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In environmental politics, social movements play a crucial role, promoting participatory rights and confronting injustice, inequality, and the interests of the powerful. This article examines an underexplored topic in the literature on social movements, especially in Latin America: the use of litigation to force decisionmakers to comply with participatory formats, specifically in the course of opposition to hydroelectric dams. These projects often are destructive to the local environment and communities. This study examines four cases of environmental litigation that halted dam construction in Brazil and Chile, singling out causal pathways for successful collective action. It focuses on two dimensions of movement success: the implementation of participatory formats and the resulting cancellation of dam projects. In line with the joint effect model of social movement theory, the cross-case comparison of legal disputes shows that pursuing legal strategies in parallel to broad social mobilization and the support of institutional allies, can lead to successful outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines popular participation in the making of Brazil's 1988 post-authoritarian "Citizen Constitution." In 1987, Brazilians submitted 122 popular amendments (emendas populares) supported by over 12 million signatures to the National Constituent Assembly (1987–88). As this article contends, this extraordinary experiment in popular constitution-making problematizes notions of Brazil's transition from authoritarian to democratic rule as the most conservative of those that swept Latin America at the end of the Cold War. The popular amendments emerged amid a nationwide campaign for popular participation that saw millions of Brazilians participate in letter-writing campaigns, protests, and debates over the constitution that carried over into the halls of the Constituent Assembly itself. I argue that the popular amendments countered the arbitrary authoritarianism of the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship (1964–85) with a constitutionalism in which everyday Brazilians would safeguard democracy through popular participation in government. While only partially consolidated, this vision offered diverse marginalized groups an opportunity to claim full citizenship in Brazil's nascent democracy, especially in ways that more overtly addressed issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and disability. This article thus shows that far from being the exclusive province of political elites, everyday people meaningfully shaped the constitutional restorations in late twentieth-century Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 with a very conservative political agenda, promising neoliberal economic measures, and opposing to minority's rights. Bolsonaro has been well-known as a right-wing and authoritarian politician and his government is recognised as extreme right, conservative, and/or neo-fascist, with important setbacks in public policies. The "bolsonarismo" shall be defeated, but the electoral process will not be easy, with fake news and political violence. The open threats to democracy are leading to alliances of democratic and popular political forces, including agrarian and urban social movements. This article reflects critically about Bolsonaro administration, particularly the dismantling of public policies and programmes to the countryside, reflecting about the political actions of the agrarian movements in the 2022 electoral process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sought to analyze, from a psychosocial perspective, what young brazilian college students think about the current situation. Participated in this research 45 undergraduate students between 18 and 26 years old from the Administration, Accounting, and Psychology courses at a public university located in the state of São Paulo. The idea of a conservative wave, identified in narratives of previous studies (2015-2018), was confirmed with the strengthening of rightwing and far-right social movements, by the daily realization of antidemocratic acts and by the result of the 2018 presidential elections. At the time of the present study (2019), the conservative wave was already a reality and this was observed among the participants as a fact not impossible to be overcome, although consolidated. The conservative wave was identified among the participants as being responsible for the precarization of public services, mischaracterization of social rights, criminalization of social movements, use of Fake News, and for fostering a social polarization based on the construction of the image of the political opponent as an enemy. Thus, conservatism is translated in the narratives as a phenomenon that generates fear and hopelessness. From Lula to Bolsonaro, would fear have taken the place of hope? This is the question that we seek to answer - not definitively - at the endo f this text. We conclude that the perspectives and horizons of transformation are shy among the participants, as well as the engagement in political parties, entities, and movements. However, the scenario is uncertainty and new configurations emerge in the logics of political participation and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Política & Sociedade: Revista de Sociologia Política is the property of Revista Politica & Sociedade and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since 2015, Brazil has been experiencing the explosion of right-wing protests. These protests were assembled by groups organised in digital media, which claimed forms of democratic participation to propagate antidemocratic ideas, such as the shutdown of public policies based on social redistribution of resources to the poorest; the criminalization of the social movements linked to social minorities; and the extinction of councils of popular participation. In this article, we develop a discourse analysis on the Facebook pages of the three major right-wing groups in Brazil, namely, Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), Vem Pra Rua, and Movimento Contra a Corrupção (MCC). Our sample is composed of 468 posts made by these three groups when they established profiles on Facebook and at the moment of the major right-wing civil protests in Brazil between 2015 and 2018. We aim to understand the discursive strategies adopted by these groups to undermine democratic citizenship purportedly laying claim to its normative terms. We argue that these movements show the dark face of civic action's supposed virtuosity: a vengeful form of resentment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil society engagement around health care and population health improvement is an important driver towards Health for All. Research can improve the effectiveness of health activism by examining the resources, structures and strategies of civil society engagement. However, research to support such engagement faces epistemological and methodological challenges which call for specific research strategies. A four year multi-country study was undertaken by the People's Health Movement, a global network working for health for all. The research took place in six countries (Brazil, Colombia, DR Congo, India, Italy, South Africa) and globally, and was directed to understanding five domains of civil society engagement: movement building; campaigning and advocacy; capacity building; knowledge generation, access and use; and engaging with governance. The research plan and methods of data collection and analysis were tailored to address the objective of improving activist practice, while negotiating research challenges identified during the design phase. Results include insights into the practice of civil society engagement in relation to the five domains of activist practice, as well as experience gained in managing six methodological challenges which we describe as: making meaning, aligning research and action, managing power relations, valuing experiential knowledges, chaos and contingency, challenging preconceptions. Researching activism can produce useful insights into practice as well as support continuous improvement in the effectiveness of such activism. However, there are significant methodological challenges that can be addressed through appropriate strategies. More research, building on the approach described in this paper, can contribute to more effective civil society activism for health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the decentralisation of decision-making processes in local government. Empirically, I analyse how Brazilian housing movements are included in participatory processes by examining the ways in which participatory models integrate social movements in spaces of decision-making. I argue that the rules and focus on incremental policy-making limits the participation of social movements. Findings suggests that unequal power structures at local councils, barriers to the participation of citizens, and the lack of transparency of government decisions all prevent social movements from having a more influential voice in decision-making. Although previous studies in Brazil examined the integration of citizens in government institutions, this paper contributes to the literature in two ways: firstly, it provides new evidence on the impact of decentralisation in local government. Secondly, by examining the attitudes of housing council members towards popular political participation, it provides new insights into the limits of decentralisation and participatory governance in contemporary Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Práxis Educativa is the property of Revista Praxis Educativa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyzes the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by social movements in Brazil, especially during the 2018 presidential elections won by Far Right candidate Jair Bolsonaro. I argue that techno-deterministic behavior of Brazilian leftist groups contributed to Jair Bolsonaro's victory. A broader analysis of Brazilian crisis of hegemony is made to understand the context in which social movements and digital activists act. I also criticize the concept of tactical media from a Gramscian approach. Brazilian digital activists abandoned tactical use of social media made in June 2013's demonstrations and acted guided from a techno-deterministic belief in ICT powers. That way, those activists end up letting their political actions follow an algorithmic logic that we call encoded activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted from 2011 to 2015 and the authors' long-term engagement in diverse aspects of HIV and human rights advocacy in Brazil, this paper explores key elements of the Brazilian sex workers' movement response to HIV and the broader political factors that profoundly influenced its trajectory. We argue that the movement has constantly challenged representations of prostitution by affirming sex workers' roles as political actors, not just peer educators, in fighting the HIV epidemic and highlight their development of a sex positive and pleasure centred response that fought stigma on multiple fronts. Moments of tension such as the censorship of an HIV prevention campaign and implementation of 'test and treat' projects are analysed, as are the complex questions that Brazil's 2016 political and economic crisis evokes in terms of how to develop and sustain responses to HIV driven by communities but with material commitment from the State. We conclude with what we see to be the unique, central components of Brazilian sex workers' approach to HIV prevention and what lessons can be learned from it for broader collective health movements in Latin America and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Direito da Cidade is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Sociologia e Política is the property of Revista de Sociologia e Politica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Ciencias Humanas (01019589) is the property of Editora da UFSC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Democratic governments are increasingly adopting the Internet to foster political participation. With a varied array of e-consultation, e-deliberation, and e-participation initiatives, the Internet provides opportunities for citizens to engage with political institutions in several ways. This article contributes to this literature by analyzing a Brazilian case, the House of Representatives' Portal E-Democracia--an initiative that promotes citizen participation in lawmaking issues. We analyze how citizens engaged in the discussions around the political reform agenda, an important issue and a response to social movements and protests in June 2013. We specifically look into the dynamics of interaction and the heterogeneity and civility of these discussions. We also investigate whether participants were interested in providing solutions to the issues at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2013, protesters took to the streets of hundreds of Brazilian cities. The mobilizing factor was the rising fares of public transportation, which precipitated a wave of discontentment characterized by a mix of demands for better public services and changes in the discredited democratic institutions. This article discusses the role of social media in the protests and how such use configures a paradigmatic example of how communication occurs in network societies. To frame the discussion, we examine social media appropriation for the purposes of political participation through a survey applied online in 17 countries and an in-depth analysis of protests in Brazil. Looking at the Brazilian protests, the ways in which the appropriation of social media occurred and institutional responses to demonstrations developed, we argue that in the network society, the people, and no longer the media, are the message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short introduction to Cicilia Maria Krohling Peruzzo's 1998 article “Community Communication and Education for Citizenship” gives some context into the contributions of Brazilian communication scholarship to the study of community and participatory media. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article critically examines gender within black movement organizations in Salvador, Bahia Brazil. Based upon interviews conducted with black activists in 1998 and subsequent conversations, the article discusses black women's experiences within anti-racist, black movement organizations. In discussions on formative racial experiences, female activists – more often than male activists – directly linked race and gender and maintained that ‘some things cannot be separated’. These women came into their political consciousness because of the intersectionality of race, class, and gender and more specifically because of their experiences and particular locations as black, primarily poor, females. Black female activists critique anti-racist social movements and male activists in particular when they do not address racism and sexism simultaneously [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article assesses changes in the pattern of collective action of social movement arising of the effects of their engagement in participatory institutions of policy-making, considering three interdependent dimensions - organizational, relational and discursive. Institutional effects in the social movement are examined from the case study of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights of Serra, located in the metropolitan area of Espírito Santo, after 1990 through qualitative and quantitative method. The correlation between the institutional engagement of the movement and the changes in the pattern of collective action has effects of complexification organizational, pluralization of social network, and cooperation and contestation discourse in the society-state interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the media coverage of the 2013 Brazil protests, sociologist Katherine Jensen uncovers that violence against white women became the rallying cry for popular political action, while black mobilization was depoliticized as violent chaos and violence against blacks was ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, has long been held up as a model of how grassroots social movements, in alliance with a Left party in power, have deepened democracy in a highly clientelistic context. But what happened to this democratic reform when the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party, PT), which supported this initiative while it held the mayorship of Porto Alegre for 16 years, lost political power? This article examines the shifting fortunes of the participatory budgeting process following the defeat of the Workers' Party in the 2004 local elections. It explores how and why succeeding local administrations weakened participatory budgeting amid the changing political configuration of Porto Alegre, underscoring the critical role played by considerable executive branch powers in the process. The article concludes by examining what questions this raises for the sustainability of local democratic reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Revista Estudos Feministas is the property of Revista Estudos Feministas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Direitos Fundamentais & Democracia is the property of Revista de Direitos Fundamentais & Democracia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Lien Social et Politiques is the property of Institut National de Recherche Scientifique (INRS) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Lua Nova is the property of CEDEC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Brasileira de Ciencias Sociais is the property of Revista Brasileira de Ciencias Sociais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Literature on conservation and land reform politics concentrates on how local actors are characterized dualistically as either environmental villains or heroes. Here I present three different frames as exemplary of the multiple narratives at stake as actors create environmental subjectivities in relation to political opportunity, based primarily on ethnographic field research in a case study of Projects for Sustainable Development (PDSs) located in the Transamazon highway region of the Brazilian Amazon. I argue that local identities are mediated by their shifting relationships with other interested actors. Through a historical analysis of different frames of identity and land use, I examine how and why representation struggles occurred and shifted, based upon the ways in which powerful actors took advantage of political opportunities. This led to indeterminate outcomes in different local struggles across the region. In the process, local voices were often undermined in favor of interests of more powerful outsiders. The political process through which such struggles occur yield geographically and socially uneven effects contingent upon key events and contestation from disparate groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on recent research conducted in Brazil on young people's understanding and practices of public action. The research examines some of the initiatives in which young people today participate: community organizations, cultural groups and social movements, and asks what this engagement means in their day-to-day lives. The paper also examines the historical processes that have come to shape this present field of public action and identifies the emergence of new forms of political engagement through cultural forms which provide a key entry point for young people's participation. The paper provides an analysis of the ways in which young people often come to be engaged in forms of public action through cultural forms, such as music, dance, cinema, theatre, photography, which are used by a number of groups as tools for critical reflection, or conscientização, and as a means for personal and community development. The paper explores these processes and goes on to identify a genealogy in the non-governmental sector of an alternative pedagogy that was much influenced by Paulo Freire but which gains new forms through the use of various elements of contemporary popular culture and different types of information and communication technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Explanations of the Abolitionist movement's success in Brazil (1888) have, since the 1960s and 1970s, emphasised the movement's material context, its class nature, and the agency of the captives. These analyses have misunderstood and gradually ignored the movement's formal political history. Even the central role of urban political mobilisation is generally neglected ; when it is addressed, it is crippled by lack of informed analysis of its articulation with formal politics and political history. It is time to recover the relationship between Afro-Brazilian agency and the politics of the elite. In this article this is illustrated by analysing two conjunctures critical to the Abolitionist movement: the rise and fall of the reformist Dantas cabinet in 1884-85, and the relationship between the reactionary Cotegipe cabinet (1885-88), the radicalisation of the movement, and the desperate reformism that led to the Golden Law of 13 May 1888. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing literature on the experiences of participatory democracy in Latin America. Largely focused on urban areas and municipal service provision, the literature provides important lessons as to whether, how, and why participation works to improve the quality of democracy. In this paper, I examine an unlikely case of participatory democracy: the struggle for land reform in the Brazilian countryside. Analysing the relationships between the federal agency in charge of land reform in Brazil (the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform) and the largest grassroots social movement organised to fight for the distribution of land (the Landless Movement) provides evidence of participatory democracy by default rather than by design: government officials who lack the resources and technical capacity to carry out reform are forced to rely on social movement actors who demand attention by routinely transgressing at the margins of acceptable (and legal) behaviour. At the same time, the features of political life in Brazil that allow or force the Landless Movement to collaborate with the state make it difficult for individual settlers to do so. For those individuals who do not feel adequately represented by the movement and attempt to be included on their own, the political system and culture continue to privilege the most powerful, thereby reinforcing prior settlement inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the communists in northern Paraná, the organization of rural workers and in the struggle for land. The political struggle in the city and the constant urban social movements are considered. An analysis is conducted political, police action and the actions of militants of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCB) in the region of north Paraná. The cultural-political control, repressive institution and agency law is also discussed.

Copyright of Sociedade e Estado is the property of Sociedade e Estado and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Política & Sociedade: Revista de Sociologia Política is the property of Revista Politica & Sociedade and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article discusses conceptually some interpretative connections between social movements and Brazilian youth political participation. It probes some analytical trends of social movements by means of specific literature. Then it proposes reflection on juvenile participation ambivalences between conventional and non-conventional participatory spaces present in Brazilian democracy. In its conclusion, it recognizes the pluralization of those spaces for Brazilian youth, who stand as a sphere of mediation for culture demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most significant change in Brazil's racial politics over the past three decades has been the Black Movement. Since the collapse of the myth there is no longer a hemegomic racial narrative in Brazil. The country's racial narrative is characterized by conflict. That also is true of Afro-Brazilian narratives which are expressed by a vast array of Black organizations. This essay suggests that in order to maintain the initiative in the country's racial narrative and practice, Afro-Brazilians must keep their political efforts embedded in the Black social movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudos de Sociologia is the property of Universidade Estadual Paulista and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Based on Habermas's communicative action theory, and the new social movements, this paper deals (in a general way) with the emergence of aids in Brazil. Elements of Habermas' theory are used to approach specifically the daily routine of Grupo Pela Vidda, a non-governmental organization with headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The organization is known as a space in which communicative dialog and the dissemination of information have enabled the strengthening of people living with HIV and aids, transforming them into political subjects. This has contributed to improve their "communicative competence" and expand the dialogue between the various spheres of the civil society and the movement against aids and the State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Political Science Review is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyzes the process of the quest for identity by the Brazilian women, mostly political activists, who were forced to leave their country following the 1964 military coup that installed a repressive region in 1968. It explains that initially these exiled Brazilian women sought refuge to neighboring countries of Cuba, Uruguay and Chile. But when a coup also ended the Allende regime in Chile, these exiled Brazilian women were pushed toward France, Sweden and West Germany. It emphasizes that feminine and feminist organizations are significant in the development of the identity of these exiled women of Brazil.

The article discusses the main interpretations regarding the development of the social formation in Brazil. According to the author attempts to analyze the intellectual interpretations related to the facts and transformations in areas including the liquidation of the agrarian-mercantile society, the populist period and its crisis and the collapse of the authoritarian technobureaucractic-capitalist alliance are also presented. It is the author's view that the six interpretations do not intend to discharge the tremendous wealth of studies and interpretations concerning Brazil.

Party system development in new democracies is impacted by various legacies of the previous authoritarian regime. This study employs survey research to test for the impact of the authoritarian experience on the orientation of Brazilian politicians toward party building. The manipulation of political parties by the Brazilian authoritarian regime of 1964-85 generated an antipathy towards disciplined parties on the part of civilian politicians who supported the military. This antipathy was strong in the first years of democracy but diminished over time, as the crisis of Brazil's New Republic heightened elite awareness of the necessity of effective parties. The findings generate hypotheses that can be tested in other post-authoritarian party systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]