Transformation Institutionalized? Making Sense of Participatory Democracy in the Lula Era

Abstract

Brazil’s recent social changes have been dramatic. Apart from the impressive reduction in poverty and seemingly inexhaustible economic growth of recent years, the country’s politics seem like a testament to the possibilities of social-movement-driven change. With the end of the military dictatorship (1964–85), social movements of all sorts emerged as protagonists of a new kind of politics. They were radical, yet democratic; they challenged the system, but were oriented towards a sense of the public good; militant, but also civic. The ‘new trade union unionism’, the urban movement, the health movement, the feminist movement, the black and student movements were some of the expressions of what Evelina Dagnino (2004) described as the ‘new citizenship’ of the time. In addition to imagining new democratic practices and institutions to challenge Brazil’s deeply rooted social authoritarianism, these movements would largely find expression in the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), or the Workers Party. The election in 2002 of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, a former metal worker and strike leader with little in the way of formal education, was the end of a ‘long march through institutions’ for the party, after two decades of failed national campaigns but often successful local administrations run on the principles of participatory democracy.KeywordsCivil SocietyMinimum WageSocial MovementTrade UnionConditional Cash TransferThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.