished and inequitable nature of a model of regional capitalist development. This has led to an unprecedented and sordid misery which structural adjustment policies have been unable, because those in power were unwilling, to correct in a viable manner. The transfer of power from old to new parties is always an extremely difficult passage, but it has already occurred in a number of Latin American countries. In Brazil, in 2001, as the main opposition party, the PT won several municipal elections, most notably in São Paulo. This was to be the prelude to a major victory, with the PT’s leader, Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, becoming president of Brazil in January 2003. Along with the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Alejandro Toledo in Peru, Lula’s victory is a clear indication that throughout Latin America, with nuances specific to each country, political models allowing for a wider participation in public debate are taking shape. As we have seen, this changing of the guard is taking place under pressure of widespread challenges in both the economic and social spheres. It is not yet proven that, in the current situation, popular movements will resolve, through their occasional interventions and circumstantial alliances, the fundamental social problems of women’s rights, access to land or work, and decent urban living conditions (all of which have failed to be gratified with even the beginnings of a solution despite 200 years of Brazil’s independence). However, one thing at least is now crystal clear. In Brazil, the necessary condition for the passage from the Cardoso era to the Lula administration is the inclusion, within the general political sphere, of the essential claims, know-how, and traditions of autonomy promoted, in their unceasing though inexpert struggle, by the current actors of urban and rural collective action. In this scenario, the new administration will be recognizing the validity of opposition claims and weaving increasingly close relations with its leaders, transacting in good faith with its associations and organizations, and bestowing upon these the status of legitimate members participating by right in decisions affecting the development model. This can happen only where certain conditions prevail, two of which appear to be necessary, but not sufficient, to the extension of the democratic process to marginal categories. First, it would be necessary that the circles of power not feel threatened. Dominant elites must have reached a certain level of ideological diversity and developed sufficient cohesion and openness to make them less recalcitrant towards heterodox proposals. These are being

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put forward by popular classes which themselves are not much influenced by liberal values while being generally hostile to capitalist development, at least in the forms of which they have historically been the victims. The elites must also be in a position to resist the admonitions of the hardliners. This should be possible if the alternatives are made viable and financed in the field. These last suggestions are some of those proposed by Przeworski (1995). Second, it would be necessary that popular movements have attained levels of internal cohesion that allow them to have established broad alliances which would equip them with a credible and durable position of power from which to put their proposals and alternatives forward. If this were the case, the process of inclusion and the formation of political programs could progressively broaden the base of participating actors. Public initiatives could sprout, and their results could contribute to accelerating democratic consolidation, while making political interactions more peaceable. This would open the way for the kind of democratic development that occurred in Spain, Portugal, and Greece in the 1970s. That democractic development was possible because of the tangible strategic support of the then European Community. The EC financed their structural adjustment with targeted regional funds, and the EC took upon itself, as it were, the process of redistribution between winners and losers of the modernization reforms occurring in the process of restructuring (Éthier, 1997; O’Donnell et al., 1986, vol. 2). This outcome failed to occur during the democratic transition in Brazil. Instead, existing socioeconomic conditions brought about by liberal-inspired policies and by structural adjustment programs were reinforced. This failure of the democratization initiative in Brazil had serious political consequences for the movements and organizations of civil society which had expected to partake of the opportunities offered by a transition to democracy. notes 1 For a critique, see Hagtvet et al. (1980). 2 Finding a sound explanation of the rise of radicalism in a democratic context is not an easy task. Certainly the large number of contributing factors forbids us to reduce our analysis to a case of political gamesmanship on the part of a few hotheaded personalities operating on the margins of the ‘true’ process of democratic consolidation. Researchers, if they are to account for

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3

4 5 6

7

8

9 10

11

a phenomenon so widespread as to have echoes in the Mexican Chiapas, the hinterlands of Colombia, and numerous other Latin American territories, must identify and fully explain the structural and situational foundations of such a phenomenon as well as its major issues. In the same vein, the study of democratic consolidation cannot be reduced to inter-elite dealings that give so-called moderates an essential and desirable voice, independently of the nature and substance of governmental actions and structural adjustment policies adopted by the state in regard to the marginalized urban and rural hotbeds that are the locus of such intense protest movements. These ideal-type characteristics are to be found in the analyses of Touraine on the class component of social movements, in those of Tilly on the French labour movement, and in the Marx-inspired arguments of Latin American scholars examining the peasant leagues of Brazil in the 1960s. This is the common criticism of this concept, first formulated by McAdam in 1982; see, e.g., Neveu (1996: 102–7). See Skidmore (1967). About economic development in this period, read Furtado (1965); also Tavares (1964). The entire era was dominated by the Sino-Soviet conflict, and radicalism increasingly originated from factious groups of Maoist persuasion. More generally, social movements were highly ideological, and their intellectualistic radicalism was heavily inspired by Castro’s revolution, as well as by the speeches and writing of the then minister of industry in Cuba, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Guillermo O’Donnell and Albert Hirschman have been the military regime’s foremost critics and analysts; see their contributions in Collier (1979). The average annual growth rate rose from 6% in 1960 to 7% in 1973, and topped at 8.5% in 1979. From 1984 to 2000, these figures never reached 2%, according to IBGE data. For the 2002 presidential race against Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva. A similar call to peace and patience was made in Brazil as had been made in Chile, where the military – explicitly charged to do so by provisions of the 1980 Constitution – was maintaining the balance of power between the elites and the dispossessed, under the two Concertación presidencies often labelled ‘protected democracy.’ In Mexico, the party in power did not hesitate to manipulate the labour elites to the same end (Couffignal, 1990). A further example was offered by corporate associations, such as the petroleum workers or blue-collar workers’ trade unions of Mexico, in the latter days of the PRI regime.

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12 In Brazil, the increasingly visible preference signalled by ‘moderate’ elites for practices maintaining the status quo, read by social movements as a betrayal of social concerns, might be at least in part an effect of a national multipartisan coalition that does not favour fundamental structural change, notably in rural areas. This coalition, established in 1994 for electoral reasons with a view to countering the leftist PT, united the PFL, comprised of the elites of the rural nordeste, with the PSDB which, until the PT’s victory of 16 October 2002, led the minority government under Cardoso.

references Biondi, Aloysio. 1999. O Brazil Privatizado: As Privatizações e o Desmonte do Estado. São Paulo: Editora Perseu Abramo / Editora da Vila. Bresser Pereira, Luis Carlos, José Maria Maravall, and Adam Przeworski. 1993. Economic Reforms in New Democracies: A Social-Democratic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brockett, Charles D. 1988. Land, Power, and Poverty: Agrarian Transformation and Political Conflict in Central America. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Collier, David, ed. 1979. The New Authoritarianism in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Couffignal, Georges. 1990. ‘La grande faiblesse du syndicalisme mexicain.’ Revue de PIRES 2: 161–79. Daniel, C. 1996. ‘Uma Estratégia Econômica para o Grande ABC.’ São Paulo em Perspetiva 10/3, 12–33. Della Porta, Donatella, and Mario Diani. 1999. Social Movements: An Introduction. Oxford and Malden: Blackwell Publishers. Duquette, Michel, 1999. Building New Democracies: Economic and Social Reform in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ECLAC. 1997. The Equity Gap. New York: United Nations Publications. Éthier, Diane. 1997. Economic Adjustment in New Democracies: Lessons from Southern Europe. London: Macmillan, International Political Economy Series. Evans, Peter. 1979. Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Franche, M.A. 2000. Concertación y acuerdos: la experiencia de Porto Alegre. La Paz: United Nations Program for Development (UNDP) / Cuaderno del Futuro 13. Furtado, Celso. 1965. The Economic Growth of Brazil: A Survey from Colonial to Modern Times. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Social Movements and Radicalism 63 Haggard, S., and R.P. Kaufman, eds. 1995. The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Haggard, S., and S.B. Webb, eds. 1994. Voting for Reform: Democracy, Political Liberalization, and Economic Adjustment. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press and the World Bank. Hagtvet, Bernt, Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Jan Petter Myklebust, et al. 1980. Who Were the Fascists: Social Roots of European Fascism. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget. Inglehart, Ronald. 1977. The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kaufman, Robert R. 1990.‘Stabilization and Adjustment in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.’ In Economic Crisis and Policy Choice: The Politics of Adjustment in the Third World. Joan M. Nelson, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 63–112. Kay, C. 1998. ‘Latin America’s Agrarian Reform: Lights and Shadows.’ Réforme agraire. Colonisation et coopératives agricoles 2: 9–31. Rome: FAO Information Division. Kitchelt, H. 1990. ‘New Social Movements and the Decline of Party Organization.’ In Russel Dalton and Manfred Kuechler, eds., Challenging the Political Order. New Social Movements and Political Movements in Western Democracies. Cambridge: Polity Press, 179–208. Klandemans, B. 1990. ‘Linking the “Old” and the “New” Movement Networks in Netherlands.’ In Russel Dalton and Manfred Kuechler, eds., Challenging the Political Order: New Social Movements and Political Movements in Western Democracies. Cambridge: Polity Press, 122–36. Kornhauser, William. 1959. The Politics of Mass Society. Glencoe: Free Press. Lafargue, Jérôme, 1998. La protestation collective. Paris: Éditions Nathan. Collection Université. No. 128. Lesbaupin, Ivo, and Adhemar Mineiro. 2002. O Desmonte da Nação em Dados. Petropolis: Editora Vozes. MacAdam, Doug. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mainwaring, Scott. 1995. ‘Brazil: Weak Parties, Feckless Democracy.’ In Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully, eds., Building Democratic Institutions. Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 354–98. Marwell, Gerald, and Pamela Oliver. 1993. The Critical Mass in Collective Action: A Micro-Social Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press. Melucci, Alberto. 1983. ‘Mouvements sociaux, mouvements postpolitiques.’ Revue internationale d’action communautaire 10. (Appears also in Lafargue, Jérôme, 1998: 42.)

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– 1992. ‘Liberation or Meaning? Social Movements, Culture and Democracy.’ Development and Change 23/3: 43–77. Nelson, Joan M., ed. 1990. Economic Policy and Policy Choice: The Politics of Adjustment in the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Neveu, Érik. 1996. Sociologie des mouvements sociaux. Paris: La Découverte, Collection Repères. Niedergang, Marcel. 1969. Les 20 Amériques latines. Paris: Seuil. Collection Politique. Oberschall, Anthony. 1973. Social Conflict and Social Movements. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. O’Donnell, Guillermo. 1979. ‘Tensions in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State and the Question of Democracy.’ In David Collier, ed., The New Authoritarianism in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 285–318. – 1994. ‘Delegative Democracy?’ Journal of Democracy 5/1: 55–69. – Phillipe Schmitter, and Lawrence Whitehead, eds. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. Vol. 2. Southern Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. – 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. Vol. 5. Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Olson, M. 1978. Logique de l’action collective. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. (1st ed., 1966. Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Petras, James. 1997. ‘Latin America: The Resurgence of the Left.’ New Left Review, no. 223 (May–June): 17–47. – and Timothy F. Harding. 2000. ‘Introduction: Radical Left Response to Global Impoverishment.’ Special Issue of Latin American Perspectives 27/5 (Sept.): 1–11. Pizzorno, Allessandro. 1978. ‘Political Exchange and Collective Identity in Industrial Conflict.’ In C. Crouch and A. Pizzorno, eds., Organizing Interests in Western Europe. New York: Holmes and Meier, 277–98. Przeworski, Adam, ed. 1995. Sustainable Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schneider, B.R. 1992. ‘A Privatização no Governo Collor: Triunfo do Liberalismo o Colapso do Estado Desenvolvimentista?’ Revista de Economia Política 12/1: 5–18. Skidmore, Thomas E. 1967. Politics in Brazil, 1930–1964. New York: Oxford University Press. Tarrow, Sidney. 1991. Struggle, Politics, and Reform: Collective Action, Social Movements, and Cycles of Protest. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Social Movements and Radicalism 65 Tavares, Maria da Conceição. 1964. ‘Growth and Decline of Import Substitution in Brazil.’ Economic Bulletin for Latin America 9 (March): 1–65. Tilly, Charles. 1976. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley. – 1984. ‘Les origines du répertoire de l’action collective contemporaine en France et en Grande-Bretagne.’ XXe siècle. Revue d’Histoire 4:99ff. Touraine, Alain. 1988. La parole et le sang: Politique et société en Amérique latine. Paris: Éditions Odile Jacob. Williamson, John, ed. 1994. The Political Economy of Policy Reform. Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics. Zald, Mayer, and John McCarthy, eds. 1979. The Dynamics of Social Movements: Resource Mobilisation, Social Control, and Tactics. Cambridge: Winthrop Publishers.

2 Women’s Movements: From Local Action to Internationalization of the Repertoire BÉRENGÈRE MARQUES-PEREIRA and FLORENCE RAES In the 1970s and 1980s Latin American women mobilized around social and political demands. By formulating these demands in terms of rights, and by calling for recognition of such rights in the name of citizenship, they became active protagonists in the struggle to broaden the role of the state; in struggling against dictatorships, they joined the chorus of those condemning its exactions. Their actions afforded them essential visibility and legitimacy, and allowed for an articulation of their interests, needs, demands, and identities extending beyond the domestic, community, and neighbourhood. Women’s organizations in Brazil, for example, participated actively in the task of setting up the 1988 Constitution, whereby they obtained recognition of the principle of gender equality. Yet the integration of such citizen rights raises problems of two kinds: the first is related to the recognition and implementation of these new citizen rights, the other to their very conceptualization. In their implementation, citizen rights are still obstructed by multiple patronage networks, which hinder the individuation process that is so central to the development of citizenship. For women in general, this dynamic supposes the means of acquiring a personal status whereby one may act – and be perceived – as a social and political subject without constant reference to one’s social category. For the women of Latin America, this will require emancipation from various forms of tutelage, leaving individuals free to commit to a range of social and political groups and institutions. Is this process of individuation even conceivable within societies such as Brazil? This is still largely a holis-

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tic political culture, wherein collective aspiration is prized, and where the notion of the community is so much stronger than the notion of the individual. Is the individuation process possible for women? This is a society where public authority and private authority overlap to such an extent that citizenship itself is subject to the hierarchies established by the numerous patronage networks (Hermet, 1992). In addition, throughout Latin America there is a pervasive maternalist ideology, which excludes women as subjects while including them as objects of social policies. The danger, when attempts are made to renovate such an ideology, is that women will be afforded the right to be citizens only as mothers (Luna, 1995). This chapter on women’s movements in Brazil will focus on the following questions: What factors caused the emergence of a second wave of women’s struggles and feminist struggles under the military dictatorship? What was its nature, what were its objectives, and its gains? In the context of a shift in the respective powers of state and civil society occurring within democratic transition, how did women’s demands and their militancy evolve? What new opportunities were afforded women by this context? What were the limits of such opportunities? What of the new possibilities – and attendant risks – linked to the recent internationalization of women’s mobilization and action? Finally, in what measure will women be able to influence decisionmaking and the institutionalization of public policies? The Emergence of Women’s Voices under the Military The emergence of women’s movements, and their strong participation in mobilizations in the course of the 1970s, occurred in Brazil within a particular political context, that of an authoritarian rule established after the April 1964 coup d’état. On the one hand, the military regime’s harsh political and social policies gave rise to neighbourhood movements and to popular movements protesting the living conditions of poor families. These movements were largely composed of women. On the other hand, the repressive and authoritarian nature of the state and the closed nature of public and political life raised women’s awareness of the authoritarian nature of social relations within the private sphere. More generally, this political context led movements to adopt unprecedented attitudes towards the state. It is important to point out that the Brazilian military regime’s rheto-

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ric in no way ignored women. Rather, the regime appealed to women as guardians of traditional family values. In an attempt to confer legitimacy upon a conservative political project whose stated objectives were to restore order and progress, and to check the advance of leftist forces which had occurred in the 1960s, the dictatorship raised the banners of motherhood and the family. Before the 1964 coup, in fact as soon as João Goulart’s reform government had come to power, rightist forces made an appeal to women, in the name of their presumed commitment to family, morality, and social order, calling upon them to participate in marches ‘for the Family, God and Liberty.’ Their aim was the destabilization of the democratically elected government, whose reformist zeal imperilled the interests of the traditional elites. Thus, in 1962 the women close to the dignitaries of the future regime united in the Campanha da Mulher pela Democrácia (Women’s Campaign for Democracy, or CAMDE) and joined with other rightists women’s organizations such as the Liga das Mulheres Democráticas (LIMDE, or League of Democractic Women), the Movimento de Arregimentação Feminina (Feminine Mobilization Organization or MAF), and the União Cívica Feminina (UCF or Women’s Civic Union) to organize numerous protests against the Goulart government in the months preceding the coup d’état. By its use of symbols, such as motherhood and feminine piety, the regime aligned itself squarely with the traditionalist conception of gender relationships, which confines women to the private sphere (Alvarez, 1990). Once the military regime was in place, these women, assigned the role of guardians of public morality, were excluded from political action. Nevertheless, it was under the military regime that feminist movements and popular women’s movements emerged and flowered. Economic growth, coupled with the progress of higher education which occurred in the first years of the regime, created new work opportunities for middle-class women. Coming as it did in a centuryold context of sexual discrimination, the increased participation of women in the workforce gave rise to debates on topics such as pay equity and equal access to the professions. As for women from the working classes, they suffered the harsh impact of regressive wage policies, locked as they were into poorly paid and poorly regarded jobs. The very harshness of these conditions pushed these women to cast about for survival strategies and to multiply mutual aid practices, which in turn led them to increased sharing of experiences, and subsequently to mobilization. In 1967 and 1968 the women of Rio de Janeiro

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and São Paulo joined in protest against the increased cost of living and political repression, which took the shape of a ‘Family March for Freedom and against Repression’ and subsequently of a ‘Freedom March against Dictatorship.’ Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Brazilian women were intensely involved in participating in their local public arenas. For women of the working classes, this space served as a passageway between the private and the public spheres. Women addressed their demands for collective services to the state through their neighbourhood organizations, and because the state’s response usually proved inadequate, they themselves organized community services in order to compensate for the deficiencies of social policies. The reconfiguration of the social role of the state – towards social policies targeting the poorest and towards short-term compensatory social programs – led to the setting up, among civil society, of a complex network of local associations (neighbourhood associations, users of public services, community kitchens), of non-governmental organizations, of Christian Base Communities (CEBs) and other church-affiliated groups (Valdez, 2000). This led also to politicization of poverty, as was demonstrated by the Ação e Cidadania (Action and Citizenship) movement against hunger and extreme hardship in Brazil (Franco Braga, 1996). CEBs developed practices of solidarity through self-help, insisting on the dignity of the poor and on their ‘right to personhood’ within the community. From this reciprocal dynamic between the process of recognizing personhood and that of recognizing the community as a collective actor, there arose a pressure which led not only to specific demands in the area of social rights, but also to a process of construction of a Christian and popular identity (Castillo, 1997). In 1972 CEB actions led to a movement against the rise of the cost of living which gathered thousands of signatures for its Carta des Mães da Periféria (Charter for Shantytown Mothers). Thus, the economic crisis of the 1980s raised awareness of women’s contribution to both productive and reproductive activities. This happened because women had – as a survival strategy – increased their presence in the labour market, most notably in the informal sector, and also because of the increase to their domestic workload in compensation for the state’s decrease in services and in social spending. This heightened visibility was signalled by the U.N.’s Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) 1987 study on the invisible adjustments demanded by reproductive, productive, and community work for

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women in times of crisis and structural adjustment. But UNICEF also pointed out the waste of women’s potential contribution to regional development brought about by the economic, political, and social discrimination to which they are subjected (UNICEF, 1987). Local participation allowed women to set up an intermediary space between the private domain and the domain of the state. In this space movements expressed specific needs and translated them into demands addressed to local public authorities as well as to the state. The process was, however, rife with ambiguities (Marques-Pereira, 1998). These experiments socialized domestic work and favoured the establishment of collective identity and the emergence of women as visible political and social actors in the public arena. Women were able to learn the skills of citizenship, leadership, and negotiation, and to legitimize their own social organization. In this way the politicization of daily life afforded women a role as interlocutors in the development of social programs, the management of social wealth, and the control of social policies. These developments, however, were not necessarily a force for emancipation. First, services performed in communal form frequently mean a supplementary workload, an unpaid ‘third shift,’ and entitle the providers of these services to no social security benefits. Second, such citizen participation carries collateral risks: demands made are likely to be translated either into sectoral public policies (such as health) or into one-time projects targeting women. Although such responses may indeed take into account women’s immediate concerns, women risk, on the one hand, becoming instrumentalized to the benefit of more far-reaching objectives such as development, and on the other hand, being perceived exclusively in their reproductive and domestic role, thus confirming the sexual and social division of labour. This is why the local focus of social and development programs targeting women, which consider them as the specific recipients in any program aiming to improve the living conditions of poor families, is no guarantee of a change in gender relationships. It is useful therefore to examine the various development and public policy strategies in light of the role they attribute to women: Are women treated as clients, or as actors? As Maxine Molyneux (1985) has pointed out, it is crucial to take into account not only the material but also the strategic needs of women. The latter relate to the sharing of power and responsibility between men and women: in the workplace, at home, and at decisionmaking levels. It is no accident that the World Women’s Conference

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sponsored by the United Nations, held in Beijing in 1995, focused explicitly on the empowerment of women, that is, on their capacity to obtain and to control both power and material resources. The 1995– 2001 regional action program for the women of Latin America and the Caribbean, presented in Beijing, focuses on the concept of gender equity and fair participation, defined as (1) the distribution of resources and of decisional power over said resources through equal access to the public sphere, (2) women’s participation in decisionmaking, and (3) the capacity to control one’s own life project. It is, however, quite as fundamental to take into account the plurality of women’s identities and experiences, and to avoid reducing the issues to a dichotomy between material and strategic interests, since women’s groups reflect multiple representations according to women’s economic status, ethnic origin, family structure, religion, and national situation. What is common to all, however, is the invisibility of domestic work and the limited access to public life. These shared issues make it possible for women to unite in their demands and to join in action. These newborn experiments in local participation, an outgrowth of survival practices and of the involvement of women from the popular classes, have led to a proliferation of demands for social rights. These movements have made steady progress in the construction of citizenship (Jelin, 1994). In the 1970s the debate centred around the social invisibility of women and on attempts to upgrade the status of domestic work and daily life. If we agree that demands must necessarily be formulated out of self-regard, and out of a capacity to consider oneself as an actor, we must conclude that such mobilization will necessarily lead to the gradual construction of woman as political actor, making visible the gender relationships and raising awareness of the need for women to pass from the private to the public arena and to increase the level of their education and their participation in the labour market. The public arena being largely masculine and androcentric, women of necessity began to question their own subordination and to struggle for equality both in terms of gender division of labour in the public sphere and of male domination within the family. In the work world, women mobilized within the emerging labour organizations such as Brazil’s Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (United Labour Federation, or CUT) and the Confederação Nacional dos Sindicatos Brasileiros (National Confederation of Brazilian Labour Unions, or CNST). Women’s involvement in labour unions had two notable results: women joined the workers’ struggle against the dictatorship, and

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through the creation of women’s departments or secretariats, they mobilized for the purpose of gradually improving their own status within the labour unions. The year 1986 saw the establishment of both the Comité da Condição da Mulher (Committee of Women, within the CNST), and of the Comissão Nacional das Mulheres (National Commission of Mothers, within CUT). In 1990, the Comissão Nacional da Questão da Mulher Trabalhadora Rural (National Commission on the Status of Women Rural Workers, or CNQMTR) was created within CUT’s Departamento Nacional dos Trabalhadores Rurais (National Department of Rural Workers, or DNTR). Also in 1990 CUT’s Fourth National Congress addressed, among other issues, those of wage parity, the right of women to own land, the struggle against sexual violence in the workplace, and abolishing the compulsory declaration of pregnancy made to employers. As Sonia Alvarez (1990) has emphasized, authoritarian governmental policies not only contributed to the mobilization of women around socioeconomic issues, but also raised gender awareness, leading women to denounce the authoritarian nature of gender relationships at large. Indeed the dictatorship, while instrumentalizing women into exalted symbols of motherhood, not only barred them from political action, but commonly used torture, imprisonment, and sexual abuse of women as tools of repression. Nevertheless, within a public arena rife with repression, censorship, and authoritarian controls, women’s demands, because they were expressed in the name of motherhood, were allowed greater freedom of expression than were the demands of most other movements. Although other sectors of civil society were viewed as problematic, and were forbidden to mobilize, the traditional view of women as apolitical and indifferent to public life goes some way towards explaining the attitude of the elites: in charge of what was an opening for democratic participation, they allowed women’s associations comparative freedom (Alvarez, 1990). In 1975, for example, International Women’s Day celebrations were among the first public assemblies allowed since 1967–8, and a women’s movement calling for amnesty was active during the 1970s, while most other organizations remained muzzled by the state. In the late 1970s women-based organizations multiplied and their demands diversified. In city outskirts, the Donas de Casa (Ladies of the House) associations grew tenfold during the period, as did the Clubes de Mães (Mothers Clubs) and neighbourhood associations. In 1979 alone, twenty-nine neighbourhood associations were created in the

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eastern zone of São Paulo. The year 1977 saw the birth of the more openly feminist Pró-Mulher (Pro-Woman), which provided women with medical, psychological, legal, and professional counsel. If, in the early years, women’s demands centred on living conditions and inequalities in the labour market, late in the 1970s many movement women were beginning to question the basic inequalities linked to their status. Dependant, for their organizational resources as well as their credibility, on the left and the ‘progressive’ sectors of the Church, women’s movements had curbed their more radical demands, for example, those dealing with reproductive freedom, to avoid alienating vital allies. They had couched their demands in feminine, rather than feminist, rhetoric. Later, in face of the limits of these alliances, and given the traditionalist stereotypes of women pervasive even in opposition sectors, women began to formulate gender-specific demands and to denounce masculine domination of gender relationships. The issues of reproductive rights, violence against women, sexual freedom, sharing of household chores, gender-based division of labour, contraception, and abortion were identified in turn as political issues by autonomous sectors of the women’s movement. At the first São Paulo Congress of Women, held in the course of the 1979 International Women’s Day events, there was open discussion of issues connected with sexual and reproductive freedom, and the debate focused on the need to democratize the domestic sphere. In the wake of this Congress, feminist organizations multiplied quickly. In the early 1980s, the Frente das Mulheres Feministas (FMF, or Women’s Feminist Front) was only one among more than a hundred feminist organizations. The taboo-breaking struggles undertaken by women in the 1980s – around the issues of domestic violence, involuntary sterilization, clandestine abortions, and contraception – made it clear that equality in the private sphere is the necessary foundation of equality in the public sphere. Information and consciousness-raising radio programs were set up by NGOs such as Rede Mulher and the Rede de Desenvolvimento Humano (Human Development Network, or REDEH). One example of this was Fala Mulher (WomanSpeak), an organization created in 1988 in Rio de Janeiro, whose purpose was to broadcast information emanating from women’s movements. The late 1970s and the 1980s, however, were also a time of increasing divisions within women’s movements, aggravated by tensions in opposition movements around the choice of strategies to defeat the

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military regime and to promote social justice. For example, during the second São Paulo Congress of Women, in contrast to the first where a relative unity of views was expressed, political divergences appeared between the movements linked to the Church and those linked to the left (Alvarez, 1990). Two main trends surfaced. Some believed that the struggle for a more just society must be undertaken in alliance with opposition forces, and thus that women’s priority must be to mobilize against the regime. Others insisted on the priority of the need to develop an autonomous organization powerful enough to place gender issues at the forefront of the agenda. It was in the course of the democratic transition that the issue of the relationship of women’s movements with the state and the political world came to be seen as paramount for the future and for the satisfaction of women’s demands. Opportunities of the Democratic Transition For a variety of economic, social, and political reasons, the years of the military regime in Brazil (1964–84) saw the emergence of a far more diverse set of demands by women and feminists than had arisen from the women’s movements of the 1920s and 1930s, which had mobilized middle and upper-class women in a struggle for the defence of civil and political rights such as women’s suffrage. The 1970s saw a massive involvement of women from all classes joining in the struggle for democratization of both the public and the private spheres. Several factors contributed to the emergence of this second wave of women’s movements in Brazil. Among them should be cited the changes brought about within the Catholic Church by the 1968 Medellin Conference of Latin American bishops, as well as the Second Ecumenical Conference, and the new directions adopted by progressive church workers in the framework of liberation theology. Through their participation in pastoral work and CEBs, women broke the traditional isolation which confined them to the domestic sphere. Another factor was the rise of a militant left within which Brazilian women mobilized, not only in their homeland but in exile as well, as testified by the creation of the Cercle des femmes brésiliennes in Paris in the 1970s.1 Yet the integration of women’s demands by the left and by progressive sectors of the Church ran into several roadblocks. For one thing, the rhetoric of liberation theologists famous for their involvement with the destitute, such as Leonardo Boff or Frei Betto, remained marked by an orthodox Marxist vision of women and often reproduced the

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Church’s traditional view of the role of women. As illustrated by the attitude of the Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil (National Conference of Brazilian Bishops, or CNBB) in the 1980s, issues of women’s exercise of reproductive freedom, and in particular the decriminalization of abortion, showed the limits of the Church’s support for women’s causes. For another, in leftist circles, women’s demands were generally subsumed into and priority given to the struggle against class dominance. Brazilian politics has, as a rule, been marked by co-optation and instrumentalization of popular movements, for example, through the distribution of emergency assistance or in a bid for political support (see Inter-American Development Bank, 1996). In the 1950s, as soon as the populist regime had came to power under Vargas, women’s demands and women’s organizations were widely co-opted and instrumentalized by political elites. In a move to demobilize the most vocal protagonists, the regime granted women a series of social benefits in the form of labour laws, while carefully avoiding any measure likely to imperil the long-standing covenant of dominance. These legal measures were almost never enforced, did not alter women’s living conditions, and in no way altered the gender relationships that pursued their conservative course. These are the ways in which the corporatist tradition of the state limited the granting of full citizenship to women. During the military regime, the state was perceived as an enemy, or at best looked to – for the satisfaction of certain demands – with suspicion and mistrust. Many movements therefore insisted on autonomy from a state that they perceived to be hostile to their demands. For movements faced with attempted co-optation and bargaining for favour, the choice between institutionalization and autonomy grew to be a central issue. Democratic transition presented women with an important opportunity. Between 1975 and 1981, in view of the official opposition’s incapacity to meet their demands, women’s movements concentrated their efforts on organizing anti-regime protests and on setting up mutual aid and consciousness-raising activities. But, gradually, the electoral advances of the opposition began to make the integration of women’s demands into the political sphere a viable alternative, and in 1978, several feminist organizations mobilized to present a series of joint demands, set out in the Carta dos Direitos da Mulher (Charter of Women's Rights). Since democracy opened up new avenues for the institutionalization of women’s demands, it also called for the development of new strategies to deal with the political world. Thus, with

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the return of democracy, the already shaky unity of the women’s movement suffered further division around such issues as the necessity of overlapping militancy (in international political parties as well as feminist organizations), the strategic importance of relative or absolute autonomy vis-à-vis political parties, and the relationship between global social change and change within gender relationships (Alvarez, 1990). In light of past experience, some factions insisted on the need for full autonomy, given the political parties’ tendency towards manipulation and instrumentalization. Others feared that the cultural changes resulting from feminism would be obliterated, if women were forced to translate their political project into a series of ordered demands, which would be included or not into party programs. While the Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (Brazilian Democratic Movement, or MDB) had served as a coalition broad enough to accommodate many diverging demands, the reinstatement (in 1981) of a multi-party system and the division of the opposition into five parties sharpened the political divisions within the women’s movement. The situation in São Paulo illustrates the fact that although the opposition parties actively sought the support of women’s movements, the relationship was never an easy one. Very early in the 1982 election campaign, the Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro (Revolutionary Movement of 8 October, or MR-8) and the Partido Comunista do Brasil (Communist Party of Brazil, or PCdoB) set up their own organizations in the city outskirts with the aim of urging women to participate in the campaign. In 1980 the MR-8 had established the Federation of São Paulo Women, while in 1981 the PCdoB was behind the setting up of the Union of São Paulo Women. In 1981 two women’s congresses were held. The first was at the Pacaembu Sports Arena. It was the joint initiative of the Federation of São Paulo Women, the Union of São Paulo Women, and of women connected with the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (Brazilian Communist Party, or PCB) and the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, or PMDB), and focused on women’s participation to the central struggle for democracy. The other was initiated by women promoting the autonomy of women’s organizations and was held at the Catholic University. Gender-based demands expressed at previous congresses were reiterated. In the city outskirts, neighbourhood women’s associations, less intensely polarized between the political parties, mostly steered clear of partisan politics and pursued their direct action methods within their own communities.

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In 1982 the São Paulo women’s movement was in some disarray. Some organizations were demobilized, and some divided along partisan lines, while others had opted out of official politics. Still others had turned their backs on grassroots work in favour of political strategizing. The return of multiparty politics undermined the unity of a movement whose former cohesion had rested upon common experiences (Cardoso, 1983). Although women’s participation in politics brought about divisions within the movement, it did lead to the inclusion of some of their demands in party platforms and programs. It was also crucial to the process of institutionalizing such demands. Partisan competition and the courting of the female electorate played a role in politicizing gender issues in Brazil in the 1980s. No party could afford to ignore women voters or women’s demands, and issues once considered as belonging to the private domain, such as violence against women, day care or contraception, made their way into party programs and candidates’ speeches. For women active in political parties, the campaign generated sizeable advantages. The national scope of party networks facilitated the nationwide articulation of the movement, thus improving the circulation of information and providing new organizational resources. In its latter-day ‘liberalization,’ the coalition governing Brazil’s dictatorship presented cracks which a few women’s groups were able to exploit with some measure of success, gaining at least partial access to decision-making spheres. In 1977, for example, under pressure from women’s organizations, the federal government set up a family planning program aimed at preventing high-risk pregnancies (Programa de prevenção de gravidez de alto risco), distributing contraceptives to women whose health might be imperilled by pregnancy. In 1980 Prev-Saúde, another federal program, was set to distribute oral contraceptives to women of childbearing age. Unfortunately, the implementation of both programs was extremely limited. In late 1982 the PMDB was elected in São Paulo, and this afforded women further opportunities (Alvarez, 1990). PMDB feminists succeeded in obtaining the establishment of a council on the status of women. Such political involvement had little impact at the grassroots, and it was not met with universal approval. Some women’s movements criticized the corporatist aspects of access to decision-making, which was in the main limited to women linked to the party, and International Women’s Day celebrations, once the exclusive province of women’s organizations, in 1984 and 1985, came close to being rallies in

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support of public policies. The 1984 theme, for example, ‘Rights, Direct Elections, and Peace,’ modelled on the Diretas Já political slogan, was far closer to the preoccupations of the PMDB than to those of women. In addition, the powers granted the council on the status of women were advisory, not decisional, and it was granted no independent budget, which raised the ire of many. The council did, however, play a role in re-energizing women’s movements in São Paulo, was instrumental in establishing a family planning system, and to a lesser degree, in reorienting day-care policies. As early as 1973, popular movements born of the ‘Mothers Clubs’ of São Paulo were calling for day care. The calls increased throughout the 1970s. During the PDS administration, the setting up of day-care centres served essentially as a populist and clientelist tactic; they were set up in areas where the movements were most radical, in an attempt to demobilize movements and gain electoral support. Promises were not kept, and at the time of the municipal elections, less than half of the 830 promised day-care centres had been set up. Under the following PMDB administration, day-care policies became more privatized: the PMDB encouraged workplace day care, which policy was present in the legislation but had rarely been implemented. At the national level, the state councils of São Paulo and of other states added their lobbying efforts to those of the parliamentary commission on women. This led to the creation, in 1985, of the Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Mulher (National Council on Women’s Rights, or CNDM). In the months leading up to the establishment of the new constitution, this council mobilized women within a national campaign which led to the formulation of a joint set of demands set out in charter called the Carta das Mulheres a Assembleia Nacional Constituinte, which was submitted to the federal parliament. Most of these demands were integrated into the new constitution of 1988. The process of developing the new constitution, thus, not only brought about a clearer formulation of demands and a sounder articulation of organizations, it granted Brazilian women access to the political agenda and granted them the right to express their demands and to negotiate with the representatives of the state. Yet these exclusively institutional strategies carried their own limitations. First, certain demands – among them the decriminalization of abortion – failed to raise an echo in any political party and so were set aside to allow for institutionalization of more moderate demands, for fear of alienating even the more progressive sectors of the Catholic

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Church. Second, political parties reproduced, in varying measure, the traditional inequalities and forms of discrimination against women. In their ideology as in their programs and structures, conservative parties such as the Partido Democrático Social (Social Democratic Party, or PDS) and the rightist wing of the PMDB prescribed for women a status and identity limited to motherhood. Those who established women’s ‘departments’ did so in order to court female voters. Even the Women’s Commission of the PT (Workers Party) and the task force on PMDB Women ran up against the priorities of a largely masculine leadership. Yet, in spite of the disappearance (into the meanders of institutional politics) of groups such as the above-mentioned Women’s Feminist Front, these experiments in participation and the institutionalization of at least some of women’s demands nevertheless made possible the emergence of new demands. In the late 1980s and the 1990s women’s demands and organizations proliferated. They also became more complex. Henceforth, women carried their actions into myriad fields – politics, society, economics, religion, culture, the environment, and others. Contrary to what had been predicted by early observers of the democratic transition, women’s movements did not so much disappear as shift their struggle to new fronts. Certainly, an increasing number of women are participating in feminist conferences and other gatherings that explore the issues around gender relationships. Gender studies research centres are springing up in universities, and initiatives such as health and sexuality groups or the São Paulo’s Women’s Information Centre are offering new services; labour unions and political parties are establishing women’s branches. There is, as well, an increased specialization of demands from special interest groups. One instance of this is the increasing number of organizations uniting black women. This led to the first National Conference of Black Women, held in Brazil in 1988. It would thus appear that the divisions displayed within the women’s movement are a reflection of the diversity of their situations, interests, and identities, rather than a sign of any decline in the level of activism. Women in the 1990s: Professionalism and International Networks The women of Brazil seized the opportunity offered in the 1980s by the change in regime to gain access to the spheres of decision-making. But in these times of increasing internationalization, when the role of states is being redefined, there is a need to branch out with strategies that

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will not be restricted to modes of representation within arenas that are distant from the true centres of power. Although the national apparatus of the state must not be neglected, in any bid to eradicate gender inequalities there is a definite need to make inroads into supranational institutions and to exercise pressure on international organizations in this regard. In Brazil, as elsewhere, the 1990s saw the strategies of women’s movements shift towards actions undertaken among the international community. International organizations had, of course, been active in gender issues long before the 1990s. The principle of equal rights for women and men and the prohibition of discrimination based on gender have been enshrined in several international legal instruments. The 1945 United Nations Charter (articles 1 and 55) was among the first such instruments. These principles were adopted (in a June 1946 resolution) by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, which established the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women with a mandate to formulate recommendations aimed at promoting women’s rights in various areas. In 1953 the United Nations adopted a convention relating to the political rights of women, and in 1979 the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Both the Preamble and article 2 of the U.N.’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirm the equal rights of men and women and forbid distinctions on the basis of sex; the text also specifically calls on states to secure observance of these rights. On the regional stage, the Inter-American Commission of Women (IACW) was created as early as 1928. Since 1948 the IACW has functioned within the Organization of American States as a specialized agency mandated to promote women and the respect of their rights. The Convention on the Nationality of Women was adopted in Montevideo in 1933, and the inter-American conventions on the granting of civil and political rights to women in Bogota in 1948. In addition, the U.N. proclamation, in 1975, of the Decade for Women, together with the successive world conferences on women, have helped regional movements become more articulate and served to legitimize their activities. In the 1990s this trend gained substantial momentum under the impetus of NGOs and the work leading up to the 1995 Beijing conference on women. In Brazil this expanding role of NGOs coincided with an erosion of state involvement in the social sector. In response to recurrent corruption scandals and bureaucratic inefficiencies in governments, international donor agencies have become increasingly

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involved in the financing of projects issuing from civil society and NGOs. The CNDM offers a case in point. Under-financed and excluded from the circles of power, the National Council on Women’s Rights delegated many of its functions – information gathering, project evaluation and so on – to NGOs. As soon as the state ceased to be perceived as the sole provider of responses to the demands of women, NGOs were faced with new responsibilities and burdened with increasingly complex activities. They helped, among other things, in the design of survival strategies in times of crisis, set up information networks, lobbied for causes, engaged in fund-raising, and provided technical and legal aid services. The increasing interest in the cause of women contributed to a professionalization and an ‘NGO-ization’ of women’s movements (Alvarez, 1998). This recent trend is not, however, without its inherent risks. In 1994, in preparation for the Beijing conference, women’s NGOs in Brazil, with the support of the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), organized a meeting in Rio which led to the creation of the Articulação de Mulheres Brasileiras (Federation of Brazilian Women, or AMB). This was roundly criticized by some sectors of the movement who objected to the centralization of decision-making, the monopolization of resources and information, the lack of representation, and the inappropriateness of its sources of financing. Indeed, the NGOs that exercise the most power and influence generally tend to become the favoured interlocutors of international organizations, the media, and multilateral cooperation initiatives. This situation raises some thorny questions: Can these NGOs profit from such relationships and still safeguard their autonomy? Do they not run the risk of being instrumentalized by international organizations anxious to legitimate their own actions? Are they not in danger of losing sight of the basic issues? Can they take into account the increasing variety of interests and demands, without setting up an exclusive hierarchy among these interests and demands? And, in more general terms, how representative are NGOs? What gives them their legitimacy, and to whom are they answerable? The fact remains that NGOs have played a considerable role in the process of articulating women’s movements in Latin America, as well as in legitimizing new demands. The first regionwide feminist meeting was held in 1981, in Bogota, and thematic networks were gradually set up: the Women’s Health Network for Latin America and the Caribbean in 1984, the Rede de Educação Popular entre Mulheres (Women’s

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Popular Education Network, or REPEM) in 1988, and the Network against Sexual and Domestic Violence in 1990. Even domestic employees, overexploited and under-protected, but difficult to organize because they are next to invisible in public life, succeeded in gaining some representation with the creation in 1987 of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Domestic Employees. In 1990, at a meeting that it had coordinated in Mexico, UNICEF founded the Latin American and Caribbean Network of NGOs, as well as the organization Mechanisms for the National Promotion of Women. In the preliminary phases leading to up the Beijing conference, the women of Brazil held more than ninety events, with participation from 8,000 organizations, and prepared twenty-two documents that resulted in the formulation of a program which Brazilian women took to the conference. At the regional level, the Mar del Plata Forum held in September of 1994 gathered women from forty-one Latin American and Caribbean countries around themes such as citizenship, political participation, communication, violence, human rights, and development models. The 1990s were thus marked by an evolution of demands towards themes and issues specific to women, through innumerable meetings and conferences around themes such as the physical and mental health of women, sexuality, abortion, reproductive rights, and black women. Through their participation in international conferences and forums, as well as through their development of Platforms for Action, the women of Brazil gradually developed new arenas of public debate that gained themselves an international voice. Widening the Scope of Gender Equality Issues to Latin America In most Latin American countries, as in Brazil, the 1970s and 1980 saw the emergence of women’s movements and of popular struggles in which women took a large part. In Chile, mutual aid practices in the pobladores gave birth to community kitchens, often under the auspices of the Catholic Church. Community kitchens were also set up in Uruguay and Peru. Other independent movements arose, such as Chile’s Movimiento de Mujeres Pobladores (MOMUPO, or Women’s Shantytown Dwellers Movement) which organized around the theme of work. In Argentina, women from popular classes joined together in the Mothers Clubs movement, organizing shopping strikes in cities throughout the country. Clubes de Madres also emerged in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru, with the aim of improving the daily living

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conditions of poor families. In Peru in the 1980s, programs such as the Comités Vaso de Leche (Glass of Milk committees), health committees, and production committees were initiated. In Mexico, the first meeting of Women of Urban Popular Movements was held in 1983; and two years later, when the earthquake struck, there was a mushrooming of neighbourhood associations, community kitchens, and community health projects. In 1986 came the first joint meeting of women of the working classes of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. The authoritarian context in the region led movements to integrate political demands into their process, as was the case in Brazil, where the women’s movement for amnesty was created in 1972. Women’s movements, and movements with high levels of participation from women, organized in support of human rights and a return to democracy in public life. In Central America, mothers’ movements mobilized to denounce politically motivated murders and disappearances. An association of families of prisoners who had disappeared was created in Colombia in 1972. In Chile, the Democratic Women’s Group was born in 1973. In Argentina, the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo began meeting in 1977, and in 1982 Uruguay saw the creation of an association of mothers and families of those charged with crimes under military law. In Mexico, in a context somewhat different from that of the military regimes of Southern Cone countries, women also organized in defence of democracy. In Brazil arose the Movimento das Mulheres en Luta pela Democrácia (Women’s Struggle for Democracy, or MLD), created in 1988 to protest against electoral fraud, and of Cidadanas en Movimento pela Democrácia (Female Citizens for Democracy, or CMD), created in 1994 to call for fuller political participation of women in political life. Throughout the region, women’s movements seized the opportunity that democracy afforded them to participate, through NGOs, in the U.N. world forums – Rio in 1992, Cairo in 1994, and Beijing in 1995 – and in the U.N. international conferences of the 1990s. They thereby gained access to new arenas for public debate that made it possible for them to organize at national and international levels. These exchanges carried a highly political charge for women: they found themselves in a position to communicate with other organizations, formulate new demands, and negotiate with their governments. Gradually they became aware of the necessity of integrating their local actions within a more global vision, and they came to appreciate the power of a formal document adopted by international consensus. Although the action

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programs of international conferences cannot serve as the single foundation of any movement, they do provide a conceptual reference point, as well as guarantees, both of which are empowering in subsequent dealings with governments. Many and significant conceptual advances were made, on the road from Rio to Beijing. Women’s rights were recognized as universal human rights, rather than being subject to historic and cultural traditions impervious to questioning and challenge. These rights are stated to be indivisible and inalienable. The interdependence of the private and the public spheres was recognized by the Copenhagen Declaration of 1980 and by the Cairo Action Program of 1994. The recognition that women’s human rights can be violated in both spheres thus integrates the private sphere into the concept of citizenship. Women’s right to regulate their fertility is taken to be a human right, and violence against women is henceforth recognized as a human rights violation. In addition, the Beijing Platform for Action signals the important distinction between de jure equality and de facto equality, stating that acquiring the former does not signify realization of the latter. Yet such progressive declarations are often couched in somewhat androcentric and contradictory language. The regional preparatory meeting prior to the World Conference on Human Rights, held in Costa Rica in 1993, emphasized the need to move from the descriptor ‘vulnerable groups’ to that of ‘groups in situations of vulnerability and discrimination’ (CEPAL, 1999): Women recognize as fundamental the need to counter the idea that vulnerability is attached to their person or to their gender, rather than to their situation. In other words, at issue is the need for concepts that take into account social reality in its historical dimension and its attendant power relationships. The adoption of international conventions such as CEDAW and the Convention of Belém do Pará, which declares that violence against women is a human rights violation, played a significant role in the promotion of women’s rights at national levels, as well as in the introduction of institutional mechanisms responsible for fighting inequalities under which women labour. In 1992 the State of São Paulo adopted a convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. Again in São Paulo, in an initiative led by the women's council, the first experimental women-led police station was opened in 1985, followed since by 170 more of them across Brazil. Similar projects have been carried out in Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and Costa Rica. Such experiments represent strong gains for women, in that they allow them to break the taboos traditionally connected to family conflicts and

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domestic violence, by providing them with a public service staffed with better-trained personnel and by improving their relationships with the state and with the judiciary. Women’s secretariats, councils, and branches were also instituted in various states of Brazil, Venezuela, and Chile, although such provisions were not always uniform. In Mexico, for example, only the State of Guerrero has set up such an agency (Valdez, 2000). Laws against domestic violence have been adopted by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, and several countries have adopted laws to promote equal opportunities for women: Uruguay passed a law in 1989 promoting equal opportunity and equal treatment for women workers. Costa Rica has since 1990 had a law promoting social equality for women, and Venezuela in 1993 also passed an equal opportunity law. Chile in 1994, and Mexico in 1995, established programs promoting equal opportunities for women (Valdez, 2000). In addition, specific councils have been integrated into the machinery of government: In Argentina, the Consejo Nacional de la Mujer (National Council of Women, or CONAMU) was created in 1992 and attached to the office of the president; in Brazil, the CNDM was created in 1985 and attached to the Department of Justice; and in Chile, the Servicio Nacional de la Mujer (National Service for Women, or SERNAM), created in 1991 and attached to the Department of Planning and Cooperation. Certain demands, however, cannot yet be heard, or at least are still so threatening to the current consensus that they are difficult to raise as negotiable political issues. This is the case in Chile, for example, of a right to divorce (Zavala, 1997). In the same vein, the process of decriminalizing medical abortion has not yet been actively undertaken in any Latin American country. The judicial and institutional conditions governing these agencies – under the authority of the presidency (Argentina, Colombia, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela), of ministries of culture (Costa Rica and Uruguay), labour departments (Guatemala and Panama), or of departments of justice (Brazil) – can sometimes place them in precarious and dependant situations: Changes in executive powers and fluctuations in economic conditions at the national level have led, in Argentina and Brazil, to a reduction in the functions and budgets of these agencies.2 Governments will often point to lack of resources to justify inaction in implementing a gender approach or the institutionalization of gender equality policies. Numerous legislative proposals aimed at countering gender-based discrimination were put forth in the aftermath of the Beijing confer-

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ence, but first their adoption and then their implementation have run up against obstacles. The follow-up process wherein the accords are reviewed gives women the opportunity of measuring their gains. One instance of this was Beijing + 5, the special U.N. session held to review the implementation of the strategies adopted in Nairobi and in Beijing. In this connection, it is significant that the Brazilian government set up a national Beijing + 5 Committee without consulting women as to either its composition or its themes. In a gesture marking their autonomy, women reserved the right to establish a parallel audit, which was inscribed in the Paraïba Charter of 3 May 2000. Five years after Beijing, the AMB published a survey of the national implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. The survey examined public policies directed towards women in the following areas: the environment, sustainable development and poverty, work, wages and social security, institutional mechanisms, access to decision-makers, education, means of communication, violence and human rights, health, and sexual and reproductive rights. Its findings were as follows. Regarding legislation already in place, women demanded better control of the job quotas by regional electoral tribunals. They called for upholding and broadening social policies aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women, and of those aimed at a socialization of domestic tasks, that is, those relating to day care, flexible opening hours for public health clinics, paternity leave, and care of the aged. They also underlined the need for better education for public servants concerning domestic violence and reproductive rights, and they called for public awareness campaigns on women’s issues. The document also called for an emergency reformulation of criminal and civil legislation. It insisted on the need for liberalization of abortion as a human right, and for legislation in the areas of medically assisted reproduction, on the grounds that women’s bodies are not appropriate fields for experimentation (AMB, 2000). These demands were, in fact, similar to the conclusions of the 1998 OAS report on the condition of women in the Americas, submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Based on the declarations of governments, the OAS report underlined several areas of persistent discrimination, and its essential aspects are well worth setting out here. A majority of countries have entrenched equality in civil and political rights among their constitutional principles, yet legal discriminations persist. Thus, in Bolivia, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, and the Dominican

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Republic, labour legislation still requires that a husband give his wife permission to hold a job. In Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala women are considered to be minors before the law. In certain countries different laws apply to men and to women wishing to marry (Brazil and Bolivia) or to remarry (Costa Rica and Mexico). Different laws for women and men also exist concerning the acquisition, administration, and disposal of marital property; this is the case (in different fashions), in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. Criminal law also reveals discriminatory provisions, as in the case of adultery in Venezuela and Salvador. There are differences in the administration of justice, dependent on whether the victim is female or male, in Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. The OAS report also draws attention to disparities in work, income, and education levels. The increased participation of Latin American women in the labour force and in education was carried out against the background of a deteriorating educational system and reduced public spending on education. This did not lead either to increased income for women or to an increase in their presence in positions of responsibility. Women’s work remains undervalued and marked by segmentation, both horizontal (where men and women do different work) and vertical (where women are given lower wages and fewer opportunities for promotion). In Brazil, for example, the average wage for women in some sectors is only 54 per cent of what men earn. The differential is even greater in poorly paid job categories. In spite of an increased presence in the service sector, in 1995 women in Brazil remained concentrated in three sectors of activity; domestic workers, together with rural and commercial workers accounted for 46 per cent of the female labour force. In the area of the rights to life, bodily security, and health, female mortality rates linked to clandestine abortions are high, in spite of the probable underestimations of official figures (CEPAL, 2000): abortion being illegal, deaths are usually attributed to other causes. Rates of separation and divorce, and thus the number of single-parent families, are on the rise, and several countries in the area have adopted laws aimed at encouraging men to fulfil their financial obligations and their responsibilities towards their children. The failure to provide food is considered an offence under the law. These measures, however, are generally insufficient and ineffective. This may be because women are unaware that they may lodge a complaint, the difficulties of doing so,

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or the informal nature of the work of many men allows them to default on their obligations since they have no declared income. Other situations give rise to paradox: Argentinean law carries a prison sentence for a parent denying the other parent visiting rights, yet this is often the only tool that mothers can use against neglectful fathers. Women’s organizations rallied in response to the inadequacies of such measures, and they proposed alternatives such as denying a father the right to leave the territory, cancelling his credit card, or revoking his passport. Nevertheless, in Latin America, the domestic sphere remains a space within which laws impinge in only a limited and partial manner. Violence against women is telling. In normative terms, Latin America and the Caribbean display advanced views; after all, a majority of member countries of the OAS have adopted the Convention of Belém do Pará, under the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Yet national laws penalizing violence against women are deplorably inefficient in many countries. First, legal provisions carrying a penalty for intrafamilial violence fail to make any explicit mention of gender violence, still covered by taboo. Some countries have no family law jurisdiction; civil law judges untrained to deal with the problem and therefore deal with complaints in an ad hoc fashion. Women’s organizations throughout the region have repeatedly called for better training of legal personnel and police forces, as well as demanding that women be better informed regarding the laws and recourse available to them. They also criticize the lack of follow-up that would see to it that sanctions be, in fact, enforced. In addition, these measures are deficient in that they are in no way preventive, and are unlikely to bring about the eradication of violence against women. It is clearly insufficient for public policies to penalize after the fact; information, education, and prevention campaigns are called for as parallel undertakings. More serious still is that, in some cases, legal provisions in the area of sexual crimes reinforce, reproduce, or consolidate the view that a woman is the property of the pater familias (CEPAL, 2000). In some ten countries in the area, including Brazil, the perpetrator of sexual abuse or rape can see his penalty lifted or reduced if he proposes marriage to his victim. Legislation that views a raped woman as ‘damaged goods’ is doubly discriminatory: it denies women basic human rights, and it carries symbolic weight, which perpetuates traditional stereotypes. In Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Uruguay, where sexual offences may be dealt with by private rather than public court proceed-

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ings, according to the status of the perpetrator and the victim, there are legal provisions that allow a victim to make an arrangement with the rapist. This being the case, it is worth underlining the fact that, within cultural contexts that have yet to break the taboos surrounding sexual violence, social pressure exerted on the victim may be such that her liberty extends, at best, to silence, in full denial of her fundamental rights. These being the premises, is the introduction of legislation penalizing rape within the marriage bed or even sexual harassment in the workplace – areas where the lack of legislation is so sorely felt in so many of these countries – even imaginable? Perspectives on Political Participation The mobilization of Latin American women has displayed a wide variety, including the following: the rise of a feminist movement comparable to those of northern Europe, the United States, or Canada; popular movements which have successfully translated survival strategies into political demands; and mass mobilization against dictatorship and human rights violations, the most internationally famous example certainly being that of the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, who gather each year in front of the presidential palace to raise portraits of their lost children. (It is estimated that about 30,000 people disappeared under the 1976–83 military regime.) In a situation coupling economic crisis with authoritarian politics, it is the progressive wing of the Catholic Church that first gave assistance to the women of Brazil, in their mobilization in favour of access to public infrastructures, their demands for collective services in the shape of the Glass of Milk committees, Mothers Clubs, demands for community services and access to affordable housing, and their protests against increases in the cost of living. In the early days, such mobilization came essentially in reaction to the precariousness of women’s living conditions and was motivated by women’s conviction of their right to life and personal security. Gradually, local participation led women out of the strictly domestic sphere towards a political formulation of their demands, which were then addressed to governments. Action at local levels enhanced the role of women and led to the constitution of a collective actor endowed with a social identity and a politics of its own. Looking further, such action introduced a new relationship between women and the state, with women learning the nature of active citizenship and acquiring a critical awareness of issues and the working of politics.

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All of this came at a cost. Groups engaging in local actions laboured under the additional workload, the greater part of which was borne by women, and this tended to reproduce or reinforce women’s traditional roles as wives and mothers. Additionally, some of these mobilizations ended up being instrumentalized to the benefit of development projects or of political objectives that often overrode women’s own aspirations. Thus, these practices were not per se of a nature leading to the emancipation of women. The limits that confronted, and still confront, women’s action certainly point to the fundamental nature of issues of individuation and of the relationship between women and the state. The case of Brazil shows that incorporating women’s demands into the political sphere is both necessary and problematic. In the context of democratization, political parties played an important role in promoting and institutionalizing gender issues, and yet the strategic redefinition of the relationship between movements and the state is fraught with risks, as evidenced by the divisions that appeared in the women’s movement of São Paulo and the attempts at co-optation by political parties engaged in electoral strategizing. No single strand of ‘feminine identity’ exists, and social movements naturally harbour diverse interests and demands. The project of improving the status and daily lives of women cannot spare the expense of acting in decision-making spheres. Indeed, actions taken by the state, which institutionalized women’s demands and broadened their responsibilities, have had the effect of modifying the traditional separation of the public and the private spheres, and they are likely to lead to modification of basic gender relationships as well. In such a process of institutionalization, movements are faced with multiple issues: They need to maintain both their autonomy and a connection with civil society, while promoting political and cultural transformation, without losing sight of women’s daily preoccupations. In other words, the challenge is to bring about reforms within a political system, without forfeiting a critical feminist perspective on androcentric standards that are still in full force. For over two decades we have seen a proliferation of movements carried by women, of strategies carried out by women, and of demands voiced by women. This we take as proof that institutionalization of a number of women’s demands has not brought about a decline in women’s mobilization, but rather a deepening of women’s demands and a broadening of women’s actions to embrace new horizons, involvement in the international community being a case in point.

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Strongly supported in the 1990s by NGOs and U.N. conferences, Latin American women set about co-ordinating their actions, first at the national level, and more recently, in the wake of the Beijing conference, throughout the region and then at international levels. These women have played an important role in the adoption of international conventions and action programs that promote women’s rights and gender equality. Such international recognition of rights does not eradicate gender discrimination; nevertheless, it does create a breach in traditional policies – for example, the population policies that instrumentalize women’s bodies. International recognition of women’s rights can be given credit for situating the issue of reproductive rights squarely within the human rights debate. This consequently engages the responsibility of the state and of international organizations in the task of extending to women such rights and, further, of promoting and defending them, which responsibility extends to both the public and the private spheres. Latin American governments are thereby committed to opposing violence and discrimination against women, to altering their legislation, and to setting up mechanisms to ensure the equality of men and women. In this fashion mobilization and the demands of women have produced an impact on the nature and quality of political debate and national democracy. They have also served to advance the cause of establishing a public space that is transnational in scope. By upsetting classical conceptions of democracy, citizenship, and human rights, women have forced a re-examination of the normative outlines of these concepts. The task was not to ensure the bestowal of rights upon a category, class, or specific group. In truth, the decision to formulate demands – the demand for reproductive rights, say – in the name of citizen rights and human rights brings to light the historic dimension of the process of constructing and acquiring rights. By highlighting the contingent nature of rights allocation, women’s contribution is twofold. First, it constitutes a statement to the effect that rights are subject to a permanent process of construction and transformation. Such a statement widens the democratic debate and allows not only women but other groups as well to formulate their demands on the basis of the most fundamental of rights, to wit the right to have rights. In addition, such a perspective introduces the notion that social relationships are consubstantial with the formulation and the establishment of rights, since the concept of citizen rights and human rights, far from being gender-neutral, bears the stamp of an androcentric view of

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normativity. Illustrative of this, social rights of women are considered in the text of the Brazilian Constitution as a function of their status as mothers, wives, and workers. In other words, woman is not considered distinct from her attributes, and her citizenship demands justification. Disengaging from such supposed neutrality implies recognition that the power relationships that now exist are unfavourable to women. In most of the countries of Latin America, although some discriminatory laws endure, it is rather in the areas of women’s access to information about their rights, access to implementation of their rights, and access to judicial power in general that substantial work remains to be done. It is a commonplace occurrence for the exercise of rights entrenched in legal statutes to be impeded by the perception of women as dependant and subject to an external rule, be it the authority of the father and the family, the political wardship of the state, or the moral responsibility of the church. Through women’s emancipation from these varied forms of guardianship, the more general issue of individuation is at stake. Therefore, it is crucial for women to conceptualize and to articulate their demands first and foremost in terms of citizen rights (Marques-Pereira, 1996) and next in terms of human rights (Marques-Pereira and Raes, 2001) rather than presenting them as demands for social policies. The issue of reproductive rights is an excellent case in point: Although women’s access to political, civil, and social rights is recognized in most quarters as legitimate, reproductive rights remain a stumbling block to women’s full citizenship. This is because in the domain of citizen rights, as in that of human rights, reproductive rights are still generally perceived as being a health issue. But reproductive rights are far from synonymous with reproductive health. Reproductive rights include access to health services, information, and contraceptives, and also reproductive freedom, reproductive work, and sexuality. These issues are part and parcel of full citizenship status for women, all the more so because reproductive, social, civil, and political rights are so tightly bound together: Women’s right and ability to determine the number and spacing of their children is an important consideration for their autonomy. This freedom of choice will affect women’s access to education and to the labour force, and indeed women’s participation in political life at large. Given the obstacles met by women undertaking the process of individuation, their political representation remains a crucial issue (Marques-Pereira, 2001). The integration of women into participatory

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democracy has unarguably given content to their social citizenship, through the creation of a public space wherein they can and do acquire visibility. Yet citizenship in a fuller sense, including the individual’s capacity to truly occupy the public arena, has not translated for women into any considerable incorporation into the public space nor the political party structures that function mainly in oligarchic mode and, practically speaking, marginalize women. Truly representative democracy has continued to elude women who are questing for full citizenship. In this regard the decentralization processes under way in most countries in the region are likely to bring about a closer fit between women’s demands and political decisions. Political action cannot, however, remain restricted to local levels, and women’s organizations will need to develop their presence at more diverse levels of the power structure. In the context of state reform along the lines of administrative rationalization, budgetary reallocation, and decentralization, the problem resides in the broad institutionalization of gender approaches across national, sectoral, and decentralized entities. In addition, at a time when multitudinous pressures are exerted on the sovereignty of the state, the issue for women is to participate in national and local decisions but also in regional and supranational decisions. Given that the economic context is most unfavourable to most women, simply because most come from the working classes, and given that structural adjustment policies, which restrict public intervention, weigh most heavily on these women, their participation in decision-making within international organizations appears as a necessary undertaking as much as it is a survival initiative. In this regard, the trend towards mainstreaming, which seems to be arising within organizations such as the United Nations, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), or the OAS, will receive close attention in the coming years.3 Certainly, the challenge confronting Brazilian and Latin American women will be to find clear ways of avoiding a corporatist type of representation of their interests and an excluding hierarchization of their demands and organizations. Alliances with other social groups that bear distinct repertoires within civil society, and a more direct political involvement in national politics, could be the only ways to reverse a tendency among women to leave the national arena and move to international agencies, where they understandably enjoy more prestige, manage larger budgets, and develop projects on a worldwide scale. However, their influence in their native country then dwindles, as does their capacity to work closely

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with the political networks of their initial base. This is probably why the ascending, organizational phase of the movement takes so long to mature. The step towards diversification is hampered by socioeconomic conditions of mere survival and by the very attitude of the men, acting as men, in the political system of the transition. In Brazil, base mobilization promises to be a long, thorny process, given machista practices and the prevailing Catholic and Pentecostal cultures in the country. Feminist leaders insist that women should carefully avoid the trap of a dilution into an impotent state apparatus that is likely to lead only to a multiplication of both the structures and the consultative processes operating in the shadows and far from the true centres of power. They assert that, wherever women are placed in office, public involvement in the issue of women and poverty will remain tentative and no more than symbolic. Regrettably, the prestige attached to high functions in ministries and government agencies has lured many women into thinking that they can widen their scope of action with such limited access to political and financial resources. notes 1 For further discussion of the relationship between women’s movements, the progressive sectors of the Catholic church, political parties, and governement administrations during the democratic transition, see Alvarez (1990: 137–222). 2 Personal conversation with Wania Sant’Anna, 2000. Proposta 84/85 (Mar./ Aug.). 3 The term ‘mainstreaming’ refers to an integrated approach to gender equality. It involves interministerial meetings including all departments; decisions would then be considered valid only when a report had been tabled containing a detailed description of measures to be adopted by each of the ministries in the area of gender equality. The procedure implies a reorganization of decision-making processes to include decision-makers at all political and administrative levels, as well as the participation of actors such as NGOs. Depending upon the country and according to the level of institutionalization of state feminism and of egalitarianism in the political culture, the mainstreaming strategy might either reinforce or weaken sectoral policies dealing with equal opportunity and ‘positive action,’ sometimes called ‘reverse discrimination.’ Whereas in a country such as Sweden the strategy may serve to consolidate gender equality, in a country as inegalitarian as Brazil, it may turn out to be a sham.

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references Alvarez, S. 1990. Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women’s Movements in Transition Politics, Princeton: Princeton University Press. – 1998. ‘Latin American Feminisms Go Global: Trends of the 1990s and Challenges for the New Millenium.’ In S. Alvarez, E. Dagnino, and A. Escobar, eds., Cultures of Politics, Politics of Culture: Revisioning Latin American Social Movements. Boulder: Westview Press, 293–324. AMB (Articulação de Mulheres Brasileiras). April 2000. Balanço Nacional, Politicas Públicas para as Mulheres no Brasil (5 anos após Beijing). Resoluções, Brasília. Cardoso, R. 1983. ‘Movimentos Sociais Urbanos: Balanço Crítico.’ In B. Sorj and M. Tavares de Almeida, eds., Sociedade e Política no Brasil pós-64. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 215–39. Castillo, F. 30 July 1997.‘Participación y exclusión: una aproximación al tema desde la experiencia de las comunidades de base.’ Paper presented to the seminar Participación ciudadana y políticas públicas, FLASCO. CEPAL. 1999. ‘Situación juridico-social de la mujeres a cinco años de Beijing: El panorama regional’ (December). – 2000. The Challenge of Gender Equity and Human Rights on the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century (February). Craske, N. 1999. Women and Politics in Latin America. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Franco Braga, E. 1996. ‘La Acción de la Ciudadania en Brasil: un nuevo diseño de prácticas organizativas en los años noventa.’ Estudios Latino-americanos 5, 183–96. Goirand, C. 2001. La politique des favelas. Paris: Karthala. Hermet, G. 1992. ‘Citoyenneté et nationalité en Amérique Latine.’ Commentaire 58, 341–9. IDB (Inter-American Development Bank). 1996. Las Mujeres en las Américas: Como cerrar la brecha entre los generos. Washington, D.C.: IDB. Jelin, E. 1994. ‘¿Ante, de, en, y? Mujeres, Derechos Humanos.’ Lima: Entre Mujeres Dialogo Sur/Norte. – December 1995. ‘Como construir la ciudadania? Una visión desde abajo.’ European Review of Latin American and Carribean Studies 55, 21–37. Luna, L. 1995. ‘Los movimientos de mujeres en América Latina o hacia una nueva interpretación de la participación política.’ Boletín Americanista 45, 243–56. Marques-Pereira, B. 1988. ‘Reproduction et citoyenneté.’ Femmes dans la cité. Amérique latine et Portugal. Sextant 8, 169–79.

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– 1996. ‘Les droits reproductifs comme droits de citoyenneté.’ In B. MarquesPereira and I. Bizberg, eds., La citoyenneté sociale en Amérique latine. Paris: L’Harmattan, 222–9. – 1998. ‘Linking Social and Political Citizenship: Women’s Action in the Southern Cone,’ Social Politics (Summer), 213–31. – 2001. ‘Enjeux et écueils de la représentation politique des femmes.’ In B. Marques-Pereira and P. Nolasco, eds., La représentation politique des femmes en Amérique latine. Paris: L’Harmattan, 7–16. – and F. Raes. 2001. ‘Les droits reproductifs comme droits humains: une perspective internationale.’ In Le corps des femmes. Brussels: Politique et Histoire (POL-HIS), 19–38. Molyneux, M. 1985. ‘Mobilization without Emancipation.’ Feminist Studies 2, 227–54. Phillips, A. 1991. Engendering Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. – 1993. Democracy and Difference. London: Polity Press. UNICEF. 1987. The Invisible Adjustment: Poor Women and the Economic Crisis. Santiago: Alfabeta Impresores. Valdez, T. 2000. De lo social a lo político: la acción de las mujeres latino-americanas. Santiago: LOM Ed. Zavala, X. 1997. ‘El divorcio como condición de pluralismo y libertad.’ In G. Santa Cruz, ed., Veredas por Cruzar. Santiago: Instituto de la Mujer.

3 The Housing Movement in the City of São Paulo: Crisis and Revival CHARMAIN LEVY

In the 1970s, when the military ruled, various new social movements began to emerge in Brazil. Unlike their predecessors, these movements arose in both the cities and the countryside, impelled by Christian Base Communities (CEBs), the church’s social work units, and young nonreligious leftist activists. The military had not established a political system where popular demands could be answered, or even listened to. Deprived of political channels, and thus barred from participating in the political process, middle-class activists from the church and the universities went to the lower classes throughout the country, mobilizing them into local community groups and later into popular movements. When the democratization process began in the early 1980s, it brought in its wake the formation of trade unions, opposition political parties, and regional social movements. During this period, academics pinned high hopes on a democratization of the political system to be initiated by these popular social movements and which was expected to bring about a more democratic society in both economic and cultural terms. Unfortunately, the democratic opening was tied to structural adjustment and reform, since the Latin American political transition was cotemporal with an economic recession that became known as the ‘lost decade.’ The democratic forces that had struggled against authoritarian rule agreed to play by the rules of liberal or electoral democracy and to postpone demands linked to distribution of wealth and to social renewal. The aim of this chapter is to understand what factors influenced the evolution of the urban popular movements (UPMs) of Brazil, during the 1990s and beyond, within the political system that resulted from

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the democratic transition period. To do so, we must take into account both exogenous and endogenous factors. The former include processes such as the political opening of the 1980s, the structural reforms of the 1990s, and the presence and influence of other social movements. The latter include the internal organization and functions of the social actor, the framing of ‘identity of condition,’ and the changes in discourse and strategy that occurred within the movements under study. After presenting an overview of popular housing movements under the military regime, we will examine UPMs in Brazil during three different periods. The first, from 1982 to 1989, provides background; the second, from 1990 to 1996, saw the maturing of the transition and of structural reforms; while the third, from 1997 to 2000, is the postreform period. During the first period there was a reorganization of civil society: Local urban community groups were creating the basis for democratic organizations and mobilizing their grassroots constituents to demand goods and services which they were lacking. By the end of the 1980s UPMs had progressed from stating their demands to proposing new models of urban administration and development. During the second period, most UPMs across Brazil went into decline and were no longer able to mobilize their grassroots constituents, influence political processes, or achieve their demands. At the end of the 1990s, however, and particularly throughout 1997, these same UPMs switched strategies. They returned to the more radical forms of action that had been used in the very early 1980s, at a time when no negotiation with military governments had been possible. Why did these UPMs undertake to revive their radical strategies at this particular time? It is our intent to demonstrate that two chief factors account for the renewed radicalization of UPMs in the late 1990s. First, the fallout from the adjustment reforms had left worsened economic conditions for the lower-income population in urban centres. Second, in accordance with mimic theory, the success of the approach adopted by the Movimento dos Sem Terra (Landless Peasant Movement, or MST) and of its radical actions in the countryside were imitated by other social movements (Przeworski, 1991). It is not our purpose here to present an analysis of either the democratization process or the structural reforms, although we will refer to them in our study of the evolution of urban social movements. We will pay special attention to housing movements, as a specific example of UPMs, and illustrate our main findings through a case study of the downtown slum (cortiço) movement in the city of São Paulo.

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Housing Movements under the Military The military had fostered a developmentalist approach by encouraging large industrial compounds around Brazil’s main cities. Workers from all regions, particularly the northeast, had rushed to São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasília in large numbers. In these three cities, taken together, the total population had jumped from ten million in 1960 to thirty-three million in 1980. This situation emphasized the deficiencies of urban planning. Suburbs started as miserable favelas or shantytowns. At the beginning of the 1970s, local housing movements began to arise from among shantytown dwellers and others who lived on the city outskirts who met to resolve basic material problems involving ‘collective consumption.’1 UPMs started to gather political steam during the military period, and they were given a huge boost when leftist and Roman Catholic Church activists began to help organize groups in lower-class neighbourhoods. The strategy had a spontaneous aspect, and it gave birth to a new grassroots methodology of direct political action that became one of the characteristic elements of such movements. Direct political action, through the mobilization and organization of local groups, developed principally because of the work of Christian Base Communities (CEBs), and it was built upon existing neighbourhood relations, friendship, and kinship. CEB workers and local people managed to create a local space for the discussion of material problems that were affecting the population as a whole. As a result, during the 1970s in São Paulo, the first UPMs focused on the problem of housing, which itself was an outcome of unorganized and unregulated urban growth that had reached unprecedented proportions. As more and more people migrated to urban centres as a result of structural changes that were occurring in the countryside, the demand for housing increased, and real estate speculation increased along with it. Clandestine or illegal housing lots, with no urban infrastructure – and which were to become popular neighbourhoods and shantytowns – were sold to migrants who were unaware of municipal regulations, who the legal owners of the land were, and indeed, their own legal rights. The government contributed to the provision of municipal services in the areas already occupied by the private sector which, in turn, added to their value and fuelled a spiralling of housing prices and speculation (Kowarick, 1993). Hence, public investment raised the value of private residences, while the people who lived in areas without services or beyond municipal boundaries had to pay for services

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themselves. Municipal services were considered by the state and by real estate agents to be commodities that raised the exchange value of property. The use value of property was simply ignored, and this relegated dwellers of the outskirts and shantytowns to the status of noncitizens without infrastruture and without services. Professional leaders subsequently guided spontaneously occurring opposition movements, and work at the grassroots level was carried out through interpersonal relations with dwellers. Democracy and participation in planning and decision-making were promoted, and the opinions and cultural customs of the people, who were mostly from the northeast, were respected. In short, it was a learning experience for both outside agents and local people at the grassroots. Little by little, the first committees of local representatives were created. They then spread to different zones of the city, using Church infrastructures for support and expansion. The decentralized form of these committees, set up by neighbourhoods, gave way to a more consistent expansion which, in turn, gave rise to new committees defined by region and subregion, modelled on the administrative structure of the Church and the local municipal government. During the period of the military regime, local leaders promoted a participative cohesiveness that promoted citizens’ rights through organized representation and negotiation. These democratic methods included debate, resolution of internal problems, and rotation of representatives holding office. Through their participation in popular movements, members became aware of their citizenship not only as a right, but also as a personal responsibility to participate in the community. Indeed, the pluralist and democratic methods of local organization and representation adopted by social movements had repercussions on the electoral sphere. The movements maintained their pluralist and heterogeneous character and let their members vote for whomever they saw fit, free of strict party discipline. Another characteristic, very much in line with Alberto Melucci’s (1989) definition of a broad social movement, was their heterogeneous social base. This base was delimited by a physical space (the neighbourhood), which included individuals from different backgrounds (migrants from other zones of the city and from other states) and from different occupations (industrial and civil workers, formal and informal service sector employees, as well as housewives, the unemployed, and the retired). The CEBs had considerable influence on the form and content of the protest movements. One CEB characteristic that they adopted was to

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organize as collectives, unified by geographic regions (often based on Episcopal regions), that developed their struggles simultaneously. There was a strong belief in the process of the chain effect, where each movement’s stage of development was to be respected. Their internal organization was horizontal, allowing for coordination, and working units, but without a central directorate. This implied a process of division of labour according to the functions to be filled (Gohn, 1992: 36–7). Other methods adopted from the CEBs included bringing individuals of a neighbourhood together for discussions; intervention, and orientation by church pastoral and other outside agents; setting up commissions; and collectively exploring a problem and its possible solutions. Their actions involved gathering signatures for a petition while informing the population of the problem and possible solutions, obtaining audiences with government agencies to try to negotiate a solution, demonstrating in front of government offices, and calling upon the media. One important characteristic of the movements was their independence in relation to politicians. This is especially notable because in the past clientelism had, by definition, involved the exchange of urban services for votes. Through negotiations and confrontations with the government and its agents, movement participants developed knowledge of the government’s institutions and interests which, in turn, helped them develop their vision of the social context. This capacity to stand up for their rights was a big step towards personal liberation, considering the long-standing cultural subordination of the lower classes to the political and economic elites. Participation in a movement was, for most people, their first experience with an organized action that created a force. A key milestone in the developing repertoire of a social movement was the questioning involved in conflict and in negotiation (Evers, 1984: 51; Krischke, 1984: 73). The questioning of reality is both a pedagogical and mobilizing process; it is also a moment in which critical awareness and identity are forged. In this mobilizing process, it is possible to observe the transition from local and immediate demands to a vaster organization and communications connecting different struggles in many parts of the city. In this transition outside agents played an important and even essential role, by holding up a vision of expanding and uniting local struggles to achieve more political weight and, on a more ideological level, by giving local participants a larger vision of their struggle and of solidarity among different communities. These agents were equipped with the

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personal and professional resources, both material and cognitive, needed to achieve municipal and regional unions between local social movements. This process of enlarging and expanding such movements accelerated throughout the 1980s. These same movements became involved in more consistent and systematic actions. The most remarkable characteristics of UPMs are their base of legitimacy, developed in close relation to the grassroots, and their political character, which led them to develop external alliances. At the end of the ‘Brazilian miracle,’ UPMs became a channel of popular dissatisfaction. Their mobilization capacities, based on sophisticated communication networks, provoked a significant reaction from government agencies. The latter started to create and promote an institutional base to give new channels and directions to these social pressures, working through populist and co-opted trade union leaders, the schools, and Sociedades Amigos de Bairro (SABs, or Friends of the Neighbourhood Societies). Hence, political disputes came to invade the space of local movements. This was the price paid for participating in organizations closely monitored by government agents. The Movimento de Defesa dos Favelados (Shantytown Dwellers Defence Movement, or MDF) in the eastern zone of São Paulo, and the Movimento Unificado dos Favelados (Unified Shantytown Dwellers movement, or MUF) in its south and southeast zones had allied themselves, by the end of the 1970s, with the reorganization of civil society and with other UPMs. This brought about a re-orientation of government policy and subsequent proposals to urbanize shantytowns – a major victory for the housing movements. The first national gathering of shantytown movements was held in 1980, with 250 representatives attending. In 1981 MUF organized a demonstration of 3,500 shantytown dwellers to demand drinkable water, electricity, sewers, and legal title to the land where they lived. Instead of ordering expulsions, the mayor of São Paulo negotiated with the movements and began to provide services to some of the shantytowns: He chose to recognize the existence and permanence of the shantytown dwellers rather than attempting to eliminate them from the geographic space (Gohn, 1992: 113). Early in the 1980s the protest movement turned into a popular movement that formed a network of local groups. These were engaged in continual collective action, and they elaborated a political project in conjunction with other social and/or political actors, notably the Church and the expanding São Paulo–based PT (Workers Party).

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The Democratic Transition: Adjusting to New Opportunities In the 1980s popular social movements were still learning about resistance struggles as carried out under the authoritarian rule, and they had difficulty adapting to the new context. The new situation generated very positive effects, but it also raised high expectations about the movements’ influence on political parties and on politics in general. External influences and engagements also raised fears of excessive control, and movements had very serious reservations about the idea of representative – rather than direct – democracy. This left them with a slow and deliberative process that was not always effective. The period saw the birth of a political space in which the movements were called upon to establish a far closer involvement with government authorities. It was a time for recognizing the limits of institutionalization and the need for a better organizational structure. It was also a period when social movements supported political parties, as well as a time of enlarging the constitutional process, and these functions required not only mobilization but also a greater structuring as well as stronger theoretical and institutional support. The 1980s saw two main categories of actions: (1) isolated struggles for water, electricity and access to land, and (2) collective occupations and organized actions of community associations. The latter demanded participation, independent negotiations, control over construction, and self-management of housing co-operatives. These actions did not occur separately but in interlocking fashion. We see two important fronts of struggle: for rights to land and for control over construction of housing units. The first corresponded to people already established and struggling to defend their homes as a right. The second involved people who had been expelled from the countryside and were now living in city slums (cortiços), shantytowns (favelas), and otherwise precarious housing. The Shantydwellers Movement (MUF) was characterized by actions carried out by working units and networks and by its decentralized structure. The coordinating committee was composed of twenty-two representatives of shantytowns throughout the city of São Paulo. As mentioned, the decentralized structure of UPMs implies a democratic structure where there is equality between the individual movements and where each is allowed to maintain its own individuality. It also means that, although UPMs have similar goals, there is no single strat-

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egy that all regional UPMs are obliged to follow, even if this might weaken the struggle at the citywide level. In terms of favela struggles, MUF was the most advanced UPM because through its central project it questioned the basic foundation of the capitalist order: the notion of private property. MUF proposed a new form of appropriation and use of urban land, and it worked at the creation of an alternative. It attempted to create judicial mechanisms that would allow shantytown dwellers to settle on their land permanently (Gohn, 1992: 104). This was not an easy struggle, since the issue of collective land was a controversial subject, difficult even for shantytown dwellers themselves to fathom. The idea of struggling for this right – a collective and not an individual one – was not always fully understood by the UPM grassroots. It was an ideological concept that the leaders believed in, and it was introduced into the movement by intellectuals accompanying the movement; it also implies that individuals cannot sell land. Defining a Strategy Aimed at Material and Symbolic Gains Unlike CEBs, UPMs were offensive movements, as demonstrated by the way they began to occupy urban lands both private and public. One of the first such struggles, involving the populations of the outskirts and shantytowns, was to demand a ban on the expulsion of inhabitants, in other words to ensure the permanent right to the land one occupies. Starting in the early 1970s, numerous empty lots throughout São Paulo had been invaded, occupied, or ‘bought.’2 These processes until then had not been openly suppressed or even actively hindered by local officials, but rather tolerated and at times accepted as a solution to the housing shortage for workers whose labour was needed in the factories of multinational corporations installed in the greater São Paulo area. However, as the economic crisis of the 1980s set in and the economic model began to change, the labour of these workers was no longer in such great demand. As a result, they lost their strategic power as the land they occupied gained in value due, first, to the housing and real estate crisis of the 1980s, and second, to the value added by the infrastructures installed. As the dwellers of these areas had utterly no legal right to the land they occupied, they were constantly at risk of being expelled by the police or threatened by grileiros, the individuals who were illegally selling government land to workers – and then charging them rent for it.

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UPMs used three principal strategies to combat the problem: physical resistance to expulsion, popular education, and a mixture of legal recourse and popular demonstrations. The first of these strategies was more survival reaction than anything else. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, direct confrontations between the police and shantytown dwellers were quite common. Popular resistance carried different symbolic meanings for those resisting and for the state. For the former, it implied risking one’s physical safety: being attacked by dogs, being peppersprayed or sprayed by water hoses, or being beaten by the riot police. Taking this type of risk implied not only protecting one’s home but protecting one’s neighbourhood. It implied solidarity among neighbours and friends in order to defy authorities, in a culture that is permeated with conformity and obedience to figures of authority. As for the state, this type of confrontation began to tarnish its image as a legitimate democratic authority. Clearly enough, the new republic was not up to its initial commitment. Throughout the 1980s, the state actors were in desperate search of ways to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the public and to build a social base of their own. The top-down approach to build such a base, however, remained beyond any individual’s means of action. In his time, Getulio Vargas had tried hard but failed. More modestly, the moderate politicians and mild reformers of the New Republic would look for simple ways to remain in power; one way was to appear to be taking responsibility for the welfare of the population. The press also had a role in this process, as we said earlier. It was now free to praise or denounce government action and was thus in a position to foster a public opinion more sympathetic towards lower-income populations and UPMs, which it did in the absence of decisive public positions on the issue of poverty. The second strategy consisted of popular education about city living conditions and behaviour. It served to change the habits of individuals to create a collective understanding of city living and a sense of citizenship, as opposed to the individualistic ethic of survival that usually develops in large urban centres. This education was also necessary to motivate individuals into taking action to claim their rights. At the beginning of the 1980s, citywide demonstrations uniting UPMs were held to demand electricity and running water at rates calculated according to the workers’ income. By 1985 these demands had been met, and today most shantytowns are equipped with these services. This victory did not bring about the death of these movements. Leaders were able to hold UPMs together with further demands, for

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example, for the paving of streets, public telephones, and decent public housing. The third UPM strategy was recourse to legal measures. During the second half of the 1980s many UPM leaders and outside agents realized that resistance at the grassroots level would not be sufficient to ensure that dwellers could settle permanently on the land they occupied. In 1982 the Shantytown Dwellers Defence Movement (MDF) prepared a document on the social function of property, and in 1985 MUF elaborated and submitted to the mayor of São Paulo a bill concerning the concession of full rights to the use of land (Concessão de Direito Real de Uso, or CDRU). This project demanded, in the cause of social welfare, the expropriation of city land that was already occupied by shantytown dwellers and called for the land to be handed over – though it could not be sold – for a period of ninety years. Had it succeeded, CDRU would have signified that shantytown dwellers would receive their land collectively and not individually nor sporadically by zone or neighbourhood. CDRU implied a collective bargaining for land which, in turn, promoted solidarity and unity. One material gain was the creation and elaboration of self-administered housing projects involving communal construction associations, a system referred to as mutirão; this began in 1985. A major feature of the mutirão method is that those who are involved in the planning and building of a project have complete control over it. It is characterized by a process in which public resources are handed over to organized communities, associations, movements, and co-operatives, who then administer these resources according to certain standards as well as within the bounds of programs negotiated with the government. Those responsible for the project work together with outside agents from NGOs, for example, architects, civil engineers, social workers, and lawyers, who assist with all technical aspects. The result of the systematic application of the mutirão method by the PT administration of São Paulo between 1989 and 1993, was the construction of 11,000 low-income housing units. A tremendous amount was accomplished in a relatively short period of time, and it is worth mentioning that the houses built were bigger than those usually offered by state housing projects.3 A more symbolic gain was that these movements were stating their claims as rights. This raised their demands to a more encompassing, universal, and systematic level, which strengthened their notion of citizenship as well as their collective identity. UPMs succeeded in giving

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a fuller sense to the concept of ‘citizenship,’ extending it to the economic, political, and social spheres. They also denounced the illegitimacy of authoritarian decision-making practices on the part of the state and strengthened the political aspects of community relationships, learning to apply non-violent resistance, trying to democratize daily practices, and reaching for relative autonomy (Scherer-Warren, 1993: 60). UPMs succeeded in having an impact on the platform of various political parties, regarding both content and methodology. Through mass party politics and alliances, UPMs helped to implement a systematized method of self-administered distribution of housing units. They also gained the collaboration of NGOs in support of this undertaking and in support of a bill in favour of popular housing, and, furthermore, for urban reform at the national level. UPMs were recognized not only by the local population but also by the state and political parties as legitimate representatives of their neighbourhoods. Through dense social networks, through the formation of coalitions with other social actors, and through the creation of a legitimized political space, UPMs created openings for themselves. Their objective of diversification was fulfilled. The ties uniting this decentralized space were the social networks that had been built through the Church. Alvarez and Dagnino (1995: 7) note that the fabric of collective action was reconfigured when new networks were developed through political parties, other social movements, trade unions, and NGOs, and that these networks eventually came to develop a homogeneous discourse and repertoire of action. A clear understanding of their identity of condition, an efficient organization, and participation in government initiatives allowed them to influence decision-making and policy implementation. The movement’s protest cycle had reached its ‘optimal phase,’ influencing both civil society and the lower, yet influential, strata of government. We thus conclude that UPMs achieved gains on three levels: material, political, and symbolic. It is undeniable that UPMs helped many families improve their material living conditions. They contributed as well to turning the housing crisis into a social and political issue at all levels of government, and they were successful in contributing to political party content, since their claims were rarely ignored by politicians. Every shantytown in São Paulo now has an official commission representing its dwellers on the city council. At the symbolic level, UPMs’ democratic and participatory education made a dent in a long tradition

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of clientelism, conformity, and passivity.4 UPMs created a new social rationality that claims that all citizens have the right to participate in social issues that affect them. They also succeeded in altering public opinion that once thought those who lived in the outskirts and in shantytowns as ‘the dangerous classes,’ generally considered as criminal, lazy, and good for nothings.5 In short, UPMs not only created new forms of collective action, such as non-violent demonstrations and land occupations, but they also created familiar symbols around which to mobilize the population. Unanswered Challenges During the 1980s UPMs not only survived, but they successfully developed a coherent discourse and practice. Many went from being inexperienced grassroots organizations towards ones with a clarity of aim and position that made possible exchanges and alliances leading to the creation of network organizations (Scherer-Warren, 1993: 9). These gains, however, were accompanied by side-effects and trade-offs because of the changes in the structure of the UPMs as well as changes in their sociopolitical environment. In the mid-1980s municipal and state governments began to regulate their relations with UPMs, which were by then considered to be legitimate representatives and mediators for the populations of shantytowns, slums, and the city’s outskirts. As a consequence, these UPMs were obliged to become more institutional, and many became formal associations and official entities. As Jacobi (1987: 13) observes, this bargaining with the state is part of a permanent tension between movement innovation and institutionalization, between autonomy and interaction with the state. To obtain more efficient results from the state and keep abreast of urban projects, UPM leaders spent more time negotiating with municipal representatives. They followed up on projects for their neighbourhoods and worked with outside agents, who became ever more necessary in understanding governmental bureaucracy and legal procedures. As more time was spent negotiating and planning urban projects with the state, less time went into developing grassroots actions involving direct participation of members and sympathizers (Levy, 2000). Other effects of this process included changes in UPM infrastructure, away from effective participation in decision-making, as grassroots

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consultation became more limited. Many UPM leaders became ‘professionals’ and began to receive salaries and work full-time for their movement. One recognizes here the centralization of leadership structures that fits into an institutional logic of rapid decision-making and visible leaders able to negotiate with officials and represent the movement publicly. As UPMs became more involved in the legal side of claims, their leaders received a different education from the one traditionally given at the grassroots level. This caused the relationship between the grassroots and the leadership to change, as leaders became more involved with regional and national politics than with local issues. Daily interaction between the grassroots and leaders became rarer, as leaders spent more time outside the community. As a result, members lost interest in demands that were no longer concrete enough to hold their attention. Another problem with the centralization process was that it exacerbated personal ambitions to power and riches, and this gave rise to a variety of vices, among both leaders and outside agents. Some UPM leaders used authoritarian methods and nurtured a dependency on the part of the grassroots to retain power and thus to achieve their objectives, whether these were movement objectives or personal ones. This also led to infighting among leaders of the various movements within a single neighbourhood, as well as between UPM leaders of different zones of the city, with a view to controlling decision-making and strategies. Nurturing a dependent relationship often involves the withholding of important information and practical knowledge from the grassroots. This, in turn, implies that the loss of a leader – whether because of political ascension, a move to another neighbourhood, or illness – may significantly weaken a movement’s progress. If there are no structures to train new leaders to take the place of those leaving, a social movement can have serious trouble maintaining itself. Such a situation also plays into behavioural patterns of paternalism that are traditional in Brazilian political culture. Thus, the challenge is to strengthen democratic leadership structures and to ensure the training and participation at the grassroots level, so as to create high levels of political and social awareness within the movements. A final challenge involves UPMs’ relationship with other social organizations. UPMs have always been relatively dependent on actors such as the state, political parties, the Catholic Church, and NGOs. The population which they represent does not possess the resources to carry on

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independently, and this creates the need to rely on other actors for resources and help in terms of mobilization, training, maintenance, and achieving demands. Thus, the move towards national politics, as well as the integration into national movement structures such as forums and centrals, have meant less time and energy spent at the grassroots level. Although UPMs have succeeded in strengthening their actual structures and their presence in the social and institutional spheres, this has led them to neglect those they represent. For several movements this has caused a crisis in participation and a crisis of legitimacy. Until 1988, throughout the different regions of the country, UPMs were defined on different fronts in opposition to the status quo. They criticized and denounced the poor quality of public administration and, in individual cases, they presented alternative solutions for collective problems; they successfully resisted structural, circumstantial, and internal pressures which might have led to demobilization. In 1988, with the elaboration of the new national Constitution, which promoted the participation of civil society, UPMs began to focus on legal, political, and universal propositions. The Constitution had opened a space within the decision-making spheres traditionally reserved for the political elite for the voices of excluded and marginalized populations. The big challenge was to construct a new posture for a civil society that was still restricted to small organized segments. This was a political opportunity to not only strengthen the network of social and political actors struggling for social transformation, but also to mobilize parts of the population that had not heretofore participated in social movements. The 1988 Constitution generated and defined new spaces and forms of action for UPMs. They now needed legal knowledge to prepare legislative proposals, and to achieve this, external agents came to play a major role. During this period NGOs began to act independently of UPMs, as they developed their own interests which did not necessarily overlap with those of UPMs. The phenomenon of adjudicating social claims created specific channels for popular demands, gave judicial powers a catalyzing role in resolving social conflicts, and transferred to specialized external agents the role of translators, intermediaries, and interpreters of popular demands (Gohn, 1992). However, these agents rarely succeeded in translating the specialized jargon into simple lay language. Nevertheless, there was continuity in the development of a new political culture by UPMs in the struggle for participation in the administration of public affairs, and in the creation of an active citizenry no longer content to be simply recipients of established rights.

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The year 1988 was also significant because it was a year of municipal elections across Brazil, in which the opposition won several important cities.6 This was considered a victory by many UPMs, who felt that having their allies in power would bring about a serious change in urban policy and in the living conditions of the low income and marginalized populations of the urban centres. Unfortunately, such expectations were to be disappointed in the years that followed. The Declining Trend In the early 1990s new tensions arose within the government. PT opposition members, having won several municipal elections, saw their status change from being legitimate interlocutors and recognized mediators to that of elected representatives. Its activists, now fullfledged members of the administrative and bureaucratic process, were called upon to propose alternatives to the neo-liberal model, to formulate social policies for the poorest of society, and in general, to prioritize public interest over political interest, while learning to administer in a just and efficient manner and attempting to democratize the internal relations of the administrations. In this political context, the PT turned to a more institutional type of politics. The relations of reciprocity established during the 1980s between the party and UPMs were gradually replaced by more traditional relations, where UPMs were considered to be at the service of the party, now deemed to be the central actor. The PT concentrated on its own political interests and less on the interests of UPMs and their grassroots. At the same time divisions between differing ideological and political currents within the PT and CUT, around the issue of institutionalization, become more visible. The election of opposition administrations was considered an important victory for most UPMs, but this situation also created difficulties for them. For example, many of the best UPM leaders and outside agents were hired by the municipal administrations. Losing their best leaders was something that most UPMs were not at all prepared for, and this created a general problem involving a lack of leadership in cities where the opposition had won. Another problem involved the new attitude of UPMs towards municipal administrations, which can be described as one of extreme tolerance. As the new administrations cleaned up the situation inherited from their predecessors, UPMs waited patiently while trying to explain the circumstances to their

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grassroots members. At the end of the four-year mandate of several municipal opposition governments, many UPMs and their grassroots, disappointed by the results, felt their patience ill-rewarded. Thus, in several cases, the consequence was the victory of right-wing candidates in the municipal elections of 1992.7 The case of São Paulo, where PT candidate Luiza Erundina was elected mayor in 1989, can serve as an illustration. Erundina’s election was considered an important victory for UPMs, following upon the very tense relationship with the previous mayor, Paulo Maluf. Several external agents and UPM activists agreed to work for her municipal administration. They applied their years of UPM experience and implemented exemplary projects such as the community construction of housing units (Macauley, 1995). However, this flight left an empty space. There remained few agents with the capabilities to take over from the previous ones. As a result, the quality of UPM activities and the implementation of popular projects suffered. In 1990 São Paulo designated 108 shantytowns for an urbanization project. They were chosen according to the following criteria: (1) their land had to belong to the city (this accounted for 65 per cent of all shantytowns in the municipality), (2) their geographic condition had to favour the urbanization of the shantytown (i.e., not be detrimental to the ecosystem), and (3) organized UPMs had to be already in place. The general project included regulation of the land, installation of infrastructures, and financing the construction of housing units. Besides this particular project, the municipality also promoted literacy courses for adults (using the Paulo Freire method) in community centres of shantytowns and popular neighbourhoods. This program helped UPMs both in the recruitment of new members and in the creation of a critical awareness among the population. In spite of the interest that such projects raised, certain UPMs became demobilized in the early 1990s. Under the PT administration, there was confusion about where UPMs ended and the government began. This confusion developed because of the presence of external agents in important administrative jobs and generated the expectation that all UPM demands would be swiftly met. As well, certain programs were paralyzed because of the financial problems inherited from the previous administration. Members of the new administration discovered that they needed more time to organize their work, and they asked UPMs for their collaboration and patience. While UPMs tied to the PT administration waited, the participation and the interest

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of their grassroots following waned. The PT administration succeeded in constructing 40,000 housing units, using the mutirão method, but this also led to the bureaucratization of the UPM struggle. City hall demanded the institutionalization of local groups for their participation in these projects, and this required much time and energy. The outcome was that UPM leaders spent more time in the office and less time with their grassroots. In addition to this, the corruption of some UPM leaders and division between local groups deepened the demobilization. The ‘optimal phase’ of the protest cycle, using Tilly’s terms, came at a price: UPMs began to struggle over ideological cleavages and to split into conflicting factions. These are among the factors that contributed to the victory of São Paulo’s right-wing candidates in the 1992 municipal elections. To make things worse, São Paulo’s UPMs had become dependent on municipal resources, and when a new administration arrived in 1993, they became immobilized. Projects initiated during the previous administration were frozen, and the UPMs’ protests against the intransigent character of the new mayor were futile.8 In cities where the PT was reelected, such as Porto Alegre, UPMs remained weak because of a lack of solid leadership and because most popular demands were being channelled through official processes such as the participative budget.9 Our hypothesis is that the principal reason for these internal problems was the lack of political training within UPMs. Most leaders and activists were given ideological training by the CEBs and gained practical experience in their movement, but there was no follow-up in terms of political training to structure the thought of the leaders regarding choice of actions, strategy, tactics, alliances, and structure of their movement. Courses were offered by the PT and by NGOs, but there was no systematic ongoing training. The result was a UPM leadership that was immature and that did not know how to act in adverse situations which presented themselves within as well as outside of the movement (Levy, 2000). Housing Groups as Key Actors in Difficult Times The first half of the 1990s saw UPMs developing beyond the municipal level and trying to attain regional and even national scope. As early as 1987 a group of popular leaders began to arise from the landless movement in the eastern zone of São Paulo. This was a far wider movement strongly linked to the Catholic Church, the CEBs, and Bishop Angélico

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Sândalo Bernardino (Dom Angélico), led by the charismatic priest Padre Ticão. Several such movements in the eastern zone of São Paulo joined together to form the União dos Movimentos de Moradia (Union of Housing Movements, or UMM). Its leaders began laying the foundations of an organization that would encompass UPMs from other parts of the city and the state. During the following three years, UMM leaders developed these alliances. UMM was established partly in reaction to the recent appearance of other popular movements linked with CUT and the PT, a formation which was at that time called the Pro-Central de Movimentos Populares, about which more will be said below. UMM was one of the most active movements during the PT administration in São Paulo (1989–92). Besides forming a statewide movement, its leaders met in 1989 with organizations in Uruguay that were involved in collective housing construction projects and co-operatives. Following upon this experience, UMM leaders decided to demand resources for this new experiment from Brazil’s three major levels of government. The struggle to obtain resources from federal government’s lowincome housing programs for maintaining and extending housing projects had, in fact, begun with the organization of a caravan to Brasília in 1988 in which 300 people, mainly from the eastern zone of São Paulo, had participated. This first caravan succeeded in opening channels of negotiation with official agencies and in establishing housing movements at the national level. It was also important because it was the first time a movement brought its rank and file with it for a public action and negotiations in Brasília. Meetings were arranged with the Caixa Econômica Federal (Federal Credit Union), although negotiations led to no concrete results. After this disappointment, UMM organized a second caravan to Brasília in 1989, with thirty busloads of UMM members from São Paulo and delegates from other states. In terms of negotiations with the federal government, UMM made little progress, but in terms of a national network among UPMs and the creation of solidarity among the participants, the demonstration was a success. In April 1990 UMM held its first state gathering in Piracicaba, São Paulo, where approximately 150 delegates discussed their aims, the means for a united struggle, and strategies for the organization and construction of a new society. In 1990 UMM organized a third caravan to Brasília, in which 3,000

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people participated. This level of participation was in itself an important success and proof that UPMs across the country were still capable of mobilizing their grassroots. This demonstration had a positive effect on UPMs in cities such as São Paulo, Campinas, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, Vitoria, and Goiania. Seeing that these three caravans to Brasília had failed to bring about any concrete results, UMM decide to change its tactics. In 1991 its leaders moved from a struggle based essentially on pressure from the masses to a more institutional struggle. In November 1991 they organized a fourth caravan to Brasília, where they presented the federal government with the Lei de Iniciativa Popular (Law of Popular Initiative) which included a proposal for a national fund for low-income housing. UMM also presented to the federal government a proposal for a new national policy on housing which recommended the creation of a national council for low-income housing, as well as councils at both the state and municipal levels. These councils would be judicial and legal organizations responsible for taking the economic and political decisions concerning housing, and they would be made up of representatives of the government and of civil society organizations. Faced with the federal government’s refusal, and in the absence of serious negotiations, UMM decided to pressure the state government of São Paulo. In 1991, during an impasse in negotiations with the federal government, UMM mobilized 7,000 people in a demonstration in front of the state government house. A commission representing UMM was received by the housing secretary, and UMM succeeded in obtaining an appointment with the governor. A month later, in the presence of 3,000 demonstrators, the governor signed an accord with UMM for the construction of 12,000 housing units using the mutirão method. UMM continued holding demonstrations aimed at the new mayor of São Paulo, and organizing caravans to Brasília, until 1993. Through these political demonstrations, UMM achieved concrete results such as the construction of many thousands of low-income housing units. UMM gained, as well, precious experience in the formulation of administrative and political projects and succeeded in giving voice to hundreds of local housing movements throughout the southeastern part of Brazil. Despite these advances, the Union of Housing Movements had serious problems concerning the relationships between leaders and grassroots, and between leaders of local movements and the UMM coordinating body. The coordinating committee made most of the

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important decisions without consultation with the grassroots. As occurred elsewhere, there was a problem with concentration of knowledge among a few leaders, with not enough information and training passed on to intermediary leaders. UMM was also dependent on the knowledge of its NGO outside agents, and when several leaders and external agents left the UMM, the movement had next to no experienced new leaders to take their place. There was also the problem of the dominant position held by the eastern zone of the city, to the detriment of UPMs from other zones. This problem came to the forefront with the distribution of housing units promised by the state government of São Paulo. In addition, several popular leaders complained about the lack of democracy in UMM and accused the coordinating committee of instrumentalizing the grassroots of their UPMs. Several movements stopped participating in UMM demonstrations and switched their affiliation to the Pro-Central movement. This was an indication that UMM did not give priority to their political project and lacked a more encompassing vision. Pro-Central, which later became the Central dos Movimentos Populares (CMP), had begun to form around 1983 within the Associação Nacional de Movimentos Populares (ANAMPOS) with the creation of CUT. The majority of Pro-Central activists were affiliated with CUT and the PT. This weighed heavily because it was these national leaders who had given this movement its meaning and direction. The CMP proper was not officially founded until 1993. The CMP was structured like a trade union central, regrouping different categories of movements throughout the country. It consisted of specific councils that were regrouped around housing movements, women’s movements, transportation movements, health movements, landless peasant movements, children and adolescent movements, and the Afro-Brazilian movement. One of the goals of Pro-Central was to create a complementarity and to unite the struggles of different social movements to avoid their fragmentation. Yet, having been established through a top-down process, Pro-Central was little known among the grassroots of most UPMs affiliated with it. Pro-Central never, in fact, integrated the grassroots of UPMs into its organization, and thus it did not succeed in its aim of uniting all popular struggles. In contrast to UMM, Pro-Central spent a lot of time discussing ideas and actions with its leaders and concentrated on their political and strategic training. But by this time UPMs were already in a demobilization phase, and the training came too late

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to help intermediary and grassroots leaders with their leadership problems. Despite these difficulties, Pro-Central did serve as a place of exchange, and it strengthened the network of popular movements. It is significant that during the early 1990s both the Movimento Nacional de Luta pela Moradia (MNLM) and the Coordenação Nacional de Associações de Moradia (CONAM) were tightly affiliated with it.10 Later, Pro-Central also overcame its differences with UMM, which joined the CMP in 1996. These three housing movements, and the presence of national leaders tied to the housing movement, created within the CMP a broad space for the issues of housing, which served as a pivot around which other movements (such as health, water, transportation, and day care) were expected to aggregate their struggles. MNLM was created in 1990. This was an outcome of the first national seminar on popular housing organized by the CNBB and Associação Nacional do Solo Urbano (ANSUR). It was also inspired by UMM’s housing caravans to Brasília and by the mobilization of the Forum Nacional de Reforma Urbana (National Forum for Urban Reform, or FNRU), which had organized a strong petition campaign during the process of working out the federal Constitution.11 MNLM regroups housing movements from cities across Brazil, and it has a solid base in the northeastern cities as well as southeastern and southern cities. It began with 250 representatives in thirteen states. This movement has, since its inception, been affiliated with the CMP. It differs from UMM in that it is more representative on a national basis, even though it lacks a solid base in the state of São Paulo. During the early and mid-1990s MNLM focused on negotiating with municipal, state, and federal governments and on the participation of its members in tripartite urban councils. It also worked on spreading the mutirão system to other regions of the country. The FNRU came into existence in 1986, gaining recognition during the 1988 Constitution process and continuing its work into the late 1990s.12 It was a coalition of activists, technicians and, professionals tied to NGOs that prioritized institutional action, especially at the legislative and parliamentary levels. Even though there were representatives of UPMs in this forum, Maricato (1995: 21) notes that the lobbying initiatives of the FNRU were distant from the daily life of the urban population. Throughout the mid-1990s UPMs continued to press their demands on the state government, and they had more success at this level. Nev-

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ertheless, the projects promised by this government ran into problems. The government released few resources and insisted on bureaucratic processes that obliged UPMs to concentrate on the technical aspects of the projects to the detriment of the political education work. The grassroots perceived the absence of a more participatory project and the lack of concrete results. Other internal problems inherited from the 1980s became worse. Certain leaders left their UPMs because of fatigue and frustration, and there were few experienced new leaders to replace them. Another problem was declining support from NGOs who had traditionally worked closely with UPMs. These problems caused a general demobilization of UPMs.13 The UPMs’ crisis had both structural and contextual sources. The most important was without a doubt the loss of CEB support, which during the 1970s and 1980s had been an integral part of their organizations. UPMs had depended heavily on CEBs and on the Church, and had failed to develop their own structures and resources adequately. UPMs depended on CEBs to carry out popular education, and they did not develop viable alternatives after many CEBs abandoned this type of social and political activity. UPMs also depended on CEBs for the training of their leaders. The effect of this was to concentrate power in the hands of a few leaders who did not succeed in organizing their movements to respond to new challenges, who did not have a strategic vision, and who often failed to place the political project of their movements ahead of their personal interests. A cycle of action and reaction between the state and popular movements exists. It is essentially tied to the level of the politicization and degree of mobilization of the UPMs. Popular movements manifest their demands using a repertoire of protest. The state reacts to these demands, and it is not always prepared for pressure from UPMs. At times the state must give in to some demands. In this sense we can say that, at the end of the 1980s, the governments reacted to popular movements by adapting their strategy to the UPMs’ repertoire, which failed to elaborate a new strategy in response. Often the failure of UPMs to achieve their demands resulted in the demobilization of the movements’ grassroots, which then created a crisis situation. Another hypothesis points to the change in the repertoire of many UPMs. During the 1990s UPMs concentrated their efforts on direct negotiations with the state and participation in joint councils with the state, and thus they partially abandoned public protests as a pressure tactic and mobilization tool. This led to a loss of interest on the part of

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the grassroots in the process of protest, as they felt it was something in which they did not directly participate. This evolution can be tied to the changes in the Constitution, which allowed for such local and state councils and to new strategies elaborated by certain public officials. The Revival The latter half of the 1990s showed the effects of the federal government’s structural reforms, especially among the low-income urban population. Jobs were becoming scarce, and those with jobs were working more hours and earning less. In the city of São Paulo, for example, unemployment levels in 1999 reached 19.5 per cent, up from 10.5 per cent in 1989. Rents continued to rise, creating a situation of total instability, even desperation, for many low-income families. This context favoured more radical forms of mobilization. In 1997 UPMs dealing with slum and shantytown populations began to organize family occupations of abandoned public buildings, as a form of protest and a call for decent low-cost housing. The majority of these occupations were spontaneous and unorganized. However, as their numbers rose, several UPMs responded by adopting more aggressive strategies and actively promoted occupations. It was estimated that in 1997 four million people across Brazil were involved in occupying land and buildings. In the city of São Paulo alone there were at the time an estimated eighty occupations per month. By 1999 the number of occupations in cities such as Fortaleza, Aracaju, Recife, João Pessoa, São Luis, Natal, Belo Horizonte, Terezinha, and Florianópolis had broken all previous records.14 In the city of São Paulo there were more occupations in 1999 than in any of the past ten years. Another element influenced these movements in their change of strategy: the successes of MST in pressuring the federal government for agrarian reform. While for UPMs the 1990s were a time of disarray and loss of influence, for MST it was a period of organizational growth and of consolidating its place among social movements and organizations lobbying for agrarian reform. The success of MST had a direct influence on the change of strategy of several UPMs, including the cortiço (urban slum dwelling) movement that is the object of our case study. During the early and mid-1990s most UPMs were successful in negotiating housing projects with the municipal and state governments, and the construction of housing units financed by international agencies. However, during the late 1990s, when many UPMs were

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frustrated by an impotent lower-stratum bureaucracy and by the failure of political will of the Cardoso administration, MST represented, for many UPM leaders, an inspiration and hope in terms of the possibilities of change from below. MST represented a different kind of movement that was popular, independent, and able to make a strong impact on the political scene. In the late 1990s exchanges between the urban and rural movements were intensified. MST invited many UPMs to participate in its demonstrations (Oliveira, 1997a, 1997b; Brener, 1997). One of these exchanges took place in September 1997, when one of the national MST leaders, Gilmar Mauro, visited a cortiço occupation. During this visit he stated, ‘Agrarian reform will not come about if we do not struggle together. And urban reform will not happen without our support.’ Another example can be seen in the words of MNLM activist Ronnie Barbosa Vieira: ‘MST has shown us an example of struggle ... We will resist all forms of expulsion’ (Brener, 1997: 6). Our case study deals specifically with the cortiço movement in the city of São Paulo, one of the biggest cities in the world and the industrial and financial capital of Brazil. As already mentioned, it was the birthplace of the Workers Party (PT), of the opposition trade union (CUT), and of numerous UPMs. Since the 1930s, when heavy and light industries were established in the region, São Paulo has suffered a series of housing crises. As a result of these, unregulated areas in the outskirts, shantytowns (favelas), and downtown slums (cortiços) became a common part of the urban landscape. Cortiços are buildings (sometimes mansions) with several rooms that used to be single-family residences. Each cortiço family lives in one room, and all the families share the bathroom and kitchen. The owners of these buildings usually hire agents or middlemen to rent them out.15 Those who rent rooms in cortiços are people who have had to give up their previous rented houses or apartments because they no longer had the means to pay the rent, or they could not meet the administrative rental requirements. The specific type of housing movement that we are presenting here, the cortiço movement, deals with the low-income population that lives in run-down slums in the centre of the city.16 These people work long hours and feel the need to live near their place of employment or near an area where they can find employment. Rents for rooms in cortiços are exorbitant.17 Conditions are unhygienic, and there is little privacy. The inhabitants must in addition pay for electricity, water, and municipal taxes. Since cortiços are older

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buildings, they often have problems such as leaky roofs, inadequate ventilation, and excessive humidity. The precarious state of the buildings and their degree of deterioration can provoke serious health problems for those who live in them. In 1995, after consultation with various housing movements (including the São Paulo Housing Union), in the framework of an event called the Forum da Cidadania (Citizenship Forum), the state government elaborated a cortiço program: the Plano de Atuação em Cortiços (PAC).18 This participatory methodology was very enticing for UPMs and made them feel that the government genuinely desired their input for a serious housing program. This program was, however, never implemented. Out of frustration with the bureaucracy, broken promises, and breakdown of official channels of negotiation, housing movements began occupying buildings to pressure the government into shouldering its commitments. The two movements working within this specific segment of the population are the Forum dos Cortiços (Forum) and the Unificação das Lutas de Cortiços (ULC). The first is backed by Associação de Auxílio Mútuo da Região Leste (APOIO), a non-governmental organization founded in 1992 that is financially supported by international Catholic development agencies.19 The Forum has been working exclusively with the cortiço population since 1997. The second movement has been in existence since 1991. Both are affiliated with UMM and the CMP. In 1996, when many families living in cortiços were being evicted,20 APOIO set itself the task of finding a solution. As legal solutions proved untenable, APOIO had begun organizing the occupation of empty and abandoned buildings. These occupations were far from random: strategically, APOIO chose buildings that belonged to the state. In March 1997 APOIO organized the occupation by a hundred families of the huge Santos Dumont mansion. This pressured the state government into elaborating a housing project for these families. Other occupations followed, in April and November of the same year. By the end of the 1997, APOIO had organized eighteen groups in different downtown neighbourhoods. These groups went on to establish the Forum, which is a loosely structured movement: each group in it elects one person to represent it, and these representatives in turn elect three coordinators. In 1997 the Forum had 2,500 members in a total of nine neighbourhoods. The Forum set itself the following goals: (1) to organize families who need housing; (2) to prioritize the occupation of empty buildings; (3) to

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fight for housing policies for lower-income population, demanding the reform and restructuring of abandoned buildings and the construction of new residential ones; and 4) to promote the union of the urban and rural poor and contribute to the consolidation of those who were leading the attack against the causes of poverty.21 Along with these shared goals, the movements agreed to a division of labour between the Forum and APOIO. The Forum was principally engaged in supporting families who were already occupying buildings, while APOIO dealt with organizing families in cortiços with a view to new occupations. There was, however, an overlap between APOIO (an NGO) and the Forum. For example, certain Forum leaders were also employees of APOIO, and on occasion APOIO spoke in the name of the Forum and represented it in negotiations with the state. Other organized occupations also took place. In 1997 the United Slumdwellers Union (ULC) had 2,300 members organized in eight different neighbourhoods. Following the success of its March and April occupations, the Forum began a series of occupations in June 1997. Although allied, the two movements did not organize joint occupations, and informally they agreed not to infringe on each other’s work.22 One of the basic differences between these two movements was that ULC negotiated a larger and more encompassing housing policy with the state government, while the Forum negotiated for specific housing solutions for each group of families. Other factors that distinguished ULC from the Forum were ULC’s autonomy from politicians and government and its financial autonomy from international cooperation agencies and Brazilian NGOs. ULC had ten activists, none of whom received a salary, a situation that limited the time they could devote to the movement. The only other entity from which they received any kind of logistical support was the Catholic Church’s Housing Service. In 1998 there was a rupture in the ULC leadership, and the faction that stayed affiliated with UMM became the Movimento dos Moradores do Centro (MMC). At the end of 1997 these UPMs achieved four occupations of buildings in the centre of São Paulo. In 1998 the number of occupations rose to eight. That same year two other movements appeared, achieving one occupation each.23 In response to this wave of occupations, the state government held the First Technical Gathering for Action in Cortiços (Primeiro Encontro Técnico de Ação nos Cortiços) in May 1998 and signed a Decree of Social Interest in October 1998 to facilitate the expropriation of abandoned properties. It also created a council for the PAC,

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which included the participation of UPMs, activists from civil society, lay church work groups, and real estate companies (Oliveira, 1999a: 3–4). Unfortunately, these measures did not accelerate the construction of housing units, and further occupations continued the following year. The year 1999 set a record for new occupations: their number rose to sixteen. October marked a milestone, with the coordinated occupation of six buildings involving over 6,000 people by four different UPMs tied to MNLM.24 This was an important moment in the history of the housing movement in São Paulo, as these actions created an impact in the media and within the state government. Some of the occupations were essentially symbolic in nature: a group occupied the Regional Labour Courthouse (Tribunal Regional de Trabalho), whose builders were under investigation for corruption. However, all of the October occupations ended with expulsion orders. There were four more occupations in November 1999, one of which was carried out by the Forum, the others by independent groups. By the end of 1999 there were fifteen occupied buildings in the city centre, involving a total of 9,000 people. This represented three times more occupations than in 1997, and a 50 per cent increase in the numbers of people involved (Oliveira, 1999b). However, the tide was turning against the cortiço movements. In December there were four failed occupations: the police had managed to infiltrate the movements and arrived at the scene of the occupation before the activists did. This led both the Forum and ULC to hold off on more occupations for the next few months and re-evaluate their strategy. Also in December there were three expulsions from occupied buildings. Nevertheless, groups not affiliated with MNLM began two more occupations that month. In terms of repertoire, both the Forum and ULC worked directly with the cortiço population. Awareness-raising activities aim at convincing families that they have a right to housing because they are citizens and that through their participation in the movement they will obtain decent housing. For both groups, the actors of change were the cortiço population, through their involvement in an illegal act: occupation of and squatting in public buildings. The occupation of buildings was important because it mobilized a population whose culture is marked by reverence towards authority and order. These groups believed that through their activities they were contributing to breaking the Brazilian culture of oppression of the poor and to the awareness of their rights as citizens and as members of society. This is clear in the Forum’s slogan ‘occupy, resist and build,’ inspired by MST’s

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‘occupy, resist and produce.’ In fact, urban occupations were not new in the city of São Paulo; during the early and late 1980s many occupations had taken place in the city’s outskirts. However, since the early 1990s they had lost their place in the repertoire of most UPMs. The occupations of the late 1990s were distinguished from their predecessors by their massive nature. Before 1997 occupations organized by ULC had involved only three to five families and had occurred in reaction to the desperate situation of these particular families. In terms of the cortiço movements’ relations with the political scene, it can be said that both the major groups opposed both the municipal and the state governments. However, most of the pressure was aimed at the state government, since it was more open to negotiation. The municipal government took a more intransigent attitude towards the cortiço movements and had, in fact, refused to negotiate with urban movements since 1993. In terms of political parties, both groups were unofficially tied to the PT. Each supported PT candidates during municipal, state, and federal elections, although the relationship with certain candidates was more intimate than with others. For example, a leader of the Forum, Veronica Kroll, began receiving a salary from the state deputy Henrique Pacheco’s cabinet in 1999. The relationship between Pacheco and APOIO disintegrated in 2000, when APOIO questioned Kroll’s allegiance to their organization. Kroll was soon forced to leave the group. She did, however, maintain leadership status in the Forum, and within certain local groups, which among other things had managed to negotiate the adaptation of a nine-story government building into a residential apartment building. Kroll also took the name ‘Forum’ with her, forcing APOIO to organize another grassroots movement, the Movimento dos Sem Teto do Centro (Downtown Homeless Movement, or MSTC). During 2000, APOIO began receiving support in the form of a designated lawyer from the federal deputy Alesio Mercandante’s cabinet. That same year it supported the successful political campaign of Nabil Bonduki as municipal councillor. Unlike the Forum, ULC refused any kind of institutional help from deputies and municipal councillors, even though it considered some of them as allies. Despite the election in 2000 of the PT to São Paulo’s city hall, both cortiço movements remained realistic in terms of what the new administration could do for the cortiço population. Above and beyond the political context, 2000 was a year of reorganization of the cortiço movement and of

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grassroots work resulting from the internal divisions and demobilization. There were practically no significant occupations that year. In 2001 the PT municipal administration passed a law calling for the acquittal of debts to the city in exchange for expropriation. This was meant to encourage absentee building owners who owed large sums to the city to hand over their run-down buildings to the city in exchange for exoneration of their debts. That same year the PT also began a housing project called Morar Perto (Live Close To) for low-income slum and homeless families. In addition, it created another program called Reconstruir o Centro (Rebuilding the Centre) with a special chapter on Morar no Centro (Living in the Centre). It is clear that the popular housing movements saw this program as a means to benefit the cortiço dwellers. However, construction and commercial companies also saw it as an opportunity to create a centrally located commercial and theatre district. City hall organized a Conference on Housing in August 2001, with themes on housing, quality of life, and popular participation. MSTC presented several demands around new mechanisms to channel funding into popular housing and on popular participation in housing policies. In November 2001, MSTC, MMC, and ULC occupied two buildings in the city centre as a means of pressuring the municipal government to more quickly respond to their demands. That same year the Compania de Desenvolvimento Habitacional e Urbano do Estado de São Paulo (Company of Housing and Urban Development of the State of São Paulo) reinitiated its PAC program after negotiating funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). This program aimed at investing U.S.$200 million (half of which is funded by IDB) to house 16,000 families in two phases. The first phase aims at housing 5,000 families during the period 2002–5, and the second aims at housing the remaining 11,000 in the period 2006–9. The program actually began in 2000, but during 2000–2 the state government had constructed only one building, housing 160 families. In May 2002, given the state of construction of low-income housing to accommodate the 600,000 cortiço dwellers and 8,900 homeless people in São Paulo, and the slow pace of expropriation negotiations between the city and indebted slum owners, MSTC began actively searching out owners who owed taxes to the municipal government and organizing the occupation of their buildings to pressure the city to act more quickly in expropriating them. The three cortiço movements organized 700 people, who occupied eight different buildings.25 This

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was the largest occupation effort the city had seen since October 1999. In September 2002 the city passed a law (no. 13.425) leading to the creation of a housing council.26 To pressure both the state government to advance its PAC program and the municipal government to execute popular housing projects in the centre as part of its Rebuilding the Centre program and to advance the creation of the housing council, in November 2002, the three cortiço movements organized the occupation of two buildings. The election of popular organization representatives to this council took place in March 2003. From the description of the timing of occupations of cortiço movements we may observe that they were meant to pressure two levels of government. The results in terms of action taken by the state government were practically none. In terms of the effect of these actions on the municipal government, they served to remind the PT administration of their commitment to the poorest of the city and accelerate the rhythm of negotiating with building owners. The municipal government provided a venue for discussion and debate with the UPMs through the conference on housing and the housing council. Nevertheless, the occupations did not have any effect on the budget allotted to low-income housing, which many people in the UPMs considered inadequate to answer the needs of the two million shantytown (favela) inhabitants, 600,000 cortiço dwellers and 8,700 homeless people.27 The election of a PT federal government in late 2002, as well as the creation of a Ministry of Cities and the nomination of Olivio Dutra, former governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul as its minister in January 2003, have inspired the hope among the cortiço movements that new national housing policies may eventually trickle down to the municipal level. However, they are not blind to the fact that the Cardoso administration had left only U.S.$14 million in its coffers for a national housing program and that any results from this new government will take at least two years to materialize. This lesson is still fresh in their minds, thanks to their experience of the complexity and lengthy processes connected with setting up housing projects at the municipal government level. notes 1 I will use this term as defined by Castells (1978: 34). 2 In the 1970s and early 1980s, families who could not afford to pay rent would pay individuals called grileiros for well–located lots. The land did

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4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12

13

14 15

16 17 18

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not belong to the grileiro, and in fact was usually government-owned. Later, these families often found themselves either threatened by other grileiros claiming the land or by government officials trying to expel them. The sizes ranged from 20 to 60 square metres, and the cost of each unit was affordable for low-salaried dwellers (approximately $5,000). Polis (1994) 15: 19–20. For more information on oppressive Brasílian culture, see Chaui (1994). For an excellent account of UPMs and their changing image in the media see Cardia (1986). These cities included São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Florianópolis, Santo André, São Bernardo, Diadema, and Campinas. These cities included São Paulo, Florianópolis, Santo André, São Bernardo, and Campinas. In 1993, the coalition of UPMs in São Paulo organized 40 demonstrations and two occupations of city hall, all of which managed to liberate funding to finish one single housing project. The legalization of popular neighbourhoods and shantytowns began in 1994. See Marques Osorio and Pozzobon (1995: 30). Unlike MNLM and UMM, CONAM is affiliated with the PCdoB party and not with the PT. This particular petition garnered 165,000 signatures across the country. It was also an instigator of the 1991 campaign pushing for a national housing fund; the petition they sent to the national congress contained 800,000 signatures. Some leaders have explained this decadence by the low level of awareness among the population represented by the movements. Sergio de Azevedo explains it by saying that regulatory policies, by transversally cutting through society, affect in a differentiated way people belonging to the same social segment and thus render difficult the formation of lasting and welldefined alliances (1995: 19–20). Statistics provided by MNLM. These middlemen rent the houses from the owners, then divide them into rooms which they then rent out; they collect the rent as well as the payments for the electricity, water, and municipal tax. In 1994, 600,000 people lived in cortiços. In 2000, the figures had risen to 1 million people. Relatório de Atividades 2000, APOIO: 7. Between Can$250 and Can$400 per month. The PAC, elaborated by the CDHU led to the construction of 2,500 temporary housing units in four areas of the city, while the state government rebuilt abandoned buildings in the city centre.

128 Charmain Levy 19 These agencies include Bread for the World and Misereor (both based in Germany), the CAFOD (U.K.) and Development and Peace (Canada). 20 Specifically in the neighborhoods of Barra Funda, Santa Cecília, Vila Formosa, and Brás. 21 Caminho da Luta 8, April 2000: 4. 22 One other movement working with cortiços was the Associação dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra de São Paulo, which had broken off with the National Housing Union. 23 Associação dos Moradores Sem Teto da Região Central and Movimento dos Encortiçadas, Sem Teto e Catadores de Papelão da Região Central. 24 These movements included the ULC, the Forum, the Movimento de Trabalhadores Sem Terra da Zona Leste and the Movimento Sem Terra Leste I. 25 Five privately owned and three state-owned buildings. 26 This council is composed of 13 representatives from city hall, 16 representatives from popular organizations, 2 representatives from universities, 2 housing organization professionals, one civil construction trade union representative, 3 representatives of civil construction owners associations, 2 representatives from housing technicians organizations, 2 representatives from trade union centrals, 2 representatives from housing NGOs, one lawyer, and one housing professional. The council is deliberative and consultational. Its mandate is to accompany and scrutinize municipal housing policy and programmes. 27 IBGE, FIPE, State Secretary of Housing, 2000.

references Alvarez, S., and E. Dagnino. 1995. ‘Para além da “democracia realmente existante”’: Movimentos Sociais, a Nova Cidadania e a Configuração de Espaços Públicos Alternativos (mimeo). Brener, J. 1997. ‘Quatro.’ Correio Braziliense, 26 March, 6. Cardia, Nancy das Graças. 1986. ‘The Social Movements in Favelas in São Paulo.’ Doctoral dissertation, London School of Economics. Castells, M. 1978. City, Class and Power. London: Macmillan. Chaui, M. 1994. Conformismo e Resistência. São Paulo: Brasiliense. (3rd ed.). Dacauaziliquá, José Luís, and Rafael Barion. 2002. ‘Invasão em prédio com dívida de IPTU.’ Jornal da Tarde, 5 Nov., 3. De Azevedo, Sergio. 1995. ‘Por que é Difícil a Mobilização Popular em Defesa da Reforma Urbana?’ Revista da Ansur (Jan.), 1–5. Evers, Tilman. 1984. ‘Reprodução da Força de Trabalho e Movimentos Popu-

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lares.’ In Paulo J. Krischke, ed., Terra de Habitação, Terra de Espoliação. São Paulo: Cortez., 31–56. Gohn, Maria da Gloria. 1992. Movimentos Sociais e Educação. São Paulo: Cortez. Jacobi, Pedro, 1987. ‘Movimento Social Urbano numa Epoca de Transição.’ In Emir Sader, ed. Movimento Social na Transição Democratica. São Paulo: Cortez. Kowarick, Lucio. 1993. A Espoliacão Urbana. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2nd ed. Krischke, Paulo. 1984. ‘Os Loteamentos Clandestinos e os Dilemas e Alternativas Democráticas dos Movimentos de Bairro.’ In Paulo J. Krischke, ed. Terra de Habitação, Terra de Espoliação. São Paulo: Cortez. 70–88. Levy, Charmain. 2000. ‘CEBs in Crisis: Leadership Structures in the São Paulo Area.’ In John Burdick and W.E. Hewitt, eds., The Church at the Grassroots in Latin America: Perspectives on Thirty Years of Activism. Wesport, Conn: Praeger, 167–82. Macaulay, Fiona. 1995. Governing for Everyone: The Workers’ Party Administration in São Paulo (1989–1992). Oxford University, St Antony’s College, Political Science Department (mimeo). Maricato, Erminia. 1995. ‘Reforma Urbana e Hegemonia Popular.’ Revista da Ansur (Jan.), 1–6. Marques Osorio, Letícia, and Regina Pozzobon. 1995. ‘Para Onde Passa a Luta Pela Reforma Urbana em Porto Alegre.’ Revista da Ansur (Jan.), 1–6. Melucci, Alberto. Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society. Pittsburgh: Temple University Press, 1989. Oliveira, Marcelo. 1997a. ‘Lider do MST Fala a Sem-teto em SP.’ Folha de São Paulo (April): 3–9. – 1997b. ‘Movimento de SP Quer Luta Conjunta com o MST.’ Folha de São Paulo (April): 3–6. – 1999a. Folha de São Paulo (1 Dec.): 3–4. – 1999b. Folha de São Paulo (12 Dec.): 4–5. Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scherer-Warren, Ilse. 1993. Redes de Movimentos Sociais. São Paulo: Loyola.

4 The Return of Radicalism to the Countryside: The Landless Movement MAURILIO GALDINO Surprising as it may seem, the issue of rural development is once again moving to the forefront of the Latin American agenda. This is the result of a recent rise in the level of radicalism among mass agrarian movements. Is rural radicalism evidence of dwindling resistance to liberal reforms, on the part of corporate interests (Faucher and Armijo, 2000)? Or is it, indeed, a new political trend that deserves analysis (Petras, 2000)? This chapter will examine the goals and aspirations of radical rural movements and highlight the conditions that favoured their emergence, focusing especially on the rural organizations that flourished in the 1990s. These conditions will be compared with those of the 1960s and 1980s, when previous waves of social movements played an important role in the shaping of civil society as well as in the Brazilian political sphere.1 Through a case study of rural movements from the 1950s through the 1970s, we will identify the conditions in which such movements flourished, radicalized, and eventually disappeared. Two main rural movements have marked contemporary Brazilian history: the peasant leagues (in the 1960s), and the Landless Peasant Movement (MST, in the 1980s and 1990s). Both could be labelled radical because despite a prevailing democratic context, they appeared to adopt a confrontational strategy with authorities. In the intermediate period (the late 1960s and the 1970s), social movements could not even envisage a confrontation with the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil then. A Changing Structure of Political Opportunities in the Rural World In the 1980s and early 1990s MST was driven from above, as the demo-

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cratic structures and repertoires of the 1970s did not prove sufficiently flexible to link social protest and electoral politics successfully. From the perspective of civil society, the electoral politics of the 1980s and 1990s in Brazil proved more disruptive than consensual, since transitional agreements usually excluded many important opposition organizations and did not eliminate traditional social gaps linked to land and income distribution. Twenty years of dictatorship led to an initial period marked by (possibly excessively) high expectations and consequent disappointments. In addition to the vast differences between the cultural horizons from which decision-makers and movement representatives came, social movements harked back to their radical nature, but this time in a more independent and pragmatic way. Historical Roots of Peasant Collective Action What distinguishes Latin American social movements from their European and North American counterparts is that the former were originally organized by – rather than persecuted by – the state (Hobsbawm, 1995: 135). Populist leaders intentionally set up social movements, with the aim of shifting power relations between the Latin American landed oligarchy and the national bourgeoisie. This permitted the populists to set up the national import-substituting industrialization (ISI) project and proceed to develop capitalism in the classical manner: displacing the peasantry, swelling the ranks of the disorganized urban poor, and thus inducing the creation of modern social actors (Ianni, 1970: 67). The consequences of this process were the politicization of the countryside and the replacement of the oligarchies by the state in direct negotiations with the rural workers and peasants. The peasant leagues were the first rural movement to become organized after the implementation of the ISI model. In 1947 they were organized by the PCB (Marxist-Leninist, not to be confused with the PCdoB, which is Maoist).2 The PCB took advantage of provisions in the Civil Code to do so, but they became well known only in 1954, when Francisco Julião – an urban lawyer and later a federal socialist deputy – successfully mobilized public opinion and won possession, in the name of the peasants, of the Galiléia estate (De Castro, 1970: 44). However, the leagues lost public support when Julião returned from Cuba in 1961 and changed his strategy from pacific and legal resistance to land occupations and armed struggle (Moraes, 1970). The American press, for example, identified Julião as the second Fidel Castro and the

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northeastern popular mobilization as the second Cuban revolution (De Castro, 1970: 45, 163). Ação Popular (AP) is the second peasant movement pertinent to our study of this period. It began in the 1950s when the Roman Catholic Church, considering illiteracy to be a chief cause of communist success among the peasantry, sent its missionaries and youth groups to offer literacy programs to the poor (Mainwaring, 1986). The lay pastoral agents of the Church originally went to the villages to organize radio course reception in classes that later served as the first rural trade unions in the northeast (Libânio, 1987). However, they were shocked by the social and political conditions they discovered in the region. The contact with Marxism and with Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed would also consolidate their ‘conversion.’ In 1962 they created AP, a non-confessional political movement, and committed themselves ‘not only to bring literacy to the poor, but to raise their consciousness and to help them become the agents of their own history’ (Löwy, 1996: 84). Neither the peasant leagues nor AP possessed formal structures. They were easily infiltrated by the police, then violently repressed, and eventually demobilized by the military regime and its anti-communist propaganda after the 1964 coup d’état (Moraes, 1970). To reduce the pressure of unrest in the countryside, the regime organized colonization projects in the Amazon, prohibited the organization of labour federations, and co-opted trade union leaders in order to avoid strikes and uprisings during the Brazilian ‘economic miracle’ that occurred between 1968 and 1973. The military regime did, however, allow the Church and the Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura (CONTAG) – composed of PCdoB and ex-AP rural leaders – to organize the rural proletariat and extend some labour rights through a clientelist trade union structure. In terms of the ‘three waves’ scheme proposed by Petras (2000), we might say that the peasant leagues, AP, the Church, and CONTAG constituted the first wave of social movements. They had several characteristics in common, such as the fact that their leaders, drawn from the urban elite, were male-oriented, paternalist, and undemocratic. However, the Church and CONTAG unions were not confrontational movements – unlike the leagues and AP: They preached ‘class harmony,’ not class struggle. They possessed a large formal structure, and they saw modernization as a positive and irreversible process (Mainwaring, 1986: 40–58). Distinct from the agrarismo of the leagues and AP, the

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politics of the church and of CONTAG trade unions could be described as those of trabalhismo (the labour movement); they strove to pressure the state into granting rural workers a share in the benefits gained in rapidly expanding urban areas (Pereira, 1997: 33–4). Neither force challenged the dynamics of the agrarian modernization that took place between 1960 and 1980. In the south, the construction of large-scale dams led to the eviction of 40,000 families. In the late 1960s, 15,000 peasant families moved to the northern colonization projects (Harnecker, 1994: 114). In the northeast, five million peasants, seduced by the military regime’s Amazon colonization slogan ‘land for men without land, men for land without men,’ followed the TransAmazon dream into the Amazon jungle. In the north, approximately 30,000 families a year were evicted by the multinationals and landowners (Adriance, 1995: 20). Moreover, forty-eight million people migrated to urban centres from all parts of Brazil. Since the government constructed only six million housing units throughout this period, most of these millions ended up in favelas (shantytowns) and cortiços (downtown slums) (Leroy, 2001). That the tremendous social tension caused by the modernization of the economy did not give rise to a more serious national conflict can be attributed to the ‘Brazilian miracle’ and to PROALCOOL, the program established after 1976 to replace gasoline by alcohol, as a fuel for automobiles. However, because of high unemployment and the lack of economic perspectives after the 1990 increment of adjustment reforms, the peasants had practically no other option but to harvest natural resources to trade for their day-to-day needs, to invade idle private agricultural lands, and to become involved in the vicious circle of rural violence and environmental degradation. The Rise of Institutionalized Politics The CEBs, the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT), and the southern smallholders movement can be considered part of what Petras calls the ‘second wave’ of social movements. These were primarily defensive movements, inasmuch as they simply defended the rights of smallholders and landholders, building their actions on legal institutional politics and the right to individual ownership of land. It was from within the structures of the CEBs/CPT and progressive rural trade unions that the most successful peasant protests were organized during the repressive 1970s. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s,

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they politicized the Brazilian countryside and the agrarian project, using human rights legislation, labour laws, religion, and popular culture as their tools. Unlike several other rural social movements and trade unions, a CEB is a small organization created by laypeople, and it is essentially democratic in structure. Its leaders are local, and women outnumber men among both the leadership and the membership – although the community habitually sends male leaders as representatives in external activities. CEB members share the same religious beliefs and together celebrate their faith, take part in Bible study, engage in community selfhelp, and partake of the sacraments (Valle and Pitta, 1994: 57). Instead of bringing new ideas to the peasants, the pastoral agents used the peasants’ own knowledge and repertoire to organize protests and struggles (Löwy, 1996: 84). They would help the peasants broaden their alliances with progressive trade unions, Church organizations, and political parties. With the help of progressive bishops, religious orders, and the CNBB’s Campanha de Fradernidade, CEBs became a national grassroots network, although primarily they had an urbanbased community structure.3 Only after the creation of the CPT in 1975 did the peasants begin to develop a popular network in rural areas (Gaiger, 1987: 33–4). The CPT’s main task was legal, striving as it did to give peasants titles to lands, fight evictions, and protect the leaders who received death threats from absentee landowners and their henchmen. Unlike the CEBs, the peasant movements in southern Brazil were composed of smallholders. They owned the land on which they worked, and during the 1960s they had been integrated into the logic of the then prevalent economic model, as basic food suppliers to the coastal cities of Brazil. This small food producer model did not last long, as a lack of basic food for urban areas worsened, and the smallholders could not compete with the technological capacity and the low prices of mechanized agriculture that the government favoured after 1980. As we will see in the section below, MST’s message would find a strong echo among the smallholders who went bankrupt after the 1990 market liberalization. The rural proletarian unions struggled for better wages throughout Brazil, but in the south they also struggled for better agrarian policies, subsidies against foreign competition in the national market, access to state credits, and tax exemptions. Although they fought the landlords, agro-industries, and mill owners throughout Brazil, small producers in the south fought the state directly.4 Increasingly excluded from the mil-

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itary government’s economic project, these Christian and traditional smallholders withdrew their support of the military regime and turned into a radical (in techniques, rather than in ideology) opposition in the 1980s. They identified their main task to be leadership training, since their aim was to win the rural producers’ trade unions away from the National Federation of Agrarian Workers (CONTAG) and from the state trade unions led by pelegos.5 The election of democratic governments and the economic crises of the 1980s would seriously undermine the base of the pelego trade unions and open institutional channels of negotiation between the state and social movements. Leftist intellectuals, pastoral agents, and popular leaders joined to create the PT and CUT, and used electoral campaigns as an opportunity to reinforce and broaden the social movement network. At this time the links between the peasant movements, the United Labour Federation, and the Workers Party were so intimate that not only did the peasant movements use both political and trade union resources, but they also became an effective vehicle for the widening the PT/CUT network (Gaiger, 1992: 16–17). One serious problem (pointed out by Levy in Chapter 3), was that socialist leaders and pastoral agents left the grassroots to organize national social movements and political parties, thus losing contact with their social and political base. Elections where the PT gained seats brought new crises for social movements, as the PT’s lack of administrative and political experience of governing became evident. In addition, the PT favoured alliances with the middle classes to enlarge its electoral base with a view to winning subsequent elections. Furthermore, as the PT grew at the national level, it slowly abandoned ‘popular democracy,’ taking on more parliamentary and administrative responsibilities and opting for a ‘mass socialist’ electoral strategy. At the same time, the right wing unified to prevent a PT victory in the 1989 presidential election and consolidated its position around first the Collor and then the Cardoso administrations (Gaiger, 1992: 18). One cannot deny that the PT created a national political space for the voice and coordination of social movements. The national campaigns such as Diretas Já in 1984 and Constituinte Popular in 1987–88 were essential for the coordination of urban and rural movements within such a political space. The following elections, however, revealed that the democratic structures and repertoires of the 1970s were not enough to link social protest to votes. In fact, elections were more disruptive

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than aggregative for social movement leaders, and their disappointment grew as the PT granted them less and less participation and called upon them only during election campaigns. The greatest novelty, in the democratic transition, would come from the countryside: ‘A number of the smaller municipalities which the PT won were rural districts where struggles over land tenure during the 1980s had been particularly virulent, and where the PT had worked closely with the MST and/or rural labour organizations. This was the first time, in fact, that rural struggles had a significant impact on the PT vote ... An estimated 40 percent of the PT municipal councils members elected in 1988 were rural workers or worked with the CPT’ (Keck, 1992: 157). However, before presenting MST as ‘the third wave’ of social movements, we would like to describe the economic conditions that opened new fronts and alliances that introduced MST as the centre of an oppositional front in the 1990s. A Context of Adjustment Reforms The transitional democratic governments did not want to be compared to earlier authoritarian regimes. They preferred to tackle the shortage of funds and the high social expectations with an array of distributive measures. In this context, orthodox reforms appeared to be the best answer to the external debt crisis, promising a new paradigm of economic development (see Bienefeld, 1993). The debate around the Brazilian agrarian question is a historical one. It began in the colonial epoch and, later, during the sugar and coffee cycles, was always related to the social political national agenda. It has been characterized by the problem of land concentration and the social conflict and poverty it generated. The liberal modernization in the 1970s aggravated this problem. Based on the incentive to export-production, and mechanization, the Brazilian ‘green revolution’ accelerated the concentration of the land, destroyed the familiar and small domestic production, and forced millions of peasants to migrate to the urban centres. With the growth of urban and rural unemployment in the 1990s, the issue of agrarian reform gained momentum. Seen as an alternative to generate employment and revenue during the transition to globalization, its success is tied, however, to the sector of familiar agriculture. (INCRA/FAO, 1999: 6–7)

At present, the Brazilian government has privileged the export sector, allowed for the regulation of small production by the market itself,

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and taken palliative measures to prevent social, food, and ecological crises. The International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, using the mechanisms of international and debt payment agreements are behind these agricultural policies. Their model follows a mixture of export-oriented production and liberalization. Their final objective is to control inflation, which would allow Brazil to grow, pay its foreign debt, and avoid an international market crisis (INESC, 2000). In the inflation stabilization program of 1994, for example, the Brazilian currency was tied to the U.S. dollar. This forced the domestic market to internationalize costs and prices and to expose itself to market competition. The commercial deregulation through liberalization that followed currency stabilization raised the level of food imports and, consequently, reduced inflation through increased consumption of cheap import foods. As a consequence of currency revaluation, increased stimulus to imported goods and services, and spending allocated to servicing the debt as opposed to agrarian modernization, Brazilian agriculture ended up losing to international competition and stagnating. Agricultural prices were artificially maintained through imports of cheap food and regulated low pricing. In addition, the drastic commercial opening, without complementary industrial and agricultural policies, disabled alternative productive as well as economic chains. Following the IMF prescription, the integration of Brazilian agriculture into the international market was carried out through the elimination of subsidies and stocks that had been used previously to regulate domestic market prices.6 Only the producers who were integrated into export-driven production received tax breaks and subsidies to survive the productive ‘reflux’ (Pochmann, 2000). Currently, the only subsidies available to small producers in Brazil are those coming from the family settlement program called Programa Nacional de Apoio à Agricultura Familiar (PRONAF). These subsidies represent about R$100 for each of the 4.2 million family holdings (for a total of R$8.2 billion). However, only 60 per cent of these funds have been allocated. Following this subsidies-cutting strategy, the Cardoso administration engineered a secondary program called Programa de Crédito Especial para Reforma Agrária (PROCERA), which imposed the real financial costs on smallholding and family production, forcing these producers to compete in the market without preparing them or offering them the conditions to compete successfully. The result was that by 1995, during the five-year period of the Brazilian adjustment experi-

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ment, 900,000 small farms (20 per cent of the total) had gone bankrupt (World Bank, 2001). The resolution of the social and political dilemmas caused by this policy were then delegated to the municipal level. Brazil’s administrative reforms in 1997 decentralized decision-making and execution regarding agrarian reform and charged municipalities with improving market integration and administering the ‘land issue’ at the local level. This was also intended as a response to the confrontational strategies of national civil society organizations. However, given a population concentrated in urban centres, and a government dependent on imports to feed them, the main force behind the mass unrest that manifested itself after the 1998 stock market crisis was the lack of food – not ideological conflicts.7 Since 58 per cent of productive land in Brazil is concentrated in the hands of 2 per cent of the population, including the food industry and financial groups (Duquette, 1999b: 2), there was little land with agricultural capacity available for distribution by the municipalities to the poor. The option for the peasant movements was the invasion of privately owned idle agricultural land. As a response to rural poverty, land occupations, agrarian violence, and environmental degradation, the federal government, in association with the World Bank, instituted a ‘market-friendly agrarian reform’ called Cédula da Terra (Land Bank). This project had been successfully applied both in the state of Kerala (India) and, in the form of a pilot project, in the state of Ceará (Brazil).8 The Brazilian Pilot Project – called Reforma Agrária Solidâria – started in 1997 and was then extended beyond Ceará to other states in order to promote short-term expropriation of land and its distribution, on an individual basis, to landless peasants. The Land Bank, however, became a federal program only after the 1998 Brazilian stock market crisis and suffered from the deteriorating economic context. Navarro (1998) contends that the Land Bank mechanisms could eliminate administrative and political barriers and create an effective agrarian reform in Brazil that could then reorganize the tenure system in a short time, using agrarian reform funds, and thus avoiding the conflictual fiscal and expropriation process (Banco Mundial, 1999). Within this mechanism, peasants would contact the government bank agencies and receive credits to buy land directly from the landowners. They would be responsible for the implementation of the local commercial and production infrastructures and would be granted two-year

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interest-free loans. This would reduce the opposition of landlords, accelerate the process of expropriating idle land, and reduce land invasion and ecological damage. Brazilian civil society organizations, however, opposed the Land Bank project, saying that it required further evaluation. Their main objection was that the project does not grapple with the basic issue of land concentration and exclusion, since the Land Bank finances only the sale of smallholdings (minifúndio), not the latifúndio. The Land Bank thus helps landlords to earn profits by selling unproductive lands that should be simply expropriated. The rate of interest on the Land Bank loans also endangers the independence of families and their capacity to remain on the land, since their production (rice, beans, manioc) is worth less than the interest they must pay on their loans. Finally, the Land Bank has set up no mechanisms to prevent or penalize environmental degradation and political corruption. At a macro-level, under pressure from international organizations, national agrarian social movements, and productive sectors, the federal agencies and administration began to incorporate measures directly related to agrarian reform. In 1995 the Cardoso administration took measures – such as the land tax, called Imposto Territorial Rural, and the rito sumário – to force the expropriation of idle land. Many consider that the principal obstacle to sustainable agrarian reform in Brazil is that it is not a priority on the government’s political and economic agenda. Agrarian reform is considered solely as a political instrument to alleviate social unrest around the issue of land occupation. The same can be said of government policies concerning smallholders and settlers: the few resources the government has allocated to them have been used with the intention to co-opt and divide the social movements and trade unions concerned (see CPT/CIDSE, 2000). The Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) The historical relevance of the Landless Peasant Movement (MST) stems from a conjunction of social, political, and economic factors. The same could be said of many agrarian movements that appeared throughout Latin America in the 1990s (Petras, 2000). It is difficult to assert that MST is a radical social movement when it expresses its demands with non-violent pressure on the state, with whom it also negotiates credits and subsidies (Duquette, 1999a). Many of those who

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are identified by the authorities as ‘radicals’ are, in fact, ordinary farmers and rural workers who have lost their land or their source of employment. They are labelled radicals simply because they participate in an organized opposition movement. The principal challenge involving the organization of protest in the Latin American countryside has been how to organize peasants in a large territory characterized by violence, exclusion, and poverty. MST’s answer to this question is leadership composition and discipline, strategic and massive land occupations, a cooperative system, political marches, and the organization of what we shall call a decentralized network or front. These elements gave MST well-earned expertise, ammunition for public expression, increased levels of legitimacy, and new allies. Forging an Identity and Rising to National Politics The origin of MST can be traced back to the smallholders who lost their land because of the construction of hydroelectric dams, and in more general terms, to the agrarian modernization that so drastically changed labour relations in the Brazilian countryside between 1960 and 1980. In 1974 the military expropriated and dislocated 600 families in Passo Real to build a hydroelectric dam. Thirty per cent of these peasants were unsettled and then abandoned by the military government (Gaiger, 1992: 9, n23), but fifty-five families refused to leave the region to go to colonization projects in the Amazon jungle. Instead, they demanded indemnities at real market prices for the land they had lost. Together with another 300 families, they decided to invade the Indian reserve of Nonai and used peaceful resistance strategies to oppose eviction. However, even though the movement achieved its goals, the leaders could not prevent its demobilization once the land was distributed to the families involved in the action. In the north, peasant resistance had begun as individual and isolated efforts, and it was the pastoral agents who unified the struggle. In Passo Real, however, the peasant leaders already possessed a political awareness gained from their participation in Movimento dos Agricultores Sem Terra do Rio Grande do Sul (MASTER), and their resistance took on a more collective form. Here the support of pastoral agents was more material than logistic, since the leaders themselves organized the land occupations. Logistic support from the Church came later, during negotiations with the police and the media.

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In 1980 the Nonai and Passo Real leaders organized another important settlement in the Encruzilhada Natalino (Ronda Alta), the very crossroads where MASTER had been violently repressed by the military regime in 1964. The peasants who had not received land from the Nonai and Passo Real claims carried out this second occupation. The result, once again, was military repression, both because of the socialist tone of the peasants and because the occupation occurred during the repressive wave felt throughout Brazil following the ABC autêntico strikes.9 This created an impasse in negotiations with the government, as well as ideological differences with the Church bishops of the region, who withdrew their support and ceased to act as mediators in negotiations in which they had previously participated (Gaiger, 1992: 20). The peasants were camped out at Encruzilhada Natalino for two years, in fact until the country’s first multiparty election in 1982. This opened up an unprecedented opportunity to advance their struggle. During that campaign they formed a local PT committee, supported the local PT candidate, and used the opportunity to appeal to public sympathy by publicizing the miserable conditions in which their children were living. The result of this mobilization was the 1988 election of their candidate for mayor of Ronda Alta, which eventually gave them the conditions for collective ownership of land through a cooperative. The acronym ‘MST’ was first used in Nova Ronda Alta, in 1983, when the peasants discovered a new government project involving the construction of twenty-five dams on the border of the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina (Gaiger, 1992: 14). In response, the Church initiated a Romaria da Terra (Land Pilgrimage) to support MST and the anti-dam movement. At the same time, a peasant executive committee organized a peasant congress in January 1983, incorporated local and regional peasant groups from all over the country, and chose the initials MST as their collective descriptor. The first national congress elected the Encruzilhada Natalino’s core leadership as its first national committee. During its first congress, MST was mainly composed of social and political forces, to the detriment of participants from the CEBs/CPT (Gaiger, 1992: 16). The MST favoured the organization of external alliances to initiate further land occupations, allowing the CEBs and CPT, CUT, and PT activists to deal with the internal organization and resistance on the land. This allowed MST to organize 240 settlements in the northeast, south, and southeast, between 1985 and 1988 (Gaiger, 1992:

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24). The distribution of land was basically collective, relying on the cooperative land law (Estatuto da Terra) that had been established to integrate the chain of production of smallholders and agro-industries, in the aftermath of the 1964 coup d’état. During this period, MST stuck to land occupations as its main strategy, adding to it marches to the cities that ended in the occupation of the Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agraria (INCRA) and Bank of Brazil buildings. People would bring their children and the fruits of their labour with them and proudly sing the national anthem and salute the Brazilian national flag. Urban dwellers, reminded of their rural past, realizing that there would be no future without agrarian reform, adopted a positive image of MST and its agrarian reform blueprint. The objective of such actions was twofold: the release of credits and the distribution of land titles for MST settlements, which would consolidate and guarantee the continued use of the land. None of the numerous land occupations MST had organized since 1985, however, produced the national repercussions of the Pontal do Paranapanema occupation in 1987. Pontal is situated in the flatlands in the west of São Paulo state, where the government had subsidized sugar plantations within its ‘oil substitution’ program. When the program decreased its production (after 1985), it laid off thousands of rural workers (bóia-fria), leaving them with no economic alternative but migration to urban centres and land occupation to counter chronic unemployment. In addition, unlike land occupations in more remote or peripheral regions of the country, those of Pontal were relatively close to the city of São Paulo – the economic and political powerhouse of Brazil, and headquarters to the major national mass media and businesses (Navarro, 1997: 113). The impact of the Pontal do Paranapanema settlements would eventually rupture the democratic sociopolitical pact that had provided the Sarney government (1985–90) with support in exchange for the Plano Nacional de Reforma Agrária (PNRA). This plan had promised to settle 450,000 families by 1987 in order to pacify the agrarian conflicts generated by waves of MST land occupations. Pontal also brought about the first open criticism of MST by the PT and the CNBB. Both had participated in the PNRA negotiations and saw the plan as an important achievement towards a solution to the agrarian conflicts, in which numerous members of the Catholic clergy were also personally involved. Another consequence of Pontal was to raise the issue of the expro-

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priation of unproductive latifúndio squarely at the top of the proposed 1988 agenda of the Constitutional Assembly. The agrarian bourgeoisie of the state of São Paulo made a pre-emptive strike in 1987 by setting up the União Democrática Ruralista (UDR), a paramilitary rural organization created to fight land law reform, President Sarney’s PNRA, and MST. In the first two years of the UDR’s existence 113 rural leaders were killed, and the UDR successfully blocked both the PNRA and the primary agrarian changes proposed to the Constitutional Assembly by the Agrarian Reform Popular Referendum Movement.10 In the end the PNRA settled only 3 per cent of the expected half a million families that it had proposed to settle, and the imprecise definition of the term ‘unproductive land’ ruined any attempts at future land expropriation (Guedes, 1996: 5). The MST’s strategy appeared to be exhausted. The protest cycle was entering a crisis, as moderate and radical leaders began to argue over the issues of independence or participation around the goals put forth by the authorities. Crisis, Reorganization, and Recovery After 1988 the moderate opposition parties and urban popular movements (UPMs) distanced themselves from radical groups and discourse, opting to ‘govern for everybody’ and to present a softer image to the middle class, in a bid to win votes in future elections (Macaulay, 1995). This was not to happen, as this government had inherited nothing but debts and spent two precious years in rebuilding governance from ashes. After the election of Collor de Melo in 1989, the federal machine would also do everything to undermine this oppositional administration. MST saw the state as its main adversary, and used marches as its main strategy to denounce the president’s repressive administration and its conservative reforms as being elitist antiagrarian reform projects. Isolated by its former allies and under attack by the landed oligarchy, MST’s slogan ‘occupy, resist, produce’ would henceforth prioritize the verb ‘resist’ over ‘produce.’ MST decided to shift its focus away from institutional politics and put its isolation to profit by correcting organizational weaknesses in the settlements and occupation camps. In 1990 it initiated a system of leadership rotation to protect its leaders from death threats, sending key leaders to other regions and giving them political training. Second, MST initiated a process of technical instruction for the intermediary leaders in the settlements and co-oper-

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atives, together with systematic pedagogical training for working-class educators (Caldart and Colling, 1997: 230–2).11 Third, it established a tight and centralized organization, even though this compromised certain democratic values of the movement. The organization of MST was becoming more solid and complex, its participating structure more open, and its membership more numerous. The congress was composed of members of co-operatives, executive committees, and sectors. MST’s executive committee, elected by the members, was responsible for establishing priorities and representing MST in external relations. A board of directors elected by the members headed the co-operatives, which were made responsible for the administration, finances, and production of each unit. In 1997, MST had 11,000 members in its co-operatives. These were divided into twenty-four production co-operatives (CPAs), eighteen service cooperatives (CRCs), two credit co-operatives (CCAs), and 400 rural associations. Finally, it was agreed that the sectors would be chosen by the executive committee and the co-operatives, and made responsible for basic education, organization, and political training. The sectors would represent MST in specific events. MST at present has the following sectors: education, communication, administration, international relations, human rights, students, and voluntary work. The women’s sector (formed in 1998) was the last one to be organized, bearing witness to the machista resistance in this popular environment. Following a 1991 study by the Confederação Nacional da Agricultura (CNA), however, MST took the strategic decision to organize a new wave of land occupations. This study had revealed that 65 per cent of the rural proletariat was willing to struggle for land.12 MST set up an ad hoc group and led three main land occupations: one in Paraná and two in São Paulo, both of which were widely reported in the media. Following this experience, MST systematically began to integrate the rural proletariat from other regions of Brazil under its leadership, with special emphasis on the northeast. In 1992 the movement inaugurated its national school of political training to prepare national and regional leaders for future action. Between 1991 and 1993, MST focused on its settlements and shelters as its main building blocks and formed them into a co-operative system based on collective land ownership, co-operative production, and local market commercialization through the Confederação Nacional das Cooperativas de Reforma Agrária do Brasil (CONCRAB) formed by MST. At the regional level, MST organized eight CCAs and 100

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smaller production associations for agrarian reform (CPAs). In establishing a kind of ‘guerrilla capitalism,’ using modern management and market strategies, MST began to earn profits, sharing them with its cooperatives, and reinvesting 2 per cent of them in leadership training (Padgett, 1998). In 1993 this co-operative system was twice the object of a special presentation on the largest national television network (Rede Globo), which described it as an alternative to land conflicts and poverty. The same year, MST made contact with the landless Brazilian peasants in Paraguay (called Brasiguaios) who had lost their lands to hydroelectric dams and had subsequently invaded Paraguayan lands. In 1994 the conditions of slavery under which the Brasiguaios were working on Paraguayan farms, and their struggle to return to Brazil, made the news on Brazil’s SBT television network and caused a national scandal. MST subsequently set up a systematized political and organizational education network directed towards the Brasiguaios. One of the organizational characteristics that distinguishes MST from other social movements is its unique capacity to make decisions through a consensual process, instead of through a conventional voting procedure. According to MST leaders, an internal voting process, is mechanical and not as educational as a consensual process. Another characteristic is the decentralization of organizational functions. MST prefers to create and distribute functions to each member of the community, thus creating a sense of belonging through direct and constant participation.13 By transforming its settlements into a source of economic and human resources, and by using them to revitalize its structure and finance its actions, MST has successfully given to the urban and rural poor not only a real alternative for survival, but also a democratic and autonomous space for mobilization and struggle. Since 1985, international agencies such as Christian Aid, the Dutch Inter-Faith Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO), Bread for the World, Cordaid, the Catholic Committee against Famine and for Development (CCFD) in France, and Development and Peace have contributed half of the funds that MST spends on its organizational machine and campaigns. This organizational and material independence would ultimately create a situation of conflict with the Church and the PT around ideology and the role each was to play in the struggle for agrarian reform.14 MST would train its leaders within the framework of a Marxist-Leninist ideology that also implied atheism (Wiederhecker, 1998: 64; Padgett, 1988: 15). Despite this source of ideo-

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logical friction, MST would continue to work with the Church’s pastoral agents and PT activists in creating what they call ‘the MST Mystic,’ and in fostering a critical awareness among MST grassroots.15 The outcome of the 1990–4 period was positive, despite isolation and persecution. There were 248 land occupations involving 74,678 families, and 1993 ended with the state releasing U.S.$90 million to invest in the settlements.16 CONCRAB was able to channel more than U.S.$300 million from government agencies to the settlements, between 1993 and 1997 (Betto, 1997: 218). With support from the FAO and the labour ministry, CONCRAB was able to organize many seminars to discuss the role of municipalities in agrarian reform. According to INCRA/FAO (1999), however, neither MST co-operatives nor smallholder production had been emancipated from external financial sources, despite the facilities and subsidies they had received. MST knew that they could not carry on with their projects, and thus continue to develop their demands and propositions, without the visible support of an organized sector of society: the landless peasants. This situation would force MST to take its mass demonstrations into the cities, in view of the presidential election and constitutional revision of 1994. MST’s most important demonstration was the first Grito da Terra or Land Cry, held in May 1994 to accelerate land expropriation and to protest against the constitutional revision. MST also took advantage of the centennial of the Canudos massacre (1893) to launch its national campaign ‘100 years of Canudos, 100 years of land struggle.’17 Finally, MST participated in the 1993–4 PT/Lula Caravana da Cidadania (Citizens’ March) to publicize agrarian reform in 100 rural municipalities throughout Brazil. The Path to Radicalism As suggested in the Introduction, we see the radicalism of social movements as predicated upon their independence from other political and state organizations. We consider the turning point of MST’s strategy to be the year 1995, in the aftermath of the structural adjustment reforms launched by President Cardoso. After 1995, 20 per cent of small farmers, amounting to 900,000 in number, had gone bankrupt and subsequently broke with Cardoso’s 1994 short-term electoral alliance. This gave MST an opportunity to incorporate new proposals that both broadened its discourse and widened its base of support.

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To take advantage of this opportunity – which also bore threats of collision with the authorities – MST chose in 1996 to centralize the political training and instruction of its leadership. It also decentralized its decision-making process and administration, handing these functions over to the groups in charge of the coordination and sectors at the state level. Another characteristic of this period is the shift in focus within the organization from the areas of agricultural expansion (in the Amazon and centre-west regions) to the areas of modern agriculture (in the south and southeast regions), mainly in the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Bahia.18 In short, after 1995, the CUT/PT network lost its central oppositional legitimacy and some of its efficiency, while MST consolidated its independent position and became the principal leader of the most important oppositional front Brazilian history has yet witnessed. MST consolidated its alliances with CUT, the Fishermen’s Federation, the National Petroleum Federation, the Alagados (Flooded Ones), the Trans-Amazon Settlers Association, the National Lawyers Association, the Church, and the PT. It also galvanized protest. According to a CPT report (see CPT, 1997), in 1995 there were 554 conflicts: sixty-nine more than in 1994 and sixty more than the annual average for the years 1991 to 1995. Moreover, the 1995 conflicts involved 381,086 individuals, up by 72,467 from the preceding year. In the course of a surprise eviction on an MST occupation in Corumbiara in 1995, nine peasants were killed, police bullets wounded 138 people, and 350 people were imprisoned. In 1996 another nineteen peasants were killed by police officers covering a peaceful march in Eldorado dos Carajás.19 As we can see by comparing these figures with those in Table 4.1, there was a strong correlation between the intensification of MST land occupations and the violence inflicted upon the rural movement. It is also to be noted that there were fewer land occupations after 2000, when President Cardoso decreed that there would be no agrarian reform involving settlements on occupied disputed land.20 The massacres in the north mobilized national public opinion in favour of MST, creating an increasingly uncomfortable situation for Cardoso. By 1996, 85 per cent of public opinion was supportive of agrarian reform and of MST land occupations. The level of pressure for agrarian reform took the Cardoso administration by surprise. It had such a powerful impact that it forced the government to contemplate agrarian reform both in its programs and discourse, whereas the electoral campaign of 1994 had simply ignored the issue (Leite, 1998). In

148 Maurilio Galdino Table 4.1 Number of land occupations in Brazil (1988–2003) Year

Occupations

1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

48 71 39 59 73 71 107 146 395 459 592 502 191 195* 100 393

Source: CPT National, 2003. *The majority of these occupations are in the northeast, because of the growing poverty and the acute deterioration of smallholder or family land production in this neglected area.

response to this pressure, Cardoso invited the Catholic Church to mediate in negotiations with MST and moved INCRA from the conservative structure of the agrarian ministry and placed it under the direct authority of the presidential office. Cardoso did the same with the settlement agency, handing it over to the First Lady’s Community Solidarity Agency.21 After 1997, however, Cardoso changed positions again and responded to the increasing political pressure with a comprehensive strategy. First, he established a genuine agrarian reform program, created in direct opposition to the one proposed by MST. It was designed without any consultation with government agencies, civil society, or social movements on the paramount issue of equitable criteria for selecting the families involved. In 1998 this program began to compete with MST more directly with its market-oriented agrarian reform or Land Bank (Cédula da Terra). The Land Bank had the political and financial support of the World Bank, and it was established with the

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goal of reducing agrarian violence, as well as ecological damage caused by rural poverty.22 Second, Cardoso undertook a thoroughly repressive campaign aimed at crushing the power of MST in the short term. With the help of the media, the president initiated a ferocious campaign accusing MST of being an organization of outlaws (Hammond, 1998). Cardoso tolerated, if not encouraged, state police repression of MST leaders and used all legal means to persecute and incarcerate 180 MST members (CNBB, 2000). It is also true that Cardoso’s agrarian and treasury ministries were openly against agrarian reform. Furthermore, his conservative allies (the PFL, Pentecostal deputies, and the UDR) were blocking any changes or attempts at settling these conflicts by institutional means in parliament. It is also true that, during his second mandate, Cardoso chose some peculiar bedfellows. His agrarian minister, for example, was a banker who owned 254,410 hectares of idle land; the new president of INCRA was a known UDR member who had cast his vote against the agrarian reform law in the 1988 Constitution.23 Third, as an attempt to shield the central authority from the dire consequences that the land occupations were having on public opinion, was the administration’s devolution of powers. In 1997, as mentioned earlier, the central government transferred all agrarian reform responsibilities to the municipalities. Thus municipalities were made responsible for improving market integration and local administration of the thorny land issue. Called Novo Mundo Rural, this strategy broke with national organizations, since agriculture credits and family representation would henceforth emanate directly from the local sphere (Aragão, 2000). According to the CPT, the measures taken by the Cardoso administration were very drastic for the peasant movements. In the four years of Cardoso’s first mandate (1994–8) a total of 922 rural leaders and activists were killed.24 In 2000 Cardoso announced the transfer of agrarian reform credits to individuals. This action postponed the release of funds, that had previously been promised to MST settlements and thus excluded 250,000 families from the agrarian reform program. This led the Catholic Church to leave the negotiating table and take a public stance against Cardoso’s unexpected actions. The Church subsequently launched its own agrarian reform campaign on its Catholic television network Rede Vida. It was based on the pope’s 1998 agrarian reform document. This prompted the ‘no debt payment’ referendum in Brazil’s parishes which collected six million signatures

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throughout the country. According to a Church press release, the government’s promises and statements of good intentions had been issued only to gain time, and its negotiated decisions were never implemented (CNBB, 2000: 15). In 1999 the government had spent only 1.8 per cent of the credits it had earlier announced and broadcast throughout the media (INESC, 2000: 16–17). Moreover, PRONAF received only R$401 million of the R$1.35 billion that had been budgeted for it, and the federal parliament postponed distribution of another R$11.8 million that had been set aside in the emergency 2001 anti-poverty fund.25 According to the Brazilian Institute of Socioeconomic Studies (INESC 2000), this unspent money was then used to pay interest on the national debt (which recalls the fate of the new health tax, originally designed to fight dengue fever under Adib Jatene). MST came to be recognized by the public as the leading, if not the only, true opposition to President Cardoso’s economic reforms. Together with its allies, MST has promoted innumerable activities and campaigns, among them the Citizens’ Caravan (1993–4), the Latin American Land Cry of the Excluded against Cardoso, Unemployment and Poverty (1995), No Payment of the Foreign Debt (1997), No Genetically Modified Organisms (1998), Against Slave and Child Labour (1999), and the March of the Hundred Thousand (1999). In 2000 alone, MST led the Campaign against the Internationalization of the Amazon Basin, the Popular Consultation against the Payment of the Foreign Debt, as well as the national occupation of INCRA offices and public banks for the release of credits and subsidies. In 1995, MST adopted a new slogan, which was more representative of its extended alliances and of shared aspirations: ‘Agrarian Reform: Everyone’s Struggle.’ Its strategy also became less confrontational and more positive.26 More recently, MST’s chief objective has been to democratize land ownership and to promote a sustainable agrarian program against the social, political, and ecological deterioration brought about by conservative practices. This front is not homogeneous, but the radicals have proven their strategic electoral efficiency, winning the most important states and cities in the 2000 elections. The moderate wing, however, lost political space because of its undemocratic process of choosing candidates and its soft electoral discourse, which did not accurately reflect the increasing tensions and the challenges presented by the area of agrarian reform. In November 2002, the PT won the presidential elections in Brazil.

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According to polling surveys, this happened because the electorate voted for Lula himself, rather than for the PT – a phenomenon referred to in Brazil as ‘lulism.’ Another hypothesis is that this constituted a protest vote against the Cardoso government, as the opposition totalled 75 per cent of all votes. In any case, the radical wing of the PT elected twenty-six of the ninety-one PT federal deputies. MST alone elected sixteen federal deputies, up from eleven in 1998. Numbers spoke, and the Cardoso era came to a close. The former president settled for a time in Paris, where he had written some of his best pieces as a political refugee during the military regime. Looking back at happier moments of his carreer, Cardoso could meditate over the many expectations he had raised in those writings, and the hopes he had left unfulfilled under his inconclusive rule as president of Brazil. notes 1 The concept of civil society was first used by Frederick Hegel to denote the intermediary body between the individual and the state. Lipset (1971) added to this formal intermediary body what Tocqueville had identified as ‘people associations,’ described as a ‘source of resistance to centralisation of power and a source of training of new political leaders’ (p. 99). According to Tilly (1984), these associations also serve to check state actions. 2 PCB is Marxist-Leninist; PCdoB is Maoist. 3 In 1975, e.g., the CNBB stated that 53% of the CEBs were rural communities and that they were ‘very isolated and without parochial links’ (CNBB, 1975: 21). 4 See Pedro Stédile, quoted in Harnecker 1994: 114. 5 The pelegos are the populist leaders who agree to play the game of the regime in office. The autênticos are those who represent the popular sector. 6 State subsidies to producers in the U.S. are about 170 times greater than they are in Brazil; e.g., the state helps each producer with R$100 in Brazil, whereas each US producer receives about US$ 11,500 (CPT/CIDSE, 2000). 7 There was a huge wave of land occupations, mass invasions of supermarkets, the highjacking of trucks transporting food, the killing of cattle on farms, etc. 8 In the space of three years, the state government of Ceará settled 15,000 families. http://www.dataterra.org.br. See also Tendler (1997). 9 The ABC is a region of São Paulo composed of nine municipalities; it is home to the main industrial automobile complexes, and to a population of 3 million.

152 Maurilio Galdino 10 Organized by the PT, PSDB, CPT, CNBB, OAB, ABRA, and other political and social forces. 11 The objective of this educational experience was to ‘improve the quality of education and participation’ in rural schools. MST settlements today have 750 schools for children, with 48,000 students and 1,500 teachers (CPT 2001 Report). 12 See MST’s 1991-1993 Relatory, s. 3.1. 13 This information came from an interview with Judite Stronzake, a member of MST’s national executive. 14 According to CEPIS/CERIS (1997: 22), ‘when the CPT assumed the role of “organizational reference” for the landless workers, it provoked – and still provokes – tension in its relationship with other workers’ organizations for many reasons, such as personal disputes, political understandings, methodology and targeted public.’ The main tension occurred with the MST because the CPT felt that it was ‘manipulating its ecclesial space.’ 15 According to Stédile, the ‘MST mystic’ is composed of symbols and rituals that expand the objectives of MST’s struggle and promote solidarity with the poor, who need help to become free (Stédile interview, in Petras 2000). 16 Cf. MST Report 1991-1993, section 3.1. 17 In October 1893, hundreds of thousands of peasants in the hinterland of the state of Bahia, under the ‘messianic prophet’ Antônio Conseilhero, had risen against the republic, and established their seat in the town of Canudos. After successfully resisting, for several months, the advance of the Republican army through guerrilla warfare, they were finally overwhelmed and most rebels, along with their leader, were slain in Canudos. The town was destroyed and never reoccupied. 18 See Almeida and Sanches in Petras (2000: 19–20). 19 See O Estado de São Paulo, 17 April 1998: A-9. Since then, MST and 50 other countries have celebrated, on 17 April, the Day of Protest against Rural Oppression in the World. www.latinoamericano.org/2001/textos 20 www.estado.estadao.com.br/editoriais/2003/03/06/pol008.htlm 21 According to Leite (1998), after the growth of land occupations and the violence in the countryside in 1995 and 1996, both agencies were placed under the responsibility of the Extraordinary Ministry for Tenure Policies. 22 It settled 15,000 families in the three years of its existence (Navarro, 1998). 23 See MST’s 1998 Relatory. 24 See The CPT 2000 Report. 25 See O Estado de São Paulo, 7 October 2000. http://www.agenciaestado.com.br 26 About MST’s ‘confrontational phase,’ see Navarro (1996).

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references Adriance, Madeleine Cousineau. 1995. Promised Land. Albany: State University of New York Press. Aragão, Lúcia Maria Paixão. 2000. ‘A Sustantabilidade do Programa Cédula da Terra.’ Fortaleza: Universidade Federal do Ceará (mimeo). Banco Mundial. 1999. Redução da Pobreza, Crescimento Econômico e Equilíbrio Fiscal no Estado do Ceará. Fortaleza: Banco Mundial. Betto, Frei. 1997. ‘Sem terra e Cidadania.’ In João Pedro Stédile, ed., A Reforma Agrária e a Luta do MST. Petrópolis: Vozes, 215–22. Bienefeld, Manfred. 1993. Structural Adjustments: Debt Collection or Development Policy? ADMP Series, no. 5. Tokyo: Sophia Univesity (mimeo). Caldart, Roseli, and Edgar Colling. 1997. ‘O MST e a Educação.’ In João Pedro Stédile, ed., A Reforma Agrária e a Luta do MST. Petrópolis: Vozes. CEPIS/CERIS. 1997. Avaliação da CPT: Relatório Final. CPT Nacional (mimeo). CNBB. 1975. Comunidades Eclesiais de Base 3. São Paulo: Edições Paulinas. – 2000. ‘Documento Manifesto da CNBB.’ Quinzena 294. São Paulo: CPV, 20 Nov. CPT. 1997. Conflitos no Campo. São Paulo: Editions Loyola. CPT/CIDSE. 2000. ‘Seminário do Grupo Brasil da CIDSE com Parceiros.’ 25–7 Oct. Salvador (mimeo). De Castro, Josué. 1970. Une Zone explosive: Le Nordeste du Brésil. Paris: Éditions du Soleil. Duquette, Michel. 1999a. Rural Mobilization and the Politics of Agrarian Reform in Brazil. University of Montreal, Political Science Department (mimeo). – 1999b. Building New Democracies: Economic and Social Reform in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. FASE. 2001. Brasil Sustentável e Democrático. Rio de Janeiro (mimeo). Faucher, Philippe, and Armijo, Leslie E. 2000. ‘We Have a Consensus: Explaining Political Support for Market Reforms in Latin America.’ Presented at the 96th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington D.C., Aug./Sept. Gaiger, Luiz I. 1987. Agentes Religiosos e Camponeses Sem Terra no Sul do Brasil. Petrópolis: Vozes. – 1992. Le Mouvement des Sans-Terre: Entre la croissance et la fragmentation. XVI Encontro Nacional do PIPSA. Dec. Guedes, Luis, ed. 1996. Reforma Agrária – 30 Anos do Estatuto da Terra. Campinas: IBRA. Hammond, John. 1998. Law and Disorder: The Brazilian Landless Farmworkers’

154 Maurilio Galdino Movement. Hunter College, Sociology Department, City University of New York (mimeo). Harnecker, Marta. 1994. O Sonho Era Possível. São Paulo: Casa América Livre. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1995. Age of Extremes. London: Abacus. Ianni, Octavio. 1970. Crisis in Brazil. New York: Columbia University Press. INCRA/FAO. 1999. Principais Fatores que Afetam o Desenvolvimento dos Assentamentos de Reforma Agrária no Brasil. Brasília: Incra. INESC. 2000. Políticas Públicas Sociais: a Execução Orçamentária da União de 1999. Brasília: UNICEF. Keck, M. 1992. The Workers’ Party and Democratization in Brazil. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Leite, Sérgio. 1998. Questão Agrária, Políticas Públicas e Processos Sociais no Brasil. UFRRJ/CPDA, Rio de Janeiro (mimeo). http://www.alternex.com.br/ ~cpda Leroy, Jean-Pierre. 2001. ‘Politicas Públicas e Atores.’ In FASE. Brasil Sustentável e Democrático. Rio de Janeiro (mimeo), 49–70. Libânio, João Batista. 1987. Teologia da Libertação. São Paulo: Loyola. Lipset, Seymour M. 1971. Agrarian Socialism: The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan – A Study in Political Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press. Löwy, Michael. 1996. The War of Gods. New York: Verso. Macaulay, Fiona. 1995. ‘Governing for Everyone’: The Workers Party Administration in São Paulo 1989–1992. Oxford University, St Antony’s College, Political Science Department (mimeo). Mainwaring, Scott. 1986. The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916–1985. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Moraes, Clodomir. 1970. ‘Peasant Leagues in Brazil.’ In Rodolfo Stavenhagen, ed., Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements in Latin America. New York: Anchor Books. MST. 1998. Relatório Atividades. Navarro, Zander. 1996. Políticas Públicas, Agricultura Familiar e os Processos de Democratização em Áreas Rurais Brasileiras. XX Encontro Anual da Ampocs, Caxambu. – 1997. ‘Sete Teses Equivocadas Sobre as Lutas Sociais no Campo, o MST e a Reforma Agrária.’ In João P. Stédile, ed., A Reforma Agrária e a Luta do MST. Petrópolis: Vozes. – 1998. O Projeto Piloto ‘Cédula da Terra,’ Núcleo de Estudos Agrários e Desenvolvimento. http://www.dataterra.org.br – 2000. ‘MST: decifrar é preciso.’ May http://www.alternex.com.br/~cpda Padgett, Tim. 1998. ‘Brazil’s Landless Rebels.’ Time Magazine, 19 Jan.

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Pereira, Anthony. 1997. The End of the Peasantry. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Petras, James. 2000. ‘The Latin American Radicalism.’ Latin American Perspectives (Sept.). Pochmann, Marcio. 2000. ‘Reformas e Experiência Latinoamericana de Integração Mundial.’ Correio da Cidadania, no. 216 (21–8 Oct.). Revista Sem Terra. 1997. Issue no. 1, p. 17. Smith, William, Carlos H. Alcuña, and Eduardo A. Gamarra. 1993. Democracy, Markets, and Structural Reform in Latin America. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transactions Publishers / North-South Center. Tendler, Judith. 1997. A Good Government in the Tropics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Tilly, Charles. 1984. Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Valle, R., and M. Pitta. 1994. Comunidades Eclesiais Católicas. Petrópolis: Vozes. Wiederhecker, Angélica. 1998. ‘Revolução na Escola.’ Revista Isto É, 17 July. World Bank. 2001. http://www.dataterra.org.br

5 Collective Action at the Crossroads: The Empowerment of the Left MICHEL DUQUETTE, MAURILIO GALDINO, CHARMAIN LEVY, BÉRENGÈRE MARQUESPEREIRA, and FLORENCE RAES Delineating Political Participation and the Threshold of Radicalism The case studies we have presented open the way to a wide array of conclusions and analyses, some specific to the particular topics, others of a more general nature concerning national politics and the coming to power of the left in Brasília. We examined women’s demands and mobilization in Brazil. During both the authoritarian interim and the more recent turn towards democratization, these were a response to new tensions born of two different sets of circumstances. First, the nature of the regime severely limited the possible areas of women’s participation. Second, the economic crisis brought about severe social dislocation, and the first victims were women. Originating in field initiatives and self-organized base communities, mobilization rapidly took on a political flavour. Demands were soon formulated, and they have since been voiced repeatedly. Women claimed their right to be included in the decisionmaking process and to participate in the formulation of public policies – policies immediately concerning them, but also policies of a more general nature. These claims ran into difficulties of two kinds. Values specific to the women’s movements, combined with the weight of machista traditions, were not conducive to broadening the roles of women in Brazil. In addition, the progress of women was impeded because ‘feminizing’ the discursive content of social movements and political parties per-

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force dominated by men was impossible. Women were able to establish wider alliances exerting genuine influence on the political scene and extending the bounds of previous political programs only very occasionally. Living conditions for women were inordinately precarious. Women were without power over economic decisions and a fortiori over the major economic levers. This forced the membership of their movements to focus almost exclusively on the tactics necessary for daily survival. This explains why the social movement of Brazilian women did not, with very few exceptions, gather enough strength to make its voice heard and oblige the authorities to sit up and take notice. Together with a ‘feminist’ type of mobilization, women were also protagonists within wider social movements. There the issues were more conventional in nature, reflecting crying needs, both in urban and in rural movements. This begs the question of the level of true autonomy of women’s movements. Within the social movement at large, the entire process was about gaining more political participation and greater economic democratization. It is worthwhile to add that, in the main, Latin American women entering politics and taking an active part in decision-making themselves emphasize that they are mothers, and this may be a contributing factor reinforcing the enduring marianist heritage of Latin American society. This creates a gulf between women in political life and women in ‘precarious life.’ It is hardly, if at all, bridged by the feeble efforts made by the state to implement public policies. It comes then as no surprise that Brazilian women in particular, and Latin American women generally, looked to the international arena to secure the roles and prestige so grudgingly accorded them on the national stage. Indeed, it is on this new terrain that women have made their finest advances, be it in the area of human rights or by affirmative action programs in the areas of labour and politics. Undeniably, women’s presence in the international arena, including that provided by the United Nations, is far greater than the little space granted them within their national governments. The case study of urban movements in Brazil confirms that even becoming an integral part of the government apparatus does not always ensure satisfactory results for constituents targeted by specific programs. Policies are subject to variations linked to fiscal policy, in this case expenditure reduction, which was central a component of the structural adjustment program. Budgetary decisions are a determining

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variable and can reveal government actions to be less than wholehearted. This, in turn, explains the mediocrity of the results of some public policies. The steady efforts and pressure for change exerted by civil society will always count for nothing unless there is appropriately substantial government investment coupled with strong administrative supervision. Groups can only push as best they can through their own selforganization. As things stand, it cannot be said with any degree of confidence that in Brazil, the state, albeit democratic, has in any significant measure taken up the lead set by such initiatives. Thus the degree of institutionalized support of urban programs, within the more general framework of public policy, has remained weak. Meanwhile the level of frustration provoked by these insufficiencies tends to increase with the repeated vacillations of governmental intervention. We have also seen the co-optation, by government machinery, of some of the leading figures of social movements. This did little to ensure the continuity of public programs or even their degree of efficiency. The debilitating sense of isolation is keenly felt by such leaders in face of the tight and exclusive circle of those who are in fact making the decisions about the larger issues. This highly awkward situation has contributed to discrediting the new generation of leaders. They are seen as having joined ranks with the ‘centrist’ government. It seemed imperative for grassroots groups to recruit new, more authentic leaders. Such a renewal of elites among popular groups was not per se an unfortunate thing. Indeed, it ensured their independence and served to renew both the discourse and the strategies of mobilization. It even led to a needed radicalization of their interventions. It did nothing, however, to ensure continuity of government efforts, as often a multiplicity of actors coming from scattered horizons and opposing political cultures were involved. Neither was this situation helped by the fact that the game of musical chairs was accelerating not only with associations, but also in the halls of government itself. The moderate reformers of the democratic transition era, at work in Brasília and in the regional capitals, had dreamt of cementing a popular alliance around their social and agrarian reform projects. The means would be specific intervention strategies. However, their efforts have been ill-rewarded. The moderate approach originally involved creating innumerable small and mid-sized agricultural enterprises, while giving peasants titles to the land, as well as individual budgets. This stance was increasingly contaminated by market imperatives.

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Furthermore, it was shackled by the conditions that structural adjustment programs imposed and by the financial constraints inherent to such programs. Consequently, the moderate approach exerted only mild influence on the dynamics and the strategic orientation of rural social movements. In many ways the very same impediments were at work in urban popular movements (UPMs). Political participation was left to a group of leaders, who were for the most part fairly young, and whose social background had little in common with that of the rising national elites. Peasant communities found themselves estranged from the bigger picture of national politics. The state then concentrated its efforts in a different direction. It turned its focus to macroeconomic policies aimed at the adjustment of public finances. This was to the detriment of specifically targeted programs in support of urbanization or of land redistribution favouring rural communities, since the outcomes of the latter type of programs appeared more doubtful. In the case of the agrarian movement, in the late 1990s, a remarkable accumulation of factors led to the radicalization of both discourse and action. The movement was born in the early 1960s, and it had adopted a strong voice in part because of the influence of Castro’s triumphant revolution in Cuba. The then military government of Brazil had responded at once with a brutality that only increased in the early 1970s. At that time it faced opposition in the Amazonian region, specifically in the area surrounding the Araguaia basin. Since those early days, the Brazilian countryside has never been free of a confrontational situation between the landowning classes and landless peasants. This situation is made more acute by the deregulated exploitation of vast tracts stripped of their first-growth forests, where migrant peasants often headed, having been exiled from the northeast by drought and abject poverty. Spectacular murders, such as that of ecologist and union leader Chico Mendes, further embittered the climate of confrontation that the government had no means of resolving in credible fashion. Despite such a painful context, at least one original element was introduced in the course of the democratic transition: the radicalization of agrarian movements. In the period surrounding the setting up of the 1988 Constitution – a time which was conducive to opening up new political opportunities to a rising generation of leaders – agrarian movements developed a more moderate discourse and pragmatic strategies. This allowed for the beginnings of theretofore impossible dealings and negotiations with authorities. It bears repeating that throughout the course of the initial period of democratization, these

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social movements were able to preserve a degree of independence that they had of necessity built up during the previous period. Furthermore, they were able to maintain this autonomy intact in the early years of the structural adjustment period. Nevertheless, it must be said that the agrarian movements were aided in this by the lack of motivated interlocutors or even of officials willing to give them a sympathetic hearing. These structural adjustment programs, along with their cruel side-effects, deprived successive administrations of the means necessary to establish their credibility in the area of such negotiations. In 1997, the government as much as admitted this fact by dropping the task of agrarian reform squarely in the lap of municipal authorities. This was an effort to distance federal policies from the fluctuations of the agricultural sector. These fluctuations, however, increasingly troubled Brasília, as well as international non-governmental organizations. Thus, following a brief period of modest participation in the decisions governing the agrarian reform project, and of equally modest progress in the area of land redistribution and access to resources, the agrarian movements, humiliated and disappointed, returned to the practices that had marked their birth, and a new form of radicalism arose. Certainly, the underlying conditions of this return to radicalism had never fully disappeared and had been only slightly affected by the changing situation. First, the vocabulary and the discourse of movement leaders had been and remained Marxist in essence. For all its distance from the lexicon of national politics, this discourse retained its pertinence for the militant base. It had, in earlier days, been forged by Paolo Freire’s ‘pedagogy of the oppressed,’ and later by liberation theology. Second, the hoped-for institutional linkup with political parties in power via a national peasant confederation did not take place in Brazil, unlike the more successful attempt in Mexico under the PRI regime. In Brazil it was through links with the PT that MST had entered into a coalition at the federal level of politics. Until the 2001 municipal elections, the PT was kept firmly on the margins of political power. This gave the two groups (PT and MST) a common ground of understanding. However, the process was slow, partly because of indecision about electoral strategy, fuelled by several changes in leadership. The linkup nevertheless eventuated. Largely this was thanks to the emergence of new leaders coming from the rank and file, who upon acceding to positions of power at the municipal level recognized the need to establish nationwide alliances. Third, the MST repertoire that was developed for the purpose of its new wave of mobilization

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was sufficiently distinct from the market-friendly agrarian reform – put forward by the World Bank and endorsed by Brasília – to constitute a credible alternative and a viable political proposal. Certainly, its arguments and proposals did not suffer from any lack of clarity. Consolidation of moderate coalitions within a process of democratic transition can take place only when the conditions are as follows. Government enjoys sufficient financial manoeuvring room to exercise its capacity for independent action. This increases its administrative capacity, political prestige, and authentic presence in the spheres targeted by reforms, of whatever nature. Thus, the case studies presented in this book in no way contradict analysts who, like James Petras, have become convinced that structural adjustment processes, and the inordinate influence of international agencies upon the macroeconomic orientation of new democracies, in this case Brazil throughout the past decade, were and remain incompatible with the legitimate and necessary call for wider political participation by the popular classes. The mediocre quality of social reforms undertaken in Brazil during the transition phase, in all of the areas we have examined here, provide a powerful demonstration of this profound incompatibility. Women’s Movements and the Obstacles to Political Representation The mobilization of Brazilian women in the 1970s and 1980s took place within a context characterized by two factors. Early on women’s groups mounted attacks against the authoritarian military regime and called for political democratization, while later on, during the economic crisis, they called for greater state intervention in the area of public and social services. Popular movements, organized and staffed by women, struggled to help fill the gap left by governmental negligence regarding basic community services, and in this process of social democratization, the role of client gave way to that of active citizen. It is in the name of their citizenship that women now expressed their demands, whether for day care, sexual and reproductive freedom, or basic infrastructures in working-class neighbourhoods. In turn, this contributed to the further redefinition of the contours of citizenship. The emergence of gender-based demands, upsetting the old division between the public and the private spheres, leads us to further questions: What is the appropriate theoretical reading of the concept of citizenship, given the visible fact that women’s domestic work is fundamental to the functioning of external and political structures of

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citizenship? Should citizenship be a matter of gender equality, with the attendant risk of masking very real distinctions, or is it more appropriate to envisage differentiated citizenship, and thus risk enshrining discrimination? The practice of citizenship is to be regarded as both a dynamic and a dialectical process comprised of conflict and consensus, participation and representation, status and practices. The relationship of citizenship to the state is both conflictual, in citizens’ struggle to gain recognition as legitimate protagonists voicing legitimate demands, and consensual. The relationship is consensual in its participative and representational aspects, as well as in its contributions to the shaping of public policies, which necessitate coming to an agreement about the rules of the game and the means of resolving conflicts. Two dynamics are at work in the construction of citizenship. First, as a status determined by a set of rights and duties, citizenship is based on a logic of competencies, for example, nationality and age. Second, as a form of participation in social life, and as a consequence of belonging to a society, citizenship is based on a set of organizational practices that allow members to exert their influence in the public sphere. In the 1990s, finding their influence restricted at both the local and national levels, Brazilian women took their demands to international bodies. This served as a strong catalyst in the politicization of their issues. In addition, their demands came to be articulated in more global terms, namely, those of human rights. Women were successful in bringing about the adoption of conventions aimed at the elimination of all gender-based discrimination and violence against women, as well as of international mechanisms monitoring countries with regard to the protection of the human rights of women. By participating in growing numbers in the U.N. conferences on women (in Mexico in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, Nairobi in 1985, Beijing in 1995, and New York in 2000), women were carving out for themselves a strong role in the international debates dealing with the problems that so intimately touch their lives. The Belém do Para Convention, adopted in 1994 by the Organization of American States (OAS), addressed both private (domestic and familial) and public (state and community) violence directed against women and made explicit reference to physical, sexual, and psychological violence. Yet for the United Nations, the rights entrenched by such international conventions and action platforms are not seen as new rights, but rather as an extension, to women, of existing human rights. Moreover,

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no convention is devoted specifically to reproductive rights, which are subsumed under headings such as health, education, or social rights. Such a perspective implies a new interpretation of the normative set of human rights with a view to including women’s specific demands, as well as the construction of a new consensus about the nature of human rights, based upon a shared concept of the interests of humankind. Debate, dialogue, and dissent around human rights may allow us to go beyond an androcentric vision, while maintaining the spirit of equality and freedom of these rights, and thus approach a level of universality by defining these rights in a more inclusive fashion. Such a perspective also extends the scope of the state’s responsibility, and furthermore, advances the proposal that rights (reproductive rights being one example) are part of the shared commons of humanity, which is a novel way of perceiving the notion of the ‘universality’ of human rights. The question remains whether women have indeed profited from the opening of such spheres of public debate. Is there a significant correlation between the mobilization of women and their political participation? What impact have the collective actions of women had on the institutionalization of national public policies? Has the visibility of women on the international stage been conducive to their advancement on the national stage? Women’s movements in Brazil linked citizenship to democracy. Participation is a means to build the capacity of individuals to become self-determined actors in their own lives. Local actions based on strategies of survival, led by women of the popular classes, resulted in an outpouring of demands concerning social rights. This went hand in hand with the construction of civic consciousness. Public common goods are now perceived to exist at the community level. The emergence of community-based identity has consolidated civic identity. The politicization of poverty, for example, was one factor of growing social democratization. A reinterpretation of political reality that focuses on the notion of injustice, rather than fate or ill fortune, enabled the beginnings of a struggle against exclusion. In Brazil, a kind of urban and social apartheid had prevailed that had prevented any true sense of membership in the city and, a fortiori, in the nation. Through their experience in the social movements of the 1970s and 1980s, women developed an identity based on an active sense of participation and citizenship, articulated around both the welfare of individuals and the cause of collective management of public assets. Citizenship implies more than simply expressing an opinion on what-

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ever resources happen to be made available by political powers. Citizenship entails articulating both a political judgment on the management of the polis and formulation of notions about what constitutes a desirable society. Thus, citizenship is related to the concept of public responsibility. Women’s mobilization created a new public sphere within which the notion of the public responsibility of individuals in establishing social norms could now blossom. Citizens’ vigilance in their dealings with the machinery of government was awakened. Finally, awareness was raised about social exclusion and its various manifestations. Women’s contribution to the societal debate surrounding the foundation of the New Republic was of a qualitative nature not found in other groups. It moved beyond survival tactics to address principles and values. It voiced ethical concerns that echoed the preoccupations of a developed modernity in a partially modernized, even marginalized world. If the means women were able to mobilize cannot be called radical, given the circumstances in which they were forced to unfold, the discourse definitely was. Public responsibility is based on the recognition, by individuals, that their problems are in fact collective. For women this ties in with making the private sphere public. It also presupposes the presence of resources allowing individuals to search for solutions to their problems through social and political participation, whether it be dissident, local, partisan, electoral, or institutional. Finally, public responsibility implies securing the power necessary to break with paternalistic types of social relations that only serve to feed the confusion between private and public authority. It means breaking with clientelist types of social relations which tend to privatize the public sphere. It means populist practices which lead to hopes and promises of survival, dignity, and political status, instead of turning the poorest citizens into tools of the elites. Where there is true citizenship, individuals are not mere pawns. Rather, all individuals must hold genuine positions within the public space, and practices must be established that legitimize first the ‘right to have rights’ and then the right to claim implementation of these rights. There is, of course, a difference between having rights and being able to exercise them. In spite of considerable progress in the field of legislation, the situation of Brazilian and other Latin American women has in several ways actually worsened. The negative effects of both the economic crisis and the structural adjustment programs weighed heavily on women. This is because in the first place women find themselves locked into precarious or informal sector jobs in the labour mar-

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ket, and in the second, women are called upon to take up the slack created by diminishing state investment in social programs. Brazil is still a culture where traditional roles burden women with the major share of caring for ageing parents, young children, and unemployed youth. The current orientations of economic and social policies are far from gender-neutral. They discriminate most heavily against women of the poorer classes. The Challenge of Gender Equity and Human Rights on the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century, a report put out in 2000 by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), examines the process of social differentiation that is fuelled by this conservative ideology. It favours equality of opportunity rather than equality of results. Certainly, it ignores the presence and effects of power relations that are detrimental to women, both in the marketplace and in political life. Thus, an economic model that discriminates against women, coupled with shrinking fiscal resources, mitigates against the commitments undertaken by the new democracies in the cause of promoting gender equality. Yet the obstacles impeding institutionalization of a policy of gender equality are not only financial, but also cultural. The traditional weight of the Catholic Church combines with a culture of machismo and marianismo to prevent the granting and exercising of women’s rights. This is the situation in Brazil, as well as in the rest of the region. The church’s influence remains sufficient to prevent the adoption of legislation concerning reproductive rights and reproductive health, and it prevents general access to sexual information and education. The omnipresence of the Church places the state in an awkward position where it must defend its autonomy against the dominant Catholic way of thinking. This has considerable political impact. The Church’s discourse especially impedes dialogue between women and the state. It has led NGOs and women’s organizations to insist on the importance of greater representation in the international sphere, given that the Vatican itself participates in international conferences, as both a political and a spiritual power. The Vatican has the status of permanent observer at the United Nations, and it has used a wide variety of pressure tactics to further its goal of impeding consensus about reproductive rights. In Brazil, women’s movements have created a new pattern of dealings between women and the state. The 1988 Constitution entrenched the principle of gender equality with respect to rights and obligations. In response to mounting activism, women’s councils have been set up

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within the government machinery, though it must be said that they have consultative rather than decision-making status. Nevertheless, these women’s councils are now in position to present their views on legislation, in particular in the areas of civil, family, and labour law. Furthermore, the councils have participated in parliamentary commissions dealing with sterilization (1992), violence against women (1993), and juvenile prostitution (1994). While Brazilian women now enjoy greater presence in the public sphere, they are conspicuously under-represented within institutional spheres, and especially in political parties. In a context of democratic consolidation, women’s lack of representation at the various political decision-making levels is a serious issue. Women’s integration into participatory democracy has raised their understanding of social citizenship. Through the creation of their own public space women have become visible. Nevertheless, so far citizenship, in terms of the capacity of individuals to influence the public space, in Brazil has not translated into any significant incorporation of women into the political space. Through the process of political democratization, political parties gained a theretofore unthinkable role in governance. But their oligarchic methods still actively marginalize women. Thus, sociocultural factors aggravate the political and institutional impediments to women’s participation in decision-making. The separation between private and public spheres is reinforced, as is the notion that politics is a man’s business. Within decision-making circles – ministries, commissions, and councils – the division of labour is socially based. As a result, women are given responsibility for family and social issues, in preference to economic or budgetary matters. Such discrimination and inequality seems not only to persist but to be increasing, with the growing number of women occupying policy-oriented positions. Certainly, such a situation is harmful to the expansion of women’s political citizenship, even if within a representative democracy. Poorly organized and deficient political parties impede women’s access to institutional and political power. Women’s increased participation in genuine decision-making thus appears to be limited to the inferior tiers of local levels. Either this is a necessary first step, or women see this level as a space somewhat more free of the innumerable obstacles to active participation in an undertaking that is perceived to be fundamentally masculine. The question of establishing affirmative action programs and positive discrimination systems rears its problematic head.

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Mobilization and participation of women has rarely led to true political representation. Women’s movements, in Brazil, have had little genuine impact on political decision-making. This raises questions concerning the relationship between organized women’s groups and the political system. In the wake of the transition process, the new position of women in relation to the state has taken two different shapes. From an initial position of antagonism towards the earlier military government, some women’s movements opted for a strategy of institutionalization. Others chose to be independent from government structures. This distinction is in itself a testimony to a maturing phase of the protest cycle, and it leads us back to the question of women’s identity in a men’s world. The diversification of women’s demands, groups, and tactics appears to signal pluralism of commitment, rather than decline into a descending phase. It also contradicts the reductionist and stereotypical vision of ‘women’s identity’ and ‘women’s interests’ that otherwise prevails. Not only to avoid the trap of co-optation, but also in rejection of a supposed ‘essentialism,’ some women’s groups have concentrated on autonomous base movements. They have expressed caution about a group representation that is likely to obscure women’s plurality of interests. The ‘essentialist’ thesis is obviously one of the inspirations of the radical feminist groups that today thrive in Brazilian society. As to such multiplicity, we would agree with Anne Phillips (see Chapter 2), who argues that multiplicity has a triple manifestation: first, women are present in a plurality of public and political spheres; second, they exercise a plurality of political roles; and third, they express a plurality of identities which, far from being immutable or uniform, are various, mutating, and oftentimes even contradictory. From this perspective the problem has three elements: How is politics to be defined? How are we to understand the notion of political participation? And, who is to set the limits between what is political and what is not? The central issue is the distinction between the private and the public, which is generally understood to define the contours of the political, at least within liberal democracies. Urban Movements: Survival and Unrest This chapter opened by asking why urban popular movements in Brazil abandoned their earlier strategies and, during the 1990s, took new types of action. From the descriptive analysis of UPMs in the city of

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São Paulo, we can draw some conclusions. The turning point for the São Paulo cortiço (slumdwellers) movement can be identified as the year 1997. The São Paulo housing movement had been demobilized since the early 1990s as a result of the changed political and economic context, as well as a change in the UPMs’ capacity to mobilize its grassroots and influence urban policy and government decisions more generally. In terms of the cortiço movement, there was a general sense of disappointment regarding the PAC (Plan for Upgrading Cortiços) and the government’s slow pace in implementing it, showing that the government’s actions clearly had not risen to the level of its participatory and social conscience rhetoric. The economic and state structural reforms, implemented at an accelerated rate from 1994 on, opened Brazil to more numerous imported products. This put several large Brazilian companies out of business. It also reduced the purchasing capacity of people with low or middle incomes which, in turn, led to higher levels of both unemployment and under-employment. As a result, many families took the risk of living in abandoned slum buildings (cortiços), while others were forced onto the streets, which produced a wave of spontaneous occupations by squatters. Popular social movements, in particular the Forum (FNRU) and the ULC, drew attention to the explosive situation: In 1995, while 1.5 million people lived in shantytowns (favelas) and 630,000 in cortiços, 350,000 buildings in Brazil stood empty.1 UPMs changed their repertoire, radicalizing both their discourse and their actions in mobilizing this precariously housed population. The Landless Peasant Movement provided inspiration, being itself in the midst of organizing and carrying out massive nationwide rural land occupations and demonstrations. UPMs’ radicalization had both exogenous and endogenous causes. Exogenous causes can be identified as state and economic reforms undertaken by the federal government, a breakdown in negotiations between UPMs and the state and municipal levels of government, a wave of spontaneous occupations by individual squatting families, and the success of MST with its much-publicized land occupations. The principal endogenous factor behind the cortiço movement’s turnaround was the charismatic leadership in both the Forum and the ULC which helped mobilize their grassroots membership. Some staff members of APOIO (an aid group funded by the Catholic Church) enlisted the media in giving UPMs greater visibility. A book of photographs of cortiços was published in 1997, and in 1998 a television documentary showing the occupation of government buildings was aired.

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The Forum was also in a better financial situation by 1998 than it had been earlier, with its budget increased and by 2000 doubled (largely as a result of more generous financial contributions from international development agencies). This allowed APOIO to hire more community activists and increase the Forum’s grassroots following.2 UPMs’ difficulties, too, at the end of 1999, had both endogenous and exogenous causes. State and municipal governments decided to respond to the cortiço movement with police force instead of negotiations. This took the movement by surprise, and it was unable to develop a new strategy quickly enough to counter these actions. As the number of occupations rose, so did the number of cortiço groups, and this hindered the formation of a common and united front. This situation worsened when two key people left APOIO, and one of them assumed the leadership of the Forum in early 2000. The future of the cortiço movement and the housing movements, in general, in the city of São Paulo depends a lot on the development of new strategies and on the movements’ capacity to overcome interpersonal and political squabbles among themselves. Meanwhile the state government has as yet demonstrated no desire to change its attitude towards the UPMs, while maintaining a rhetoric at odds with its actions. The single most promising event has been the election, and in some cases re-election, of opposition governments in many important Brazilian municipalities. This may advance the implementation of alternative housing projects and the construction of further low-income housing units. This may, in turn, increase the housing movements’ legitimacy among the lower-income urban population and the capacity increase for their mobilization. Certainly, it will be a challenge for the movements, as well as for the new governments, to work together while both reinforcing each other and retaining their independence. Rural Movements: Revisiting the Definition of Radicalism Radical uprisings in the Brazilian countryside during the 1990s may best be understood from two complementary though distinct sets of factors: those associated with the outcome of the democratic transition of the 1980s and those associated with the social and economic consequences of the structural reforms undertaken of the early 1990s. Several years of democratic transition and economic restructuring made social movements and political parties modify their own organization and discourse and adjust their strategy to the prevailing conditions.

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New opportunities had opened for some groups. For other groups, however, many opportunities were lost, and their response was a shift to more radical attitudes. The radicalization of some of Brazil’s social movements must be situated within the contexts of both sets of factors. Given the structural reforms of the 1990s, the definition of radicalism used in a model describing democratic transition (see Chapter 1) no longer fits. Today, civil society in Latin America and Brazil in particular is better organized and prone to resort to radicalism simply because people are now refusing to be shut out. The current regime shows little commitment to changing societal structures and appears to be overly cautious in making decisions on social policy. In such a context, let us revisit the definition of ‘radicals’ and ‘radicalism.’ Kornhauser defines (1959; see Chapter 1) as radical any organized group or movement that seems intolerant of and refuses to negotiate with other political groups and institutions, and particularly within the context of a transition. Navarro (2000) describes radicals as shifty political players, unpredictable and unreliable in both discourse and strategy. These views pose some analytical problems for understanding radicalism and the legitimacy of popular mobilization in Brazil. In the classical analysis of radicalism, a high level of radicalism does not arise where there is economic development and growth, with attendant patterns of consumption, massive urbanization, reasonable degrees of literacy, and widely available higher education. These create a context favourable for political participation by the less wealthy classes of society. Their leaders will, as a consequence, opt for milder forms of mass mobilization than would be the case in a context of authoritarianism and economic exclusion. A context of growth and development provides the necessary conditions for a democratically representative system, and most, if not all, categories of civil society have good reason to be relatively tolerant and moderate in their relationship with the elites, both in the discourse they adopt and in the selection of the means to put forward their concerns. Where such favourable economic conditions are not in place, in a society that remains polarized between opposing factions, it may happen that those who are against a given administration can openly and legally organize into political parties to oppose it in free and fair elections. Polyarchy represents a form of government in which the players are presumed to be fully integrated. On this basis, elites consider it legitimate to exclude radical or intolerant players from the arena, with the claim that resort to illegal and/or violent means constitutes a rejec-

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tion of democracy. Obviously, an ideal type situation is rarely met in reality. The main features of regime-building and the societal functions assumed by democratic institutions must be in place to shape the framework of the political apparatus. But what happens when economic conditions do not permit a fair level of political representation, especially at the margins of society? The prevalence of ‘intolerance’ is indicative of an authoritarian regime, within a democratic transition, faced with a poorly institutionalized opposition. The social movements in rural Brazil, even if they occasionally resorted to confrontational means to advance their goals, cannot be labelled ‘radical.’ These movements are institutionalized and recognized by the government, and they operate within the framework of existing laws. Essentially they rely on pacific rather than violent means to mobilize, demonstrate, and pressure the state into negotiating. Their goal is not to challenge the rules of democracy, but to widen democracy’s scope of action. They work within the democratic transition, and not from outside the institutional system, which they pressure for recognition and change. These organized groups receive substantial funding from the state and from international agencies. Furthermore, the authorities do display some level of political responsiveness to them, by changing some rules and regulations, extending new lines of credit, and/or co-opting their leaders into the decisionmaking process. All of these factors are incompatible with the definition of ‘radicalism’ as found in the earlier literature on the subject. Another school, inspired by liberal economic principles, contends that radicals are those who, having lost wealth or privilege in the process of market reforms, are calling for a return to the status quo ante. According to this view, the radical wave in Brazil is, in fact, the response made by corporate interests of the import-substituting industries (ISI) to market reforms. Seen as representing an outdated and inefficient economic model, such radicals would lose their fight no matter what. This is because market-friendly administrations are supported from abroad by an international economic consensus and, domestically, by a mass of consumers, as well as the service sector – and these represent the winners. This domestic support was indeed confirmed by the re-election in 1999 of President Cardoso, who then proceeded to extend the market reforms further. There are problems with this definition, too. First, it isolates these political actors from strategic manoeuvring. Second, it does not take into account the fact that the economic losers had earlier been strong supporters of economic

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reforms when they were first undertaken, and only later became the regime’s opponents (which is in line with a suggestion made by Smith et al., 1993; see Introduction). We would only apply the term ‘radical’ to social movements that are politically autonomous, yet integrated into the political system. Social movements are autonomous if they have the possibility of resorting to strategies that are distinct from those of party and state institutions. As Barbara Epstein (1991: 230) points out, ‘one of the most salient elements of the social movements of the post-war era has been the claim that established political institutions are obstacles to social change and that radical social movements, though they may participate in the political arena, must have a base outside of it and a critique of it.’ MST became a radical movement because of a combination of exogenous and endogenous conditions. Among the former are the economic structural reforms begun in 1990, under the Collor de Melo administration, and continued throughout the decade, during the two Cardoso governments. Endogenous conditions include MST’s internal restructuring and organizational strengthening, as well as the development of a broader cultural framework (see Tarrow, 1991). These two factors made it possible for MST to channel dissent and put forward concrete proposals aimed at integrating civil society into policymaking. The turning point of MST’s radicalizing trend was the year 1996, after the introduction of President Cardoso’s structural reforms. Social movements in the transition period of the 1980s were demobilized and splintered into numerous factions and parties. In contrast, MST in the late 1990s became independent of the material and leadership structures of both the church and the political parties, depending more on its own leadership and logistic resources, without totally ignoring the external aid offered by NGOs. MST sees itself not simply as having political ends but also as being a cultural means. It invests heavily in the training of its base and in educating and training its leadership to deal successfully with institutional politics. This has given MST the ability to support other social forces that faced losing their voices, as their social and leadership structures fell apart. Furthermore, MST has managed to avoid entrenching its leaders in positions of power, and thus has succeeded in curbing private ownership and the temptation for leaders to become well-off professionals at the expense of the people they represent. Although autonomous, MST is integrated into the political system. It has an active if uneasy role in the building of institutions and the defi-

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nition of public goals. The case of MST demonstrates that a key characteristic of new social movements is that they manage to take the social capital of past experiences and use it within the framework of new institutions. Experience with public administration at the municipal and state levels since the 1980s, provided MST, as well as other groups such as the urban housing movements, have accumulated the technical expertise needed to advance political and economic counter-proposals regarding both the domestic and international markets. Federal and NGO resources available to MST were meagre. Nevertheless, MST and other progressive experiments at the municipal level confirm that public decision-making capacity can be increased. Agrarian reform and other socially oriented reforms are now areas open to public debate in Brazil. Social movements have enabled greater political stability, for example, land democratization has fostered a genuine platform for the political participation of the excluded. With the convergence of its networks, MST struggles not only for fair agrarian policies, but also for a different agrarian model. According to the CPT, many studies have demonstrated the economic viability and self-reliance of MST cooperatives, even in the absence of government incentives. They are the forebears of a new hope for many Brazilians. The challenge is to make this experience a political project for the entire country.3 The foremost challenge for these social movements is to establish productive relationships with progressive governments elected now that structural reform have been instituted. Modern Latin America is socially far more heterogeneous than the present state of institutionalized politics reflects. No one can govern there successfully while ignoring this fact. To base government legitimacy on apolitical individual voters undermines democracy because it ignores the contributions of organized citizens, frustrating their expectations, and dangerously widening the gap between state capacity and social demands. The new struggles will need more than guerrilla tactics against a weakened and bankrupt government. Perhaps this call for change explains the decisive victory of the Workers Party in Brazil’s October 2002 federal elections, opening for a new set of opportunities for the social movements that so strongly contributed to the PT’s success. The Composition, Principles, and Organization of the Workers Party The democratic transition presented political opportunities within a structure that allowed for the growth of peasant and workers’ move-

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ments that had arisen in defence of the rights of a combination of underprivileged groups. A new trade unionism, based on class, was in the front ranks of this struggle. This fits Touraine’s ‘naturalist’ definition of radicalism, and can be considered an autonomous movement, insofar as it is not subjected to state control (see Chapter 1). In Latin America this had never happened before. Within the United Labour Federation (CUT) alone, this movement represented some ten million salaried workers, to which MST added millions of landless peasants mobilized in a bid for agrarian reform. The third element in this movement was the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Workers Party. In the early nineteenth century, anarcho-trade unionists struggled to create an independent proletarian trade unionism in Brazil, but their doctrine forbade the formation of a mass political party. The PCB was the first step towards a genuine workers party in Brazil, but its functioning was undemocratic, and from its first days the PCB has been plagued by divisions that have weakened it and led to several splits. The Partido Trabalhista do Brazil (PTB) was founded in 1945 by Getulio Vargas. Later it was led by Joâo Goulart, and then after being renamed the Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT) its leader was Leonel Brizola. It was never more than a populist movement without political or programmatic commitments to the working class (see Löwy, 2003). From the time of its establishment on a national level (1979–81) the PT’s objective was to be an umbrella for these somewhat disparate social forces, indeed, to unite them into a single movement capable of acting cohesively within a political system the likes of which had been unheard of under previous forms of leadership. Once the period of repression and censorship was over, with the end of the military regime, the PT clearly billed itself as an open political space wherein progressive forces could converge, and in doing so it managed to substitute itself for the progressive Brazilian Catholic Church (see Kawarick and Singer, 1994: 197). With the birth of the PT, for the first time Brazil had a political party that represents millions of workers, a party truly rooted in the working class, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia. The PT, forming what in Gramscian terms would be called a ‘historical bloc,’ can be seen to be the product of a century-long effort by Brazilian workers to form their own distinctive organization to give them the means to take politically independent action. The PT is democratic, pluralistic, and militant. It is inspired by an anticapitalist program and motivated by a social agenda, while it looks ahead to popular democracy in Brazil. However, the PT is not a revolutionary or social demo-

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cratic party. Its social base is diverse and regionally distinct, as are its main organizers: intellectuals, Church activists, trade union leaders, and UPM activists. Strongly influenced by domestic conditions created under the military, which were somewhat altered during the democratic transition, the early discourse and collective action of the PT drew from long experience in opposition and on the margins. As it matures, the party is moulding its identity. Nowadays, the PT tends to play down the intellectual and urban character of its leadership. This marks a distancing from its revolutionary antecedents. Furthermore, the PT has abandoned altogether the violent character of class struggle, as well as the Marxist orthodoxy of an authoritarian political power exercised by a single class – the proletariat. This gradual change in principles and attitudes decreases the potential for social conflict and opens the way to broader class alliances. As Frei Betto has put it, ‘most PT members started out in pastoral groups, moved on to social movements and ended up in the labour movement’ (in Harnecker, 1994: 24). According to Löwy (2003), the setting up of the PT occurred through the convergence of several currents, each one contributing its own flavour and background to the new party. First, the early trade unionists (autênticos) led the initiative and directed the process whereby the PT was constituted as an expression of combative, class-based mass unionism. The breeding ground and symbol of this activism was the industrial (ABC) region of Greater São Paulo – home of the ‘new proletariat.’ Second, this initiative had the support of the rural labour unions and peasant leagues, many of which are religiously based. Third, the PT had the support of the Christian Base Communities (CEBs), church supported labour unions, and peasant groups, and other Christian movements with socialist tendencies. Fourth, former activists from the Communist Party or from armed leftist groups joined the initiative. Fifth, leftist intellectual revolutionary groups of various stripes, among them the Trotskyists, wholeheartedly joined the new party with the aim of advancing their own program demands. And, sixth, individual or university-based intellectuals including sociologists, economists, teachers, writers, journalists, and researchers interested in the labour movement and in Marxist theory, many of whom were linked to the Catholic Church, gave their support. Certainly, founding the PT was a historical meeting between the working class and the opposition intellectuals, two groups that had previously followed similar paths, occasionally converging but more often diverging.

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At the end of the 1970s and during the first half of the 1980s, new political parties emerged in Brazil. Each one defended its own interests by trying to win elections and its own political space. Consequently, social movements became divided. Their adherents began to support political parties according to their leaders’ personal preferences. The early trade unionists, intellectuals, leaders of CEBs, the CPT, and UPMs dedicated themselves to the organization of the PT and CUT. At this time it became increasingly difficult to integrate officlal leadership of the Democractic Movement of Brazilians (MDB) and the national Federation of Agrarian Workers (CONTAG). A flock of opportunists then sought affiliation within the ‘democratic’ opposition, including the PT. The question of the independence of the labour movement in relation to the various groups opposing the military regime arose quite early on. In December 1978, Lula and other labour union leaders rejected the PMDB – a ‘wide democratic coalition’ that opposed the military regime. According to the younger Lula, the working class should ‘participate directly in the political process and manifest the force it represents. And in the political arena, participation means that the working class must establish its own political party’ (Löwy, 2003). At the same time, Lula realized the need for a working-class party to extend the unions’ victories to the whole population. Workplace struggles alone would not lead to an extension of civil rights and to the consolidation of citizenship. Lula also understood the necessity of a broader structure, given that social movements are by definition locally based, and the scope of their interventions remains narrow. Moreover, unions were in danger of becoming corporatist and thus serving as stepping-stones for personal careers (Kowarick and Singer, 1994: 223). Populist leaders inside the PMDB paid little attention to and saw no use for social movements. Bringing with them the corporatist tradition of the Vargas political system, they advocated reviving its rather simplistic organizational schemes. They were in favour of unions that would stem from political parties and follow their race to power. The populists showed no interest in an autonomous labour movement. Lula, however, did not want a return to the Vargas system. He looked forward to building a collective identity for his movement that would reflect the aspirations of a new generation of the left. Löwy (2000) argues that PT discourse is clearly marked by an ethical radicalism that is the product of a sui generis synthesis of Marxist theory and Christian values. It is easy to see why this radicalism would

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raise the hackles of the elites and the media, who would have perhaps lent a more willing ear had the PT become a moderate party with a less uncompromising discourse. Such a mutation could not be put off indefinitely, if the PT was ever to elect any representatives. For this and other reasons, the surviving populists and the traditional left never trusted the founders of the Workers Party. Brazil had no tradition of class-based organizations, and so these were seen as reformist and opportunist. Others even accused their leaders of being government spies and agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Communist Party (Maoist) of Brazil (PCdoB) and leaders of the early peasant movement (the AP) wanted the government-controlled trade unions dismantled, and only then would they participate in trade unionism. According to Lula, ‘the problem at the time was that the majority of the Left wished to transform trade unions into political parties’ (in Harnecker, 1994: 15). Collective action was being built on a multiple and circumstantial identity, an ‘identity of condition,’ which was not recognized in the ‘naturalist’ and class-based vision shared by the surviving leaders of the traditional left (see Melucci, and Chapter 1). However, one of the factors contributing to the PT’s vitality has been its pluralist nature, which has made room, within a decentralized structure, for the accommodation of a variety of factions and currents. Some of these are highly structured and have their own press, physical space, organizational autonomy, and logistics. This diversity is intentional. Diversity has neither divided nor weakened the PT, although there have been a few exceptions where schisms did occur. Diversity forced compromises that subdued the revolutionary potential congruent with the PT’s class-based origins. Early on the PT sought tight links with the more radical branches of liberation theology Christians and with CEB movement which reaches out to millions of the poorest of Brazil’s Christians, both in the cities and the countryside. The first PT national convention was held in October of 1979, in São Bernardo do Campo, the proletarian stronghold of Lula’s metallurgical trade union. The foundations of the new party were laid by electing an interim list of leaders. A brief political statement was approved, which called on all democratic forces to build a mass front against the military dictatorship. The PT proposed to work towards setting up a united labour confederation (CUT), stating that to do so was contingent upon overthrowing the current state-controlled labour union structures. A manifesto and party program were adopted in early 1980.

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According to Löwy (2000), however, many questions and definitions were deliberately left pending to allow a wider debate and the opinions of activists and members to coalesce. Soon after becoming a fully fledged political party, in 1981, the PT membership numbers made a spectacular leap. By late 1982, countrywide the PT already had 245,000 members. For the PT, CEBs, and UPMs, the 1982 electoral campaign was an opportunity to publicize their struggle and strengthen the organization of a popular national network. They mobilized all their energy and resources towards this project. Results, however, were disappointing. The PT won only 3.5 per cent of total votes, and elected only eight federal deputies. The results of the electoral campaign were frustrating for many leaders, in particular because the grassroots ended up voting for the PMDB. The PT did not manage to reach the 5 per cent of votes needed to be recognized as a national party (Keck, 1992: 149). Several factors contributed to this failure at the polls. First, there were the political inexperience, ideological conflicts, and methodological differences within the PT itself (Macaulay, 1995: 2–3). Second, the campaign at the local level, led by CEBs, SABs, and trade union and political leaders was uncoordinated. Third, with the democratic opening, Brazil’s reformist bishops had distanced themselves from politics, and in reaction social leaders and pastoral agencies had left the Church to devote themselves to organizing social movements in support of the PT and CUT. In doing so, they distanced themselves from CEBs and the CPT and thereby lost an important point of contact with the grassroots of the electorate, with as yet no one to substitute for them. According to Yves Lesbaupin (interview, April 1998), the PT also lost the 1982 election because of the system of a ‘coupled’ vote. He pointed out that many people wanted to vote for Lula or other candidates who did not have any real chance of beating the right; but in voting for candidates belonging to different parties, their votes were cancelled. When electoral reform ‘uncoupled’ votes, in 1985, the PT was able to retain many more of the votes that under the previous system would have gone to the PMDB, and thus managed to consolidate its political position. Fortunately, the emergence of CUT in 1983 brought the PT a useful ally from within the working class. According to Keck (1992: 223), ‘the party’s difficulties in combining its efforts with those of the social movements, within the political– institutional sphere, produced serious internal conflicts between 1982 and 1985.’ During this period, the PT assumed a more parliamentary style and opted for what was then named ‘mass socialism.’ In 1984 the

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Table 5.1 Christian Base communities (CEBs) and pastoral members affiliated with the Workers Party (PT), as a percentage of total members, by year Year

Percentage

1979 1980 1981–8 1989

14.7 26.9 44.0 34.9

Source: A.M. Doimo, 1995. A Vez e a Voz do Popular, Rio de Janeiro: Anpocs, 175.

PT participated very actively in the Diretas Já campaign that was a call for direct presidential elections. Millions of citizens joined the largest mass movement ever seen in Brazil, and that contributed to the downfall of the military regime. In conforming with its democratic principles, the PT staunchly refused to endorse ‘indirect’ nomination – by the electoral college – of the new president, Tancredo Neves, who was a post-Varguist leader of the moderate opposition. In the November 1986 elections, the PT doubled its electoral gains, with 6.5 per cent of the votes. Its influence now stretched far beyond its traditional São Paulo stronghold. But it was in the 1988 municipal elections that the PT had its first really important victory at the polls: PT administrations were elected in several cities, most notably in the regional capital of Porto Alegre and in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest metropolis. Shocked by the numbers of Catholics participating in a political party with overt Marxist leanings, the Vatican extended a powerful arm and demanded changes in the hierarchy of the Church in Brazil. This led, for example, to the division of the Archdiocese of São Paulo, the disciplining of Leonardo Boff, the intimidation of Dom Casaldaliga, and the appointment of conservative bishops, and cost the PT a considerable number of its Catholic supporters (see Table 5.1). The PT victories in the principal urban centres mobilized the masses for the 1989 presidential elections. Increasingly, Brazil’s social movements came to support the PT as their representative in politics. When the first direct presidential elections were held, Lula outstripped his rivals from the traditional and moderate left, that is, both the populist Leonel Brizola and the social democrat Mario Covas. In the second round of the 1989 vote, however, Lula found himself alone facing

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right-wing candidate Fernando Collor de Melo, who had the benefit of endorsement from TV Globo Network, the most powerful ‘media machine’ in Brazil. Lula lost by a slim margin, with an impressive 47 per cent of the vote. Collor de Melo was elected in 1989 on a populist and demagogical platform. He promised to ‘hunt down corrupt officials,’ and virtually immediately he implemented a neoconservative economic program that was marked by the privatization of public corporations. However, eventually the self-proclaimed enemy of corruption found himself personally embroiled in a scandal involving misappropriation of public funds. The PT mobilized the opposition, which came to include other political entities. This led to a massive popular uproar throughout Brazil calling for the president’s resignation. The pressure of public opinion – in particular that of the country’s youth which took to the streets in droves – finally forced parliament to declare that the majority of Brazilians had voted in favour of President Collor de Melo’s impeachment. By now the PT had a long experience at the polls, having lost each of the previous three presidential elections: in 1989, 1994, and 1998. These defeats had so dampened the expectations of members that they abandoned the party en masse. By the end of the 1990s membership numbers had fallen from one million in the late 1980s to 300,000 (see Table 5.1). These defeats also motivated some factions to propose other party candidates to replace Lula in the 1998 and 2002 presidential nomination campaigns. These attempts at changing the national leadership of the PT failed because it became clear to a majority in the party that Lula was the only person who could channel the opposition votes. In fact, both times that Lula won in federal elections, he beat historical records. This happened first in 1986 when he was elected federal deputy, and again in the 2002 presidential election, where he took 61 per cent of the vote. In the 1990s, the PT won elections in several municipalities, which gave it a degree of power in some of the states, among them Rio Grande do Sul, Matto Grosso, Piauí, Acre, and the federal district of Brasília. In the cities where the PT took power, it set up grassroots democratic projects. An example of this style is the ‘participative budget,’ which has served as a ‘school of management’ for an entire new generation of administrators and activists. Experience in municipal management boosted the PT’s institutionalization process which, beginning in the mid-1990s, became more pragmatically oriented (Franche, 2000). The PT toned down its radical rhetoric, not however,

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without protest from a variety of left-leaning members, who account for between 40 and 45 per cent of all delegates at the party’s national conventions. Losing to the PSDB in both the 1994 and 1998 elections seemed to finally convince the PT leadership that the party should offer the electorate a more moderate position, even if this might mean adopting a new strategy. For the 2002 campaign, Lula went even further. He talked the PT into accepting a wide spectrum of political alliances, if reluctantly. Furthermore, he made José Alencar Gomes da Silva his partner and vicepresidential candidate. Da Silva was an industrialist, head of the Partido Liberal (PL). In his bid to become president of the republic, in 2002 Lula did what Cardoso had done before him. He applied the clever (and potentially dangerous) strategy that had enabled the PSDB candidate’s victory eight years earlier. As Petras and Veltmeyer (2003) have pointed out, ‘The PT cannot be understood by looking merely at its origins almost a quarter of century earlier. Political parties evolve over time, as do their relations to their original social base of support, sources of finance, party composition, membership in party congresses and internal structures, as the classic sociologists Michels, Pareto and Weber pointed out a long time ago. In the case of PT, the change in relation to the social movements, electoral processes and state machine is crucial.’ The Workers Party in Power On 27 October 2002, during the run-offs to the presidential election, for the fourth time 91.6 million Brazilians went to the polls in a free, direct, and peaceful way. Voting is mandatory for Brazilians. But that only 3 per cent of the electorate either abstained or spoiled their ballots indicates the strength of the electoral process. In addition, this was the second time that a fast and virtually electronic poll was used to count the votes, demonstrating to the international community a technological option to prevent fraud and wasted time. In the end, 61.2 per cent of the electorate, or 52.8 million individuals, voted for PT leader Luis Inácio da Silva (Lula), and 38.7 per cent or 33.3 million voted for José Serra of the PSDB. We may paraphrase Löwy (2003), however, in pointing out that the choice of the people of Brazil did not coincide with the choice of the New York Stock Exchange. The candidate elected was not the one preferred by Soros, numerous other speculators, bankers, investors, finan-

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cial agents, and heads of multinational corporations. Lula was not the favoured candidate of the Wall Street Journal, Economist, IMF, or the Federal Reserve. Lula was not the candidate favoured by the Brazilian oligarchy, which is made up of large landowners and structural adjustment economists – their candidate was José Serra. The winner was a worker, labour unionist, and ex-political prisoner, and so for the first time in the history of Brazil, a labourer was elected president of the republic. This spectacular victory opened a new chapter in the country’s history. According to Coutinho (2003), ‘Lula’s election is certainly the largest ever victory of the Left in Brazil.’ This happened neither because he is a migrant from the northeast nor a former steelworker, but mainly because he rose to leadership in the only large political party of the left that had forged links with social movements. Earlier, João ‘Jango’ Goulart (1961–4) had led a government of the left, but the people did not choose him for the presidency. His social base remained narrow, and so although he could be considered a populist, he was pretty much a solitary leader. Lula is not the first elected leader of the left in Latin America: Salvador Allende won the Chilean elections in 1970. Allende governed for almost four years with the support of the mass party Alianza Popular, to which many have compared the PT. However, Allende was elected with only one-third of the popular vote, and then he won a run-off election in which only the Chilean Congress voted. Lula’s was not a victory for neoconservatism (as was Vicente Fox’s in Mexico), nor that of a middle-range candidate (like Ricardo Lagos in Chile), nor similar to that of Hugo Chavez (in Venezuela), nor even that of a mass movement (as was the case in Ecuador). Lula is the charismatic leader who made the PT possible. His biography is similar to that of many urban Brazilians, as are his steelworker’s language and clothing. This image, however, changed after the 1982 election, when Lula realized that the ‘poor and oppressed’ people he was representing did not vote for him. Lula came to believe that the excluded do not want to be governed by somebody like them, but by somebody who has become successful and escaped poverty. Today, Lula is far from the bearded grassroots steelworker. Nowadays, he looks more like a ‘soft and light’ neoliberal, as his leftist critics see him. This electoral make-up no doubt helped Lula to win the 2002 presidential election. Understandably, the international and national mainstream saw the PT as radical and inexperienced, and Lula as a neo-populist – a phe-

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nomenon they labelled ‘lulism.’ In their view, Lula’s campaign had catered to popular groups, which he intended to use as a broad political base for achieving swift changes in the federal government. To win the presidential election, Lula was said to have made unsustainable promises to the poor. He had spoken against foreign capital and corrupt elites and presented himself as a moralist and saviour of the nation. Lula, however, does not fit the profile of a populist leader, since he is not promoting his own self-interest and patrimony. In addition, he remains accountable to a party-driven discipline and to the broad base he has succeeded in building among the middle-class and the progressive elements of the national elite. A convergence of factors worked in Lula’s favour. First, the PT was poised to lead Brazil at this crossroads of its political history. Second, experience in municipal and state administrations during the late 1980s and 1990s gave the party the credentials it needed to run in a presidential election. Third, the PT chose a ‘soft and light’ electoral strategy (De Oliveira, 2003) aimed at winning over public opinion, as well as the votes of middle-class moderates. Contextual factors may have played a still stronger role. In the first round, the PT attracted a major protest vote against adjustment reforms and their devastating consequences – banners reading ‘Fora FHC’ (Cardoso Go Home) could be seen everywhere and candidates opposing the former administration and policies took 75 per cent of all votes. Brazilians considered the PT to be the most visible and constant oppositional front to the conservatives. As the social and economic situation worsened, the elites and middle classes became more afraid of urban violence than of seeing the PT in power. Thus, Brazilians voted for a leader whom, until then, they had perceived as a sympathetic, if unsophisticated public figure. But surrounded by a team of economists and party organizers, Lula would manage to change this perception (see Table 5.2). From an institutional perspective, the municipal elections of 2000 forecast the 2002 victory. In 1989 Lula almost won the presidency, but he did not at the time have a municipal base. This made the difference in terms of organizational capabilities, administrative expertise, and voter turnout. In the 2000 municipal run, the PT came out against the structural reforms. Interestingly, the PT candidates who won mayorality races won their majorities thanks to radical factions close to the progressive Church, as well as to leaders of social movements. The PT and other opposition to the regime won in twenty-nine of the 200 main Brazilian municipalities – which represents only 3.4 per cent of all munici-

184 Duquette, Galdino, Levy, Marques-Pereira, and Raes Table 5.2 Municipal elections in Brazil, 1996 and 2000, showing the number of municipalities won by each major political party and the percentage change between elections Political party*

1996

2000

Change (%)

PMDB PFL PSDB PPB PDT PTB PT

1,295 1,933 1,921 1,625 1,435 1,382 1,110

1,214 1,007 1,964 1,608 1,286 1,389 1,174

–6.2 7.9 4.6 –2.7 –34.2 1.8 51.3

*See list of abbreviations (p. xiii) for full names of the political parties (in Portuguese, with English translations). Cf. www.jb.com.br/09970593.html and www.correiocidadania.com.br/ed214/editorial.htm (October 2000).

palities, but 20 per cent of presidential votes, or nineteen million votes for the opposition against seventeen million for Cardoso’s allies. By using the same strategy in the 2002 election, the PT radical wing elected twenty-nine of ninety-one federal deputies and four out of ten senators. Once again adjustment reforms were challenged both on principle and because of their effects. MST elected sixteen federal deputies, while the moderates surrounding Lula felt reinforced by his personal victory and were eager to fill major cabinet positions. A municipal election differs from a federal one. It is about local issues, such as school enrolment, minimum income projects, and improvements in sanitation and urban infrastructure, along with broader issues that affect the local economy, such as unemployment, the minimum wage, the availability of energy, and the prices of natural gas and electricity. In a municipal election ethical issues concerning, for example, education, employment, social inclusion, and political participation at the local level are debated. These local issues invariably were linked to the perverse effects of market reforms. The middle class, especially, was hurt when salaries were frozen and public jobs turned private. Furthermore, middle-income and white-collar workers carried a heavy tax burden.6 In contrast, the PT gained support through its participative budget and honest municipal administration, and thus the PT came to be a viable alternative at the federal and state levels, as well. A growing rift among the Brazilian elites played a key role in the 2002 election. First there was an alliance between Lula and the nation-

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alist, Minas Gerais–based elite network surrounding José Alencar (PL), successor to the late Tancredo Neves. Later, new allies came to Lula when Cardoso continued to support his presidential candidate José Serra against the will of his centre-right allies of the PSDB, PMDB, PFL, and PTB. Cardoso even went so far that he sent the federal police to investigate the candidate of his right-wing allies, Roseane Sarney of the PFL. These difficulties would change the unfavourable coalition of forces that had until then prevented a PT victory. During the 2000 campaign, furthermore, Lula had criticized Ciro Gomes (from Ceará), and Garotinho (from Rio de Janeiro). Gomes, of the Partido Popular Socialista (PPS) favoured small changes, essentially wanting to maintain things as they were. He threw his support over to Lula in the second round and soon after became minister of national integration, in charge of planning major civil works projects. Garotinho, an ‘evangelical,’ was unable to muster the social and political forces around him. He, too, supported Lula in the second round, but refused a place in Lula’s cabinet. Thus, a combination of decisive factors, although unexpected, created the necessary conditions for change at the federal level, among them new alliances favouring the left and based on personal preferences; a poorly defined party system that encourages shifting affiliations; divisions among the elites of the right; widespread dissatisfaction with market reforms; and the milder, more acceptable tone of the 2002 PT campaign itself. The Challenge of Governing The international environment is far from favourable to the Lula administration. Many influential countries in the northern hemisphere are headed by centre-right administrations. The economic situation is also unfavourable to Lula, as there is a global recession and a consecutive resurgence of protectionism in the United States and the European Union. In Brazil, economic growth has dwindled from 2 per cent on an annual basis between 1995 and 2000 to zero between 2000 and 2002.7 Lula’s victory is clearly the result of an interplay of endogenous variables, and not of a global trend. Consequently, the new team in office is a composite administration, hastily assembled out of convergent political forces and movements that surround a tightly knit circle of PT ideologues. The most important allies are former president and populist leader Itamar Franco (from Minas Gerais), former president José Sarney

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(from the Amazon region), left-wing populist Leonel Brizola (from Rio de Janeiro), the former governor Ciro Gomes (from Ceará), Senator Antônio Carlos Magalhães (from Bahia), and the south-southeast PMDB oppositional group around its corrupt leader Orestes Quércia.8 The situation meeting Lula when he took office was uncomfortable, to say the least, and for this reason he made immediate concessions to the market. He promised to honour the recent agreements signed with the IMF, which had, in the autumn of 2002, granted Brazil a large line of credit. He extended his alliances to include some centrists and some of those to the right of the political spectrum. Will this be enough to satisfy the interests of capital which insists, as they do, on continuity of economic policies? In 2000, Lula chose as his vice-presidential candidate José Alencar, a textile magnate but also an evangelistic representative of the neopentecostal and charismatic Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD). The choice of Alencar was to get ‘the vote of the marketplace elites,’ as well as ‘the evangelical vote,’ and their support after the election itself. Unlike Cardoso, who had allied himself with the strong PFL, Lula had the forethought to choose a marginal party that has insufficient power to seriously affect governmental policies. Potentially far-reaching cabinet nominations followed the election. Perhaps the most surprising was the nomination of Henrique de Campos Meirelles. He was the ex-president of the BankBoston and later of FleetBoston’s Global Bank and a PSDB conressional deputy. He got the key post of head of the Central Bank of Brazil, a sign of support for economic orthodoxy sent to appease the financial markets. The left protested, and PT senator Heloisa Helena of Amazonia refused to confirm the nomination. Questions also surround the nomination of Luis Fernando Furlan, a conservative businessman and a powerful exporter with strong networks abroad; he was made minister of Development, Industry and Trade. The nomination to the Agriculture portfolio of Roberto Rodrigues was also met with controversy. Rodrigues is a large landowner and head of the Brazilian Association of Agribusiness, who, under Cardoso, was behind the proposal insisting that agrarian reform did not apply to land occupied illegally by landless peasants. The new president, however, has made clear that he wishes to review the priorities of the federal government and set new goals. In matters of governance, Lula is looking for a model that emphasizes negotiation of solutions to conflicts among diverse and competing interests, rather than a polarization between radicals and conservative hardliners (Kowarick and Singer, 1994). Lula has the majority in nei-

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ther the House nor the Senate, most provincial governors are hostile to his project, and Vice-President Alencar is not a great friend of the workers. If Lula, because of an accident or illness, were to transfer power to his second-in-command, Brazil would find itself run by a right-wing candidate – elected by the votes of the left and the workers. For the time being, the left, the PL, and other allies of the coalition remain pro-government, as long as Lula’s popularity remains high and adequate privileges to their respective constituencies are maintained. Within the executive, high-level individuals representing small parties must coexist with each other and the PT. This is a coalition government where key posts have been given to representatives of the various dominant elites. The current challenge is to effectively include the PMDB and the Partido Progressista Brasileiro (PPB). This is no easy task, given the internal divisions within the PMDB. Without PMDB support, however, it will be very difficult to obtain a clear majority in Congress for essential reforms such as proposed in the Health and Retirement Plan, for example. The plan is considered a constitutional issue, and any reform of the public sector’s pension plan needs the approval of three-fifths of Congress, which means 308 of the 513 deputies and forty-nine of the eighty-one senators. Securing this approval will not be easy. The government also needs a majority around other reforms, including those involving taxation and social security. Nevertheless, the locus of power remains in the hands of PT moderates. Evidence for this is the nomination of Antonio Palocci, himself a founding member of the PT, to the finance portfolio. The left is not absent from the cabinet. Olivio Dutra was appointed to head the Ministry of Cities. Dutra is a former union leader, a high-profile member of the left wing of the PT, and a former governor of Rio Grande do Sul. In addition, Miguel Rossetto, a former vice-governor of Rio Grande do Sul, was given Agrarian Development, with a mandate to accelerate agrarian reform. Although MST celebrated Rosetto’s nomination, it has been declared dangerous and counterproductive by the National Association of Rural Producers (ANPRU), a protection service for the plantations of rural producers founded in 2000. MST maintains that ANPRU conducts paramilitary activities which will increase the already considerable number of assassinations (1,416 in sixteen years) of rural workers and activists. The nomination was also opposed by the Democractic Rural Union (UDR), the powerful and reactionary political organization of landowners. PT Senator Marina Silva was named Minister of the Environment. She began her political career

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with the Amazon ecologist and labour unionist Chico Mendes, and is a declared opponent of genetically modified organisms (which are banned at present in Brazil). José Dirceu, an earlier president of the PT, was made chief of staff, a kind of minister without portfolio. Dirceu was a guerrilla fighter under the military dictatorship and a long-time activist of the Brazilian left (though open to political alliances with the right). Many PT members and sympathizers are still reluctant to accept the alliances that the PT and Lula have arranged in order to get themselves elected and to form a viable cabinet (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2000). Lula is fully aware that the PT itself is probably his main problem in the short term, and he is working to maintain discipline among the party membership. He can count on the help of Dirceu (his main political coordinator), José Genoíno (current president of the PT), and moderates such as congressional deputy Paulo Bernardo (PT-PR, who has agreed to argue openly in the media with PT radicals in defence of the government’s policies). The ministries, filled with members with overlapping functions and generally drawn from the PT, whether moderates or radicals, have been reminded that they remain accountable solely to the administration (Folha de São Paulo, 4 April 2003). Lula must maintain control over the PT and its radical wing. The party is by tradition fairly well-disciplined. Even its radicals, who are fond of heated debates, can be expected to vote with the majority. Many of them had made it clear that they did not support the government on the proposed reform of the Health and Retirement Plan; nevertheless, they ended up voting with the majority. The same scenario repeated itself with a vote on a constitutional amendment concerning regulation of the financial system (Folha de São Paulo, 4 April 2003). Within this ‘pluralist’ government, how much leeway does the president have? Is he in danger of becoming a hostage, inexorably reduced to making one concession after the other to the conservatives in his government? Mouterde (2002) contends that any deviation from the path of conservative economic orthodoxy could provoke a rapid withdrawal of foreign capital, a subsequent devaluation of the currency, and consequent inflation. The administration will be under constant and intense pressure from the IMF, the World Bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the U.S. government itself, friendly governments in Latin America and Europe, the dominant classes in Brazil, and the media. All of these influences will be pushing in a single direction with something like the following combination of demands: curb popular aspira-

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tions; set aside radical rhetoric; accept, as previous administrations have done, the rules of the game as dictated by international agencies and foreign creditors; protect the interests of domestic and foreign capital; and do not put up any opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Should these pressures overcome the government’s determination, it will become nothing but a somewhat more socially oriented version of the preceding administrations of the New Republic: a government that may perhaps be defined as ‘social-liberal.’ Although it is early days yet to evaluate the political performance of this new administration, Petras and Veltmeyer (2003) have made a first attempt. It is safe to say that analysts who give undue weight to endogenous variables will tend to overestimate the administration’s elbow room. This will be in the belief that if the PT can establish consensus within its party, it will be able to resist international pressures, and this would allow the government to move forward with its programs aimed at the overhaul of the pension system, as well as agrarian and fiscal reform. In contrast, analysts who give undue weight to exogenous factors will underestimate the government’s leeway. Global recession and the related precariousness of the domestic economy, Brazil’s burden of debt, and the agreements signed with international bodies, in particular the IMF, will be discussed in support of this position. To better appreciate and evaluate what is plausible or at least possible, in the next section we will examine the recent actions of this new administration, beginning with its relationship with social movements, in particular those that have been examined in detail in the present volume. Towards an Improbable Social Pact Not surprisingly, the attitude of organized groups in their dealings with the new administration remains prudent, since they are more independent from the state than was the older blend of social movements. It will be essential to make a pact between these movements and the authorities, and any such pact will depend on the parties’ reading of the PT’s victory in the current context. Two hypotheses of what may develop in the future are possible. In the first, the PT victory is seen to be a nationwide alliance that is a product of the mobilization and convergence of Brazil’s social movements. What happened closely approximates what we, following Tarrow, have referred to as the ‘optimal phase’ of the cycle of protest (see Chapter 1 and de Oliveira, 2003).

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This presupposes an organic link between civil society and a government that it is seen to have elected and would anticipate that the former would adopt a conciliating attitude towards the latter. Given the inexorable constraints on the administration, the agenda it adopts would be more pragmatic than reformist. This would, in turn, entail a return of the ‘moderate’ alternative much like the one that emerged in the early days of the democratic transition. However, as we have also seen in observing the evolution of the social movements, the obstacles they encountered, and their resort to radicalism over the past decade, any such hypothesis rests on shaky ground. The second hypothesis gives greater attention to the overall context and thus offers a more qualified appraisal of the social movements, which can be seen as disintegrating into a multitude of fractions, as is said to be the case in the descending phase of the collective mobilization cycle. In this view, the PT victory is a sign of the resounding failure of the previous administration, coupled with a combination of unfavourable socioeconomic circumstances attributable to exogenous factors, and first among these are the economic liberalization and structural adjustment processes. The current administration is a composite group of former members of social groups. Among their ranks are committed activists, but also some opportunists, all of them surrounding a solid core of political organizers representing the labour unions. The composite nature of the new administration demands watchfulness on the part of civil society, especially in light of the very uncertain economic circumstances that prevail. Civil society, given the weakness of the PT’s position, must remain steadfast in its demands. This will strengthen the position of the left wing of the party when faced with the more right-wing elements which are at present in charge of the economy. Civil society needs to maintain its independence from the state and remain vigilant. As long as there is still room to manoeuvre, it must pursue a radical approach, given the uncertain context in which international influences are numerous and powerful. This is the hypothesis adopted by most organized groups, for example, associations of women, the homeless, and peasants. This attitude is a natural enough legacy of the exclusionary policies advanced by traditional models of development that led opposition groups to resort to radicalism, in one form or another. MST has already adopted this interpretation of how events should proceed. MST appreciates the PT’s victory but expresses serious reser-

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vations: ‘The Left generally, and popular forces in particular, are diluted and disorganized ... The government must be in permanent negotiation with us ... The proposal presented by the majority sectors of the party in power, that of a social pact, has as its unstated objective to gain concessions from the social movements, up to and including the alienation of the historical rights of workers, in the name of governability.’9 MST is sticking to its originally defined mandate: ‘organizing the poor in rural areas, making them aware of their rights, and mobilizing them to struggle for real change’ (Folha de São Paulo, 16 Feb. 2003). MST’s tone, however, is markedly more conciliatory than it was towards the preceding administration. An MST resolution of 8 November 2002, states: ‘We will maintain the necessary autonomy from the state, but we will cooperate as much as is possible with the new government in order that the agrarian reform we have been dreaming of for so many years be accomplished.’ The government will be judged on its results, not on its intentions. Neither CUT, the Homeless Movement, the CMP, the women’s movements, nor the progressive arm of the Catholic Church (which is on record as denouncing the FTAA), have as yet agreed to be partners in a possible ‘social pact.’ The same wait-and-see attitude is, unsurprisingly, prevalent in the radical wing of the PT itself. Sensing that the project of a social pact was in jeopardy, the government was quick to establish a Council for Social and Economic Development, which held several high-level meetings with leaders from business, trade unions, and NGOs. In line with the general ‘consensual’ philosophy propounded by the government, the council’s objective is to bridge differences and establish a base for discussion. In one such meeting, Minister of Industry and Commerce Luiz Fernando Furlan declared, ‘We must put our differences aside to achieve consensus.’ Jorge Gerdau, president of the Gerdau Company, concurred, saying, ‘We must create jobs, increase internal market demand and exports. Everyone must make some kind of effort to make things happen in this country.’ The president of CUT, João Felicio, also spoke out in favour of the social pact and echoed the suggestion that ‘there will be no winners nor losers, because our goal is to arrive at a consensus on the necessary reforms that will help the Brazilian economy to grow again.’10 Social movements might be seduced into participating in the federal decision-making process through an extension of the participative budget. The ‘Governing Program for Brazil,’ adopted at the PT’s twelfth national convention (December 2001) explicitly calls for such

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participation. The state, it says, must be democratized through ‘the operationalization of a participative budget to be implemented at the central level of decision.’ The experience of earlier municipal administrations, notably in São Paulo between 1988 and 1992, bears a lesson. In the midst of the euphoria surrounding grassroots participation in setting the agenda of the municipal government, urgent problems accumulated, and with them the need for further flexibility, speed, and efficiency in solving them. The qualities required by an efficient administration strengthened the perception that social movements are slow, vacillating, and make decisions of uneven quality. The managers came to understand that social movements involve only a minority of people and, furthermore, are unable to provide a broad overview of needs and interests because of their local, fragmented, and particularist nature (Kowarick and Singer, 1994: 238–9). The leaders of the radical wing, who are eager to support the participative budget, are still a minority in the PT. After all, most people believe that the electoral victory was not the result of the mass movement in its ascendancy, nor of a convergence of winning forces, but rather, that the upset at the polls resulted from division among elites, together with an emotional, American-style marketing campaign. Lula may reinforce his personal power, they allege, but he cannot rely on the social movements as spontaneously as did, for example, Salvador Allende a generation ago. Lula’s victory does not coincide with the rise of the social movement. On the contrary, all through the 1990s, the social movements experienced a mounting crisis in their ranks in response to the economic recession (Teoria e Debate, no. 52: 17). Still favoured by public opinion, the PT leader and head of state must turn his immediate attention to the party and its growing number of dissidents. Many defections are expected (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2003). They will reflect the difficulties of incorporating radical proposals into the fabric of a government program conducted under strict monetarist and orthodox economic lines. An opposition party coming to power always represents a crucial period. Necessarily electoral victory redefines the relationship between the leadership and the membership, and the PT is not going to be an exception to this rule. The Issue of Social Policies Inspired by Lula’s personal commitment to the poor, the administration in Brasília has established the Zero Hunger program. This highly

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symbolic program is intended as a response to the demands of civil society and is aimed at fostering the social pact project. The Instituto da Cidadania (Citizenship Institute) initiated and designed this program as an emergency project, and presented it as the president’s personal priority during his first year in office. The goal of Zero Hunger is to alleviate abject misery and the concomitant social unrest, both in urban centres and in the countryside. It includes the simultaneous establishment of twenty action groups that will constitute the framework of an integrated economy, provide support for small family farming, provide a minimum wage to workers, award primary and secondary school grants, distribute food and cooking gas stamps, and run the Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil (Program for the Eradication of Child Labour, or PETI) that was set up in 2000 offering children between the ages of seven and fourteen an alternative to labour. Zero Hunger is a far-reaching project that also includes stocking local public warehouses and offering necessities to the neediest at below-market prices. The goal of these actions is to allow small farmers to embrace the vision of social development that is now being put forward by the federal government.11 A commercialization project has been announced by the Council of Food Security (CONSEA). It will examine rural settlements with two objectives in mind. First, whether they can produce foodstuffs to assist the Zero Hunger program, and second, whether their surplus can be sold commerically. Most of what is produced, however, is needed for local consumption, and there is not much surplus available for transit to other regions. Peasants have little access to credit and technical assistance and, until now, have not been involved in any commercial processes or endeavours. Among the three million family farms, only 500 can be described as well-organized and productive settlements. In accordance with the pricing rules currently in effect, Brazil’s small farmers are in no position to compete in the marketplace. Production is small, quality is not homogeneous, and the farmers have no resources for dry storage facilities. The new policy on minimum pricing does not provide subsidies to producers in rural settlements. All developed countries subsidize their agriculture with resources that reach upwards to U.S.$1 billion a day. In Brazil, the total amount of subsidies is approximately U.S.$150 million a year, and essentially it is channelled to large farms that export meat, cattle, orange juice, and soybeans (see Delfin Neto, in Carta Capital, June 2002). Enrique Iglesias, president of the International Development Bank

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liked the ideas for a social pact and the Zero Hunger program. He reserved U.S.$6 billion for them, stressing that government projects should give priority to education and health. Iglesias announced that this IDB aid was forthcoming in November 2002 in São Paulo, during a meeting with the newly elected president. Also discussed at his meeting was the integration of South American countries. Furthermore, Iglesias asked that a Ministry of Cities be set up, which the PT agreed to do. Finance Minister Antonio Palocci pointed out yet again that the IDB has an important capacity in offering institutional support that goes beyond only making resources available. But opinions differ sharply among officers in international agencies. David de Ferranti, vice-president of the IBRD division in Latin America, has criticized these socially oriented programs as being both expensive and inefficient.12 Responding to this criticism, Minister of Food Security José Graziano emphasized the emergency character of the Zero Hunger program and that the government would adopt a food distribution policy only for communities whose situation could be seen as a public calamity. Graziano also declared that, above and beyond this emergency work, basic food baskets would be provided to people in isolated communities with pressing needs and in those where meals are prepared communally and conditions are abysmal. The first case refers to indigenous and quilombo (rural communities of descendants of Black slaves), and the second to existing settlements. The people in these communities are to receive basic food baskets during an initial period of three months, for a total value of U.S.$500,000 a month. Defence Minister José Viegas announced that the armed forces will participate in the program – specifically in the reception, distribution, and donation of food. Help from other institutions has been solicited. The post office system, for example, will collect food donations. The Brazilian Institute of Volunteers presented Lula with a thirty-four-page letter, in April 2003, providing detailed orientation for volunteers wishing to participate in the program. As reported in the Folha de São Paulo on 3 April 2003, Milu Villela, president of the Institute, said this letter had been prepared because many of the calls to Zero Hunger were from people asking how individuals and groups could give a hand. Brazil has diverted U.S.$800 million, originally intended to buy fighter planes for the modernization of its air force, to the Zero Hunger program (Löwy, 2003). In addition, the team responsible for fighting hunger and strengthening family agriculture proposed a reduction in the operational costs of the program tied to credits worth U.S.$300 mil-

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lion. Since the government does not have this amount available in its budget, it will use resources from the Fundo de Amparo ao Trabalhador (Workers Compensation Fund, or FAT). In April 2003, it asked banks to reduce two tariffs: the interest rate on loans (which was 8.4 per cent a year) and the administration fee (U.S.$3 a month) for individual contracts. Agrarian reform is closely tied to these two programs. In 1994 Lula promised that if he were elected president, he would settle 800,000 families. In 1998 he increased this figure to one million. In June 2002, however, he withdrew from this commitment and approved a document that proposes to settle 500,000 families in four years. During the closing session of its Sixteenth Congress, in April 2003, the CPT published a document that included directives and challenges for the year 2003. This document expressed a clear sense of frustration in relation to agrarian reform. In it, the CPT demanded that the federal government adopt a ‘clear-cut position in favour of agrarian reform, against the latifúndio, in favour of limiting the size of agrarian properties, and in favour of democratizing the tenure structure.’ The CPT finds that reform ought to give priority to the expropriation of land that serves no social function, but by remaining idle encourages the formation of private militias which, in turn, criminalizes social movements and leads to the apprehension and persecution of peasant leaders. Finally, the CPT complained about the government’s tardiness in nominating superintendents for INCRA and for the Instituto Brasileiro do MeioAmbiente (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and the Renewal of National Resources, or IBAMA). In conclusion, the CPT document denounced the reported increase in cases of slave labour in the countryside (4 April 2003). In April 2003, the government also announced that it was making available U.S.$2 billion for the construction, purchase, and repair of low-income housing. It also envisions a minimum salary and wide access to property programs, as economic tools to be implemented in the redistribution of wealth. My First Job is a new program aimed at the rapidly increasing contingent of twenty-one million unemployed people, a sharp rise from eleven million in 1994 (Teoria e Debate, no. 52: 37). By midway through this administration’s term, a further ten million jobs are to be created by the tourist industry and by reforestation of the Atlantic coastal zones, with the support of the G7 environment program, another initiative linked to the Zero Hunger program. Earmarking money is one thing. Channeling it into the social sphere

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is quite another, given the weight and slow pace of the federal apparatus. The tendency to postpone spending and save public monies is following the same pattern as that of the last of the Cardoso years, bringing back harsh memories of what happened to the program to fight dengue fever. For example, only U.S.$10 million of the U.S.$100 million approved for sewage infrastructure in the previous budget is being spent. By early April 2003, only 0.18 per cent of the 2003 budget had been effectively deployed. This means that in its first two months in office, Lula’s administration has already saved U.S.$7 billion (6.6 per cent of Brazil’s GDP), which is being used to pay interest arrears on the foreign debt (Folha de São Paulo, 10 April 2003). In conclusion, one major accomplishment remains: the Zero Hunger program. As an umbrella for smaller programs in the cities and the countryside, it will take some time before its results become apparent. In the first hundred days of this administration, concessions from different sectors and forces of society had already made a difference between the status quo and social reform. Many more concessions are needed to ensure this administration’s viability, and additional initiatives with social priorities must be launched. Between Hope and Pragmatism or the Politics of Patience Brazil’s Law of Fiscal Responsibility stipulates that during the last two quarters of a government’s mandate, it is not allowed to assume commitments involving expenses that it will not be able to pay for either in the remaining term of its mandate or during the following year. This rule, however, did not prevent Cardoso from leaving his successor a costly inheritance, with debt residues of approximately U.S.$5 billion for the years 2001 and 2002. For this reason, Minister of Planning and Budget Guido Mantega decided to freeze U.S.$2.5 billion promised for building projects that had not yet started. In the country overall, some 1,000 public construction projects were interrupted because the federal government had not paid its contractors. The National Confederation of Municipalities has claimed that about 1,500 of Brazil’s municipalities could declare bankruptcy, stop their public construction projects, freeze contracts to negotiate their losses and fines, and then prosecute the federal government as responsible party. Had Cardoso honoured these expenses, the GDP surplus posted for the last year of his government would have been below the 3.9 per cent of total expenditures (U.S.$18 billion) required under the IMF accords.

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Shortly before leaving office, Cardoso signed a decree which launched more than 2,000 contracts (amounting to U.S.$250 million) for urbanization and infrastructure projects. Just days before the end of their mandate, the 584 congressional deputies and senators were granted U.S.$300,000 each for their constituencies in exchange for their votes in favour of Cardoso’s huge 2003 budget with its enormous deficit – that would tie Cardoso’s successors to his agenda. Because of Cardoso’s last budget, considerable monies will also have to be reserved to pay the 2001–2 budget’s deficit. All this has left Cardoso’s successors very little leeway. Fully aware of these deficits, Cardoso took measures to guarantee an additional income of U.S.$2 billion for the government in the course of 2003 by raising taxes on gasoline from U.S.$0.50 to U.S.$0.80 a litre and by cutting U.S.$6 billion (20 per cent) from non-mandatory expenses. The Ministry of Sport, for example, saw its allocation cut by U.S.$20 million, which represents more than 90 per cent of its budget. The Ministry of Cities and the Ministry of National Integration also saw huge budget cuts, while still burdened with deficits of U.S.$200 million left over from 2001–2. In 1994, when Cardoso first became president, Brazil’s foreign debt was U.S.$128 billion. During an eight-year period, its exports totalled U.S.$200 billion, while the debt nearly doubled, reaching U.S.$258 billion in 2002. Brazil’s creditors have also lost money, as the titles to Brazil’s foreign debt are being negotiated at less than 50 per cent of their value. Meanwhile, the issue of domestic debt is also of great concern. The public debt rose from 28 per cent of GDP in July 1994 to 64 per cent of GDP in September 2002. Currently, the government spends U.S.$70 billion a year to pay the combined interest on the domestic and foreign debts, and the interest rate in Brazil is 19.75 per cent compared with 2 per cent in Japan and 2.5 per cent in New York (Teoria e Debata, no. 52: 33). Yet despite tight budgets, inherited obligations, and fiscal problems, President da Silva seems determined to modify the previous government’s orientations. His first official decrees demonstrate that he is finding a way to convince everyone to make necessary concessions. For example, the PT managed to convince Congress to pass the PEC tariff, which may serve to prevent the investment of foreign speculative capital in Brazil, at a time when the country’s economy is in crisis, and there is an exodus of U.S.$1 billion per week to foreign countries (Carta Capital, June 2002). Following the new government’s logic of ‘investment in production,’ Brazil will accept foreign capital when it is

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for setting up a factory, setting up production possibilities, and/or when investors commit to reinvesting earnings within the country. In its 2001 ‘Governing Program for Brazil,’ the PT had proposed that Brazil join forces with other developing countries to force an ‘audit and renegotiation process dealing with external public debt.’ The new government also has to administer a U.S.$5 billion deficit in the workers’ health and pension plan (Instituto Nacional de Seguro Social, or INSS) which it inherited from the previous administration. From the beginning, Lula has insisted that pension reform will not touch the rules of the private pension plans. His objective is to raise the number of INSS taxpayers. He has negotiated with the state governors to raise the retirement pension contribution for retired workers who earn more than U.S.$400 a month and for workers who earn above U.S.$600 and want a full retirement plan. He had prepared for protest from his social base, as the principal budget and fiscal measures are likely to harm his supporters. CUT, for example, marched on Brasília to protest these increases, arguing that only the workers from the private sector will pay a total U.S.$500,000 a year, corresponding to 2.35 million taxpayers or 10 per cent of the total INSS. This contradicts an earlier statement that the reform would reduce income tax payments among middle-wage workers, in exchange for hiking the tax burden on private fortunes and inheritances. Finally, Lula chose to ignore MST’s pressing calls for reform. Instead, he has kept in force a previous decree (falling under the Constitutional Disappropriation Act) that forbids unilateral occupation of unused land. This decision calmed the wealthy landowners and the UDR, who had feared a powerful wave of land occupations under the new administration. In reaction, the CPT adopted a tougher position, however. It issued a statement denouncing the ‘persistence of repressive government practices from the past, including a temporary measure prohibiting the scrutiny of occupied lands that prevents the advancement of agrarian reform’ (Final Report of the CPT to the 16th National Congress). Conclusions The PT is a party that was initially built from below, from the grassroots. As an individual from the working class, a union activist, and a national politician, Lula is the epitome of this movement. From the start, he committed himself to building a democratic, pluralist, and

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transparent party that discourages elitism and opportunism in its ranks. He permitted and invited free speech and could not, therefore, prevent distinct groups from forming around opposing factions. The three main factions in the PT are the older one for which the priorities are collective action and close relations with social movements; the one for which parliamentary struggle is the priority, particularly since in 1986 the Constituent Assembly established a clear framework for moving ahead in federal politics; and a minority faction composed of party members who were locally elected to manage the daily affairs of the large cities, all of them crippled with huge logistic problems. This third group has made a major contribution in terms of experience and organization. ‘By becoming an exemplary opposition party on the municipal, state, and federal levels, the PT did not limit itself to criticism and opposition, but was also capable of formulating constructive proposals and creating alternatives. Vast sectors of public opinion began to see in the platforms of the PT a message suggesting an alternative political project’ (Kowarick and Singer, 1994: 236). Two main periods of mobilization can be identified in the history of the PT. The first was from 1980 to 1983, when the strongest PT social forces went out into the countryside and mobilized sympathizers and strengthened the legitimacy of the party. The second, 1985 to 1989, was marked by the widespread frustration with the reformist left (PMDB, PCB, and PCdoB) which had supported and participated in the conservative governments of the early phases of the transition. During the 1990s, the PT electoral victories in municipalities and states slowly, but surely, eroded the power of the right. Meanwhile, public opinion came to identify the political-ideological presence of the PT in Brazilian politics as the most coherent oppositional force, giving its members additional motivation and organizational strength (Gadotti and Pereira, 1989; Harneck, 1994: 112). The PT’s electoral gains grew by leaps and bounds. The party waited only two years to win its first municipality (Diadema) and a state capital (Fortaleza). However, it had to wait thirteen years to head a federal ministry, sixteen years to run a state government, and twenty-two years to win the presidency. This growth trend sent a strong message to the elites that something more than a protest vote was emerging in Brazil at the grassroots, opening the way to a new political culture. The vision of a social pact to define and promote social movements alongside the state apparatus has always been a contentious issue in the PT. It remained so throughout the 2002 electoral campaign, and after.

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The issue is one of either ‘governance for all’ or of governance by the party membership and its allies, with their ideas and demands. Beyond this concern there remains the paramount issue of social movements acting in close contact with the government. In its early days, this was a prime cause of breaks with former PT allies. It was because of conflicts around this issue, in the late 1980s, that the realist Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the survivor Leonel Brizola distanced themselves from the PT and created their own political parties – the Cardoso-led PSDB and the Brizola-led PDT – in hopes that they could exercise a more personal power over a newfound membership of moderate followers. Moreover, in the years immediately preceding the PT presidential victory, the national party in opposition had to deal with newly elected PT administrations in several states and municipalities, where they were bound to administer tight budgets and implement the adjustment programs put forth by the federal government. After much discussion and soul-searching, it was decided that the National Committee of the PT would not participate in any further state or municipal governments, PT or not, that put forth structural adjustment programs. This decision made Luiza Erundina (at the time mayor of São Paulo) and Vitor Buais (at the time governor of the state of Espirito Santo) leave the PT and affiliate themselves with the PSB. These experiences certainly led to some bitterness among members and friends of the expelled members and could have weakened the party considerably. The 2002 victory put an end to such ruminations. Now, fully aware that he was heading a coalition of people who often have little in common, Lula has put particular emphasis on concentrating on decisions that will advance his own agenda. The organizational scheme of the PT’s forthcoming public actions remains blurred, reflecting inconsistencies within the party. An important source of internal party disputes occurred around the issue of interference of the national executive in subjects concerning the regional executive and grassroots groups, especially in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Espirito Santo. The PT executive insists that it respects the organizational autonomy of the party base and its allies, while the elected executive of the party must be responsible for designing the strategy. The national executive finds it necessary to have a flexible type of organization, making it possible for the PT to quickly react to immediate challenges, such as those posed in Congress. This choice, however, slows the constant flow of demands that keep rising to the top through the ordinary channels of political participation. Furthermore, collective

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action is fuelled by a growing awareness of issues at stake at the grassroots level. This is yet another cause of internal party conflict: Should it be a true party of the masses, which responds quickly to their demands through frank negotiations and appropriate resource allocation, or a coterie of white-collar workers and managers, who will too easily blend into the traditional, slow-moving machinery of the federal government (Ozai, 1995)? The PT has invested substantial resources in election campaigns, even though it believes that democracy should not be reduced to the simple act of voting. Responsive, in turn, to the party’s interest in rising to national politics, the PT grassroots has consistently voted and remained faithful during the past twenty-two years, with a hardcore following of 17 per cent of the popular vote. That Lula won the runoff elections of 2002 with 61 per cent of the popular vote is thanks to these 17 per cent of voters who strategists had managed to gather in previous turnouts and who came out in the first turn. In contrast, the right made a poor showing in 2002 and was no threat to Lula’s campaign. Poor voter turnout, in general, is becoming a worldwide phenomenon. This is as much a weakness of postmodern political movements in North America and Europe as it is of right-wing political parties that represent the Brazilian elite and middle class, many of whose members did not show up in October 2002. There is a paradox in the fact that the left, in Brazil as in many other Latin American countries, represents an electoral majority – even beyond the popular classes – yet, at the same time, appears everywhere to be on the defensive. Once elected, the left seems incapable of setting its own agenda. This leads to tensions between its militant base and party officials. As with the left in much of Europe and North America, in Brazil the left is in an identity crisis and is searching for models that can serve as reference points. The weakening of the socialist model, from as early as the beginning of the democratic transition, has left the intellectual elite confused and divided. It has also caused an apparently permanent cleavage between the liberal and social moderates of the PSDB and the more classic leftists of the PT. It has even, as we have seen, pushed some ideological leftists, such as Luiza Erundina, towards the right, which gave them a poor welcome and afforded them no political power. The electoral system of the democratic transition seems designed to encourage factionalism and dissidence. Its form of presidentialism was chosen in an attempt to give an image of balance. Lula’s government will

202 Duquette, Galdino, Levy, Marques-Pereira, and Raes

probably not be able to escape this apparently fatal flaw. For the Brazilian form of presidency is linked to the history and political economy of a society marked by rapid changes and brutal sociological dislocations which are a direct effect of the increasing globalization of markets. In addition, this is a society that has, outside of its immediate geographical area, few levers that can influence the course of this globalization. Yet, as we have seen in our examination of the difficult but stimulating experience of social movements, the democratic transition in Brazil has opened a new array of political opportunities for those wishing to embark on the path of self-organization within new forms and models, such as feminism, urban communitarianism, and rural collectivism. It is precisely such alternative practices, such new forms of discourse, and such spaces open to the creation of an identity of condition that represent the potential for the necessary renewal of the repertoire of collective action on the left. The promise held out by these experiments in participative management, among social movements as well as in the leftist wing of the PT, can be summarized in a set of characteristics that appear to be essential to the consolidation of Brazilian democracy. These experiments serve as a training ground for the new generation coming from underprivileged backgrounds, giving them the tools and confidence necessary for public expression of their concerns using political language. This is a new experience in Brazil. These experiments offer alternate models with the potential to replace mediocre state networks. They are the prototypes of future institutions that will be established as the will and the means to do so are developed. The available means are modest, but they can be efficient. Here as elsewhere, in a world plagued by market globalization, much will have to be done with very little. If these experiments prove sustainable, they will increasingly inspire and influence government action, no matter what weight is brought to bear by international and contextual pressures. Since the days of the debt crisis twenty years ago, these crises seem to dictate the developmental model in Brazil as everywhere else in Latin America. These experiments will increase their influence in direct measure with the pressure exerted by the current economic model which was set up in conjunction with structural adjustment programs. This model has pushed the marginal populations, and even the middle classes, to the limits of their capacity to endure. Many – intellectuals, political reformers, the urban poor, and landless peasants – have been pressured into a ‘radicalism of survival.’ It is now up the PT to establish with these

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social forces durable and credible alliances. These are the necessary preconditions for the creation of the social pact. Durable and trustworthy alliances are essential if the country is to be administered without falling into the trap of collaborative corporatism. The first months of Lula’s administration showed that the government wishes to maintain a respectable distance from social movements, and social movements have adopted much the same stance. It appears that reciprocal autonomy has advantages, and both groups are aware of this. If the government does set up public and political channels of communication with civil society, and slowly but surely undertakes the construction of civil society’s social project (the promises of which carried it to power), it will have accomplished a lot. It will have the foundations for an economic, social, and sustainable model of development that will be a better reflection of popular traditions and of their modes of organization than are the generally elitist models of Europe and North America. A Herculean task awaits this administration, a task that none of its predecessors dared undertake with any true determination: the significant reduction of the shocking income disparity that remains one of the intolerable characteristics of Brazil. If this government turns its back on those who elected it, it will put the country at risk of a wave of radicalism the likes of which it has never yet seen. It will be pressured towards the right, towards international allies far more interested in the profits to be derived from Brazil’s riches than in assisting the government in its difficult task of governing. Such an administration will not meet with success in its daily work of administering and developing Brazil. It will become an empty shell, as so many preceding political formations before it which arrogantly used the popular vote without doing anything for the people in return. Whether Inácio da Silva’s government takes its cue from civil society, or whether it attempts only to master it, or simply to ignore its aspirations, the guiding forces and the innumerable participants in these social movements will pursue their long march towards greater levels of political participation, in their desire to ensure, for themselves and the generations following them, a future graced with better conditions than they and their predecessors have ever enjoyed. notes 1 Figures from FIPE. 2 For the year 1997–8, APOIO’s budget was approximately U.S.$85,000. For

204 Duquette, Galdino, Levy, Marques-Pereira, and Raes

3 4

5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

the year 1999 it rose to U.S.$126,289, and it rose again in 2000 to U.S.$171,237. “Relatório dos 20 Anos da CPT,” in Folha de São Paulo, www.uol.com.br/ bol/pol/semterra/terra17.htm Teoria e Debate, no. 52, Dec. 2002 / Jan.–Feb. 2003: 10–12. We use the term ‘neoliberalism’ here as signifying deregulation, privatization, and liberalization (see Faucher and Armijo, 2000). Folha de São Paulo, 29 Oct. 2000, www.eleicoes.uol.com.br/eleicoes/ segundoturno. Brazil has approximately 5,124 municipalities; 15% of Brazil’s budget goes to the federal and provincial governments (Lesbaupin, 1996). Taxes today represent 33% of the GDP, i.e., U.S.$280 billion. (Teoria e Debate, no. 52: 34). Teoria e Debate, no. 52: 32. Folha de São Paulo, 16 April 2003. From various MST analyses of the political situation after Lula’s victory. www.lula.org.br (8 Nov. 2002). www.estado.estadao.com.br/editoriais/2003/03/05/pol011.html www.lula.org.br, 7 Nov. 2002.

references Coutinho, Carlos N. 2003. ‘O Estreito Fio da Navalha.’ Teoria e Debate 52 (Dec. 2002–Feb. 2003: 10–13. De Oliveira, Francisco. 2003. Analise de Conjuntura. Forum Social Mundial. Jan.–Feb. 2003. Doimo, A.M. 1995. A Vez e a Voz do Popular. Rio de Janeiro: Anpocs. ECLAC. 2000. The Challenge of Gender Equity and Human Rights on the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century. New York: United Nations Publications. Epstein, Barbara. 1991. Political Protest and Cultural Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. Faucher, P., and L. Armijo. 2000. ‘We Have a Consensus.’ Presented at the 96th Annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C. Franche, Marc-André. 2000. Concertación y acuerdos: la experiencia de Porto Alegre. La Paz: PNUD. Gadotti, M. and O. Pereira. 1989. Pra quê PT. São Paulo: Cortez. Harnecker, Marta. 1994. O Sonho Era Possível. São Paulo: Casa América Livre.

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Keck, M. 1992. The Workers’ Party and Democratization in Brazil. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kowarick, L., and A. Singer. 1994. ‘The Workers’ Party in São Paulo.’ In L. Kowarick, ed., Social Struggles and the City. New York: Monthly Review Press. Lesbaupin, Yves. 1996. ‘Solidariedade e Política.’ Vida Pastoral 37/190. Löwy, Michael. 2003. ‘Brésil: Un ouvrier à la présidence de la république.’ La Gauche, 3 March. http://www.lagauche.com/lagauche/article. php3?id_article=373. Macaulay, Fiona. 1995. Governing for Everyone. Oxford University. St Antony’s College, Political Science Department (mimeo). Mouterde, Pierre. 2002. L’utopie ne désarme pas. Montreal: Écosociété. Ozaí, Antônio. 1995. Partido de Massa e Partido de Quadros. São Paulo: CPV. Petras, James, and Henry Veltmeyer. 2003. Whither Brazil? www.rebelion.org. Piven, Francis F., and Richard Cloward. 1977. Poor People’s Movements. New York: Vintage Books. Smith, William C., Carlos H. Acuña, and Eduardo A. Gamarra. 1993. Democracy, Markets, and Structural Reform in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. New Brunswick, N.J., and London: Transaction publishers/ North-South Center.

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Contributors

Michel Duquette is a professor of political science at the Université de Montréal and a researcher at the Centre de Recherches et d’Études sur l’Amérique latine et les Caraïbes of the Institut d’Études Politiques d’Aix-en-Province. Maurilio Galdino is a doctoral candidate in the department of political science of the Université de Montréal. Charmain Levy received a PhD in sociology at the Université de Paris VIII (Seine St-Denis) and is now a project director with Development and Peace. Bérengère Marques-Pereira is a professor of political science at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and director of the Centre de Sociologie Politique and of the Groupe d’Études Latino-américaines of the Institut de Sociologie. Florence Raes is a doctoral student in political science at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

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Index

abortion, 75, 82, 87; as human right, 86; as political issue, 73; left aside by political parties, 78. See also reproductive rights; women’s movements Açâo e Cidadania (Action and Citizenship), 69 Ação Popular (AP), 132 affirmative action, 166 Allende, Salvador, lessons for Brazil, 192 Alvarez, S., 72; on diverging trends in women’s movements, 74; on military ideology towards women, 68 Amazon Basin, 13, 43, 140; colonization, 44, 133. See also rural movements; Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agraria (INCRA) antinuclear movements, 31 Araguaia, 159; peasant persecution, 5 Argentina, 3, 57; women’s movement, 82 Assembleia Nacional Constituinte (Constituent Assembly), 78 authoritarianism, 5, 7, 14, 53. See also military regime

autonomy: of social movements, 146; of urban popular movements (UPMs), 158 Beijing conference on women, 70, 86 Belém do Para Convention, and violence against women, 162 Betto, Frei, on Workers Party (PT) members, 175 Biondi, Aloysio, 54 Bresser Pereira, Carlos, 48 Brizola, Leonel, 38, 40; back in politics in 1984, 46. See also Partido Trabalhista do Brasil (PTB); Vargas Brockett, Charles, 11, 34 bureaucracy, and public policies, 29 Campanha Contra a Fome (Campaign against Hunger), 21; criticized by World Bank, 194; launched by Lula, 192. See also Lula da Silva; Workers Party Canudos massacre (1893), 146 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 6, 12, 46; as a professor, 39; coming to power, 49; second mandate, 51; and agrarian reform, 137; challenging

210 Index land occupations, 147; challenging MST, 149; and privatizations, 54; public policies, 50; writing on democratic transition, 77 Castañeda, Carlos, 6 Castelo Branco. Humberto Alencar, General, 39 Castillo, F., 69 Castro, Fidel, 159; and Francisco Julião, 131 Catholic Church: 1970s activists, 97; agrarian reform campaign, 149; community kitchens, 82; marianism, 165; mediation with MST, 148; moral responsibility towards women, 92; and UPMs, 113. See also Comunidades Eclesiais de Base; Vatican Central dos Movimentos Populares (CMP), 116 Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT): and social pact, 191; as ally of PT, 178; on women’s rights, 71 Chavez, Hugo, election in Venezuela, 59 citizenship, 67, 82, 84, 91–3; and gender equality, 162; and women’s activism, 89; and women’s rights, 66, 70–1, 75 civil society, 5, 67, 98, 170 clientelism, urban services against votes, 101 Clube de Madres, 82 collective action, 4, 14; and collective identity, 26; its driving forces, 26; and peasantry, 131; of PT, 175 collective actor, and collective identity, 27 Collor de Melo, Fernando, 17, 135, 143; impeachment, 49, 180

Colombia, 5 Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT), 133 Commission on Status of Women of United Nations, 80 communism, 38 Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (CEBs), 51, 134; and 1982 electoral campaign, 178; and women, 69 conditional aid and international agencies, World Bank, and IMF, 17 Confederação Nacional dos Sindicatos Brasileiros (CNST, National Confederation of Brazilian Unions), on women’s rights, 71 Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura (CONTAG), 132 Constituent Assembly, 46, 143; and new Constitution (1988), 47 Constitution, 46, 159; and gender equality, 165; and social reforms, 46; and urban social movements, 110; and women’s rights, 78 Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 80 co-optation, of women by government, 158. See also women’s movements cortiço movements, 103, 119; conclusions on, 168; description, 120; future of, 169; and MST, 123; occupations, 123; and PT, 124. See also urban popular movements; favelas Couffignal, Georges, 4 Council on Status of Women, limited powers of, 77–8 cycle of protest, 16, 18, 31–5; ascending phase, 32; during democratiza-

Index tion, 47; maturation, 19; optimal phase, 189; and rural movements, 143; and UPMs, 107. See also Tarrow; Della Porta; Diani Dabène, Olivier, 4 delegative democracy. See O’Donnell Della Porta, Donatella, 33–4 democratic transition, 169; and moderate coalitions, 161 Development and Peace, providing resources to MST, 145 Diani, Mario, 33–4 Diretas Já campaign: and rural movements, 135; and PT, 179 discourse, of movement leaders, 160. See also repertoire discrimination, based on gender, 85 Donas de Casa, in 1970s, 72 Duquette, Michel, 3, 18; on land concentration, 138; on structural adjustment, 48 Dutra, Eurico Gaspar: ousting Getulio Vargas in 1945, 37 Economic Commission for Latin America and Caribbean (ECLAC): on women’s participation, 93; report on gender equity, 165 Ecuador, 5 elites, 36. See also political system EMBRAER, and public subsidies, 15 equal opportunities, for women, 85 Erundina, Luiza, elected mayor of São Paulo, 112 essentialism, within radical feminist groups, 167 Estado Nôvo, 36. See also Vargas; Brizola

211

Éthier, Diane, on reforms in Greece, Portugal, and Spain, 60 European Economic Community (EEC), and Spain, Portugal, and Greece, 10 European Union (EU): and MERCOSUR, 55; resurgence of protectionism, 185 Evans, Peter, 42 favelas, 47, 53; description, 99; Movimento de Defesa dos Favelados (MDF), 102; Movimento Unificado dos Favelados (MUF), 102; and Caravana da Moradia, 114; and mutirão (communal construction associations), 106; and urbanization projects, 112 feminism, 76. See also women’s movements; essentialism feminist movement, 89 Folha de São Paulo, 45 France, agricultural policy (Politique Agricole Commune), 29 Franco Braga, E., 69 Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and Lula administration, 189 Freire, Paulo, 112, 132; pedagogy of the oppressed, 160 Gaiger, Luiz Inácio, 134–5 Galdino, Maurilio, 20 gender, 68; relationships, 90; equality, 91. See also women’s movements global market blocs, with NAFTA, MERCOSUR, and European Union, 58 Gohn, Maria da Gloria, 101

212 Index Goulart, João, 7, 22, 38; and women’s movements, 68 Green parties: in Europe, 31. See also Voinet Haggard, Stephen, 44. See also structural adjustment Harding, Timothy F., 6 hardliners, 6, 8, 19 Harnecker, Martha, 133 Hermet, Guy, on patronage networks, 67 Hirschman, Albert, and bureaucratic-authoritarian regime, 40 historical bloc, 174. See also Workers Party Hobsbawn, Eric, 131 housing projects, 114; in São Paulo, 169. See also urban popular movements; cortiço movements; favelas human rights, 162 Huntington, Samuel, on agrarian reform, 7 identification process, and social movements, 27. See also collective identity; Melucci; Touraine Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD), neopentecostal church, 186 individuation, 66, 90, 92. See also feminism; women’s movements Inglehart, Ronald, 30 Instituto Brasileiro do Meio-Ambiente (IBAMA), and slave labour, 195 Instituto Nacional da Colonização e Reforma Agraria (INCRA): and peasant occupations, 142; occupied by MST, 150; and agrarian reform under Lula, 195

Instituto Nacional de Seguro Social (INSS), and reform of retirement plan, 198 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and violence against women, 88 international agencies, 56; and radical organizations, 171; World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), 12 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 16; and Lula administration, 189; behind rural projects, 137. See also conditional aid; structural adjustment Jelin, Elisabeth, on citizenship and women’s movements, 71 Jospin, Lionel, and Green Parties in France, 31. See also Voinet judicialization, of social claims, 110 Julião, Francisco: and land reform in northeastern Brazil, 39; and Peasant Leagues, 131 Kaufman, Robert, 44 Kay, C., 12, 42 Keck, Margaret, 136 Kitchelt, Herbert, and popular protest, 31. See also structure of political opportunities Klandemans, B., 31 Kowarick, L., 99, 186 Kubitschek, Juscelino, 37 Lafargue, Jérôme, 25, 30, 33 Land Bank (Cédula da Terra): and World Bank, 148; market-oriented agrarian reform, 148; Reforma Agraria Solidária, 138

Index land redistribution: and macroeconomic policies, 159 land reform, 7; in Latin America, 10; in Latin America and U.S. policymakers, 11 Landless Peasant Movement (MST). See Movimento dos Sem Terra landowners, and military regime, 42 latifúndio, 46; expropriation, 143 leadership, immature, 113 Lesbaupin, Ivo, 44 Levy, Charmain, 20; about grassroots actions, 108. See also urban popular movements; cortiço movements liberation ology, and CEBs, 177 Ligas Camponesas (Peasant Leagues), 131 Löwy, Michael, on Workers Party, 174 Lula da Silva, Luis Inácio, 21, 57; early career, 40; rising as prominent union leader, 41; elected president, 181; turning down offer to join PMDB, 176; facing opposition in PT, 180; against land occupations, 198; distancing himself from social movements, 203. See also Workers Party lulism, 183 Luna, L., on citizenship and women’s movements, 67 machista practices, 156; and Christian traditions, 94. See also marianism Mainwaring, Scott, 132, 166; on political parties, 45 Maluf, Paulo Salim, 112 Maravall, José Maria, 7, 14

213

marianism, 157. See also women’s movements; Catholic Church Marques-Pereira, Bérengère, 19, 70, 92 Martins, Monica Diaz, 12 Mechanisms for National Promotion of Women, 82 Medellin Conference of Latin American Bishops, on women’s rights, 74. See also liberation theology Melucci, Alberto, 100; on collective identity and social movements, 27; on conditions for mobilization, 27; and PT structure, 177 Mendes, Chico, 159; assassination, 52 MERCOSUR, Southern Cone trade agreement (1991), 54 Mexico, 57 military dictatorships, 3. See also authoritarianism military regime: demise, 44; in 1964, 40 Mineiro, Adhemar, 44 moderate democracy, 5 moderates, 6; dreaming of a wide popular alliance, 158 Molyneux, Maxine, 70 Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (MDB, Brazilian Democratic Movement), 76 Movimento dos Agricultores Sem Terra do Rio Grande do Sul (MASTER), 140 Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST), 13, 20; becoming leader of opposition, 147; becoming a radical movement, 172; history, 139; origin, 140; ideology and culture, 145; internal organization, 143–4; leaders and decision making, 145; land occu-

214 Index pations, 142; and land reform, 13; and massacres, 147; in northeast, 144; oppositional front, 150; in Paraguay, 145; and PT, 151; agrarian reform blueprint, 142; appraisal of Lula’s victory, 190; prospects for future, 173; and public opinion, 147; and PT, 151; and social pact, 191; strategy, 147 municipal elections, and political issues, 184 NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), 16 National Conference of Black Women, first national conference, 79 Navarro, Zander, 142; on agrarian reform, 138 Neves, Tancredo, 179; back in politics (1984), 45 Neveu, Érik, 29 New Republic, 105, 189; an assessment, 54; in 1984, 45; not up to its commitment, 105 Niedergang, Marcel, 38 O’Donnell, Guillermo, 5, 7, 9, 19, 42, 60; and bureaucratic-authoritarian regime, 40; on presidentialist government, 43 Oberschall, A., 30, 32 objectives, of social movements, 27. See also strategies occupations, of abandoned public buildings, peak in São Paulo and other cities, 119. See also cortiço movements; UPMs Olson, M.., 25 Orçamento Participativo (participa-

tive budget), 51, 113; in municipalities run by PT, 180. See also municipal elections Palocci, Antonio, Lula’s finance minister, 187 participatory democracy: and women in Brazil, 166; and women’s rights, 93 Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB, Brazilian Communist Party), 76 Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL), 47; opposing agrarian reform, 149 Partido da Social Democrácia Brasileira (PSDB), 46. See also Cardoso; Serra Partido Democrático Social (PDS), and status of women, 79 Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), 46 Partido Progressista Brasileiro (PPB), 187 Partido Social Democrático (PSD), 37 Partido Trabalhista do Brasil (PTB), 37, 39. See also Brizola; Vargas pastoral agents, 132, 134 Peru, 5; mutual aid practices, 82 Petras, James, 4, 6, 18, 48, 58, 132; against structural reforms, 161; and definition of radical leaders, 14; assessing Lula administration, 189 PETROBRAS (Petrôleos Brasileiros), 37; expansion under military, 43 Pizzorno, Alessandro, 34 Plaza de Mayo, and mothers of the disappeared (Argentina), 83 pobladores (slums) in Chile, 82. See also community kitchens Plano Real, and monetary reform, 50

Index

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Quadros, Jánio, 38

and power of oligarchy, 15; fallout, 9. See also structural adjustment repertoire: of social movements, 30; of MST, 160; of PT, 175. See also discourse reproductive rights, 73, 163. See also abortion; women’s rights República Velha (Old Republic, 1889– 1930), 36 resource mobilization school, 25 revolution, and protest, 31; in Cuba, 38 rights, in marriage, 89. See also women’s rights Rio Grande do Sul, and Brizola, 38. See also Porto Alegre rural movements: Anti-Dam movement, 141; and Catholic Church, 132, 134, 149; and communists, 131; guerrilla, and radicalism, 14; and labour federations, 132; in north, 131, 140; in south, 134; and PT, 135; and violence, 143, 149 rural workers, migrating to urban centres, 142

radicalism, 17, 20; definition, 13; definition, revisited, 169; and public protest, 13; at outset of military regime, 40; and MST, 146; ethical, in Lula’s discourse, 176; as seen by Melucci, 28. See also Petras; structural adjustment Raes, Florence, 19. See also women’s movements recruitment, of social movements, 26. See also identification process Reforma Agraria Solidâria, 138 reforms: and financial means, 12;

Santamaría, Julian, 7 São Bernardo do Campo, 177 São Paulo: automobile industry strikes, 43; business elite and 1964 coup, 41; cortiço movement, 98; municipal elections, 59; won by PT in 1988, 179; popular housing under PT, 106; lessons from PT municipal administrations, 192; and women’s movement, 76 Sarney, José, 45, 142 Scherer Warren, Ilse, about network organizations, 107–8 Schmitter, Philippe, 5–6, 9, 14, 19, 42

political participation, 82, 159; incompatible with structural reforms, 161 political parties: and cycle of protest, 32; strategies, 28. See also Mainwaring political representation, of women, 92 political sociology, and social movements, 28 political system: Brazil, early 1960s, 38; definition, 35; and political participation, 28; Vargas era, 37, 39; and women’s movements, 167 Porto Alegre: won by PT in 1988, 179; PT re-elected, 113 Przeworski, Adam, 8, 14, 60, 98. See also structural adjustment public policies, 158 public protest, 25; as a menace to democracy, 4 public responsibility, towards women, 164

216 Index Serra, José: and Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), 46; defeated in 2002 presidential election, 181 Servicio Nacional de la Mujer (SERNAM, Woman’s National Service), 85 Singer, A., 186 Smith, William, Carlos Acuña, and Eduardo Gamarra, on episodes of popular mobilization, 15 social group, definition, 27. See also collective identity; identification process social movements, 18, 21, 25, 27–8, 35, 40–1, 47, 51, 56, 58, 139; adapting to rules of democracy, 17; as collective defence of interests, 26; and cycle of protest, 31, 33; internal dynamics, 19; early1960s, 38; at outset of military regime, 39; legitimacy, 33; and Lula’s victory, 190; new, 30; and participative budget, 191; participating in formation of political parties, 35; politicization, 29; and public policies, 29; radicalism, 13, 170; rural, and radicalism, 171; and structure of political opportunities, 34; turning back to radicalism, 160; women’s, 157; as seen by Oberschall, 26 social policy, 36 social reform, at Constituent Assembly, 56 social unrest, and related factors, 15. See also collective action; social movements; radicalism solidarity, social movement, 28 Southern European countries, 11; Spain, Portugal, and Greece, 10

structural adjustment, 5, 7, 18, 159; consequences to social programs, 160; and IMF, 17; and Lula’s victory, 190; and MST strategy, 146; and peasantry, 133; weakening power base of traditional elites, 15. See also conditional aid; reforms structure of political opportunities, 35; rural, 130. See also Tarrow; Kitchelt; Della Porta, 34; Diani, 34 Tarrow, Sidney, 18, 113, 172; and cycle of protest, 31–5 Tavares, Maria da Conceição, 46 Tilly, Charles, 30 Touraine, Alain, 27, 174 transition to democracy, 7. See also moderates; New Republic; radicalism Trotskyists, and PT, 175 União Democrática Ruralista (UDR), 143 União dos Movimentos de Moradia (UMM), 114. See also urban popular movements UNICEF, 69; founded Latin American and Caribbean Network of Non-Governmental Organizations, 82 United Nations conferences on women, 83, 162 United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), 81 United States, resurgence of protectionism, 185. See also NAFTA Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 80 urban marginals, 35 urban popular movements (UPMs):

Index and Cardoso, 120; and CEBs, 100; composition, 100; conclusions on, 167; and 1988 Constitution, 110; crisis, 108; definition, 100; and democratic transition, 103; discussion, 157; empowerment, 101; housing, federal ministry of, 126; institutionalization, 102, 108; mobilization network, 114; and MST, 120; and NGOs, 118; organization, 103; origin, 100; popular culture, 105; radicalization, 119; repertoire and strategies, 118. See also cortiço movements; favelas Uruguay, housing projects, 114 Valdez, T., on women’s networks, 69 Vargas, Getulio, 37–9, 105 Vatican: pressure tactics against reproductive rights, 165; and PT, 179. See also Catholic Church; marianism Venezuela, 57 violence: against women, 162; rural, 147 Voinet, Dominique, as French environment minister, 31

217

Whitehead, Lawrence, 3, 5, 9, 10, 19, 42 women, and family dislocation, 11 Women’s Health Network for Latin America and Caribbean, 81 women’s movements, 19, 68, 161; autonomy, level of, 157; a conclusion, 163; under military, 67; in São Paulo, 76; and social pact, 191 women’s rights, and political participation, 93. See also abortion; reproductive rights Woodrow Wilson Centre, 7 Workers Party (PT, Partido dos Trabalhadores), 21, 57; as historical bloc, 174; objectives and principles, 174; 1982 electoral campaign, 178; 1988 municipal elections, 179; first years in power, 188; membership, 175; losing Catholic supporters, 179; new members from MDB, 176; and UPMs, 111. See also Lula da Silva World Bank, 6, 11, 16, 47; projects of land reform, 161. See also international agencies World Trade Organization (WTO), behind rural projects, 137

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Studies in Comparative Political Economy and Public Policy 1 The Search for Political Space: Globalization, Social Movements, and the Urban Political Experience / Warren Magnusson 2 Oil, the State, and Federalism: The Rise and Demise of Petro-Canada as a Statist Impulse / John Erik Fossum 3 Defying Conventional Wisdom: Free Trade and the Rise of Popular Sector Politics in Canada / Jeffrey M. Ayres 4 Community, State, and Market on the North Atlantic Rim: Challenges to Modernity in the Fisheries / Richard Apostle, Gene Barrett, Peter Holm, Svein Jentoft, Leigh Mazany, Bonnie McCay, Knut H. Mikalsen 5 More with Less: Work Reorganization in the Canadian Mining Industry / Bob Russell 6 Visions for Privacy: Policy Approaches for the Digital Age / Edited by Colin J. Bennett and Rebecca Grant 7 New Democracies: Economic and Social Reform in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico / Michel Duquette 8 Poverty, Social Assistance, and the Employability of Mothers: Restructuring Welfare States / Maureen Baker and David Tippin 9 The Left’s Dirty Job: The Politics of Industrial Restructuring in France and Spain / W. Rand Smith 10 Risky Business: Canada’s Changing Science-Based Policy and Regulatory Regime / Edited by G. Bruce Doern and Ted Reed 11 Temporary Work: The Gendered Rise of a Precarious Employment Relationship / Leah Vosko 12 Who Cares? Women’s Work, Childcare, and Welfare State Redesign / Jane Jenson and Mariette Sineau with Franca Bimbi, Anne-Marie Daune-Richard, Vincent Della Sala, Rianne Mahon, Bérengère Marques-Pereira, Olivier Paye, and George Ross 13 Canadian Forest Policy: Adapting to Change / Edited by Michael Howlett 14 Knowledge and Economic Conduct: The Social Foundations of the Modern Economy / Nico Stehr 15 Contingent Work, Disrupted Lives: Labour and Community in the New Rural Economy / Anthony Winson and Belinda Leach 16 The Economic Implications of Social Cohesion / Edited by Lars Osberg 17 Gendered States: Women, Unemployment Insurance, and the Political Economy of the Welfare State in Canada, 1945–1997 / Ann Porter 18 Educational Regimes and Anglo-American Democracy / Ronald Manzer

19 Money in Their Own Name: The Feminist Voice in Poverty Debate in Canada, 1970–1995 / Wendy McKeen 20 Collective Action and Radicalism in Brazil: Women, Urban Housing, and Rural Movements / Michel Duquette, Maurilio Galdino, Charmain Levy, Bérengère Marques-Pereira, and Florence Raes 21 Continentalizing Canada: The Politics and Legacy of the Macdonald Royal Commission / Gregory J. Inwood 22 Globalization Unplugged: Sovereignty and the Canadian State in the Twenty-first Century / Peter Urmetzer 23 New Institutionalism: Theory and Practice / Edited by André Lecours 23 Mothers of the Nation: Women, Family, and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century Europe / Patrizia Albanese