Week 10:
A New Democracy, 19852001; New Social Movements
Last week
• Gradual process of “opening” / abertura
• Initiated by the military leadership but shaped by organised civil
society
• E.g. Catholic Church and Liberation Theology
• Economic context for abertura: initial “economic miracle,” then
massive external debt (oil crises of the 1970s)
• Political process that brings Tancredo Neves as first civilian president
since – but dies suddenly before taking office
This week…
• Political story of 1980s and 1990s: how much
changed/ improved as a result of democratic
transition?
• New ways of doing politics; new groups make claims
on rights of CITIZENSHIP… e.g.:
• Black Movement; the indigenous; MST (Landless
Workers’ Movement).
Funeral procession for Tancredo
Sarney (1985-1989)
1988 Constitution
• Constituent Assembly formed 1986
• Result of lobbying efforts by civil society groups
• Broad range of citizen rights – e.g. land rights for quilombos
• But: no agrarian reform (landowners mobilise)
• Corporatist features e.g. absolute tenure for civil servants;
protection for Petrobras (Vargas legacy)
• Swing back from centralisation to regionalism: state /
municipal budgets increased, federal budget decreased
Brazilian democracy in the 1980s
• Profound shifts as result of dictatorship period
• Many different parties with shifting platforms; little significance to
electorate
• Young, large electorate; most are NEW to voting:
- nearly half are under 30,
- fewer than 15% are over 50
- only 1/6 of voters have graduated from high school;
- 40% are totally or mainly illiterate
• Therefore: volatile electoral climate
José Sarney and the Cruzado Plan
• Cruzado Plan 1986: stabilisation then wage increases;
initial success...
• 1986 election victory for Sarney …
• But: economic crisis by 1987; economy spirals out of
control by 1989
• Administration dogged by corruption scandals
Fernando Collor
Fernando Collor, 1989-1992
• Relatively unknown; successful TV campaign
1989
• “Shock treatment” for inflation; savings accounts
frozen, mass redundancies
• Inflation again after initial “shock”
• Extreme corruption
• Impeached, 1992
The “Plano Real”
• Collor impeached, 1992...
• ... Vice-president Itamar Franco becomes president
• Finance minister, Fernando Henrique Cardoso,
institutes “Plano Real” (1994)
• New currency (the real)
• High interest rates to fight inflation
• Success: inflation from 1094% to 15% in 1 year
Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC), 1994-2002
• Success of Real Plan  elected 1994
• Neoliberalism…
• -cut state spending; privatisation; reduce deficit
• Achieves stable economy but price is:
• very low growth
• ever-growing social inequality
Socioeconomic problems of 80s and 90s
• Widening gap between rich and poor
• Rise in urban crime and police violence
• Hardening of attitudes towards poor, street children
massacred at Candelaria church in Rio…
• Growth of drug traffic
• Dismal record in public education and health care:
illiteracy nearly 20% in 1980s
Morumbi neighbourhood, São Paulo, with
Paraíso favela next door
Major films about urban social realities…
•City of God (2002)
•City of Men (2007)
•Elite Squad (2007)
•Carandiru (2003)
•Bus 174 (2002)
Landless Workers’ Movement (MST)
• Long l roots of extreme land inequality, exacerbated under the
military
• Urban crisis is linked to RURAL crisis (exodus from land)
• MST is born out of land struggles during abertura; founded 1984,
close links to PT and Catholic Church.
• Land occupations by rural families; massacres in 1990s; high profile
INTERNATIONALLY
• Land redistributions by INCRA (the land reform agency) under FHC
• Redistribution of land continued under Lula but much less than
promised
Black Movement (MNU)
• Reformed during abertura process, although its roots are
older (since 30s)
• Movimento Negro Unido (united black movement) founded
1979
• Influenced by civil rights struggles in US and anti-apartheid
struggle in S. Africa
• Intellectual influences: Abdias do Nascimento, Florestan
Fernandes
• Links with : trades unions; women’s movement
Demands of Black Movement after abertura
• Campaign for Afro-Brazilians to self-identify as “Black” in censuses
1991, 2000
• Rethinking of centenary of abolition of slavery (1988): Replace 13
May 1888, (freedoms “given” by Princess Isabel) with 20 November
(Zumbi’s day): now a national holiday in Brazil
• Pushes for new law in 2003: African and Afro-Brazilian history must
be taught at schools and unis
• Pushed to make racism a crime: changes to constitution
• Affirmative action policies to counter racism in federal government
and ensure more black students at universities
Readings
• Michel Agier,"Racism, Culture and Black Identity in Brazil," Bulletin of
Latin American Research, 1995
• Benedita da Silva, Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman’s Story of
Politics and Love (1997), “Introduction”; chapter 6, “Exploding the Myth
of Racial Harmony”
• Indigenous: Seth Garfield, “Mario Juruna,” in The Human Tradition
• Alison Brysk, “Turning Weakness into Strength: The Internationalization
of Indian Rights.” Latin American Perspectives, 1996
• Leandro Vergara-Camus, “The Politics of the MST: Autonomous Rural
Communities, the State, and Electoral Politics,” Latin American
Perspectives, 2009
• Landless Movement (MST), “The Reality of the Brazilian Countryside,” in
The Brazil Reader
• MST website: http://www.mstbrazil.org/
Questions
• What were the claims, and contributions to the
democratic transition, of: the landless
movement; the black movement; the
indigenous?
• How far have their struggles been realised in
democratic Brazil?
• What hurdles have been encountered?
Mario Juruna:
Brazil’s first
indigenous
congressman
Benedita da Silva:
Brazil’s first black
woman senator
- Active in PT (Workers’ Party)
in Rio favelas from late 70s