As Alfredo Sadd-Filho writes, “the 2013 protests expressed a wide range of (sometimes conflicting) demands.” The concerns over hikes in public transportation fees that sparked the movement were soon lost in a sea of increasingly generalized anxieties relating to public services, “especially health and education,” and “broader issues of governance,” like corruption and misallocation of public funds.[2] The 2013 protests were unique in that, although “they started with students and young left-wing activists,” they “rapidly broadened to include hundreds of thousands” of Brazilians, growing seemingly without regard to socioeconomic class or political affiliation.[3] The protests featured a “confluence” of contradictory dissatisfactions, with traditionally conservative upper and middle-class protestors urging the return to the neoliberal economic policies under which they achieved unprecedented prosperity and privilege during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the poor and working classes desiring improvements in infrastructure, public services, and living conditions. Paradoxically, both groups took the streets together, united by their disapproval of government institutions and the expectation of improved public services.
Although the impact of the protests is still in the process of resonating across the scholarly community, published academic studies suggest that scholars agree that the movement, though large and widespread, does not presage socialist revolution in Brazil.[4] Outside of this common conclusion, scholars have come to little consensus about the long-term implications of the protests. Sadd-Filho, who contextualizes the movement “in light of the achievements and limitations of the democratic transition…and the experience of the federal administrators led by the Workers’ Party,”[5] writes that the protests will force the consolidation of contradictory demands that have weakened the left in recent years, possibly “shift[ing] the political balance in the country” and resulting in “long-term gains for workers and the left in Brazil.”[6] Jaime Oliva and Aline Khoury have rejected “fram[ing] the movement in a specific category…or locat[ing] it in a historic trend or cycle,” and instead suggest that the movement will inaugurate a revitalization of democracy in Brazil, weakening leaders of political parties, causing Brazilians to rethink old “forms of political organization” and spelling “the end of obsolete coalitions and their diversionary political games.” In particular, the scholars cite President Dilma Rouseff’s proposal in the wake of the protests to hold a national referendum on reforming the country’s political system as emblematic of the shift towards democratic renewal.[7]
But both of these predictions are weakened by the fact that they arise from interpretations that fail to identify the causes at the root of the June-July protests: the economic frustrations of an overexploited workforce anxious for investment in social programs and infrastructure. Reforms in government and shifts in party politics will do little to stem discontent if economic issues at the heart of Brazilian capitalism are not addressed.
[1] Saad-Filho, Alfredo. "Mass Protests under "Left Neoliberalism": Brazil, June-July 2013 ." Critical Sociology. no. 5 (2013): 657-669.
[7] Jaime, Oliva, and Aline Khoury. "Renewal of Democracy in Brazil's Protests." Economic and Political Weekly. no. 29 (2013).
