Coelho, Vera Schattan P.

Favareto, A.

Galvaneze, C.

Kawamura, Y.

Menino, F.

English

IDS OpenDocs

243
12 ·  How styles of activism influence social 
participation and democratic deliberation
A R I L S O N  FA V A R E T O ,  C A R O L I N A  G A LV A N E S E , 
F R E D E R I C O  M E N I N O ,  V E R A  S C H A T T A N  P. 
C O E L H O  A N D  Y U M I  K A W A M U R A
Introduction: Why study styles of activism and participation?1
In Brazil, as in the rest of the world, participatory governance is a 
means of improving the distribution of social services and facilitating 
the implementation of development projects. As participatory govern-
ance has grown more popular as an idea, so it has grown beyond the 
decision-making and representative structures of democratic states and 
has begun to be part of the more interactive democratic spheres that 
are the domain of social movements. In the process, a series of crucial 
questions has been posed, concerning the association between partici-
pation, democracy and development. How can marginalized sectors of 
society be included in decision-making processes? How can they engage 
in politics? How can democratic spaces and institutions be strengthened 
so that diverse people can effectively and fairly express their opinions 
and particular needs?
The main argument in this chapter is that social movements can 
develop different styles of activism, even when functioning in the same 
sorts of institutional frameworks. These different styles may, in turn, 
confirm or refute the expectations presented by the normative ideal 
of democratic deliberation. Once it is assumed that the performance 
of participatory governance is influenced by the conditions present when 
participatory spaces are established, it becomes essential to look at and 
combine various aspects of the trajectories taken by social actors. These 
include the networks and ties they have established and prioritized over 
the years; the role of the state in framing the group’s opportunities and 
claims; the role of non-institutionalized norms and cultural habits; and 
the characteristics of the leaders who have coordinated social action 
within particular groups.
The better to understand these connections, our research developed 
two combined approaches. The first was to investigate the styles of 
four social action groups whose roots originated in conflicts involving 
land issues, and the trajectories of activists working within them. The 
244
second was to analyse how these styles and trajectories relate to greater 
or lesser support for the participatory governance project being pursued 
by the organizations representing these groups. In this way, we expect 
to go beyond the typical limits imposed on structural, institutional or 
contextual studies, which are usually strong in their descriptive analysis 
but weak when it comes to explaining dynamic aspects linked to the 
innovation and transformation of collective action. The model does 
not completely ignore the structural determinants of collective action; 
rather, it moves towards merging them with rationalist and construct-
ivist approaches.
This chapter is organized into three sections. The first presents a 
theoretical framework and a system of hypotheses for the analysis of 
activism styles, the reasons for their existence and their repercussions 
for participatory governance. The second is a discussion of the main 
findings of the study, which examines the styles and trajectories of four 
local organizations and their leaders as representatives of different styles 
and types of activism in a poor and socially diverse area of Brazil. Finally, 
a relationship is depicted between the trajectories of the groups, the 
styles of activism they practise and the role of the state in its greater or 
lesser support for the project of participatory governance.
We chose as our case study the Ribeira Valley, an area in south-
eastern Brazil with a regional population of around 350,000 (Instituto 
Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, 2000). We did so because it is 
unusual in combining a low level of economic dynamism and poor 
social indicators with an active social movement and a reasonable 
history of initiatives aimed at sustainable development of the region. 
In terms of social organization, the region has a large concentration 
of traditional communities, such as the ribeirinho (riverside), caiçara 
(artisanal fishermen and smallholders of mainly indigenous descent) 
and quilombola (rural Afro-Brazilian) communities. The identities of 
all these groups are closely linked to their land and environment, not 
only through their cultural roots but also through their dependence on 
local natural resources. 
In this area, there are at least two different types of citizen activism. 
On the one hand there are organizations and social movements that 
oppose a particular policy or event; on the other there are organizations 
and social movements concerned with economic and environmental 
issues, formed on the basis of common community identity. Of the 
four organizations and movements that are the focus of the study, the 
Movimento dos Ameaçados por Barragem (MOAB – Movement of Those 
Threatened by the Dam) falls firmly into the first type: it was created 
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1
2 ·  Styles of a
ctivism
amid the conflict that grew up over a proposal to build a series of dams 
along the Ribeira river. 
At the other end of the spectrum are two other groups – the Associ-
ação dos Residentes de Mandira (ARM – Mandira Residents’ Association) 
and the Associação dos Residentes de Guapiruvu (ARG – Guapiruvu 
Residents’ Association). These come from communities where part of 
the land falls in a designated conservation reserve. The ARM and ARG 
have their roots in a discourse that emerged from the legal formation 
of conservation reserves during the 1970s and 1980s, which associated 
household economic production with environmental conservation. 
These two residents’ organizations access organized markets for their 
natural resource-based products, and are applying the principles of 
sustainable natural resource management to their productive activities. 
The fourth organization, the Sindicato dos Trabalhadores na Agri-
cultura Familiar do Vale do Ribeira (SINTRAVALE – Union of Farming 
Families of the Vale do Ribeira) brings family farmers and producers 
together in defence of their common interests. 
The two most important participatory forums in the Vale do Ribeira 
operate at the regional level: the Comitê de Gestão de Recursos Hídricos 
(Committee for the Management of Water Resources in the Ribeira 
river basin) and the Consórcio de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional 
e Desenvolvimento Local (CONSAD – Consortium for Food Safety and 
Local Development). They discuss local development plans, accompany 
the implementation of the public policies to which they are connected, 
and allocate a considerable percentage of available resources to projects 
that are considered priorities and in line with the development plans. 
Previous research that we carried out with local leaders (Coelho et al., 
2007) left no doubt in our minds that these forums are part of everyday 
life in the region, and that, given the intensity of political debate, it is 
important for leaders to guarantee space for their own activist group 
within them. Nonetheless, the forms of mobilization and organization in 
these forums vary considerably. While all four of our case study organ-
izations have their origins in social conflicts involving access to land 
and natural resources, they have very different positions with respect 
to the ways in which they view the forums and how they act in them. 
Consequently, each social group and its respective organization have 
different possibilities for its own practices to be coherent with expecta-
tions of democratic deliberation. What could explain the differences 
observed in the style of activism of each of these organizations and, by 
implication, of social movements more broadly?


How Styles of Activism In?uence Social Participation and Democratic Deliberation

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How Styles of Activism In?uence Social Participation and Democratic Deliberation

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