Brazil, 1996-2011: Why a racial democracy adopted affirmative action?

The adoption of affirmative action in Brazilian universities, early in this century, greatly increased the number of blacks entering higher education system in Brazil.  A recent study of UERJ estimates a 264% increase of Blacks in the private universities and 23% in public ones. My goals in this comunication are twofold. In the theoretical front my aim is to to elaborate a careful political and conjunctural analisis focused mainly in the period between 1996, when the Ministry of Justice convened a conference in Brasilia on multiculturalism and afirmative action, and 2011. In this period affirmative action programs, mainly quotas for blacks, indigeneous people, and students from public high schools where enacted at 71 public universities. I will advance some hypotheses on the differences among the programs of social inclusion in different univerities as an interplay of space and time, of local and national political determinants. In the empirical front my goal is to show the intricate fabric of policies in place on these universities and the first evaluations of some them, seven years passed of the first recruitments based on affirmative actions.