Marisa von Bülow

A destituição (ou impeachment) da Presidente do Brasil, Dilma Rousseff, foi resultado de um longo e polêmico processo. Por quase dois anos, partidários da Presidente e seus adversários saíram às ruas e foram às mídias sociais para tentar influenciar o processo. Nestas últimas, o ativismo digital de múltiplos atores gerou redes políticas de hashtags contra e a favor da Presidente. Este artigo analisa essas redes a partir de uma base de dados de retuítes que mencionavam hashtags pró e anti-impeachment nos dias 13 e 18 de março de 2016. Os resultados evidenciam o caráter hierárquico das redes, centralizadas em um restrito número de perfis. Estas redes, porém, fazem parte de um complexo conjunto de vínculos virtuais e presenciais, de indivíduos a grupos transnacionais que disputaram os significados do impeachment de Rousseff a partir de diferentes estratégias digitais. Palavras-chave: ativismo digital; Brasil; história política; mobilização política; redes sociais.

This chapter analyzes the interaction between social movements and political actors in a democratic context, with an emphasis on the relationship with political parties. Based on the case study of the Chilean student movement, it discusses how this movement has shown resilience and strong mobilization capacity, but at the same time faces great obstacles in reaching the broad impacts it seeks. In order to understand this paradox, we argue that it is important to consider the contradictory and ambiguous but progressive distancing between the student movement and traditional political parties. This process of distancing is traced back to the years 2005–2006, during a previous mobilization of high school students. In thinking about the strategies of the movement, the ideology of the governing coalition (right- or left-wing) matters less than for previous generations of activists, as does the political affiliation of representatives in Congress.

The publication of this book comes at a moment of profound changes in the scholarship on social movements, characterized not only by the broadening of the empirical boundaries of the field, but also by greater methodological and theoretical pluralism. This book stretches the current horizons in social movement studies even further, by proposing new concepts and questions. Contributors have very different objects of study and theoretical backgrounds, but they all share a commitment to a dynamic and relational approach to the study of collective action. The volume is organized around three broad themes, which address key current debates in social movement theory: the interactions between routine and contentious politics, the relationship between protest and context, and the organizational configurations of social movements.

Este livro contribui para compreender melhor o papel de ativistas
e movimentos sociais em um contexto turbulento, a partir de estudos de
casos que abarcam uma grande variedade de atores: os movimentos ambientalista, de direitos reprodutivos, LGBTQIA+, de assistência social,
o Movimento de Trabalhadores Sem Teto (MTST), o Movimento dos
Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), a Central Única das Favelas, uma
organização de catadores de resíduos sólidos (Pimp My Carroça), os movimentos de hesitação vacinal e movimentos antilockdown. O olhar para
a interação – conflituosa, colaborativa ou ambas – com o sistema político
revela não somente como os atores desafiam o poder constituído, mas também como são copartícipes de mudanças sociais.

This book presents an overview of new approaches to the study of social movements emerging out of Latin America, based on original and innovative analyses of the recent changes in collective action across the region. Over the past decade, new repertoires of contention have emerged in parallel to changes in the configuration of actors, in previously established patterns of relationship between social movements and political institutions, and in the shapes of collaborative networks, both domestic and transnational.
The authors analyze a broad set of countries and social movements, while focusing on three key theoretical debates: the interactions between routine and contentious politics, the relationship between protest and context, and the organizational configurations of social movements.
The research agenda put forward by this book is neither defined nor restricted by geographical boundaries, even though the chapters are based on field research undertaken in Latin America. In doing so, this volume contributes to a still underdeveloped dialogue in theory-building in social movement studies, among scholars from the South and from the North, as well as among scholars specialized in different regions.

Reviews:

'This new collection blends traditions of research on social movements and contentious politics from various regions with Latin American perspectives in the Latin American context. Drawing heavily on the political process, resource mobilization, and transnational politics traditions, the authors advance our knowledge of Latin American contention in three areas: transcending the boundaries between contentious and routine politics; embedding social movements in the context of economic, political, and environmental change; and examining the new organizational repertoires that have emerged in Latin America since democratization.' Sidney Tarrow, author of War, States and Contention

'Latin America has seen innumerable instances of political contention over centuries. However, mainstream social movement analysts from the "political process school" have paid fairly scant attention to that continent. This book fills this gap admirably. Far from imposing Western analytic categories over a different setting, the authors develop a fruitful dialogue between different theoretical currents. This book will appeal to both social movement analysts who do not specialize in Latin America and area experts from other intellectual perspectives. Highly recommended.' Mario Diani, University of Trento, Italy and ICREA-UPF, Barcelona, Spain

Contents:

Introduction: theory-building beyond borders, Federico M. Rossi and Marisa von Bülow

Part I Beyond Contentious Versus Routine Politics:

Conceptualizing strategy making in a historical and collective perspective, Federico M. Rossi

Partisan performance: the relational construction of Brazilian youth activist publics, Ann Mische

Institutional activism: mobilizing for women’s health from inside the Brazilian bureaucracy, Rebecca Neaera Abers and Luciana Tatagiba

Part II The Politics and Economics of Protests:

The role of threats in popular mobilization in Central America, Paul D. Almeida

Eventful temporality and the unintended outcomes of Mexico’s earthquake victims movement, Ligia Tavera Fenollosa

Part III Brokerage and Coalition Formation:

Institutionalized brokers and collective actors: different types, similar challenges, Adrian Gurza Lavalle and
Marisa von Bülow

Domestic loops and deleveraging hooks: transnational social movements and the politics of scale shift, Rose J. Spalding

Conclusion:

Weaving social movements back in, Margaret E. Keck

Index

Latin American student movements have historically been very active in the region’s political life. However, with the partial exception of historical accounts of the university reform movement and the 1960s protests, the academic literature has not addressed the
Latin American student movements from a comparative point of view. Rather, it has mostly focused on national or local case studies. This chapter presents a review of some of the
most relevant arguments and concepts of this literature, analyzing the key challenges facing contemporary student movements. It addresses three recurrent dilemmas involving
student demands, tactical repertoires, and relations with political institutions. Each of
these analyses is grounded in important theoretical debates. The chapter contributes to
these debates by highlighting the main conceptual findings of the Latin American literature while discussing the challenges faced by the student movement actors themselves. It
turns to examples from campaigns in various countries, especially Venezuela, Chile,
Brazil, and Mexico.

No dia 31 de agosto de 2016, passados menos de dois anos do seu segundo man­dato, a presidente Dilma Rousseff foi retirada do poder. Foi a segunda vez, desde a transição brasileira para a democracia, que um presidente perdeu seu mandato por determinação do Poder Legislativo. Muitas diferenças, no entanto, separam o processo mais recente daquele que culminou no fim do governo de Fernando Collor de Mello, em 1992. Nesse ultimo caso, quando se chegou a votação final, havia um amplo consenso, entre organizações da sociedade civil, partidos po­líticos e opinião pública, de que era preciso aprovar o impeachment de Collor de Mello. Já o impeachment de Dilma Rousseff não foi consensual. Ao contrário, dividiu o país entre "coxinhas", apoiadores do impeachment, e "mortadelas", defensores da permanência da presidente no cargo. Para os primeiros, o impeachment foi legal e as instituições democráticas cumpriram seu papel. Para os outros, foi nada menos do que um golpe, ou um golpe parlamentar. Com base na literatura teórica sobre enquadramentos, este capítulo analisa as discussões no Twitter, a partir de uma análise de conteúdo das mensagens que citaram a palavra "golpe".

Sidney Tarrow’s Movements and Parties stands on the shoulders of a long history of scholarship that tries to untangle the relationships between modern social movements and political parties.Taking Tarrow’s proposal seriously, however, requires advancing on two fronts. First, we need to explore whether previous definitions of social movements hinder our capacity to identify and understand movement-party interactions. Tarrow himself points to this challenge when he argues that although the concept of social movements as a form of contentious politics has been useful for characterizing past phenomena, we now need to explore what he refers to as hybrid forms of collective action (p. 148). He does not, however, offer an alternative definition of social movements that would help conceptualize what exactly is undergoing hybridization and how this process operates. In this essay, we demonstrate the usefulness of a relational definition of social movements for understanding movement-party interactions.
Second, we propose a more comprehensive answer to one of the book’s central questions: “how movement/party relations affect changes in institutions” (p. 24).

Recent protests throughout the world have fueled debates about
how social movement organizations use digital tools. In this
article, we analyze the variety of digital activist practices (DAPs)
enacted by Chilean student movement organizations over time
(2011–2016). We define DAPs as proactive actions that seek to
achieve political impacts in a particular context through the use of
digital tools. Based on content analysis of Facebook posts and indepth
interviews with key informants, we show that movement
actors have appropriated digital tools in diverse and asymmetric
ways, and that asymmetries have remained constant over time.
The article also shows that DAPs sponsored by organizations vary
across three dimensions: online presence, goals, and the
audiences to which they speak. This variation is explained by
differing levels of financial and human resources, and, most
importantly, by the choices actors make as they interpret political
constraints and challenges in particular contexts. These choices
are, in turn, informed by the political views of rotating sets of
student leaders.

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.

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.

his article analyses the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Brazil's populist radical right (PRR), as well as the responses of PRR actors to the pandemic, during the period from March 2020 to October 2021. Despite high death rates and declining popularity in the final months of that period, the Brazilian president consistently maintained a denialist narrative that incorporated key aspects of populist ideology. Based on the analysis of opinion surveys, documents, online messages and secondary sources, we argue that explaining this denialism requires understanding Brazil's radical-right populism as more than an ideology: it is a social movement. The impacts of the pandemic on Bolsonaro's PRR government and its responses can only be understood by simultaneously analysing the top-down actions of the leader and the bottom-up role of bolsonarismo – that is, the broad coalition of actors who actively support the radical-right project. The case of bolsonarismo suggests that literature on populism in general would profit from taking right-wing movements more seriously as co-producers of populist rhetoric and practices.

Sidney Tarrow’s Movements and Parties stands on the shoulders of a long history of scholarship that tries to untangle the relationships between modern social movements and political parties. One of the earliest examples is the author’s own work on communists and peasant movements in Italy in the 1960s. These relationships are still understudied, however, in part because political scientists in general, and party scholars in particular, have long ignored, or at best underestimated, the relevance of social movements. Mainstream political science remains focused on elite actors and presumes that key decisions are made by small groups of people located in institutions such as parliaments and political parties. Beyond the idea that social movements are not really relevant when it comes to hard politics, political scientists tend to presume that social movements–often understood narrowly as protest movements–arise only when representative institutions are unable (or unwilling) to channel discontent through formal channels, such as elections. The social movement society thesis (Meyer and Tarrow 1997) did not thrive in a discipline that continued to view cycles of protest as signs of instability and inefficacy. The disconnect between social movement and party studies is, of course, a two-way street. Social movement scholars have lagged in exploring specific variables associated with the party system, such as party competition and issue-space (Cowell-Meyers 2014: 62).
In the past decade, however, we have seen a revival of attention to the interactions between parties and movements, in no small part in response to emerging political phenomena …