Urban Policy,Social Movements,and the Right to the City in Brazil

The Landscape of Social Movements in Brazil

Political culture in Brazil has been dominated by clientelism, the exchange of favors between elected officials and their supporters, organized around a hierarchical vision of society (Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva, 2011; Schmidt et al., 1977). Under Getúlio Vargas’s dictatorship (1930–1945), populism was used to ensure political support for the regime by controlling the workers’ movements and discouraging the free expression of popular demands (Kowarick and Bonduki, 1994).During these years, social movements “were little more than political instruments” and were confined to labor and agrarian issues, with occasional student and teacher mobilizations (Duquette, 2005: 40).

In the 1950s, neighborhood associations (sociedades de amigos do bairro) emerged as vehicles of political support for populist governments with the support of the progressive branch of the Brazilian Catholic Church (Jacobi, 1982). They demanded sanitation, transportation, and housing, forming an understanding of exploitation, injustice, and capitalism in the Brazilian context (Fernandes, 1995). Community mobilization was kept alive during the military dictatorship (1964–1985) through ecclesiastical base communities (comunidades eclesiais de base), which were created by the Catholic Church to work with the popular sectors to disseminate equality, citizenship, and neighborhood organizing (Mainwaring, 1986). ² Pastorals (composed of priests, nuns, bishops, and lay people commissioned by the Church) extended this concept into favela communities. Progressive pastoral agents formed close ties with poor communities, offering technical support, legal advice, and an opportunity for discussion of issues related to informal settlements, community organizing, and leadership, a complement to the base communities’ ideological role. Through these activities the Church questioned ideas about social rights, land, housing, and the legal position of favelas.

In the 1970s, with rapid population growth in peripheral urban areas, several groups emerged to emphasize favelas, poor neighborhoods, and living conditions in Brazilian cities. Marxists played a key role in these movements and helped to enhance the movements’ leadership capacities (Mainwaring, 1987). Collective experience of marginalization, abandonment, and exclusion was a source of inspiration for these movements, which developed rich repertoires of organization and contention (Caldeira and Holston, 2005). From the mid-1970s on, a reduction of repression by the dictatorship devolved some political power to civil society, leading to reduced tensions and ultimately a transition to democracy (Della Cava, 1989). Increasing social mobilization critiqued the military’s institutionalized politico-economic order, indicating a deterioration of military power and its control over social movements as neighborhood associations, unions, political parties, and progressive professional groups came to play a leading role (Mainwaring, 1987). Neighborhood associations challenged the vertical ties that had formed the basis of clientelism, forming an associational network of collective organizations (Gay, 1990). A critical moment was the eruption of popular political participation in public debate about Brazil’s future as neighborhood associations became sites for both contestation and innovation (Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva, 2011).

The first massive mobilization came in 1978 with a strike by workers in the São Paulo area, culminating in the formation of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—PT) in 1980 by unions, social movements, intellectuals, the progressive Church, and other opponents of the military government. Thereafter, popular mobilization grew through organized social movements and the support of the PT, which assisted in the formation of grassroots movements while also being forged by these movements (Assies, 1999; Keck, 1992; Kowarick and Singer, 1994). Indeed, “in the early 1980s, the PT understood itself as having a commitment to social movements” (Avritzer, 2009: 45).

Social movements became a force on the political scene as the state came to be recognized as the primary addressee of their demands, fostering a politics of citizenship around the “right to have rights” (Abers, 2000; Dagnino, 2005: 153). The struggle for democracy evolved into a broad-based discussion framed by social justice and rights-based claims, challenging the rights infringements that had occurred during the military dictatorship (Dagnino, 2003). Following decades in which their rights had gone unrecognized, favela associations demanded land regularization as a condition of their full integration into urban society, and by the 1980s they had coalesced into a widespread movement (Fernandes, 1999). This and the neighborhood-based and issue-based movements scaled up, creating “an incipient degree of popular unity and a precarious identification of interests by the diverse social segments which had been equally excluded by the dominant forces” (Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva, 2011; Fernandes, 1995: 38). Following two decades of military rule, grassroots movements played a role in widespread mobilizations in 1984, leading a civilian president to assume office in March 1985. ³

The Urban Reform Movement

Discussions in academic circles in the 1960s focused on the idea of urban reform, challenging Brazilian urbanization from a Marxist perspective through a focus on segregation, exclusion, and inequality (Monte-Mór, 2007). Brazilian architects held a seminar on housing and urban reform in Petrópolis in 1963, and the resulting proposal demanded social justice in cities. Urban development and planning were recognized as tasks of government through centralized planning and government intervention to ensure access to land and housing for low-income populations (Fernandes, 1995). It was not until the 1970s, however, that Brazil’s urban question was examined more broadly, brought about by social inequalities in cities and growing pressure on urban infrastructure. In 1982 the Movimento Nacional de Reforma Urbana (National Movement for Urban Reform—MNRU) was established by popular movements (Movimento de Defesa dos Favelados), neighborhood associations (Federação das Associações de Moradores do Estado de Rio de Janeiro), nongovernmental organizations (Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional, Instituto Pólis, Articulação Nacional do Solo Urbano), unions, and professional organizations (Federação Nacional dos Arquitetos, Federação Nacional dos Engenheiros) to critique the prevailing unsuccessful technocratic planning model (Ribeiro and Santos Junior, 2001). A combination of social movement and organized lobby through its ties to the PT (Avritzer, 2007), the MNRU established a proposal for urban reform during the national Constituent Assembly (1986–1988) charged with creating Brazil’s new democratic constitution. In the eyes of the MNRU, urban reform meant structural reforms with a spatial dimension, including a focus on reforming the institutions regulating urban space to achieve social justice, combining alternative land policy, community upgrading, and participatory planning. In its founding years its ties to the PT increased the movement’s prominence (Avritzer, 2007). A mass party with grassroots support and origins outside the political system, the PT was key in the approval of parts of the urban reform movement’s proposals (Keck, 1992).

During the Constituent Assembly, the MNRU gathered more than 12 million signatures endorsing draft provisions for urban reform in the new constitution (Avritzer, 2007). A popular amendment on urban policy prepared, discussed, and signed by the organizations participating in the MNRU was submitted to the Constituent Assembly in 1987. The text of the amendment recognized the autonomy of municipal government; the democratic management of cities, the social right to housing, the social function of urban property, the right to the regularization of consolidated informal settlements, and the need to combat land and property speculation in cities. For the MNRU, the recognition of the social function of property and the right to the city were particularly important. Although its proposals were diluted, resulting in only two articles in the 1988 Constitution dealing with urban policy, the MNRU “decided to make the most of the situation and subvert the approved provision by consciously investing in the formulation of municipal master plans throughout the country that were both inclusive and participatory” (Fernandes, 2011: 181).

After the adoption of the constitution, the MNRU coordinated a Fórum Nacional de Reforma Urbana (National Forum for Urban Reform—FNRU), which included popular movements (Central dos Movimentos Populares, União Nacional por Moradia Popular, Movimento Nacional de Luta por Moradia), nongovernmental organizations (in addition to those mentioned earlier, Associação Nacional do Solo Urbano, Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos), and professional associations (Federação Interestadual de Sindicatos de Engenheiros, Federação Nacional das Associações do Pessoal da Caixa Econômica Federal, Federação Nacional dos Arquitetos e Urbanistas) (Grazia, 2003). In contrast to the involvement of base communities and pastorals during the 1960s and neighborhood movements in the 1970s, the FNRU included both popular movements and professional associations in a national effort to defend urban reform (Avritzer, 2007). ⁴ In the democratic transition of the 1980s, the urban social movements have been credited with transforming perceptions of urban space and including citizenship in the consolidation agenda, “not only in forcing the authoritarian regime’s abertura, or political opening, but also in shaping the actual terms of the transition” (Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva, 2011: 42).

The bill that became known as the Statute of the City was Bill 181 of June 28, 1989, incorporating several elements of the reform movement’s proposals. Even after the bill’s approval, political struggles between the conservative sectors and the FNRU and PT over the role of participation in the bill persisted (Bassul, 2005; Grazia, 2003). The statute resulted from negotiations among the urban reform, social, and environmental movements, the real estate sector, municipalities, and state and federal institutions in charge of housing and the environment. While the movements’ demands took years to take effect, the approval of the statute can be seen as one of the important victories of these movements in the policy sphere. ⁵ Ultimately, the movements were able to integrate some of their agenda into the bill including the right to the city as a component of urban law (Avritzer, 2009). The Statute of the City was finally enacted on July 10, 2001. In 2002 Lula, a longtime PT militant and leader, was elected president.

The statute introduced two changes to the Brazilian planning landscape. First, it required public participation in planning. Second, it broadened the legal and political role of municipalities through legal, urban, and fiscal instruments that might be used by cities to regulate urban land and property markets on the basis of the social function of property (Friendly, 2013). By incorporating these changes, it established the right to the city in national law (Fernandes, 2011). Lefebvre’s more utopian conception of the right to the city as a revolution in the sphere of everyday life is different from the concept used by the social movements, which pursue inclusion in the city as it exists today (Mayer, 2012). For the movement, the right to the city is a right to participate in decisions concerning the city (Purcell, 2008; see also Fernandes, 2007, and Mayer, 2012).

The political influence of the FNRU changed over this period, partly as a result of the shifting influence of the PT (Avritzer, 2007). In the late 1980s key FNRU members entered municipal governments, especially in São Paulo, Santo Andre, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte. While the PT had governed few cities in the late 1980s, by 2002 the number of PT-administered cities had increased considerably, and many of them were implementing urban reforms. In the 1990s, besides continued struggles at the national level over the constitution’s provisions, the FNRU played a key role at the municipal and state levels, pressing governments to incorporate urban reform principles and stimulating collective action (Serafim, 2012; Silva, 2002). After Lula took office in 2003, key FNRU members joined the Ministry of Cities, the federal body charged with urban issues and a long-standing demand of the FNRU (Santos Junior, 2009). Between 2003 and 2005 Olivio Dutra, the former PT mayor of Porto Alegre known for implementing the city’s participatory budgeting, was the minister of cities. Indeed, “the party’s ascension to executive office brought many radical activists and social movement activists to the state” (Hunter, 2010: 88). In the process, however, the autonomy of some social movements was lost (Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva, 2011). In 2005 a reconfiguration of power in the National Congress following the mensalão scandal ⁶ made Márcio Fortes of the conservative Partido Progressista (Progressive Party—PP) minister of cities. FNRU members within the Ministry of Cities were replaced by individuals with no connection to urban reform, illustrating the precarious balance between the state and civil society (Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva, 2011; Serafim, 2012). As the PT moved away from its previous commitments to social movements toward pragmatism, the social movements abandoned the assumption that a PT government would solve their problems and began looking for new ways to incorporate their views into national politics (Hochstetler, 2008; Hunter, 2010).

Rebel Cities? The June Days

On June 6, 2013, protesters in São Paulo led by the Movimento Passe Livre (Free Pass Movement—MPL), an autonomous apolitical movement supporting public transportation since the mid-2000s, organized a demonstration demanding the reversal of a bus fare increase. Poor transportation takes a high toll on urban residents, as Gomes and Maheirie (2011: 361) note; the turnstile has become a “symbol of segregation and injustice that the working classes suffer through in the day-to-day.” ⁷ For one observer of these protests, some of the Keynesian measures implemented by Lula were returning to “haunt the Brazilian population.” As automobile use increased with increased salaries, the government stimulated the auto industry, eliminated vehicle taxes, and extended vehicle financing, “creating an unsustainable situation with traffic in big cities” (Brian Meir, Skype interview, July 22, 2014).

The MPL coordinated several protests in São Paulo throughout June as police responded with increasing brutality and the demonstrations expanded to other cities. On June 19, bus fares were reduced in Rio and São Paulo. After this decision the social media and the mainstream media “effectively called people to the streets, and . . . sponsored the multiplication and deradicalization of their demands” (Saad-Filho, 2013: 658). Transportation demands merged with other issues including health, education, public spending on the World Cup, corruption, limited democracy, and lack of political participation.

The demonstrations seemed to represent a change from an apparent complacency that had prevailed since the movement for direct elections in the early 1980s, but dissatisfaction and resistance movements had been spreading in urban areas for decades (Maricato, 2013). As Dent and Pinheiro-Machado (2013) put it, “The giant never slept.” Indeed, the MPL was founded in the mid-2000s. According to Caldeira (2013),

Those who had been articulating new imaginaries and a deep indignation in alternative spaces for quite a while finally arrived to the streets and made sure to fix on the others the feelings of surprise. . . . Those who did not realize what was going on were the political parties that have not listened to them, the governments that have disrespected them continuously, and the middle classes that arrived only late to the streets and to the indignation.

The protests were about what type of city was desired (Tucker Landesman, Skype interview, August 8, 2014). This right to the city “rises up from the streets, out from the neighborhoods, as a cry for help and sustenance by oppressed peoples in desperate times” (Harvey, 2012: xiii). The demand was for democracy and public participation in decisions about public policy, challenging the nature of representative democracy in Brazil (Rolnik, 2013). The demonstrations included reminders of forgotten promises and important demands for basic social rights, signaling that Brazilians needed much more than increased consumption (Rolnik, 2013). Underlying many of the protesters’ claims was a challenge to the increasing commodification of Brazilian cities. The MPL (2013: 13) noted that “like a ghost that haunts cities, leaving marks on the living space and memory, popular uprisings over transportation have challenged Brazilian metropolises since their formation. . . . [The protests] are a well-deserved expression of rage against a system completely delivered to the logic of the commodity.” A challenge to the way political power was being exercised and to the ability of private interests to accumulate wealth at the expense of the majority was also present (Vainer, 2013). Indeed, the rise of these protests should be viewed within the changing political economy of global capitalism, sparking protests in a plethora of other countries. In Brazil, changes in the political economy had greatly expanded the middle class without improving basic conditions (Barbosa, 2012).

As the protests mushroomed throughout Brazil and became violent as clashes with police increased, they were no longer coordinated solely by the MPL. Following the decision to revoke the fare increase, the MPL regrouped and mobilized in the peripheries with the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto (Homeless Workers’ Movement–MTST). It returned to the streets shortly thereafter, organizing in other cities, but the protests lost focus as they became increasingly dominated by the middle classes and other groups. As a commentator explained, “Once the transit hikes were revoked, there was no cohesive anything anymore” (Brian Meir, Skype interview, July 22, 2014).

Although the spark that ignited the protests had been the rise in bus fares, it was the poor condition of Brazilian cities—what the philosopher Marilena Chauí (2013) calls an “urban hell”—that brought the protests to the forefront (Maricato, 2013; Vainer, 2013). Brazil’s housing deficit, although declining over the past few years, remains high at 5.9 million or 9.1 percent of households (FJP, 2014). While there was an increase between 2001 and 2011 of more than 8.9 million vehicles (77.8 percent), in 2013 only 55.3 percent of cities with more than 500,000 residents had transportation plans as required by law (IBGE, 2013; Rodrigues, 2011). Brazil’s Gini coefficient is 52.7 (World Bank, 2015), and although household income has increased considerably (IPEA, 2013) inequality is among the top ten in the world (Neri, 2010). Considering that Brazil is 84 percent urban (IBGE, 2010), the urban face of Brazil’s inequality becomes clear. For Brazilian urban residents, as Maricato (2011) notes, despite these hard facts, it is obvious that cities are worsening.

The protests “are ultimately about the so-called ‘urban question,’ that is, the nature of the social process of production of urban space in Brazil,” and a condemnation of Brazil’s pattern of urban development (Fernandes, 2013). Its exclusionary model has resulted from historical challenges: a small governmental role in urban development, a centralized and authoritarian legal system, and asymmetric land markets (Fernandes, 2011; Holston, 2008). Despite the advances of political institutions and promises by progressive governments to reverse the situation, several decades of stagnation have taken a toll on Brazil’s cities, with poor urban residents experiencing their worst effects. As Pessoa (2014) shows, Brazilian urban problems have the capacity to initiate large-scale mobilizations in search of solutions. Compounding the challenging urban situation, the adoption of neoliberalism has had profound repercussions in Brazilian urban areas, deepening the problems of exclusionary urban development (Maricato, 2011). These protests express frustration with the gap between promises and results, highlighting unfulfilled promises resulting from the practical conditions of Brazilian cities. Several studies have documented dissatisfaction among Brazilians regarding the economy, public policies, infrastructure, security, leadership, and government corruption (Gallup, 2013; Pew Research Center, 2014).

The 2013 protests challenged specific urban issues such as transportation but also the limited implementation of urban reforms. Conditions have not improved despite the promise of the right to the city for all. This urban dimension of the protests identifies the city as a site of insurgence where claims to rights and struggles over citizenship occur and all city dwellers may participate in shaping social relations (Lefebvre, 1996), making the urban dimension “a strategic linchpin” (Purcell, 2008: 89). Inevitably, in addition to the challenges of Brazilian cities, improved quality of life and heightened political awareness have probably raised expectations among Brazilians about what demands might be made, while the social media have probably helped to kindle discontent.

Amorphous Protest in 2014

Leading up to the June 2014 World Cup, while commentators worried about the protest’s stalling the games protesters pointed to broad injustices. A first wave of protest was initiated by the MLP around the idea of urban mobility and the right to the city. As one observer noted, “People have talked about issues like transportation a lot more. . . . The protests gave them a new vocabulary and a new framework in which to work” (Tucker Landesman, Skype interview, August 8, 2014). The second wave included more amorphous demands by protesters from various classes and groups with a multiplicity of voices. A key difference between these protests and those of 2013, according to another observer, is that the 2013 protests “were more popular in the sense of ‘Get out and make it happen’ and ‘Anything is possible’” (Tucker Landesman, Skype interview, August 8, 2014). In 2014 they were “more particular. . . . Not everyone can identify with [the demands] anymore” (Leona Deckelbaum, Skype interview, January 8, 2014).

In 2014 the protests underlined discontent over the allocation of funds between the mega-events and social services and about human rights violations and police militarization: “When the police are firing rubber bullets . . . it becomes the most imminent problem” (Tucker Landesman, Skype interview, August 8, 2014). Alongside the protests, the displacement of favela dwellers for the construction of World Cup projects was pervasive. The protests have also occurred in the peripheries, reinforcing “the influence that favela-specific demands had on the general protest movement” (Landesman, 2014). In many cities, the police countered ongoing protests with violence. As one protester told an international newspaper, “When the agenda began to focus on social themes, rights, the problems of the favelas, the protests began to reduce in numbers,” and the middle classes became alienated (Philips, 2014). In several cities the police responded “with disproportionate use of force, coupled with a heavy-handed media criminalization of protesters over the last year” (Hodges, 2014), reflecting Brazil’s history of military police violence in urban areas (Wacquant, 2008). As reports of violence by police officers and challenges to the portrayal of the protests by the media and politicians persisted, Auyero’s (2010) case for breaking down distinctions between perpetrators of violence, activists, and authorities made increasing sense. One effect of these confrontations was to “deplete the protests,” according to a left party activist (Alvaro Neiva, Skype interview, July 15, 2014). Inevitably, however, patriotism and soccer played a key role in reducing the protests (Guedes, 1998), as a member of the People’s Committee for the Cup noted. The World Cup presented Brazilians with a dilemma: “Either we cheer or we protest” (Leticia de Luna Freire, Skype interview, August 17, 2014).

Taking Stock of the Protests: Shared Concerns and Contrasting Approaches

The moments of social movement activity and protest in Brazil share many concerns but exhibit contrasting approaches. The recent protests share concerns with the urban reform movement that transformed Brazil up to the early 2000s (Holston, 2008; 2013; Lacerda and Peres, 2014). The Brazilians who took to the streets in 2013 highlighted many of the same issues as those of the 1980s, underscoring Brazil’s urban question. Like those of the FNRU, the demands in 2013 were framed by a rights discourse, stressing the right to better conditions. Promises to improve the conditions of Brazilian cities have not been translated into tangible results, and the disparity between promises and results has created what Maricato (2011) calls an impasse in Brazilian urban politics. While the transformational urban reform fought for by the MNRU and the FNRU has not been realized, the 2013 protests have led to the revival of the urban reform movement (Fernandes, 2013). Such insurgencies have broad significance for the future of collective action in Brazil. Indeed, it is important to view the recent protests in Brazil from a political economy perspective that has relevance for collective action in other places. These more recent insurgencies are united by various urban problems highlighted by the MPL’s phrase “A city exists only for those who move around it.” The demands that brought the movement together, creating unlikely allies, were for an alternative vision of the city that was just, fair, and framed by the right to the city. In contrast to the FNRU, which focused on the democratic management of cities and the social function of property, the recent protests have made diverse demands dealing with health, education, and public spending in the planning of the World Cup.

The two moments of collective action represent contrasting approaches. While the FNRU was a social movement according to Tilly and Tarrow’s (2007) definition, the recent insurgencies have not yet become one. First, a social movement is a sustained campaign of claim making. In contrast to the protests of the FNRU, the recent protests have been fleeting. Second, a social movement displays repeated public performances to advertise its claims. The FNRU operated primarily through lobbying at the political level (Avritzer, 2007), while the recent actions have focused on local mobilizations and protests. Third, a social movement makes public displays of its worthiness. While the FNRU used certain common signs and slogans under a common platform, ⁸ the recent protests have used numerous images and slogans. Finally, a social movements draws on organizations, networks, traditions, and solidarities (social movement bases) to sustain its activities. A sustained base is one element setting social movements apart from other forms of contentious politics. While the FNRU brought together professionals, popular organizations, and nongovernmental organizations, the recent protests started with students and activists and grew to include the middle classes as the MPL pulled out and social media campaigns took over (Prada, 2013). Holston (2013) notes that “residents of the lower-class peripheries had a strong presence in the demonstrations. . . . Given the low quality of urban life in Brazil . . . different classes of people suffer the city’s injuries and indignities in their own ways, but that amounts to a discontent that is strongly shared.” In addition, the FNRU had a national presence while the recent protests have been locally based, with changing characters in each city depending on the dominant actors in each place. While the recent protests lack a social base, they are far less organized than the FNRU, “producing new imaginaries that circulate in autonomous and non-regulated ways” (Caldeira, 2013).

Conclusion

Brazil’s 2013 protests are new iterations of past movements in Latin America. Similar demands to those of the FNRU have reemerged as a result of unfulfilled promises, albeit with an approach that differs from that of a social movement. While the problems that led to the passage of the Statute of the City were restricted to Brazil’s poorest population, the current challenges are not as closely tied to issues of poverty. This suggests that one solution lies in creating a new political dynamic tied to broader participation of all those experiencing the challenges of urbanization. Although perhaps incipient, these insurgencies represent a possible “reawakening of history” (Badiou, 2012: 42; Swyngedouw, 2014).

The urban reform movement and the recent protests exemplify the waves of civil society mobilization and demobilization discussed in the literature (Irazábal, 2008; Lavalle and Bueno, 2011). For Hochstetler (2000), after the mid-1980s there was a change in social movement organizing in Brazil that reflected a change in the political context. Through these cycles of protest (Tarrow, 1994), new movements emerge through new political openings, creating new strategies of contention. Despite the changes, social movements often persevere but with less visibility: “They are always there for an observer who knows where to look for them and are as active as ever, with smaller demonstrations, numerous gatherings, and clear positions on the issues of the day” (Friedman and Hochstetler, 2002: 31). In such contexts, social movements experience both highs and lows reflecting changing political contexts.

The protests have highlighted limitations of Brazil’s political left and the PT, despite the PT’s initial position as “a social movement party . . . able to serve as the focal point and to channel social movement demands” (Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva, 2011: 52). Although the PT played a key role in the genesis of the urban reform movement, the party became increasingly removed from social movements in favor of traditional electoral rules, pragmatism, and ideological moderation, prompting a “reorientation of the PT [that] has left a void in Brazilian politics” (Maricato, 2009: 206–207). According to Avritzer (2009), this has prompted a classic dilemma for leftist mass parties between identity and competition. This transformation during the Lula years to maximize votes rather than supporting its base (Hunter, 2010) and the deteriorating relationship between social movements and the PT (Hochstetler, 2008) help to explain some of the discontent that emerged in 2013. That PT got a slim majority in the 2014 election only reinforces this point. These developments highlight the need for the PT to reconnect with its movement base and with the youth involved in the protests.

The events of June 2013 brought to light both the necessity and the possibility of criticism. In Cidades rebeldes (Vainer et al., 2013), an edited collection with a critical take on the 2013 events, the contributors note that while a critical spirit had been out of fashion and excluded from the dominant political agenda in Brazil, these protests provide an opportunity to bring back a spirit of analysis and criticism, catalyzing “a new dynamic political debate” (Sennes, 2014: 7). As a result, for the MPL (2013), such actions by social movements are part of the everyday construction of discussion and debate that continues well beyond the protests.

Finally, these kinds of insurgencies often signal positive change at the level of praxis. For Vainer (2013: 35) they “evoke the great and rare moments in history when changes and disruptions that seemed unimaginable until their eve impose themselves on the political agenda of society and, in some cases, end up turning into real possibilities some social and political changes that seemed unattainable.” In the case of the FNRU, despite setbacks, tangible victories were achieved that translated into policy change at both the national and the local level. More recently, the actions of the protesters were able to keep bus fares at their original levels, illustrating the importance of partial victories for an insurgency already growing and becoming consolidated and increasingly politicized. Reflecting on this increased collective action among activists and the sense of hopefulness among observers, Raquel Rolnik noted that, “since the Constituent Assembly, the right to the city for all was on the agenda. The people demanded it in the streets, but this rupture has not happened. Now it is possible that it will happen” (quoted in Sprejer, 2013).

The question remains whether the recent protests will transition into a legitimate social movement. Although renewed protest at the scale seen in 2013 is unlikely, the forces driving these mobilizations are still present in Brazil: “There’s been a lot of discontent that has been voiced and there are a lot who have learned how to stage a protest. So the learning and the inspiration and the motivation is there for a lot of younger people. . . . My sense is that people won’t just let these issues go” (Carolyn Prouse, Skype interview, July 21, 2014). In addition, for a left party activist, despite the significantly smaller protests in 2014, “what changed was the culture of people. Even after the streets emptied out, people believed that when you have an objective, struggle brings victories if you collectively organize. . . . What is important is to maintain this collective memory” (Alvaro Neiva, Skype interview, August 15, 2014). The dilemmas of Brazil’s cities are as present as ever. According to Swyngedouw (2014), when protesters leave the public sphere and insurgencies dissipate, the process of transformation requires new modes and practices of collective political organization, an arena of struggle, and the construction of new political collectivities.

These insurgencies represent a legacy with the potential to strengthen collective action and stimulate political debate about Brazil’s future. Part of the challenge lies in forging a future based on understanding both the past and the present. “Any spontaneous alternative visionary moment is fleeting; if it is not seized at the flood, it will surely pass” (Harvey, 2012: xvii). The two moments of Brazilian collective action have broad implications for planning that may aid in assessing the long-term prospects of such protests. The role of social movements in the urban reform project has been key in producing policy change and perhaps even affecting the social fabric of urban life. Although it is too soon to know the outcome of the recent events in Brazil and their implications for cities, the cases discussed here show that one ingredient in realizing the right to the city is collective action. In this context, robust citizen participation plays a key role in bringing attention and criticism into the urban development context. That more than a million Brazilians took to the streets to protest the shortfall in promises suggests that the disparity between promises and results needs to be corrected.