Since the June 2013 protests, Brazilian politics has been marked by significant upheavals. The landscape of activism, once dominated by the left, has become more diverse with the rise of right-wing social movements. Abrupt shifts in the political coalition, resulting from President Rousseff’s removal from office and the election of a far-right government in 2018, are key achievements of this activism. The COVID-19 pandemic further disrupted the political scene, sparking intense disputes over how to handle the health crisis. This project is driven by the following question: what is the relationship between this series of political crises and the reconfigurations of political activism in Brazil? We propose that these reconfigurations are rooted in three interconnected processes: a) shifts in the political coalition that marginalize some actors while empowering others; b) changes in the organization of policy subsystems where activists operate; and c) an ideational dispute over the political crisis and the nature of democracy. Activists both vie for this meaning and are shaped by the meanings that have already been established. To examine the dynamics of ideational dispute and activist reconfiguration, we analyze changes in the strategies, repertoires, and frames of actors interacting with the political system. We focus on three particularly contentious issues today: deforestation, reproductive and sexual rights, and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose a mixed-methods research design to compare the processes of change related to these three themes over the past decade.

Participants (Center)

RESOCIE/UNB: Amanda Barcelos Mota, Amanda Maciel Matos, Ana Carolina Vaz da Silva Anne Karoline Rodrigues Vieira, Débora Rezende Almeida, Gabriel Santos Elias, Gustavo Rodrigues Mesquita, Lorena Vilarins dos Santos, Lucas Souza Lacerda Mariana de Souza Fonseca, Mariana Miranda Tavares e Marina Ferreira de Araujo Fernandes, Pedro Burity Borges, Rafael Gonçalves De Toni, Rafael Rocha Viana, Rebecca Neaera Abers.