Multilevel Activism: LGBTI+ Movement and Policy Circulation

Abstract

During the past decades, an intense process of policy circulation of LGBTI+ policies has taken place in Brazil. Since those policies had weak induction capacities in the federal level, how to explain their circulation between levels and units of the Brazilian federation? To answer this question, this article analyses the circulation trajectories of the “LGBTI+ reference centers” and the “citizenship triplet” among five observation units using data from official documents and interviews. Results show that “multilevel activism” was crucial for the circulation of those policies, through the construction of informal interaction networks that integrate levels, the foundation of multilevel organizations, the action within arenas that gather actors from multiple levels and the displacement and multiple filiations of actors between levels. The article argues for the fertility of a “multilevel approach” to the relations between social movements and public policies.

Social Movements; Public Policies; Multilevel Governance; Multilevel Activism; LGBTI+ Movement