Brazilian civil society in and out of focus: Considerations from a local case-study

Abstract

From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, grassroots civil society in Brazil was seen as the seed-bed for the restoration of formal democracy (which occurred in 1985) and its subsequent ‘deepening’. In a story about democratic restoration and development, then current among activists and social scientists, a range of popular movements, new forms of association, and inter-regional networks at the grassroots, were thought to constitute an ever-expanding, increasingly dense, and vital civil society capable not only of resisting authoritarian rule but nurturing a new, non-clientelist, and more participatory democracy.1 The bright lights signalling a new civil society included the Church Base Communities, the residential movements in the bairros populares and favelas, the health movement of São Paulo's Zona Leste, the new union movement exemplified by Lula's metalúrgicos in the later 70s, and the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) in rural areas.