Students and Politics in Brazil, 1962-1992

Abstract

Student intervention has had a national impact on Brazilian politics in the past three decades. My starting point for analyzing its principal moments is the period between 1962 and 1964 when the university movement took part in the generalized clamor for reform at the end of Brazil's populist era (1945-1964). I then attempt to follow the resurgence of protests between the 1964 military d'etat and the massive 1968 marches against the military dictatorship. The within a coup of 1968, which forced mass movements into a silence broken only by 1977 demands for democratic liberties during General Ernesto Geisel's proposal of gradual relaxation of authoritarian rule, begins the next period examined. I argue that the thread that ties together these three moments can be found in the role played by university students as spokespersons for the expectations and aspirations of the Brazilian middle class. It is important to note that, despite a period of basic continuity, the 1977-1978 movement presents important contrasts with mobilizations from the first half of the 1960s. These ruptures, on both the political and cultural levels, spur me to speak of a new student generation at the end of the 1970s. However, in contrast with these three movements, I analyze the Brazilian young people's protests of 1992 as the plural expression of a general repudiation of the corruption of the government of Fernando Collor. In this sense, the great marches that brought hundreds of thousands of young people to the streets in dozens of Brazilian cities in 1992 bear no relation to the previous model of participation.