Democratizing the Brazilian public sphere: New dynamics in the relationship between state and black social movements

Proposal for ISA Forum of Sociology

Angela Randolpho Paiva – PUC-Rio

 

Title: Democratizing the Brazilian public sphere: New dynamics in the relationship between the state and black social movements

This proposal discusses the relationship between social movements and the re-democratization of Brazil. Emphasis will be given on the black social movements and their demands for both affirmative action in higher education and for the reform of the curriculum in the educational system. It will defend the hypothesis that the democratization process which the country has gone through in the past twenty years represents new dynamics in the relationship between the state and civil society. In this period new policies were designed under the pressure of new organized sectors of civil society. This paper deals with two main objectives: a) the research project that I have been leading about affirmative action in public universities will be presented; b) the analysis tackling the contextualization of new public policies that have meant changes for the participation of new social actors, who have organized their demands for more redistribution of wealth in the nation as well as for recognition of new identities that have been reinforced. And we might as well ask the following question. Do such dynamics represent new possibilities for participation in the exclusive Brazilian public sphere or do they mean old practices under new labels?