XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Reflections on Treze: A Politica de Rua de Lula a Dilma

• In Event: Roundtable: Continuity and Change in Modern Brazil

Abstract

The cycle of protests that included the June 2013 mobilizations was composed of different movements with distinctive agendas and orientations. Their one commonality was that they contested governments of the Workers’ Party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). Angela Alonso’s book Treze traces the relationship between street protests and the government in the period 2003-13. The arrival of the PT government in power at the federal level in 2003 brought many social movement activists into the halls of government. Politics on the streets then became dominated by movements to the left of the PT and an amorphous right that organized around the theme of patriotism. Alonso argues that the PT government’s reforms generated street-level reactions in three key areas of conflict. These are redistribution, morality (personal morality, such as in women’s reproductive rights, as well as public morality, as in corruption), and the limits of legitimate state violence, or the use of force by the state. In this sociological-historical analysis, Alonso argues that although street protests exploded during the presidency of Dilma Rousseff, the flames that lit the explosion began during the Lula presidency. In her contribution to this proposed BRASA roundtable, Alonso offers to reflect on her book in light of Lula’s return to power.

Author

• angela alonso, university of São Paulo