This article compares how COVID-19 affected state–society relations differently in two relatively similar countries: Brazil and Argentina. Bringing together social movement theories and ideational ...institutionalism, we argue that variation in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic is explained by the different roles played by social movements inside and outside government and by contrasting ideational disputes. The extreme uncertainty introduced by the pandemic generated intense contestation about the meaning of the crisis and how to resolve it. In Brazil, progressive social movements not only were excluded from the government coalition, but also had to combat a powerful discourse that denied the existence of a crisis altogether. Such denialism did not flourish in the same way in Argentina, where progressive social movements were part of national government processes. The result was that in Argentina, movement–government dynamics revolved around constructing long-term policy proposals, whereas in Brazil movements focused on short-term emergency responses.
Resumo O estudo da participação de movimentos sociais na produção das políticas públicas é uma agenda em franco desenvolvimento no Brasil e na literatura internacional. Neste artigo buscamos ...colaborar com o desenvolvimento dessa agenda, ao oferecer um modelo analítico para abordar aquilo que a literatura tradicionalmente apreende como “contexto político”, que condicionaria a atuação dos movimentos sociais nas suas tentativas de influenciar o Estado. Partindo de um diálogo crítico com a produção nacional e estrangeira, argumentamos que, em vez de se relacionarem com um contexto objetivado e externo que condiciona sua formação e ação, os movimentos sociais devem ser compreendidos como participantes em relações de interdependência com diversos atores e instituições com quem interagem rotineiramente, constituindo o que denominamos de estruturas relacionais. Na análise das relações entre movimentos sociais e políticas públicas, as estruturas relacionais especialmente relevantes analiticamente são os regimes políticos e os subsistemas de política pública. Nosso argumento é que os movimentos sociais não se relacionam com essas estruturas - conforme se depreenderia de uma formulação contextualista -, mas no interior delas, embora normalmente a partir de uma posição de desvantagem ou marginalização.
Abstract The study of how social movements participate in the production of public policies became a major research agenda in Brazil and around the world. In this article, we seek to collaborate with the development of this agenda by proposing an analytical model to approach what is traditionally thought of as the “political context,” which would condition the actions of social movements in their attempt to influence the State. Through a critical dialogue with the national and international literatures, we argue that, instead of interacting with an objective, external context that conditions movement emergence and actions, social movements should be understood as participating in interdependence relationships with the variety of actors and institutions with whom they regularly interact, through what we call relational structures. In analyzing the relations between social movements and public policies, we highlight two relational structures: political regimes and policy subsystems. Our argument is that social movements do not interact with these relational structures, as a contextualist approach would presume, but rather within them, although normally from disadvantaged or marginalized positions.
Bureaucratic Activism Abers, Rebecca Neaera
Latin American politics and society,
07/2019, Letnik:
61, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This study explores the evolution of the Green Grants program, run by Brazil’s Ministry of Environment, as a means for developing the concept of bureaucratic activism. When the Workers’ Party first ...took office in 2003, many social movement actors joined the government, especially in that agency. After 2007, however, most of these activists left the government. At the same time, the ministry substituted thousands of temporary employees for permanent civil servants. Surprisingly, this study finds that these public employees carried forward the environmentalist cause, even when this required contesting the priorities of superiors. Examining their attitudes and practices leads to a definition of activism as the proactive pursuit of opportunities to defend contentious causes. The case study helps to develop this concept and to demonstrate that workers inside bureaucracies can engage in activist behavior. It also explores the effects of bureaucratic activism on environmental policymaking in Brazil.
This article examines institutional activism between 2011 and 2018 in two Brazilian government programs, 'Green Grants' and the 'Stork Network'. Institutional activism is defined as collective action ...in the defense of contentious causes conducted within the boundaries of state institutions. The two policies were designed and implemented by bureaucrats committed to social movement causes, environmentalism and women's health, respectively. The environmentalist bureaucrats were mostly permanent public employees with few ties to movement networks, while the women's health group included mostly temporary employees with long histories of civil society activism. I argue that diverse locations in state institutions and movement networks gave these groups access to different combinations of institutional and relational resources. In dialogue with theories of situated agency and activist strategy, I show how those differences both led actors to engage in different kinds of strategies and influenced the way those strategies changed as political conditions became increasingly hostile.
Studies of participatory governance generally examine the input (deliberation, participation) and/or output (accountability) side of policy processes. Often neglected is the throughput: Does the ...state have the political and technical capacity to implement the decisions that deliberative bodies make? In this study of Brazilian river-basin committees, the authors find that activists inside and outside the state often must collaborate to overcome resistance to change and provide state officials with resources they lack. They argue that this does not constitute the transfer of state responsibility to private actors but rather the mobilization of a state's capacity to defend the public interest.
This article uses social movement theory to explore how decentralized stakeholder governance can be fostered at the river basin level in contexts where local actors lack incentives to participate. ...Based on two Brazilian river basins where efforts to promote collaboration among state, civic and private organizations were successful, it emphasizes the importance of building collective identities revolving around river basin issues and groups. It shows how leadership and initial collaborative practices help build such identities, through reframing ideas about problems and solutions and through building basinwide networks, trust among stakeholders and social and political recognition.
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