Participation and land reform in Brazil

Since the democratic transition, agrarian reform policies in Brazil have been formulated and implemented with a great degree of social movements’ participation. The institution in charge of agrarian reform policies, the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), was created in 1970 during the military regime, and until 1985, colonization was its priority. However, with the end of the authoritarian regime, rural social movements, such as the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), were created and started to claim for agrarian reform.

Since then the MST and other rural social movements have been active not only in pressing for agrarian reform policies, but also in taking part on policy formulation and execution. As a result, a number of policies such as education and rural housing have been implemented by INCRA through the work of social movement activists. Immediately after the creation of an agrarian reform settlement by INCRA, an association of settled families must be organized and legally registered. In most of the cases these associations are affiliated to social movements that organize and coordinate land occupations and encampments, which are informally prior steps in the land reform process in Brazil.

Relationship between the state and rural social movements in Brazil takes place in many different forms during the claiming phase (collective actions, INCRA occupations, negotiations, etc.). Notwithstanding, after the inclusion of landless families in the agrarian reform program, the relationship happens through local settlers associations, which execute policies such as houses construction and credit distribution. This paper analyses these associations and their relationship with INCRA with a view at assessing to what extent they improve democracy, by guarantying the expansion of social rights such as housing and education; and to what extent they mitigate social movement’s autonomy while cooperating with INCRA in the implementation of agrarian reform policies.