Lulism and the institutionalization of social movements in Brazil: strengthening democratic inclusion and perpetuating hegemony¹

Lulismo e a institucionalização dos movimentos sociais no Brasil: fortalecendo a inclusão democrática e perpetuando a hegemonia

Abstract

This paper assesses the democratizing potential of the institutionalization of social movements in Brazil under the Lula Government, in order to evaluate their impact on political hegemony and social inclusion when they establish close links with the state apparatus. We focus on rural movements and the Sustainable Development Program of Rural Territories (Pronat), and show that the institutionalization of a significant part of the rural movement was part of the phenomenon known as Lulism, a social class alliance in which social movements had a prominent role that enabled the Lula government to consolidate its hold on power. We argue that social movements have not only successfully converted their demands into public policies and strengthened political participation, but also perpetuated class hegemony and legitimated the authority of the government.

Institutionalization of social movements; Social movements, Lulism; Hegemony; Democratic governance

Resumo

Este artigo avalia o potencial democratizador da institucionalização dos movimentos sociais no Brasil sob o governo Lula, a fim de avaliar seu impacto na hegemonia política e na inclusão social quando estabelecem vínculos estreitos com o aparelho estatal. Tendo como foco os movimentos sociais rurais e o Programa de Desenvolvimento Sustentável dos Territórios Rurais (Pronat), é demonstrado que a institucionalização de parte significativa dos movimentos rurais faz parte de um fenômeno social conhecido como Lulismo, uma aliança de classes sociais na qual os movimentos sociais desempenharam um papel proeminente, e que permitiu ao governo Lula consolidar seu poder. O argumento central do trabalho é que os movimentos sociais rurais, ao mesmo tempo que converteram suas demandas em políticas públicas, e fortaleceram a participação política, também perpetuaram a hegemonia de classes legitimando a autoridade do governo.

Institucionalização de movimentos sociais; Movimentos sociais, Lulismo; Hegemonia; Governança democrática

Introduction

The growing institutionalization of social movements in many countries has produced new forms of collective action where they act in the formal political sphere, establishing relations with official institutions and taking positions in administrative structures (Suh, 2011; Ommen, 1990; Santoro e McGuire, 1997; Giugni e Passy, 1998; Goldstone 2004). This differ from the processes that took place in the 1960s and 1970s, when activists and scholars saw social movements as non-bureaucratic associations, involved in adversarial relations with the state and operating outside formal politics (Touraine, 1989; Habermas, 1981; Melucci, 1980). However, we argue that these processes are changing radically in countries like Brazil, where social movements were incorporated and worked collaboratively with the state, raising important political and organizational issues. We will show that, instead of representing a case of co-optation, misuse of purposes and subsequent process of demobilization (Coy e Hedeen, 2005; Druck, 2006; Gamson, 1975; Gohn, 2008; Hershberg e Rosen, 2006; Jaffee, 2012; Murphree, Wright e Ebaugh, 1996; Pellow, 1999; Santoro e Brown, 2003; Trumpy, 2008), these process represented an attempt to improve the democratic processes in the country (Avritzer, 2012) as part of a political and ideological project and social class pact called Lulism (Singer, 2009). At the same time, it strengthened the hegemony of classes under the appearance of a reversal of the traditional structures of power.

The institutionalization of social movements under the Lula government had a number of distinct characteristics. First, only the PT incorporates the most important social movements in Brazil, and this allowed it to institutionalize them when it came to power. Second, a large number of movements were institutionalized in Brazil, so those representing women, blacks, the landless, rural workers, labour federations and human rights organizations were incorporated, bringing their claims with them and taking part in public management for the first time. Third, institutionalizing key social movements also enabled PT to incorporate many representatives of the lower classes into the state bureaucracy and enable them to influence the government’s conducting.

We will show that what some theorists have treated just as demobilization, actually involved a real but silent investment in civil society organizations that have been strengthened through their association with power. Furthermore, that incorporating social movements into the state also involved the implicit consent of the country’s ruling elites that produced a new version of the traditional class hegemony in the country, and not a “reversal of hegemony” as some theorists claim (Oliveira, 2007).

We will use the Sustainable Development Program of Rural Territories (Pronat) as a case study, to show how this process has produced structures and actions of social mobilization with important transformative potential that strengthened democracy, but we will also identify the tensions and challenges it confronted and its limited ability to changes existing structures of domination.

From the crossing of distinct bodies of literature: institutionalization of social movements, participatory democracy and hegemony, and from the major studies on the rural Brazilian territories, this article aims to shed new light not only on this program. It seeks to expand the understanding of the social movements and participatory democracy literature, showing how collaborative processes between the state and social movements can strengthens local organizations through participation mechanisms created by policies like Pronat. At the same time, as shown by the Brazilian case, this linkage to a then ongoing political project took away social movement’s ability to criticize and mobilize them towards achieving structural reforms in rural areas. The result has been a decreasing of the actions of these movements and increasing conflicts in rural areas with an advance of agribusiness, reinforcing the commitment to the traditional elites and class arrangements.

This research was conducted from the literature review on the topic, secondary data analysis and interviews with key people in the federal administration, international institutions such as the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, IICA, civil society organizations like the National Confederation of Rural Workers, Contag, Territorial Development Secretariat (SDT) consultants and researchers working with the issue of territorial development in Brazil.

The paper is divided into four sections. It first reviews the concept of institutionalization of social movements, the role of social classes, and the nature and origins of Lulism. It then reviews the role of social movements in Brazil and their relationships with the Worker’s Party (PT). It then describes the nature of the Pronat program and examines its achievements and challenges. It concludes by evaluating attempts to institutionalize radical social movements as a reformist political and ideological project rather than one that challenges the foundations of the existing social system. It also questions the legacy and future of Lulism in society characterized by a recrudescence of class conflict and the collapse of agreements that enabled it to maintain a viable class compromise.

The institutionalization of social movements

Social movements, seen here according to Diani (1992, p. 13) as “networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/ or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity”, have become increasingly formal organizations. It means not only professionalized but sometimes incorporated within public spheres and attracted the attention of many researchers (Della Porta e Diani, 2009, pp. 150-151; Giugni e Passy, 1998; Goldstone, 2004; Oommen, 1990; Santoro e McGuire, 1997; Staggenborg, 2013). These works primarily seek to understand this phenomenon in view of classically features that characterize social movements: adversarial relations with the state, operating outside formal politics and non-bureaucratic structures (Diani, 1992; Foweraker, 1995; Habermas, 1981; Melucci, 1980; Touraine, 1989). Moreover, most of them have treated mass mobilization and public confrontations designed to produce radical changes in society as their modus operandi, rather than interventions based on dialogue and consent (Suh, 2011, p. 444). Another group of works focus on the effects of the association between social movements with the state. This is done not just in terms of fulfillment of their demands, but also for subsequent processes of deviation of purpose and demobilization, for which scholars point out as a result of co-optation processes (Coy e Hedeen, 2005; Druck, 2006; Gamson, 1975; Gohn, 2008; Hershberg e Rosen, 2006; Jaffee, 2012; Murphree et al., 1996; Pellow, 1999; Santoro e Brown, 2003; Trumpy, 2008).

However, academic approaches to the institutionalization of social movements are now shifting from a focus on the co-optation and demobilization of groups by the state, and a corresponding reduction in their autonomy and ability to take collective actions, towards one that emphasizes the coexistence and interdependence of civic and state institutions.

Thus, recent studies have shown that different groups have taken different paths in different social contexts, recreating, combining and reinterpreting a “repertoire” of practices already used in order to adapt them to new situations, as showed by Tilly (1992), Tarrow (2009) and Clemens (2010) in contexts of political contention. However, other works also show the same modus operandi of social movements in an environment of interaction and cooperation with the state, as Brazil under Lula (Abers, Serafim e Tatagiba, 2014; Abers e Von Bülow, 2011). This clearly shows us the limits of theoretical approaches as based on the conflict between social movements and the State, as pointed out by Amenta (2006), Giugni e Passy (1998) and Meyer (2007).

Hence, institutionalized and non-institutionalized types of social movements can coexist, converge or diverge depending on specific circumstances and interests. Thus, institutionalization and incorporation can involve a shift from confrontational to cooperative action and is likely to be adopted when the benefits of cooperation outweigh the costs of confrontation (Suh, 2011, p. 443). This analysis confirms the claims of classical political theorists (Truman, 1951; Finer, 1958), who treat “interest groups” as an integral part of the organizational systems through which groups with special interests attempt to influence government. Therefore, the actual role played by social movements in any society is always a function of historical and contextual variables, and depend directly on the nature of the state and character of political parties. Autonomous social movements are suppressed in authoritarian states and depend on the existence of democratic institutions and of political parties that must compete for the support of different groups, and therefore take account of their demands and be willing and able to incorporate them in policymaking processes (Brett, 2014; Hipsher, 1998). These processes are evident in Brazil, where Lula’s reformist strategy could be seen as a conscious attempt to consolidate its ongoing democratic transition by using them as innovative political forces within the state, and thus facilitating alliances with progressive groups, increasing the impact of state interventions and producing better results (Suh, 2011, pp. 449-450).

An environment of more participation

In Brazil, greater civil society participation emerged out of intense popular mobilisation, and the work of the 1988 National Constituent Assembly that changed the role of the state, increased decentralization and created new participatory mechanisms. This increased the role of states, municipalities and organized civil society, as part of a wider process of participatory democratisation in Latin America (Avritzer, 2012). These changes were informed by theorists, who argued that good institutional engineering could overcome technical and power asymmetries between the different actors involved (Fung e Wright, 2003), and that increased participation would stimulate dialogue, cooperation and confidence, and produce better policy decisions (Gaventa, 2004). Their opponents argued that power asymmetries, limited information, and contradictions between the interests of subordinate groups and dominant political and economic elites, represented an obstacle to this process (Ray, 2000; Pritchett e Woolcock, 2002; Brett, 2003). However, both pessimists and optimists have recognized the need for radical institutional reforms to overcome these problems, and Brazil has played a key role in implementing them.

These participatory institutions can be divided into three types (Avritzer, 2008) with multiple configurations. The first is “participatory bottom up design”, and involves the free participation of social actors as in the participatory budgeting pioneered in Porto Alegre (Santos, 1998; Avritzer, 2002; Baiocchi, 2005). The second involves “power sharing” with representation from state and civil society, as the case of Pronat. The third is called the “institutional design of ratification”, and involves consultation mechanisms like those made by public hearings on issues such as municipal masterplans. These procedures were initiated by PT governments in states and municipalities in response to demands for participation from social movements, and were then raised to the federal level when Lula’s election in 2002.

Some scholars have disagreed about the importance of participatory processes promoted by the Workers Party in Brazil. Despite recognizing some advances in this area, on the one side are those who do not see the fundamental innovative aspects of the Lula government in doing that, as opposed to successful initiatives verified in states and municipalities governed by the party (Couto, 2009; Moroni, 2006; Gómez Bruera, 2015). On the other hand, other researchers highlight the various initiatives implemented by the federal government to create spaces of civil society participation in and out of the government, like the national conferences and sectoral councils, which differ from those implemented by subnational governments such as the participatory budget (Avritzer, 2010; Pogrebinschi e Samuels, 2014). However, existing studies have not analyzed the role that the institutionalization of social movements play in the creation and strengthening of democratic participation mechanisms in the Lula government, especially those established as part as social policies. Thus, understanding these links, as the result of a complex network of interests conducted by a pact of classes that guaranteed the governability is the main contribution to this debate.

Lulism, social classes conflicts and hegemony

The role of social classes is also important for understanding this process in Brazil, notwithstanding normally be neglected in the main explanatory theories of new social movements, even when “social movements in particular historical circumstances have been linked to specific type of class relation” (Maheu, 1995, p. 10).

Therefore, studies of new social movements from the 1980s generally argued that class conflicts no longer represented the key instruments of historical change, highlighting the role of civil society and culture and emphasizing collective and diffuse identities instead (Gohn, 2000, p. 122). However, the activities of social movements in Brazil do not simply involve the old struggle between capital and labour, but include an attempt to help subordinate classes to increase their ability to assert their rights and engage in public politics. Hence, it is important to develop an analytical framework that allows us to incorporate class struggle, as well as identity politics in our evaluations of the way in which the interactions between different interests and identities have changed and improved political processes in Brazil (Offe, 1985).

The increased role of social movements in representing subordinate classes under Lula’s government, and the strong visibility that they suddenly gained by taking part in power structures, influencing and assisting in the conduct of the state, is understood by some analysts as a reversal of class domination (Oliveira, 2007). If this were so, this process would have subverted the traditional class hegemony that existed in the society, giving movements representing lower classes a key role in government and apparently producing a new hegemony that would explain the reduction in collective conflicts in Brazil.

We will show that this process has not subverted the traditional class hegemony that existed in the society. Nevertheless, it has given them a far greater role in decision making that has enabled them to engage in collective action that strengthened their political rights and democratic processes.

This threat to the traditional structure of domination could have generated an intensification of class conflicts with disastrous consequences, but Lulism avoided this by also incorporating conservative interests into a social class pact in order to guarantee governability. It did this by combining neoliberal economic policies with redistributive social policies that avoided major disruptions in the economic and social fields (Singer, 2013). This enabled it to control the resistance of some radical movements that had been extremely active in the previous two decades, by transferring these conflicts to formal institutional spheres like parliament or the judiciary. Hence, this did not just incorporate their representatives into power structures, but also brought issues into the political process that had previously escaped state control.

Many studies of new social movements focus on the ability of certain groups to act as agencies of counter-hegemony² (Carroll e Ratner, 1994) by challenging dominant values and power structures like racism, patriarchy, colonialism, sexism and consumerism. Understood in this paper according to Gramsci’s concept of hegemony (Gramsci, 1971), that would be responsible for legitimating discriminatory practices based on these differences, and perpetuate “naturalizing” relationships of subordination and dominion. Some theorists believe that social movements should challenge the discourse that legitimizes this process by organizing and resisting in the civil society, and thus acting as agencies of counter-hegemony (Forgacs, 1988).

Thus, the fact that Lulism incorporated many of these movements into government problematizes their claims, and led analysts like Oliveira (2007) to treat this process of incorporation as one of conservative co-optation and demobilization. From this vision, it enabled the state to capture organized civil society and turn it into part of the state apparatus, undermining the force of change that then prevailed in the Brazilian society. Their incorporation to the structures of the state silenced them, taking their ability of reaction that characterized these movements in the last decades, promoting a kind of “passive revolution” in the country (Idem).

We agree that this association with power contributed significantly to the reduction of confrontational actions and protests of these movements, especially due to the financial dependence that many of these organizations have with the government, and the absorption of numerous participants for power. However, we argue instead that the most important point in this process is the fact that Lulism represented a social class pact that attempts to strike a balance between the need for reform and the maintenance of social order where dominant elites temporarily and implicitly agreed to cede part of their power by bringing radical movements into a political project from which they had always been excluded. This produced the appearance of a class revolution, but does not change the structure of domination in a fundamental way, and this enables the government to sustain its hegemonic project (Anderson, 1976).

These processes, like those that created the social democratic compromise in Europe in the mid-twentieth century, challenge the radical social movement literature as we have seen, and emphasize the importance of persuading dominant interests to make concessions in order to build a consensus around an emancipatory social project. We will therefore show that Lulism did not invert the structure of domination in Brazil, nor was it just a social class pact for stability and governability, but enabled many different variables like class, collective action and formal institutions to interact in multiple ways, ranging from conflict to cooperation in response to a variety of pressures.

The institutionalization of social movements under Lula

The participation of representatives of the social movements in the Lula government took place especially through political appointees. An interesting picture of the main political appointees in both Lula’s government can be seen from the work of Maria Celina D’Araújo. In comparative terms, while in the Obama’s administration, in the United States, with 2.7 million federal civil servants and about 9,000 political appointees, in Brazil, with a total of 1.1 million federal civil servants in the same period, had 80,000 political appointees, going from technical assistants (DA-S1) to senior managers of public institutions (DAS-6 and NES) (2009, p. 24). Despite the fact that 65 percent of these political appointees were already permanent staff of the federal government, the research shows that among the highest hierarchical level, called DAS-5, DAS-6 and NES, 80.0 percent in the Lula’s first term, and 81.1 percent in his second term were affiliated to PT. Also in terms of association ties, 46 percent of them had links with social movements in the first term, and 46.3 percent in the second term. It was also large the presence of affiliated of trade unions, 45 percent and 42.8 percent, and also of trade union confederations, 10.6 percent and 12.3 percent, respectively in the first and second Lula’s term. They had also strong social engagement, reaching the second term with 84.3 percent of those affiliated of trade unions and 95.3 percent of trade union confederations (2009, pp. 51-55). This demonstrates a strong social and political commitment of the Lula government leaders, which resulted in the creation of innovative patterns and routines of interaction and communication between civil society and government, with the opening of important spaces for participation and influence of social movements on public policies (Abers, Serafim e Tatagiba, 2014, p. 326).

Activists who have taken positions in the federal bureaucracy often turned government agencies into spaces for militancy, in which continued to defend flags previously developed within civil society. In the government, such activists sought to build and strengthen formal participatory spaces, which until then were restricted to municipal levels. But they also experienced other channels of communication, negotiation and collaboration between state and civil society, such as new forms of negotiation based on protests and other meetings, less public and more personalized, between the state and representatives of social movements (Idem, ibidem).

Obviously, these movements operate with important variations, according to their historical peculiarities, relations with the state and traditional forms of struggle.

Another way to recruit partisans of PT and from allied parties and social movements is through international technical cooperation projects with international organizations. This gave to the Ministries, such as the Ministry of Agrarian Development, MDA, access to their knowledge of rural issues and served as a bridge to their own organizations.

According to Hochstetler:

A more systematic inclusion of civil society organizations [CSOs] came in the way the Lula government composed the national administration. CSO leaders of all types now work within the government on issues that they previously tried to influence from outside. Unified Workers’ Central (CUT) leaders found themselves on the government side in wage negotiations in nine Ministries, 53 Secretaries and hundreds of second and third echelons positions […] Other examples include the first president of Incra, which had strong links with the Landless Movement, and the Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, who grew up in communities of rubber tappers in the Amazon and had years of credibility as an environmental activist and parliamentarian. This is the standard family recruitment of the first administrations of the PT […]. They [CSOs activists] are close to the centres of power and are able to make decisions, but are also limited by budgetary and bureaucratic constraints that often divert them from those who are still outside the state (2008, p. 44).

We can now look at the consequences of this in practice by examining the way these links between PT and the rural movement influenced the operation of the Pronat programme.

The relations between PT and social movements

In Brazil, these processes depended directly on the special relationship between PT and social movements, a party that was created at the same time as many other organizations representing subordinate groups like the Unified Workers’ Central (CUT), the Landless Movement (MST), and others representing women, indigenous communities, environmentalists and black people. It won power by incorporating the demands of many of these groups that had been marginalized and excluded from participation in politics.

Unlike other political parties created the 1980s, the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) had a solid base in labor and social movements, took seriously the question of representation (both in internal organization and with regard to electoral constituencies), and couched its appeal in programmatic terms (Keck, 1992, p. 2).

These social movements have retained a real presence in PT, despite changes in the party that had, at the time of Lula’s first election, a more middle-class support and a political orientation that focused on a market-friendly approach that is also compatible with the interests of capital (Singer, 2010, p. 111). The long-term links between these movements and PT turned their institutionalization and incorporation into the federal government a natural process, not just of co-optation or manipulation. This also ruled out the Gramscian concept of “transformism”, which presupposes a separation between state and civil society in an environment of constant conflict, because both were part of the same political project and were united from the start.

PT and the rural movement – the Pronat case: goals and structures

The Brazilian rural social movement includes many different groups – trade unions, rural women, landless, those affected by dams, extractives and so forth – represented by specific organizations, most of them connected in some way to PT. The Landless Movement (MST) is the most visible and capable of mobilization; the National Confederation of Rural Workers (Contag) brings together 4,000 unions of rural workers and has 27 affiliated federations; the National Federation of Workers in Family Agriculture (Fetraf-Brasil/CUT) operates in eighteen states, with more than six hundred trade unions and trade union associations in more than 1,000 cities, and with approximately 500,000 farmers and associated small farmers. The Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) is also an important organisation with a strong presence in rural areas. Linked to the Catholic Church, it supports the struggle for land, tracks and reports conflicts, bad working conditions and environmental problems.

The creation of the Ministry of Agrarian Development, MDA, in 1999, was a direct result of the intensification of the actions of rural social movements in Brazil during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) (1995-2002), mainly marked by the growing number of occupation lands led especially by the Landless Movement, MST, and conflicts between farmers and landless people. Born in 1984, from the union of several popular movements struggling for land, the MST achieved enormous strength during the FHC government due to the actions carried out by them. The culmination of this process took place after two massacres of landless: Corumbiara, State of Rondônia, in 1995, where sixteen people were killed and seven are missing, and Eldorado dos Carajás, state of Pará, in 1997, with nineteen people killed. Also in 1997, 1300 landless held a two months march to Brasilia to pressure the government to dialogue aiming at land reform.

Other actors were extremely important at this time. In 1995, Contag also held a huge national march to Brasilia called “Grito da Terra Brazil” (Cry of the Earth Brazil), in which its demands were presented to the federal government. Since then this march is held annually in the states as well, when the peasants present their demands to the state governments. Contag also organizes since 2000 the “Marcha das Margaridas”, mobilizing women living in forests and rural areas in all Brazilian states to march to Brasilia to claim for their rights.

Thus, the creation of MDA is a government response to the enormous pressures from the rural movements at the time, showing a special attention to the specific demands of the rural population such as agrarian reform, but especially policies to support family agriculture.

Once in power, PT reached a political agreement with the most important groups that supported its election by redesigning the MDA to accommodate them in its secretariats: Secretariat of Family Agriculture (SAF); Territorial Development Secretariat (SDT); Department of Agrarian Reordering (SRA) and the Special Secretariat for Land Regularization in the Amazon (Serfal). In addition to these secretariats, the Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), a federal government authority, created in 1970, was also incorporated to the MDA. Therefore, the names of the secretaries were negotiated and appointed by these organizations with a mission to implement policies that met the demands of the rural population: SDT and SRA were appointed by Contag; Incra by MST; SAF by Fetraf.

Besides appointing the secretaries, most professionals working for these secretariats were consultants hired through international technical cooperation projects with institutions such as IICA. In fact, the majority of the MDA’s staff was composed of these consultants until 2009, when it appointed its own permanent staff for the first time, and a survey of their profiles between 2002 and 2012 showed that 92 percent of these professionals had strong links with the PT and the rural social movements. These representatives not only operated in Ministerial secretariats but also in partnerships established with NGOs for policy implementation, while many who joined the government had previously worked for these institutions. Thus, these actors operated at every level from the federal government to small communities.

As a result of rural social movements demands, the MDA implemented a number of rural programmes, like the School Nutrition National Program; More Food Program; Family Farming Harvest Plan; Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture; Credit for Agriculture; Technical Extension; and Biodiesel.

The Pronat

The design and implementation of the territorial policy in Brazil is the result of the combination of four pillars: social movements, participation of researchers, international institutions and the knowledge and experience accumulated by key people in this process, working with rural communities in the municipalities of the Northeast region, the poorest of Brazil.

It begins with the work of the NGO Association for the Orientation to the Northeast Cooperatives (Assocene) through the Umbuzeiro Project. It was a successful initiative for local development in 159 municipalities in the Northeast in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which first focused on the development of the territory, having social participation as an essential element. From this experience, it was suggested that the Dom Helder Camara Project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Ifad, and aimed to work in the Northeast semi-arid municipalities supporting agrarian reform settlements and the population living in extreme poverty, could also use the same approach, which was accepted by Ifad.

These experiences were then presented by Humberto de Oliveira, who worked on both projects, to the National Council for Sustainable Rural Development (CNDRS), then chaired by Professor José Eli da Veiga, and to Contag, which supported the Umbuzeiro Project and had as a collaborator Professor Ricardo Abramovay. Both Veiga and Abramovay worked at the University of São Paulo conducting the first studies on territorial development in Brazil, mainly based on European experiences (Veiga, 2001a, 2001b, 2002; Abramovay, 2000, 2001a, 2001b).

Therefore, the idea of a public policy to promote territorial development was built from these four dimensions, and Humberto de Oliveira was responsible for making the connection between them. As a historical militant of the PT, and led by Contag to work in the transition team for the Lula government, he proposed to create a Secretariat in MDA to implement a rural development strategy focusing on the territory, in order to strengthen rural people and their organizations. This suggestion was accepted and he became the first secretary of the SDT during the eight years of the Lula government. From there, with the support of IICA and other researchers, the conceptual parameters and design of the policy was then built, especially based on the Leader local development approach (European Commission, 1999; 2003).

Pronat was then set up in 2003, based on the assumption that programmes should not treat “rural” just as a synonym for “agrarian”, but recognise the implications of its territorial nature and the new spatial dynamics produced by a realignment of traditional instruments to promote development (Favareto, 2010). This approach was influenced by European experiments that emphasized the notion of territorial rather than sectorial approaches to explain the dynamism and synergy obtained from the proximity and identity of multiple actors (Veiga, 2006; Rita e Bonomi, 1998; Veltz, 2002; Jobert, 2006).

The program covered 239 rural territories across the country, using the following criteria:

• groups of municipalities with up to 50.000 inhabitants;

• groups of municipalities with population density less than 80 inhabitants/km²;

• concentration of MDA’s priority groups³;

• groups of municipalities already organized in rural territories of identity;

• groups of municipalities integrated with the Consortium for Food Security and Local Development (Consad) of the Ministry of Social Development (MDS), and

• Mesoregions of the Ministry of National Integration (MIN).

The territorial development strategy was intensified from 2008 in order to support areas with the lowest Human Development Indicators, lowest economic activity and highest social vulnerability by creating the Citizenship Territories Program, (PTC), which focussed on 120 Pronat territories.

Three key concepts informed its approach – territory, social participation, and social control over public policies. Territory is seen as:

A space geographically defined and generally continuous, comprising city and countryside, characterized by multidimensional criteria – such as environment, economy, society, culture, politics and institutions – and a population with social groups relatively distinct relating internally and externally by through specific processes, where we can distinguish one or more elements indicating identity and social, cultural and territorial cohesion (Brazil, MDA/SDT, 2005d).

GRAPH 1
Resources Spent (Percent) in Pronat by Organisation (2003-2008)

Participation and social control are promoted by creating Territorial Collegiates to manage social policies, and Plans for Sustainable Rural Development (PTDRS).

Government representatives make up 40 percent of the Collegiates, and civil society the other 60 percent. They are divided into plenary session (with all members of the collegiate), leading core (responsible for implementing the actions of the plenary), and technical core (providing technically support), and are expected to represent the diversity of the stakeholders involved, especially the MDA’s priority groups. The Collegiates produce the PTDRS, document that include the diagnosis, vision of future and the development planning of each territory in order to:

GRAPH 2
Amounts Spent by Pronat (2003-2010) – Current Values in Reais

Capacity building for development agents is the main task of the Secretariat but is executed by partner organizations. Thus, NGOs with a recognized presence in rural areas and links with rural social movements and the PT are used to support communities with limited expertise with developmental diagnosis and planning, while state and local governments are responsible for infrastructure. NGOs should support human development and enhance the capacity of development agents, local leaders and institutional representatives by helping them to participate in the different stages of technical, social and political processes involved in the creation and management of economic and social projects. The partnership with NGOs is therefore directly linked to the strengthening of participatory processes, social capital and social control of policies. Their access to government resources should simultaneously strengthen civil society organizations by converting them into partners with government and enabling them to contribute to the mission of the Secretariat.

NGO participation in the government and their importance in the implementation of public policies is evidenced by the growth of funds transferred by the state to these organizations. Between 2004 and 2010 they increased by almost 300 percent, from R$ 1,923,784,323.61 (2004) to R$ 5,510,950,354.21 (2010)⁴. In the Pronat, NGOs participation has grown from only 4.3 percent of project spending in 2003, to 22.4 percent in 2004 and reaches 37.2 percent in 2008 as their activities expanded, while those of state and local governments mainly responsible for infrastructure projects declined.

Resources for the program increased rapidly between 2003 and 2009 from R$ 82.76 million to R$ 381.46 million, or by 460.92 percent, but then decreased in 2008 due to the economic crisis. However, its resources reached their highest point in 2009 before the economic recovery, because of countercyclical spending by the government not only in rural areas but on social policies as a whole. There was a sharp reduction in 2010 not caused by a decrease in available resources (R$ 559.31 million), but by poor implementation resulting in spending of only 23 percent. This low implementation is justified by the SDT as a result of the election year, in which “the pertinent law limits the transfer of funds”⁵.

Operationalising Pronat: channels of dialogue and negotiation

Besides representatives of the movements work to materialize the demands of rural people through positions in the state bureaucracy, other two channels are important in this process: traditional forms of pressure of these movements on the government, such as marches and land and public buildings occupations, and national conferences and sectoral councils.

If before 2003 the movements marched to Brasilia, and depended on the impact of this action to open negotiation channels with the government, since then they established a routine procedures. As according to the crop calendar, the government announces agricultural policies in July, movements held their marches between April and July, presenting their demands to government officials and jointly defining an agenda of discussions. This process ends up with the announcement of the Harvest Plan by the President, incorporating the demands approved in these discussions (Abers, Serafim e Tatagiba, 2014, p. 341).

Another important of dialoguing with civil society are the conferences and thematic councils in different areas. Between 2003 and 2010, 74 conferences were held with forty different topics, mobilizing more than 5 million people in the country (PR, Secretaria de Comunicação Social 2010, 7). Despite these conferences and councils be part of the 1988 Constitution, prior decades of the PT’s arrival to power (Pogrebinschi, 2013), the expansion of these spaces, in which civil society organizations acted influencing and helping in the construction of several policies (Pogrebinschi e Samuels, 2014; Pogrebinschi, 2013), something unprecedented in the world in terms of mass mobilization, especially aiming at issues beyond particular interests (Pogrebinschi, 2013).

Thus, the channels of dialogue with the government combine traditional practices with others that have been created or strengthened.

The role of social movements

Since the creation of SDT in 2003, the participation of social movements has been essential from the design to the implementation of the policy, and this participation has occurred in two spheres: first with the work of these actors within the government, and second in the territories with their strong presence in the territorial collegiates. In both cases, with different results for the policy and for local development processes.

The experience of different civil society organizations working in local development projects, many of them closely linked to the Catholic Church and with strong emphasis on participation and empowerment of the social actors, led them to be the main players of the territories. A survey on the participants profile in these institutions in 167 territories shows that civil society organizations represent most of their members in all Brazilian regions, with an average of 47.25 percent of the total. It also shows that these institutions are composed especially of NGOs representing women, quilombolas communities, young, riverine, trade unions, cooperatives, federation and confederation of trade unions and agricultural producers associations, mainly related to family farming. Even organizations such as Contag, MST and Fetraf, strongly acting in the federal government, also have representatives in the territorial collegiates.

TABLE 1
Representations in the Territories

REGION	N. OF TERRITORIES	MUNICIPAL COUNCILS	STATES	FEDERAL	MUNICIPAL	CIVIL SOCIETY	TOTAL
Midwest	17	47	115	23	297	440	922
Northeast	72	281	283	279	1337	1952	4132
North	31	46	114	89	442	630	1321
Southeast	24	86	144	42	338	591	1201
South	23	53	178	57	395	550	1233
TOTAL	167	513	834	490	2809	4163	8809

• Source: Sistema de Gestão Estratégica of SDT: http://sge.mda.gov.br/sge/index.html.

The large presence of representatives of these organizations in the collegiates ensure an essential space for dialogue and participation, and in interviews with representatives of the collegiates, when asked about the points they would highlight in the territorial policy, they always emphasize the fact that now they can speak and be listened. Although these processes do not happen in the same way in all the territories, in many of them the movements brought to Pronat a strong experience of participation in their organizations, and the program is a way to materialize their demands influencing the design, implementation and social control of policies, something unprecedented in the Brazilian public policies.

The second sphere of action of these movements takes place in an institutionalized way, with the presence of key organizations acting both in important positions of the federal government and taking technical positions in the secretariat through consulting contracts. These consultants, mostly coming from the work with NGOs linked to rural movements and PT, represent an important bridge between policy managers and these movements, given the familiarity they have with the demands of rural areas and the experience of working with these organizations. Moreover, they also act to get contracts for the organizations they represent for, in partnership with the government, implementing projects in the territories, which are extremely important for their maintenance.

According to official data, the contracts established between the SDT with social organizations, between 2003 and 2010⁶, shows that institutions such as Contag setup contracts totaling USD 4,652,288.20⁷. Other organizations with large contracts were Assocene: USD 2,507,145.30; Agropolos Institute: USD 3,389,804.69 and IADH Gespar: USD 2,958,519.06. All of them for technical training activities, mobilization of trade union leaders, training of development agents and territorial plans. Other contracts, in smaller amounts, have been established with approximately 560 civil society organizations totaling around USD 189,839,717.80.

This situation indicates the dependence of state resources that many of these organizations have established, strongly effecting the relationship between government and social movements. If on one hand, this partnership allowed these institutions to consolidate their work, on the other built an important dependence and submission to government, restricting their power of criticism and public protests. Added to this the fact that they feel themselves as part of the power, carrying out a political project that were participants from the beginning.

GRAPH 3
Rural Conflicts and Murders in Rural Areas in Brazil (2001-2010)

The main effect of this linkage with the government has been a considerable decrease of public actions of rural social movements across the country. Even despite the large number of conflicts in rural areas involving farmers, family farmers and landless people, the government has not advanced in structural policies such as land reform, largely due to the disarticulation of the movements.

In contrast, there is a large agribusiness advance with significant investments in the sector, resulting not only from its importance to the Brazilian trade balance, but also due to the fact that this sector is very organized in its pressure on the government, especially in the National Congress, negotiating support in exchange for greater investments. While Lula’s presidency did make a significant increase in poverty focussed rural development between 2002 and 2012, it made a far greater investment in large-scale agribusiness. Therefore, investments designed to reduce poverty and support family farming rose from R$ 4.196 billion to R$16 billion, an increase of 281.3 percent, but investments in official rural credit to agribusiness rose from R$20.54 billion to R$107.2 billion, an increase of 421.91 percent.

GRAPH 4
Resources Available by Official Rural Credit in Brazil (2002-2012)

Thus, the decline of the actions of the movements occurred largely as a result of this proximity to the government, and this aspect was emphasized in an interview with members of Contag. They stated that although the grassroots are empowered and mobilized, the leaders are strongly linked to power, either by ideological identity, occupation of important positions in the government or financial dependence of the organizations.

If on one hand, the institutionalization of social movements significantly decreased the situations of confrontation and criticism of the government, on the other the presence of the movements in the territories helped to build mechanisms of popular participation. However, this process has happened in different ways, with enormous challenges in several territories, and many questions raise about its efficacy and suggest the existence of a serious gap between the claims made on its behalf in government documents and actual outcomes.

Outcomes and challenges

Existing studies of these programmes highlight both serious failures and some significant successes but sometimes a tendency to favour better off rather than the poorest groups, a very uneven ability to manage programmes and the importance of strong local cooperative traditions. Nevertheless, studies are still needed to measure impacts on the quality of life of the poor as a direct consequence of the organization that was stimulated by the action of programs such as Pronat, and also explore details of local social processes that make more evident the difficulties faced in some places.

In practice, the Territorial Collegiates can assume different designs and dynamics due to distinctive local historical, cultural, political and economic configurations, making it difficult to change old practices and local powers structures in countries like Brazil, dominated by cultures of centralized decision-making with strong patrimonial and clientelistic traditions as Leite (2010) shows. This is because the project demands significant changes in their behaviour and makes it hard to integrate and empower multiple stakeholders, and democratize decision-making processes. The democratic processes used to allocate public resources and protection then work in favour of dominant interests by enabling them to control the participatory process (Abramovay, 2010, p. 273). It demonstrates, as argued by Brett (2003, p. 7), that despite the demand for participation is now central to debate for social emancipation it should not be treated as a new and revolutionary “paradigm” but as one element in a general approach to development management.

The new management arrangements also produce significant conflict within the Territories created by the competition for resources and infrastructure between municipalities within the same territory, and the difficulty that members of civil society face in asserting their independence in opposition to established authorities. These procedures also often prioritise more urgent demands to the detriment of medium and long-term development strategies. It shows that in some cases the participative processes converge for private use of public resources and protection, in favour “of particular interests in the public participation instances” (Abramovay, 2010, p. 273). Paradoxically, this traditional system is transferred to the territories exactly trough these new management arrangements. This is the case of Planalto Catarinense, State of Santa Catarina, where according to Leite:

[…] although [many] […] members of the council stated that they sought to stimulate activities considered to be fundamental for the economic strengthening of the most vulnerable rural population, this was not always reflected in practice. According to Cazella and Búrigo (2006), the majority of the resources invested in the region (both from the former Pronat Infrastructure program or other programs) ended up privileging family farmers of an intermediate economic size, a segment that although it suffers from some deficiencies in its living conditions and productive activities, does not constitute the most excluded segment of the rural population (2010, p. 26).

In other cases, some territories have created new ways of dealing with conflicts, as showed by Favareto and Schröder (2006, p. 12) when analysing the Serra do Brigadeiro in the State of Minas Gerais, and Vale do Ribeira, in the State of São Paulo, where the Territories created new ways of dealing with conflicts. The authors show us that the competition for resources was not minimized through the territorial planning process, but through an agreement among the different stakeholders designed to meet the demands from different particular interests, with municipal authorities, rural unions, rural extension organs, NGOs and representatives of farmers competing for project financing directly related to their activities.

Thus, the ability of a social institution to interact with existing social dynamics and other institutions, reinforcing or changing its operations and guiding the social actors’ behaviour is a central aspect of its effectiveness, regulating the conflicts or emphasizing patterns of domination and exploitation. The regulation of a conflict operated by an institution depends on these arrangements in an environment of diverse interests, and the results are not always translated into innovation and cooperation, sometimes with specific traditional groups taking possession of spaces and resources. (Favareto e Schröder, 2006, p. 4).

Freitas et al. showed that Serra do Brigadeiro also created a committee to monitor project implementation:

[…] made up of three representatives of the collegiate. This group visits the municipalities and analyse the implementation of projects, and sensitize civil society organizations and local government around their problems of implementation (2010, p. 16).

However, that was not the case in Medio Rio Doce, in the State of Minas Gerais, where the collegiate had not created the structures needed to manage its actions or to monitor and evaluate the impact of them (Idem, p. 14). The result was poor performance, resulting from “operational and bureaucratic issues that come from policy, related to technical failures of organizations of farmers and municipal administrations; projects that have no feasibility and little involvement of beneficiaries in the implementation period” (Idem, p. 16).

Zimmermann et al. (2014), analyzing the impact of Pronat projects on rural poverty in six territories between 2003 and 2011, show that they generally benefit the better organized and economically advantaged groups, rather than the most vulnerable, including quilombola and indigenous communities (except in the Indigenous Territory Raposa Serra do Sol and San Marcos), rural workers, women or young people. No social infrastructure projects had been approved for the groups living in extreme poverty in the Irecê Territory in the State of Bahia, and only one project was managed by a group of women from the Pedra Lisa Quilombola Association. Wherein Lasa and Delgado (2013) attribute this to the ability of small farmers to dominate the collegiate and marginalize disadvantaged groups.

However, other studies show that some Territorial Collegiates were far more successful than others in managing their programmes, especially with cases of cooperative projects.

Tecchio (2012) notes that 21 of the 29 municipalities in Meio Oeste Contestado, in the State of Santa Catarina, submitted projects supported by civil society organizations with strong cooperative traditions, although Bolsa Família beneficiaries were not assisted by projects financed by Pronat.

According to Zimmermann et al (2014, p. 19) quoting Tecchio (2012):

In Abelardo Luz, the MST stands out as a collective actor with strong political representation, which facilitates its access to the program; in Coronel Martins, the last three municipal governments maintain strong ties and have the support of family farming organizations; in Galvão, a progressive rural trade unionism seeks to raise projects for the municipality; and in Água Doce, the MST active presence may also be mentioned as one of the factors contributing to its high frequency in the projects proposals. According to the author, the eight municipalities not awarded with projects were the ones that least attended the territorial collegiate.

Despite significant challenges, the investments in capacity building, training about 200,000 development agents during the Lula in Pronat have showed positive results. Thus, Bonnal and Piraux (2007) show that they made it possible to establish a dialogue among the various actors in the planning process in Borborema, State of Paraíba, which produced collective learning, increased political capital and facilitated collective projects. This empowered and drew new actors like forums of settlers and people living in the semi-arid zone into a development.

Conclusion

This paper analysed the new role that social movements have played in Brazil through the process of institutionalization of these groups during the Lula government. It showed that this process contributed to redefine the government’s agenda, converting their demands into public policies, at the same time contributing to the creation and improvement of participatory democracy mechanisms, but failing to reach major structural reforms so longed by the rural populations.

Poststructuralist thinkers have emphasized the significance of these processes and especially their ability to criticize the discourse that informs official agendas and bringing local demands and new visions to the development process (Marglin e Marglin, 1990; Peet e Watts, 1996). However, our analysis of these processes under Lulism in Brazil suggests that institutionalizing social movements can be an important and difficult component of a political and ideological project.

In Brazil, this project was only available because of the long-standing links between social movements and PT that enabled the governments to do this by transforming their representatives into agents of the state, while minimizing the resistance to this process from dominant elites opposed to the mobilization of excluded groups. This process, combined with the adoption of a neoliberal economic agenda, had consequently two fundamental aspects. On the one hand the empowerment of local stakeholders, which now interact in a more effective way in the design and implementation of policies. On the other an identity crisis, especially of the leaders, between being government or civil society that made the mobilization and criticism of the social movements decreased significantly, contributing to the advance of agribusiness and failing to carry out essential structural reforms, such as agrarian reform.

We argued that Pronat’s attempt to create participatory governance, social inclusion and empowerment of the poor has led some analysts to interpret it as a successful counter-hegemonic project, or even as an inversion of the system of class domination. Nevertheless, our analysis rejects theories of counter-hegemony or simple co-optation because Lulism has preserved the bases on which domination and hegemony are constructed, in a reformist attempt to incorporate formerly excluded new social strata into decision-making processes and transform their claims into social policies, and thus increase their ability to engage in binding democratic processes. However, although the studies we have drawn on suggest that the programme has produced very uneven results, Lulism did therefore make an ambitious attempt to construct new institutions like those involved in Pronat, even resulting in large demobilization of these movements.

Lulism’s attempt to combine fiscal discipline and market economics with justice and social inclusion played a key role in the success of the Lula government between 2003 and 2011 and was widely emulated elsewhere in Latin America, and Dilma Rousseff’s election in 2011 and re-election in 2014 was expected to continue the process. However, the class pact on which it was based has been undermined by her lack of charisma, inability to negotiate with traditional elites or social movements, corruption scandals and a declining economy, deteriorating social relations and increasing class conflict that make a new social pact unlikely. This presents Brazilian democracy with a maturity test, resulting from the Lula experiment in strengthening of social movements through partnership with the state. Even with this new scenario in Brazil, and a possible absence of space inside the government, the strong identity between state and many of these movements can make the reaction of these groups, converting their potential of action to something concrete, somewhat uncertain. This is because if on the one hand we have a more organized and empowered society, on the other we have leaders who somehow lost their identity with the movements, hypnotised by the power.

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• 1
  . This article was originally written as part of the research carried out as a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics, as part of my Post-doctoral Fellowship in the Environmental Studies and Research Centre at the University of Campinas, Nepam-Unicamp, Brazil. I would like to thank the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel (Capes), Brazilian funding agency, for its support. I would also like to thank Dr. Tim Forsyth and Dr. Teddy Brett, from the Department of International Development at the LSE; Dr. Anthony Hall, from Department of Social Policy at the LSE; and Dr. Lucia da Costa Ferreira, from the Nepam-Unicamp, for their enlightening comments and important contributions to this work.
• 2
  . The concept of counter-hegemony is not present in the writings of Gramsci, having been added to the Gramscian analysis by Raymond Williams in his book Marxism and Literature (1977). Since then, it has been associated with the thought of Gramsci, indicating resistance.
• 3
  . Family farmers, indigenous and quilombola communities, fishermen and gatherers, families settled by the agrarian reform, or groups of mobilized or un-mobilized rural workers.
• 4
  . Portal da Transparência: http://www.portaltransparencia.gov.br.
• 5
  . For a detailed description of the budget execution in 2010, see: http://www.mda.gov.br/portalmda/sites/default/files/user_img_184/RG_2010percent 20_SDT_MDA.pdf .
• 6
  . Source: CEF (11/5/16); CGMA/SDT (jun. 2016).
• 7
  . Exchange rate of 3.4 US dollar on 7/6/2016.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Sep-Dec 2017

History

• Received
  8 Aug 2016
• Accepted
  11 May 2017