8. Politics and collective mobilisation in post-PT Brazil

Jeff Garmany

When it comes to Brazilian historical figures, few are as compelling as the great Dr Sócrates.1 Named after the Greek philosopher, trained as a medical doctor, famous for his football talents, legendary for bacchanalia, Sócrates was also a key political activist during the final years of Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964–85). In addition to participating with the Direitas Já protests for direct presidential elections in 1984, Sócrates worked to develop ‘Corinthians Democracy’, a radical movement within his São Paulo-based football club that was openly critical of the military government. Beyond simply challenging the authoritarian cultures of Brazilian football and politics, Corinthians Democracy was an ideological movement committed to equal rights and horizontal decision-making. It called attention to political tyranny in Brazil and argued that everyone should have an equal say in democratic processes.

As Andrew Downie (2017) notes, however, the actual practice of Corinthians Democracy may not have been so egalitarian. Many of the players shied away from expressing their opinions, deferring instead to team leaders they considered more knowledgeable (viz., Sócrates). As told by Zé Maria, a star defender for Corinthians, ‘We knew very little about democracy . . . We wanted a democracy but we didn’t really understand it, we weren’t aware what it was’ (Downie, 2017, p. 200). In this way, one could argue that Corinthians Democracy foreshadowed what would later characterise Brazilian democracy more generally, where clientelism and asymmetric power relations folded into democratic processes of voting and politics (see e.g. Gay, 1990, 1994). Like elsewhere in Latin America, voting became not so much an expression of one’s own political will, but rather a form of exchange, where in return for conceding authority to someone else, one could count on something in return (cf. Auyero, 2000, 2007). For many in the working and lower classes, this is how state engagement works: not on supposedly equal terms, but through intermediary actors that, provided they deliver on specific promises, are deferred to in political decision-making processes (cf. Brysk, 2000).

Why is this important for considering politics and collective mobilisation in Brazil today?2 First, as I argue in this chapter, Brazil’s 2018 presidential election may signal a pivotal moment in the country’s democracy, whereby long-held, vertically assembled political networks are beginning to break down. To be clear, this is not to say that what comes next will be better, but instead to suggest that the end of the Workers’ Party (PT) era, and the rise of Jair Bolsonaro, may signal a fundamental shift in the way people engage with politics, voting and the state. This is likely to have profound implications for the left – and also for the right – for years to come. And, second, if indeed Brazil’s political landscape is shifting, what might this mean for collective action and progressive social movements in the twenty-first century? Again, my arguments are tentative, but here I speculate that in the current era of post-PT governance, where state–society linkages are very much in flux (Saad-Filho, 2018) – and new communication technologies are changing processes of collective mobilisation (Joia, 2016) – the current moment may be a watershed for Brazilian social movements, both in the ways they organise and communicate, as well as how they interact with the state.

To better explore these arguments, this chapter is animated by three overarching questions. First, as I consider in the next section, does Brazil’s 2018 presidential election represent more than just a political loss for the PT, and signal, instead, a downward trend for the party? In other words, and very fundamentally, is Brazil now entering a post-PT era? Second, if indeed it is fair to say that Brazil faces a post-PT future, what will become of the Brazilian left? For decades, the PT has been the political centre of gravity for the left (Miguel, 2019); so how might the left organise politically if not through the PT? And finally, what does this indicate for collective mobilisation in Brazil? Given that Brazilian social movements have traditionally focused on gaining access to the state (Lehmann, 2018), how might a post-PT landscape, and a right-wing government, push activist leaders in new directions? Related to this are issues of communication, and how the organisational tactics of social movements are changing in the wake of new technologies (Ribeiro, 2018). By exploring these different questions, my goal in this chapter is to unpack a series of political changes that, I argue, are currently underway in Brazil (and elsewhere). In particular, I focus on the ways people engage with democracy and the state, and the evolving roles of collective mobilisation in these political processes.

A post-PT Brazil?

To ask if Brazil’s 2018 presidential election signifies more than just a single election loss for the PT and represents, instead, the beginning of a post-PT future, it is useful to reflect on key factors that help explain the election loss, as well as more fundamental, structural problems faced by the party going forward. My reasons for considering these issues are twofold: first, it helps respond to my broader question regarding the possibility of an ongoing post-PT future, and second, it establishes the first of my two arguments, that Brazilian democracy and state–society relations are undergoing profound change.

Efforts by conservative parties and judiciary representatives to undermine the PT in recent years are well known (Anderson, 2019). Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016 was highly controversial, with many Brazilians arguing it represented a political coup (Saad-Filho, 2018). Likewise, in 2018, former president Lula was sentenced to 12 years in prison in a move that was equally contentious. Given how quickly his case went to trial, some of the actions of the overseeing federal judge, Sergio Moro, and the unusually harsh sentence Lula received, it is understandable many Brazilians think Lula’s case showed political bias (Jinkings, Doria and Cleto, 2016; Pereira, 2018). Despite a recommendation from the United Nations Human Rights Committee that Lula’s candidacy for president should not be prevented while his case was still under appeal, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court overruled, eliminating Lula from the presidential race. When he officially ended his campaign only one month before the election, Lula was the clear favourite (Garmany and Pereira, 2019, p. 227). One can only speculate, but it seems likely he would have won the election had his candidacy not been prevented.

So, if Lula was the clear favourite with only a month to go, why was he unable to get his handpicked successor, Fernando Haddad, elected? There existed, admittedly, some upfront obstacles, like the short timeframe, and the fact that Haddad was little known outside his home state of São Paulo (Phillips, 2018). But if Lula was able to shift his electoral support to Rousseff in 2010 – a candidate renowned for her lack of charisma, voter appeal and national notoriety – why did it not work with Haddad in 2018? Well known, of course, were corruption scandals associated with the PT in 2018, fuelling intense anti-PT sentiment (Borges and Vidigal, 2018). With the exception of Lula, few PT candidates were able to distance themselves from these scandals. More directly, perhaps no PT candidate – again, except for Lula – stood a legitimate chance in 2018. As Borges and Vidigal (2018) show, those who dislike the PT are not confined to the political right, and include voters with divergent political ideologies and dissimilar socio-economic backgrounds. These factors should not be ignored and are crucial for explaining the PT’s presidential election loss in 2018.

Important also was the PT’s mismanagement of the economy, as well as rising levels of violent crime in Brazil. For those in the lower and working classes, these issues are significant, and help to explain Bolsonaro’s popularity, particularly in urban areas (Richmond, 2018). According to Alfredo Valladão (2018), the PT rode a wave of good fortune with the commodities boom during the first decade of the twenty-first century, but the party’s long-term economic strategy was exhausted by 2010. Likewise, little effort was made to address Brazil’s growing federal pension crisis. Related to this, rather than investing in much-needed public infrastructure, the PT promoted mega-events and the building of new sporting stadia. Alex Cuadros (2016) suggests that perhaps most infuriating for the working classes and those on the left were corporate tax breaks given to industries like agrobusiness and construction, which sent money flowing upward to elites while the national debt ballooned. Not surprisingly, this worked to alienate many working-class and left-leaning Brazilians. All this came to a head rather famously in June 2013, when millions took to streets around the country in an outpouring of widespread anger at government policy and spending priorities (along with pretty much every other grievance imaginable). The right was able to channel this frustration from 2013 onward, profiting, in a political sense, from protests that were initiated, somewhat ironically, by left-leaning groups (Pereira, 2013).

Still, frequently overlooked are other factors every bit as substantial when considering the PT’s political future. Valladão (2018) argues that Lula’s ‘scorched earth tactic’ with centre-left political parties drove a definitive wedge into the Brazilian left. According to Valladão, this represents more than just the PT’s refusal to align with parties like the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) and the Sustainability Party (REDE): it reveals a concerted effort by Lula to undermine these parities in the run-up to the 2018 election. Valladão suggests that Lula engaged in such tactics to help escape his prison sentence, as well as to ensure he was the only viable leftist candidate in the second round of the election. Bolsonaro’s victory, he argues, can be partially explained by such tactics, yet going further, it also raises serious questions for the PT’s political future. For example, if Lula is the only PT candidate with a chance of winning the presidency – and the left remains fragmented, with the PT refusing to reach out to other parties – what will become of the PT (and also the left) when Lula can no longer lead the party? (Regardless of what happens with Lula’s legal case, he turned 75 in 2020.)

Related to this are questions about the PT’s organisational structure and the development of future party leaders. What has become clear in the wake of Brazil’s 2018 election is that Lula remains firmly at the helm of the PT, with little work done to develop future leaders or horizontalise the party’s leadership. Despite a host of highly qualified rank-and-file party members, it is difficult to one day imagine the PT directed by anyone other than Lula. The party’s leadership remains rigidly vertical, with Lula executing top-level decisions and representing the public face of the PT (Valladão, 2018). This was made especially clear in September 2018, when Haddad launched his presidential campaign under the slogan, ‘Hadded é Lula’ (‘Haddad is Lula’). Without the cultivation of new party leaders – and, arguably, attention paid to leadership hierarchies – the PT is likely to have a diminished presence on the national stage going forward, even if they continue to win seats in municipal and state-level elections (as it did in the Northeast in 2018).

Noteworthy here is that the PT’s organisational model is by no means unique in Brazil. Such tactics have a long history, exemplified most famously in the corporatist politics of Getúlio Vargas in the mid-twentieth century. By co-opting labour unions and their leaders into a vertically assembled political structure that included industrialists, economic elites, military leaders and the state, Vargas helped pave the way for contemporary state-society relationships in Brazil. As just one example, under Vargas, a system known as peleguismo was established to mediate relationships between labour unions and the state (Wolfe, 1993). Under this model, intermediary actors (referred to as pelegos) represented labour unions in official legislation with the state, seeking compromises that would assuage union activists without actually threatening Brazil’s socio-economic class structure. The term pelego was therefore an unflattering one among certain activists, used to describe union representatives that were not always faithful to the working classes (Rodrigues, 1968). Like many intermediaries, pelegos were perceived as necessary for their links to state actors, but mostly concerned with their own interests and access to power.

Why is this important for making sense of the present? It would be unfair to call contemporary union representatives and social movement leaders pelegos, but in some ways Brazil’s tradition for peleguismo lives on, helping to explain some of the PT’s electoral success. For example, political parties continue to rely on intermediaries (e.g. social movement leaders, union representatives, community leaders) to engage their constituencies, and activist groups involved with collective mobilisation still articulate around the state. As David Lehmann (2018, p. 15) writes, ‘Rather than building a mass base by mobilising a vast potential following, [social movement] leaders build a strategic base through the opening up of opportunities for advancement to make their voices heard and enable their followers and constituencies to gain access to state resources and entitlements.’ In other words, in Brazil, social movements rarely seek autonomy or anarcho-governance through mass mobilisation, but rather access to the state and its resources through vertically assembled leadership networks. In semi-corporatist fashion, the benefits are mutual: social movements secure additional resources and political inclusion, and state actors build faithful political networks that can be counted on during elections. This is one of several factors helping to explain the PT’s electoral success in recent years, as the party was able to build a diverse support network that included both left-wing and centrist interest groups (cf. Nogueira, 2017).

To be clear, this is not to suggest that pure Vargas-style corporatism lives on in contemporary Brazil. There have been significant changes, and the PT, in particular, worked to break with corporatist traditions and peleguismo, championing alternative movements like ‘new unionism’ in the 1980s (Antunes and Santana, 2014). Still, as Lehmann (2018) and others note (e.g. Antunes and Santana, 2014), corporatist legacies continue to survive in twenty-first-century Brazil, raising questions of how Bolsonaro, representing a small party (which he later quit in 2019) with few political networks, won the 2018 presidential election? Significant, of course, was the PT’s diminished strength on account of political corruption scandals addressed already in this chapter. Equally important was Bolsonaro’s support from conservative lobby factions known collectively as the BBB: the religious right (a bancada da Bíblia), agrobusiness (a bancada do Boi) and the pro-armament sector (a bancada da Bala). Without these groups, Bolsonaro’s victory would have been impossible (Prévot, 2018). Still, it bears asking how an undistinguished politician, representing a virtually unknown party, was able to secure nearly 58 million votes. In past elections, such an outcome would have been unthinkable. Without the platform and political machinery of one of the major parties – including national exposure via the Globo television network – one could not hope to win the presidency. So, what changed in 2018?

On the one hand there is the emerging role of social media. Through Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube and so on, Bolsonaro connected with Brazilian voters in ways that were impossible only a few years beforehand (Belli, 2018). As his following grew, his need for traditional networks diminished, allowing him to bypass a host of intermediaries central to political machinery in the past. This represents a fundamental shift in the way state actors like Bolsonaro engage their constituencies, highlighting a decisive change in Brazilian democratic processes. More bluntly, it is hard to imagine how Bolsonaro would have won the election in an era before WhatsApp (Nemer, 2018). Social media technologies are changing how political campaigns are waged, and just like in other countries, the repercussions of such change are still being grappled with in Brazil.

Related to this, and on the other hand, is the possibility that traditional political networks may be undergoing fundamental change in Brazil. This is not to say they will disappear altogether, but instead to suggest that Brazil’s corporatist legacies, highlighted by researchers like Lehmann (2018), are now shifting on account of new communication technologies. In short, the intermediary actors of the past, so crucial for linking Brazil’s vertically assembled political networks, may not be so necessary in the future. Politicians can now communicate directly with their constituencies, reducing the need for brokers who disseminate their messages and steer voters their way. More generally, the ways people engage with the state, and how Brazilian democracy operates on the ground – whether corporatist, clientelist, Corinthians or otherwise – are evolving rapidly. It is still too early to say, but as Garmany and Pereira (2019, p. 229) argue, ‘This could be what 2018 is most remembered for in Brazil: not Bolsonaro the president, but rather the context that enabled his candidacy.’ For researchers hoping to make sense of this context, the rise of social media cannot be underestimated, including its potential to alter political networks linking the state with different polities.

Returning to the broader question that animates this section, what does this mean for the PT going forward? If, indeed, as I have argued here, traditional political networks and corporatist legacies are very much in flux, the PT may struggle to adapt. The party’s vertical hierarchy and linkages with different polities represent a passing era of political mobilisation, which, while not obsolete, is perhaps no longer such a strength. Additionally, if the PT’s leadership remains rigid and articulated around Lula, it seems unlikely the party will win back the presidency, unless Lula wins again in 2022. To do otherwise would require the cultivation of new party leaders, which the PT has not proven committed to in recent years. This is not to say the PT will vanish entirely: indeed, in regions such as the Northeast, the party continues to win seats in municipal and state elections. But at the executive level, the PT’s future is cloudy, and without meaningful change, the current post-PT-presidential era could extend indefinitely into the future. This, obviously, is consequential for the Brazilian left, and it is to this issue I now turn.

What now for the left?

What the PT was able to accomplish in terms of social programmes and poverty reduction in Brazil between 2003 and 2016 was, in retrospect, pretty remarkable. In addition to well-known anti-poverty programs such as Bolsa Familía (Brazil’s conditional cash transfer initiative, consolidated in 2003) and steady increases to the minimum wage, the PT also undertook a series of additional measures meant to address poverty and underdevelopment in Brazil. This included, at the international scale, linkages with other developing countries in an effort to establish south–south cooperation, and more focused initiatives within Brazil meant to address historically marginalised populations such as Afro-Brazilians, rural workers and indigenous groups. Perry Anderson (2011, p. 9) notes that the PT’s legacy is by no means a socialist one, or even distinguished by significant changes to Brazil’s socio-economic class structure, but that ‘The fate of the poor in Brazil had been a kind of apartheid, and Lula had ended that.’ So, how did the PT lose the support of so many working-class voters in this process, fuelling a political identity crisis that now confronts the Brazilian left?

Again, many of these issues have already been addressed and go beyond the scope of this chapter. This includes the corruption scandals that brought down Rousseff’s government and sent Lula to prison, and intense anti-PT sentiment that extends across most social classes (Borges and Vidigal, 2018). Important also was the mismanagement of Brazil’s economy, and the consequences this held for working- and middle-class Brazilians. This included a failure to improve public infrastructure, healthcare and education, as well as the PT’s miscalculated emphasis on mega-events like the World Cup and the Olympics. Not to be overlooked was the influence of voting blocs such as the religious right, as well as serious issues of violent crime experienced by millions of people. These issues, of course, are well known, and when combined with Brazil’s ongoing corruption scandals, they go a long way toward explaining working-class frustration with the PT.

At a deeper level, though, is the question of Brazil’s broader development strategy, which reveals a decisive shift to the political centre and the abandonment of a clearly leftist economic agenda. As Pedro Loureiro notes (2018), the PT consistently followed a depoliticised development strategy that, while promoting social inclusion and poverty relief, made no attempt to fundamentally alter Brazil’s socio-economic class structure. In more simple terms, the poor made gains, but the rich made even bigger gains. This helps to explain the political void currently facing the Brazilian left, where the party that has ostensibly represented the left in Brazilian politics for years (i.e. the PT) – and which criticised centre-left parties for being too conservative – has become a centrist party with no clear commitment to a radical or leftist agenda. Such a legacy has led Brazilian scholars such as Alfredo Saad-Filho and Armando Boito (2016) to criticise the PT for following a fundamentally neoliberal path, and for abandoning the radical politics upon which the party was built.

The political void identified by Loureiro is concerning on many levels, and not least in how it coincides with the rise of Bolsonaro, a leader who openly embraces misogynistic, homophobic, racist and right-wing authoritarian views. While such a political vacuum is certainly not unique to Brazil, it has erupted rather suddenly and offers few quick-fix solutions. Again, returning to Loureiro (2018), rebuilding from this void will take time, and the future of the Brazilian left will likely look different from the Brazilian left of today. The silver lining, argues Loureiro, is that the left’s future almost certainly lies with more radical groups fighting for racial and gender equality in Brazil. Included here are long-established social movements dating back to the 1970s and 1980s (i.e. the end of the military dictatorship), as well as emergent groups that have formed in the twenty-first century and have avoided co-optation by state actors.

This ‘new left’, so to speak, is distinguished not necessarily by the causes it represents (e.g. racial and gender equality, indigenous rights, radical eco-socialism), but more by the distance it maintains from political parties and corporatist networks. Many of its activists – for example, pro-Black activists in cities such as Rio de Janeiro (Rodgers, 2019) – came of age during the PT years and have seen first-hand the costs of political co-optation. If, indeed, Loureiro is right, and these groups represent the future of the Brazilian left, it will be interesting to see how – or if – they organise politically. Considering these activists have tended to be wary of existing political parties, it could mean that a new party – or parties – will emerge to represent the left. Given Brazil’s history of ‘extreme multipartyism’ (Garmany and Pereira, 2019, p. 35), such a development would hardly be surprising. Then again, as I explore in the next section, these groups may also continue to keep the state at arm’s length, refusing to reproduce political and corporatist legacies of the past.

To briefly sum up, I have thus far suggested that a PT candidate other than Lula is unlikely to capture Brazil’s presidency, and while this represents a political crisis for the Brazilian left, the future is not without hope for those fighting for radical change. Just as Brazil’s political landscape is moving rapidly, so too are the platforms upon which left and right currently stand. This may indicate the emergence of a ‘new left’ in years to come, though whether Brazil’s system of ‘coalitional presidentialism’ (Melo and Pereira, 2013) can survive increasing political polarisation remains to be seen. Related to this, I have also argued that the current moment represents a decisive one in Brazilian politics, where legacies of corporatism are shifting, and long-established state–society linkages are being disrupted. This political shift leads to the second of my two main arguments: namely, that collective mobilisation is also at a crossroads, exemplified in how groups organise and communicate internally, as well as how they engage the state and position themselves politically. It is to this argument I turn my attention in the penultimate section of the chapter.

What now for collective mobilisation?

In hindsight, Brazil’s street protests of 2013 were a harbinger for the presidential election of 2018. Both were unprecedented, both unleashed new waves of political tension, and both would have been impossible in an era before social media and smartphone technology. More to the point, given how social media enabled new forms of collective mobilisation and unforeseeable political unrest in 2013 (Garmany and Pereira, 2019, p. 136; Joia, 2016), perhaps it should not have been surprising when, in 2018, similar forces produced an unprecedented election result. Again, the role of information technology and communication is central to this debate: it provided new methods for different groups to share ideas, come together and organise – whether virtually or in public space – and to link with others instantaneously across great distances.

On the one hand, this new communication landscape allows for alternative forms of social organisation and engagement and changes how people gather and spread information, and offers new platforms for resistance and modes of collective mobilisation (Cardoso, Lapa and Di Fátima, 2016). But on the other, it also provides the state with new surveillance technologies (see e.g. Morozov, 2011), as well as creating new tactics for spreading misinformation and skewing election results (Magenta, Gragnani and Souza, 2018). Arguably, social media has been harnessed, and manipulated, more effectively by the right than the left (Fisher and Taub, 2019). According to Luca Belli (2018), this helps to explain Bolsonaro’s victory in 2018.

The purpose of this section is to explore these issues and, specifically, to argue that the current moment represents a watershed for collective mobilisation (in Brazil as well as elsewhere). To illustrate this point, I consider contemporary collective mobilisation in Brazil from two classic theoretical viewpoints: first, from the perspective of resource mobilisation theory, I show how social media is changing the ways groups communicate and organise, helping to establish new practices and spatialities of activism in Brazil; and second, from the perspective of political opportunity theory, I suggest that social movements are, today, engaging differently with the state, as well as developing new methods for organisation that attend to diversities within and across different activist groups. This, of course, is not to say these changes will necessarily produce ‘better’ or more effective forms of social resistance, but instead to draw attention to recent developments that are changing the face of collective mobilisation in Brazil.

To begin, from the viewpoint of resource mobilisation theory – which links the success of social movements with their capacity to secure and make use of resources (see Miller, 2000) – recent developments in social media and communication technology (viz., smartphones) have helped bring about a new tactical era in collective mobilisation. For example, until very recently, activist groups required at least three key material resources to mobilise: physical space to coalesce; established social networks to facilitate organisation; and media resources to communicate more broadly. Brazilian social movements during the second half of the twentieth century provide an illustration of this: without private space to meet and strategise, as well as public space to manifest and occupy, it was impossible to achieve collective mobilisation. For example, social movements like the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra –Landless Workers’ Movement) relied on institutions like the progressive Catholic Church for organisational/spatial resources (see e.g. Stedile and Fernandes, 1999). Nowadays, social movements can coalesce online and are less bounded by questions of physical space. Social media may not have eliminated the need for public space to manifest and occupy, but it has definitely provided an alternative private space for meeting and strategising. Likewise, when it comes to social networks, Brazilian activists were historically dependent upon labour unions and political parties for organisational resources. This changed in recent decades with the rise of ‘New Social Movements’ (see e.g. Cupples, 2013), but even as activist groups grew more independent from labour unions and political parties, they maintained similar traditions of vertical organisation and linkages with state actors (Lehmann, 2018; Nogueira, 2017). The emergence of contemporary social media, however, has changed this, offering activist groups even more independence from established social networks, and, potentially, new opportunities for horizontal organisation and leadership. Whether or not such possibilities will produce alternative hierarchies remains to be seen, but the growth of new social networks – enabled by information technology – has no doubt opened a new organisational landscape for collective mobilisation.

Thirdly, online resources have greatly expanded the communication and media possibilities available to social movements. Activists are no longer so dependent on material resources like pamphlets, signage and word-of-mouth communication, nor do they require media attention or broadcasting resources to raise awareness. With resources like WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook, they can enter into dialogue with millions instantaneously, and organise, adjust and respond in a fraction of the time that was required in the past. This allows groups to articulate their messages broadly, bypassing certain material requirements that, until just a few years ago, were crucial for broader communication (Cardoso, Lapa and Di Fátima, 2016). Again, Brazil’s protests of 2013 help to illustrate this, where mobilisations that would have been impossible at the start of the twenty-first century became an overnight reality only ten years later. ‘In previous decades, these protests would have taken weeks (if not months) to organise. In 2013, people connected over social media, and could then assemble nationwide within hours’ (Garmany and Pereira, 2019, p. 122 – italics original).

Arguing that changes in social media and information technology are hugely significant for collective mobilisation is hardly new (see e.g. Gerbaudo, 2012). Predicting what it will mean for Brazilian social movements more specifically, however, is harder to forecast. While it is clearly a dynamic time for collective mobilisation in Brazil, it is not just progressive social movements that harness these new technologies. Right-wing activists have also been successful at spreading their messages through social media, helping to elect extremist leaders like Jair Bolsonaro (Fisher and Taub, 2019). Additionally, argues Evgeny Morozov (2011), online communication hardly promises a more progressive or democratic future. In this respect, resource mobilisation theory is useful for highlighting some of the changes brought on by communication technology – and, more specifically, how these resources produce new methods of collective mobilisation – but not necessarily for unpacking the political ramifications of such change (viz., the relationships between social movements and the state). To better consider these factors, and to examine the ways social movements engage the state while balancing socially and politically diverse participant bases, it is useful to also consider the political opportunities involved.

From the perspective of political opportunity theory – which links the success of social movements to political opportunities available to them (again, see Miller, 2000) – information technology would appear to be shifting relationships between civil society, social movements and the state. In much the same way that Bolsonaro’s presidency was enabled by communication technologies like WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter, so too have these technologies enabled new political opportunities for collective mobilisation. To better understand this, it is useful to return to Lehmann’s (2018) observation regarding social movements and the state: rather than pursuing autonomy or anarcho-governance through mass mobilisation, Brazilian social movements have tended to seek access to the state and its resources through vertically assembled leadership networks. With the PT government, the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso before that, and so on, social movements have typically sought to make inroads with state actors. In this way, Brazilian collective mobilisation is historically characterised by appeals for state action and/or resources, with leaders of these movements typically serving as intermediaries between the state and members of their respective movements (similar to ‘Corinthians Democracy’).

Today, however, thanks to new technologies and political opportunities that appear to be altering corporatist legacies noted by Lehmann (2018), Brazilian social movements are confronted with new possibilities for collective mobilisation. More to the point, if a right-wing candidate can bypass traditional intermediaries and still win the presidency, then why should social activists not also seek alternative communication strategies and methods of engagement with civil society? State resources are still crucial to social movements, but, as I have argued in this chapter, if Bolsonaro’s presidency represents a fundamental shift in contemporary Brazilian politics, then so too should it represent a decisive moment for collective mobilisation. For example, in recent years, Brazilian social movements have begun to align more often with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) than with the state. This has been triggered by two main factors: fewer state resources available to social movements, and new opportunities and resources made available by NGOs. As Carlyn Rodgers (2019) argues, this provides collective mobilisation with new opportunities and new pitfalls, as activists struggle to learn and negotiate new landscapes of alignment and solidarity. Whether or not this means that social movements will grow more autonomous and break with traditional networks remains to be seen, but it is being made possible thanks to emergent communication resources and political opportunities. Thus, from the perspective of political opportunity theory, recent changes in Brazil – a right-wing government and shifting political networks that link the state and civil society – point to a future where, perhaps, social movements could pursue more autonomous forms of collective action (rather than, as they have in the past, establishing direct links with state actors and institutions). This is not to say social movements will end all relationships with the state: as Adrian Gurza Lavalle and José Szwako (2015) point out, ‘autonomy’ is not simply the absence of a relationship with the state, since material and epistemological linkages must also be accounted for. But, to be sure, institutional linkages between activists, civil society and the state have undergone important changes in recent years, and the implications for collective action are still being grappled with (see, for example, Gurza Lavalle et al., 2019).

Building on this, and exploring further my second argument that collective mobilisation faces a pivotal moment with respect to state engagement, what new political opportunities are emerging for social movements? Most obvious, perhaps, are alternative organisational networks: in much the same way that information technology is enabling new forms of resource mobilisation, so, too, are shifting state–society networks offering dynamic political opportunities for social movements (e.g. Szwako and Gurza Lavalle, 2019). For example, in the past – and thanks again to legacies of corporatism in Brazil – labour unions and political parties were crucial to the organisational tactics of collective mobilisation. Without these networks, activists struggled to mobilise and make linkages with the state. Again, this began to change in the 1980s and 1990s with the emergence of ‘New Social Movements’ (NSMs), but unlike in Europe and North America, where NSMs began focusing their attention on issues such as civil rights, anti-discrimination and environmental protection, NSMs in Brazil and Latin America tended to coalesce over material concerns such as housing, human rights, land rights and access to natural resources (cf. Cupples, 2013). Effective as these social movements have been in making gains, they have also struggled to make advancements in areas such as anti-discrimination legislation, protection for historically marginalised groups, and recognition of gender diversity, as well as addressing issues of intersectionality (that is, the ways different forms of discrimination – race-based, class-based, gender-based, etc. – tend to combine and overlap) within and across activist groups (Garmany and Pereira, 2019, p. 134).

New political opportunities, however, may be changing this. Where social movements, until recently, tended to focus on access to state institutions to address material gains, this could change as activists become less concerned with building state linkages. Again, it is early to say, but there exists the possibility that collective mobilisation, when unmoored from institutional state networks, could focus more directly on issues addressed by contemporary social movements in the global north (e.g. gender inequality, racial discrimination, state violence and police brutality). Reasons for this are diverse, but can be attributed largely to two main factors: first, if social movements grow more autonomous, there is reason to believe they may also grow more radical (Katsiaficas, 2006); and second, with increased autonomy and fewer state resources, social movements may be forced to work horizontally, potentially negotiating issues of intersectionality that remain unaddressed on account of material and class-based objectives (Bernardino-Costa, 2014; Garmany and Pereira, 2019). Brazil’s contemporary pro-Black movement appears to evidence this, with many activists now working to address multiple layers of discrimination (gender, class, spiritual, etc.) rather than racial inequality in and of itself (Rodgers, 2019; Alves, 2018). Looking over Brazil’s contemporary landscape of collective mobilisation – where groups are finding new ways to organise that attend to intersectional identities and diverse support bases (Bernardino-Costa, 2014; Cicalo, 2012; Perry, 2016) – there is reason to believe that significant changes are underway within Brazil’s progressive and activist left (see also Lima, 2018).

Before moving to some conclusions, however, there are a few points that bear re-emphasising. First, to suggest that social movements may grow more autonomous, radical and/or horizontal is not to say they will also become more effective in achieving their goals. While there is evidence to suggest that Brazilian social movements are undergoing significant change, trying to predict whether or not they will be more effective is another question altogether. Given mounting antagonism towards collective action from a multitude of conservative forces – including extreme violence still suffered by Afro-Brazilians at the hands of the state (Alves, 2018) – it would be naive to suggest the left will simply regroup, reorganise and stage a quick comeback.

Moreover, there are good reasons for why the Brazilian left, for decades, sought inroads with state actors through vertically assembled networks. It proved effective at holding out against the military dictatorship; it was crucial during Brazil’s democratic transition; and it helped bring about Lula’s victory in 2002. Related to this, and turning now to social media, for all the opportunities online communication presents, it offers just as many drawbacks. As just one example, right-wing groups have been hugely effective in harnessing social media to achieve their goals (Belli, 2018; Fisher and Taub, 2019; Nemer, 2018). All this suggests that researchers must use extreme caution when trying to forecast where Brazil will turn next. It is no doubt a dynamic time for Brazilian social movements, but it remains to be seen if emergent groups will achieve the success of long-established ones like the Landless Workers’ Movement.

Conclusions

Reflecting on where this chapter began, with a discussion of Corinthians Democracy and the ‘intermediaries’ that link the state and civil society in Brazil, it bears re-emphasising that the current political moment is both highly unpredictable and historically unprecedented. I have tried to explore the deeper implications of these changes throughout this chapter, focusing on the linkages between the state, civil society and democratic practice. Analysing these changes and their potential implications has led me to consider several possible directions for Brazilian democracy, even going so far as to speculate what the future might hold for collective mobilisation and leftist politics. But these arguments are tentative. Trying to predict the future of state–society relationships in Brazil, or what social media will mean for collective mobilisation, is a speculative exercise, and one that requires constant revision as new events unfold.

I have attempted to make two key arguments. First, that Brazil’s 2018 presidential election may indicate a pivotal moment in the country’s democracy, whereby a fundamental shift is taking place in the ways people engage with politics, voting and the state; and second, that the current moment is likely a watershed for Brazilian social movements, both in the ways they organise and communicate, as well as how they engage with the state. To make these arguments, I addressed three broad questions that helped to animate the chapter and facilitate critical discussion. The first, which queried the future of the PT, led me to suggest that 2018 may, indeed, signal the beginning of an ongoing (and indefinite) post-PT presidential era. In response to the second question, which asked what will become of the Brazilian left, I followed Loureiro’s argument (2018) that the future lies with more radical and progressive leftist groups (such as movements for racial and gender equality), and will likely produce new political parties to rival the PT. And for the third question, in which I considered the implications for collective mobilisation, I argued that new communication technologies are producing alternative methods of organisation and engagement, where, potentially, social movements could grow more autonomous from state institutions, and focus more specifically on issues such as intersectional inequality and anti-discrimination. To distil these arguments more concisely, and to paraphrase Garmany and Pereira (2019), it may be that, in the long run, 2018 is remembered not just for Bolsonaro’s victory, but also for the decisive shift within Brazil’s socio-political landscape that contributed to his election.

There are a host of broader ramifications that stem from this, but to conclude, I focus my attention on three key points. First is the issue of social media and its effects on politics and collective mobilisation. Social media is not just changing the ways people communicate; it is also changing how people organise and interact with political institutions and state actors. In some ways, this offers opportunities to horizontalise and democratise communication and state–society relationships. But in other ways, it presents new methods for co-optation and state surveillance. Thus, social media is neither a ‘good’ technology or a ‘bad’ one, but rather an important technology that requires more attention from academic researchers.

Second, Brazil is by no means the only country where relationships between the state and civil society are in flux. Again, this is not to say that what comes next will be better or more democratic, but simply to point out that relationships linking the state with civil society are undergoing important changes, and the consequences of these changes are bound to be significant. These issues will remain important for researchers around the world for years to come, with questions over democracy, governance and state formation connected tightly to them.

And finally, for those hoping to understand political and social change in diverse countries like Brazil, there remain important lessons to keep in mind. For example, just as ‘the left’ and ‘social movements’ are often discussed in ways that homogenise their participant bases, so too are groups like ‘evangelicals’ and ‘the right’ characterised in ways that ignore their internal diversities. More specifically, evangelicals in Brazil are often written off as right-wing and conservative, yet this overlooks the massive growth of evangelical participants in many of Brazil’s most radical and progressive social movements (Burdick, 2005; Cicalo, 2012). This is significant for researchers exploring political and social change around the world, and connects on several levels with arguments presented in this chapter: namely, that leftist politics are changing, and that collective mobilisation faces a transitional moment with respect to communication, organisation and engagement with non-state actors. For researchers seeking to understand radical politics, whether in Brazil or elsewhere, these will remain important issues for years to come.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors, Katerina Hatzikidi and Eduardo Dullo, as well as fellow participants in the ‘Horizon of (im)possibilities’ conference, supported by the Society for Latin American Studies, and hosted by King’s College London, on 22 February 2019. This chapter benefited from comments by Anne Décobert, Bina Fernandez, Erin Fitz-Henry, Benjamin Hegarty, Nadeem Malik and Violeta Schubert. Extra special thanks go to Anthony W. Pereira and Carlyn Rodgers for extensive and detailed feedback. All errors remain my own.

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