Abstract
The book ‘State-Sponsored Activism: Bureaucrats and Social Movements in Democratic Brazil’ by Jessica A. J. Rich discusses a Brazilian social movement in the health sector. It shows the inclusion of AIDS policy in civil society activism as well as the support in policy advocacy. This book suggests a new category of social movements in which government collaboration is crucial for the expansion of the movement. In this case, this collaboration comes in the form of the acceptance of AIDS policy, which is not usually accepted by right-wing governments. Furthermore, this book argues that the AIDS movement in Brazil represents a movement that cannot be explained by the traditional theories and frameworks that have been used to study social movements in Latin America. The main research questions posed in this book are: how does civil society develop the capacity to organise and advocate for collective political goals; and what explains the endurance of civic activism once the initial success of fixing policy has passed?
The readability of this book and the style are simple and easy to follow. It shows an interesting side of social movements in the health sector that is not often captured. This book provides a framework for the AIDS movement in Brazil during the 1980s and 1990s, and the expansion of the movement in the 2000s.
This book provides a rich analysis and documentation of social mobilisation and relationships with the state for the AIDS movement in Brazil. It is based on semi-structured interviews, sub-national comparison of organisations and their activities, as well as an online survey conducted with AIDS non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
With this book, Rich contributes to theoretical debates on social movements and state–society by drawing on a relevant case from Brazil, which has the potential to contribute to other debates on state–society relations. In this sense, Rich suggests that previous approaches to social movements have not yet been able to provide an explanation for movements that are led by actors who play a role not only as protesters, but also as negotiators. Thus, traditional approaches have a strong limitation in explaining social movements such as the Brazilian AIDS movement, whose central key was the coalition of grassroots organisations with bureaucrats. Therefore, new approaches need to be further research, as an approach where ‘state actors sometimes depend of a strong civil society to help them control other areas of the state’.
Rich introduces in this book the concept of ‘federative coalitions’ as the process of employing new grassroots organisations and engage them to incentivize organisations and build a new structure for a national AIDS movement. Such federated coalitions represent new alliances between government and grassroots organisations, in which the latter help directly to achieve better health policies or involve actors within government to achieve those goals. The main argument of Rich’s book suggests that the sustainability and success of this Brazilian AIDS movement is due to bureaucrats’ support for civil society organisations. This support enabled new ‘federative coalitions’ alliances in policy development and contributed to more institutionalised advocacy.
The role of state actors is crucial in mobilising civil society. Some of the motivations for bureaucrats to support health policy activism argued in this book are primarily the goal of policy reform or enforcement against opposition. Rich documents the transition from activists in this movement to bureaucrats and how these personalities were able to mobilise more easily and gain more support. At the same time, the author explains how these new bureaucrats support with resources and channels to create new grassroots organisations’ ‘state-sponsored activism’.
Some of the institutional strategies that were used by AIDS organisations included engagement with policy-makers in the form of civil society and representative leadership participation in AIDS policy-making commissions, AIDS legal activities, such as developing expertise on AIDS policy legal issues. In addition, lobbying and advocacy by appealing to leaders in Congress. Finally, AIDS NGOs also created scientific research networks to study the effectiveness of prevention strategies, as well as different forms of protest and media coverage.
Rich captures at least three relevant elements that transformed the state, thanks to this AIDS movement in Brazil. First, the acceptance and introduction of new instruments for civil participation in policy-making, such as participatory governance. This happened due to the introduction of instruments and institutions that facilitated civil activist engagement. Second, the commitment of international institutions to protect the already well-institutionalised national AIDS programme. Third, a national law (Sarney’s Law) in 1996 that ensured universal access to AIDS treatment (access to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs,), making the country the first to offer this protection instead of focusing solely on AIDS prevention.
Although the AIDS movement in Brazil cannot be described as a top-down movement, it has strong elements of decentralisation efforts, especially after the Sarney’s Law has been institutionalised and politically accepted at the national level. Rich argues that the AIDS movement in Brazil expanded in the late 1990s due to the support of national bureaucrats who activated grassroots mobilisation in new regions what led to a decentralisation of AIDS policy.
Social movements in Latin America during the 1980s were varied and strongly related to the democratic transition in the region and the logics of globalisation. From the 1990s onwards, the diversification of social movements in the region grew, from urban to rural movements, including modern women’s and indigenous movements, as well as environmental movements (Almeida and Cordero, 2015). The debate on globalisation could have been deepened in this book to better understand international pressure and the possible influence of state–civil society relations in Brazil under this influence.
Rich describes the expansion of the AIDS movement in Brazil not only through the decentralisation of AIDS policy, but also through a ‘Bottom-up effort to build a national coalition by providing funding for nearly all local, regional and national meetings of the movement’. In the process of the expansion of this movement, two generations of civil AIDS groups can be recognised. First, older civil organisations that were mobilised in the 1980s by federal bureaucrats, which were experienced in health policy and advocacy and which relied on funding from international foundations. Second, more recent civil society organisations that emerged during the rise of AIDS organising in Brazil around 2003 under the umbrella of a new national grassroots alliance. The second generation represents the bottom-up movement, whose organisations received resources, information, and skills and thus became part of the new wave of mobilisation. This second generation was, due to the governmental influence, more dependent on state funding.
In conclusion, Rich’s book contributes to the theoretical discussion on new forms of social movements in Latin America because of the new relationships between the state and civil society. This book documents very well the organised activism and the transition from the actors of this movement to the bureaucrats, but somehow forgets to put the politics of AIDS in Brazil into perspective within the health sector as a whole, where one could easily understand the dimension of this movement in health policy. This book describes the rich results of a field research. It would benefit from a graphic presentation of the fieldwork especially as at least 200 interviews and regional comparisons were conducted. This would help to provide an overview of the analysed data.
Other research on new social movements in Brazil recognises new forms of associationism as new networks (Gohn, 2015: 370). These new networks function through the use of new public spheres and national consultative councils, through the creation of new relationships between the state and civil society through participatory politics and alongside the coordination of former social movement leaders. What Rich highlights in this book as participatory governance and state-sponsored activism.