Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2016 DOI:10.1111/blar.

12470

Changing Repertoires and Partisan

Ambivalence in the New Brazilian
Protests
ANGELA ALONSO
University of So Paulo, Brazil

ANN MISCHE
University of Notre Dame, USA

This article analyses the June 2013 wave of political protests in Brazil,
highlighting student movement participation. We make three arguments.
First, this was not a single student movement, but a cycle of protest,
consisting of many different actors, issues, and forms of demonstration.
Second, protesters built what we call hybrid performances, drawing on
three repertoires of contention: socialist, autonomist and patriotic. Third,
the protests presented a strong rejection of political parties, problema-
tising the relationship between social movements, political parties, and
institutional politics.

Keywords: Brazilian protests, cycles of protest, partisanship, political

performances, repertoire of contention.

The June Protests in Brazil

In June 2013, Brazil experienced its biggest national protest wave in two decades. Com-
ing on the heels of the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, and beginning to ebb as Egyptians
were returning to the street, the Brazilian protests were, in equal measure, exhilarating,
perplexing, and troubling. While many of the participants were young, these protests
were not youth or student-based per se. They were triggered by an increase in public
transportation fares, although the list of grievances quickly expanded to the precarious
state of public infrastructure and services, public spending on mega-events (including the
World Cup and the Olympics), corruption, urban violence, and a fed-up-ness with the
state of the country. As with the Turkish protests, the Brazilian demonstrations expressed
a fierce rejection of political parties and institutional politics. Strangely enough, how-
ever, the protests took place in the midst of an economic expansion, a recent increase in
the ranks of the middle class, and a left-of-centre government which until then enjoyed
high levels of popular support. The Brazilian protests also incorporated tools from
the repertoire of contention circulating in the recent wave of global protest. Although

2016 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research 2016 Society for Latin American Studies.
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 1
 Angela Alonso and Ann Mische

these protests were marked by the same irreverent symbolism that characterised the two
previous Brazilian protest cycles, they were more confrontational in tone as demonstra-
tors like their counterparts in Turkey faced extensive repression.
This article aims to understand what happened in Brazil in June 2013, with an eye
to historical patterns as well as broader trends in global protest. We focus on the initial
upsurge of massive street protests during the month of June (leaving aside subsequent
protest activity). We argue that the June protests did not constitute a single social move-
ment, but rather the opening wave of a larger cycle of protest, consisting of many
different actors, issues, processes and outcomes that changed quickly over time, unfold-
ing in divergent ways. In line with the theme of this special issue, we address the role
of student movement organisations, arguing that they played a comparatively less vis-
ible and mobilising role than in previous Brazilian protest cycles. We thus focus not
only on students, but rather on the construction of a broader protest field through the
performances and demands of a heterogeneous array of social actors.
We begin by discussing five elements of the broader political conjuncture that con-
tributed to the emergence of the June protests. We analyse the process by which the
protests shifted in scale from localised rallies against transit fare hikes to huge nation-
wide demonstrations encompassing a broad range of actors, repertoires and demands.
We argue that protesters performances can be analytically split into two strategic action
fields (Fligstein and McAdam, 2012) one on the left and the other on the right of
the federal government. Within those fields, many small and independent configura-
tions of actors performed their own protest at the same time. We highlight the tension
and competition between socialist, patriotic and autonomist repertoires, from which
actors borrowed forms of expression and action during the events. Finally, we exam-
ine the strong rejection of partisanship during the protests, a hallmark of other recent
protests around the world. This raises broader questions about the relationship between
social movements, political parties, and institutional politics in the recent wave of global
protest.
This article is an attempt to synthesise our preliminary observations emerging from
an on-going data collection project on the Brazilian protests by teams at the University
of So Paulo, Cebrap (Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning), and the University of
Notre Dame. This research consists of newspaper event mapping, social media analysis,
and interviews with members of groups active in the So Paulo protests in the immediate
aftermath of the June events. Since our data collection and analysis is still underway, we
present the narrative analysis below as a first take in understanding the characteristics,
dynamics, and tensions appearing in the recent wave of Brazilian protest, to be further
substantiated in future work.

Contending Fields in a Cycle of Protest

To understand the June 2014 protests, we draw upon recent reconceptualisations of
the contentious politics approach, which has moved towards a dynamic, relational,
and culturally embedded understanding of social movement processes and mechanisms
(McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, 2001; Tilly, 2008; Tarrow, 2011). We also build upon
classical conceptions of cycles of collective action and repertoires of contention, putting
these in dialogue with the concept of strategic action fields (Fligstein and McAdam,
2012). We argue that as the protest cycle developed, the protest arena increasingly
split into two (partially overlapping) strategic action fields, distinguished by different

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 June 2013 in Brazil

sets of grievances, targets, repertoires, and aesthetic styles. As they composed these
fields, participants generated hybrid performances that drew upon elements of social-
ist, autonomist and patriotic repertoires, although with different combinations and
emphases across the two fields.
According to Tarrow (1995: 92), a protest cycle consists of a sequence of escalating
collective public demonstrations, with greater than usual frequency and intensity, that
spread across social sectors and involve new forms of protesting and organising. At the
peak of mobilisation, social routines are suspended and social creativity flourishes: inno-
vations in collective action that they produce are diffused, tested, and refined. However,
innovation and reproduction intermingle and challenge each other. Actors invent, but
rely on a protest tradition. Tilly (2006: 35) describes this interaction between scripted-
ness and improvisation as similar to a jazz trio or improvisational theatre: people who
participate in contentious politics normally can play several pieces, but not an infinity
[ ].
The finite forms of contention used in a given time and place compose what social
movement analysts call its repertoire of contention (Tilly, 2006, 2008). While acting
contentiously, actors build up their performances by borrowing from modular (i.e. eas-
ily reproducible and transportable) strategies of political action and expression tested by
former movements. Within that limited array [the repertoire], the players choose which
pieces they will perform here and now, in what order (Tilly, 2008: 14). Actors deal
with repertoires as if they were tool kits (Swidler, 1986), without concern for coher-
ence; rather they adapt them to their local context and political tradition. In the June
protests, participants acted in this fashion, picking tools from global repertoires and
from local traditions; they adapted and mixed them while building their own hybrid
and contending political performances. Thus there is not a perfect match between spe-
cific actors and specific repertoire. Repertoires work as loose orientations to action. The
multiplicity of possible combinations of elements made feasible many ways of perform-
ing non-satisfaction in the June protests.
The notion of strategic action fields helps us to understand this heterogeneity. Flig-
stein and McAdam (2012: 10) define these as socially constructed arenas within which
actors with varying resource endowments vie for advantage. Strategic action is the
attempt by social actors to create and maintain stable social worlds by securing the coop-
eration of others. Strategic actors attempt to control other actors through the creation
of identities, political coalitions, and interests (Fligstein and McAdam, 2012: 17). In
the Brazilian protests, we can distinguish between two strategic action fields, composed
of diverse but mutually oriented sets of challengers to the incumbent state authority.
Within these fields, actors constructed loosely convergent understandings of what the
protests were about, even if they did not all converge on same claims, targets, and prac-
tices. Although all of the protesters made claims on and against the government, they
drew boundaries among themselves, creating two separate fields through the symbols,
images and slogans that they presented.

Attributions of Opportunities and Threats

Protest cycles are fueled by protesters changing attributions of political opportunities
and threats. Actors shifting interpretations of and responses to the evolving political
conjuncture can both intensify and dampen protest (McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly, 2001).
Political shifts encompassing political events, institutions, and policies at the local,

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 Angela Alonso and Ann Mische

national, and international levels are accompanied by cultural shifts in public images,
discourse, and debate that inform the populations interpretations and responses to this
conjuncture.
There are five ways in which shifting attribution of political opportunities and threats
fed the emerging protest cycle in Brazil. The first factor that generated a shift in perceived
opportunity was the recent protest cycle that has emerged since 2008, with dramatic
surges in 2011 and 2013 (Mason, 2013). These protests have given global salience to
the autonomist repertoire of contention (described below), which emerged in the 1999
Seattle protest, but increased in visibility in recent episodes of contention. These have
included anti-austerity, anti-autocracy and anti-inequality protests worldwide, from the
Arab uprisings and Occupy to the various European uncut movements to indigenous
and student protest in Latin America. Together they diffused the image of a return to
the streets, highlighting protest as an efficient way to make claims visible, especially to
media-savvy young people who usually rely on the internet to express themselves.
Although connected to the international scene, a second factor was internal: the place-
ment of global mega-events in Brazil, including the 2013 Confederation Cup and the
2014 World Cup. These events, and the corresponding construction projects (stadiums,
airports, roads, etc.), brought a discussion of state priorities to the public sphere. FIFAs
stadiums were held up both as a model to follow in terms of efficient public policy, and as
something to be avoided in terms of process (accusations of corruption, over-spending,
and worker endangerment). This discussion appeared in newspapers, the internet and
television broadcasts, generating a discursive opportunity to frame grievances in terms
of a FIFA standard in public services.
A third factor changing public interpretations of the political situation was the weak-
ening appeal of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, Workers Party) government among
some social sectors. The success of the PTs own social policies for inequality reduction
and the expansion of higher education have led to rapid changes in the social structure.
As a result, there is a new and larger segment of educated youth, coming from mixed
social origins and growing up in the context of a stable economy and democratic regime.
Unlike their parents generation, they do not view Brazil through the prism of dictator-
ship and inflation; rather, they see the PT government as the status quo, and as unable
to respond to their rising expectations regarding the quality of public policies and ser-
vices, especially related to education, urban mobility and access to consumption. These
transformations also negatively affected other social groups, which lost prestige, power
and resources. Hence, after a long stretch in the federal government (since 2003), the
PT has started to face the limits of its politics.
A fourth factor contributing to shifting assessments of opportunities and threats is
the style of interaction between the state and social movements. During Fernando Hen-
rique Cardosos term (19952002), the government incorporated agendas from some
social movements (such as the environmental movement) and restricted the power of
unions, while implementing popular councils and public hearings as a space to voice
social grievances without mobilisation. These factors, plus a stable economic and insti-
tutional landscape, contributed to the decline of mobilisations. The Lula government
(20032011) continued this pattern with the systematic incorporation of social agen-
das and activists. At the same time, increasing prosperity and effective public policies
deflated many material demands and created a new huge, urban middle social strata,
which entered the market by way of consumption. Although the Lula government suf-
fered accusations of corruption, these charges were mostly prosecuted within political
and juridical institutions, without provoking a cycle of protest.
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 June 2013 in Brazil

Dilma Roussef started her presidency (20112014) in a less favourable economic

environment, but still anchored in high approval ratings and following Lulas path of
poverty reduction policies, which primarily benefited the Northeast and small munici-
palities. However, urban services and infrastructure, on the agenda since the 1970s, were
not addressed by policies of the same scope. And while her predecessors incorporated
social movement agendas and activists, the Roussef government largely closed its doors
to them. She conveyed her government as more technical than political, showing little
openness to negotiate. This combination of unsolved urban problems, public concern
with corruption, and the absence of dialogue between the government and social move-
ments signaled to the new malcontents that protest would be a more viable strategy for
expressing grievances.
The final important component of the political conjuncture was a heightened assess-
ment of threat, generated by the backfiring of police repression in the early days of the
protests. All of the preceding factors describe reasons to criticise the government, and
many social movements had been voicing these criticisms for a long time. However, the
immediate trigger that brought crowds to the streets seems to have been repudiation of
the violent police response to the early protests against transportation fare increases, as
we describe below. This political conjuncture was common to all actors in June. How-
ever, actors located in different regions of the political field, with diverse motivations,
grievances, and repertoires of protest, perceived the situation quite differently, and built
their own interpretations of political opportunities and threats (Kurzman, 1996).

An Emerging Cycle of Protest

When demonstrations began in Brazil, commentators initially described them as con-
stituting a single social movement with a clear target public transportation fare
increases comparable to the 1984 Diretas J (Direct Elections Now) and 1992 Fora
Collor (Out with Collor) campaigns. However, the days that followed revealed a more
heterogeneous scene.
Tilly (2004: 10) defines the modern social movement as a distinctive way of pursuing
public politics, consisting of a series of contentious performances with collective claims
on target authorities, a common repertoire of contention, and public representation
of WUNC (worthiness, unity, numbers, commitment). This definition would apply
to the Free Fare Movement (Movimento Passe Livre MPL), which organised the
first, small-scale protests against transportation fare hikes in So Paulo in early June.
However, as the protests grew, many other actors, including different social movements,
came onto the streets without clear coordination, forming a cycle of collective action
(Tarrow, 1995). During the peak month of the cycle nearly 200 events took place, with
the highest concentration on June 20, as shown in Figure 1 (based on our preliminary
analysis of protest events reported in the Folha de So Paulo). The MPL consists of
a small, flexible direct action style group that had been staging innovative protests in
several cities over the past decade, calling for free access to public transportation. The
MPL was officially apartisan, although it had formed alliances with some left-wing
opposition parties. The protests began on June 6, but entered the national stage on June
11 after violent repression (and the injury of several journalists) was captured on social
and mainstream media. The mobilisation expanded over the next week in protest over
police violence (along with solidarity protests by the Brazilian diaspora worldwide).
On 17 June, the protest exploded nationwide, peaking on 20 June with huge protests
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 Angela Alonso and Ann Mische

Figure 1. Brazilian Cities with Major Protest Events June 2013.

Compiled from the Folha de So Paulo.

in all of Brazils major cities (see Fig. 1). Nationwide, the mainstream media reported a
million people in the streets in over 100 cities.
This mechanism of rapid movement expansion is familiar to social movement ana-
lysts: a disproportionate police response to a small, radical flank movement, captured
on media sources, provokes a backlash of indignation among a broader swathe of the
population, bringing more people to the streets. This generates a scale shift (McAdam,
Tarrow and Tilly, 2001) as the movement bursts beyond the borders of the original
claims and becomes home to an unruly intermingling of actors and projects, including
many people who had never protested before.
After the episodes of police repression by state and municipal governments (most
of which were not run by the PT), the diversity of social groups engaged in protest
multiplied. Several consecutive demonstrations planned on Facebook materialised in
the streets, along with several micro-movements, many of them relatively new, such as
MAL (Autonomous Libertarian movement), MAU (Unified Autonomous Movement),
and Acampa/Ocupa (Camp/Occupy), along with the new independent media (e.g., Ninja
Media, Black Media, Vrzea Radio, Brasil de Fato), and some established social move-
ments, such as the Black, LGBT, and housing movements. The traditional student organ-
isations were also present in most of the major protests, but they played a less central
role than in Brazils previous protest cycles.

Was This a Student Movement?

The cycle of protest brought a diverse array of people to the streets on a broad geo-
graphical scale, in the major metropolises as well as in smaller towns. Mass-based social
mobilisations are usually cross-class: the broader the platform, the more varied the pub-
lic support. In So Paulo, protesters included the professional middle class, the new
working middle class, and an expanded sector of higher education students along with

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 June 2013 in Brazil

some participants from more affluent sectors and the lower social strata from the urban
peripheries. Hence, the demonstrations were not class-based; rather, they included older
social strata along with newer ones, produced by demographic changes and redistribu-
tive social policies. Here we will focus on the participation of students, noting differences
from previous Brazilian protest cycles.
Students and student-based organisations participated in many of the protests. The
MPL originally grew out of student-initiated protests in Salvador and Florianoplis
against fare increases in 20032005 (the movement of the turnstiles). Its tactics
involved semi-anarchistic direct action techniques such street occupations and turn-
stile jumping. The movements Charter of Principles describes it as autonomous,
apartisan, independent and horizontal, with a focus on changing the logic of urban
mobility and fighting inequalities, broadly defined. While not specifically socialist
(and rejecting formal associations with political parties, NGOs, religious organisa-
tions and financial institutions), the MPL advocates free public transportation for
all and allies with an anti-capitalist, collectivist social movement sector: The per-
spective of the MPL must be to mobilise young people and workers towards the
expropriation of public transportation, removing it from the private sector, with-
out compensation, and placing it under the control of workers and the population
(http://saopaulo.mpl.org.br/apresentacao/carta-de-principios).
In addition to the MPL, the press noted the presence of students and student
movements at the demonstrations in a generic fashion. However, the traditional
student organisations that coordinated the campaign for President Collors impeach-
ment in 1992 particularly UNE (the National Union of Students) and UBES (the
National Union of Secondary Students) did not have the same protagonism in the
2013 mobilisation. The historic centralised student associations joined the protests
more as latecomers than as early risers (McAdam, 1995). In fact, UNE held its
national congress in early June, just as the MPL rallies in So Paulo were starting up,
and there is barely any foreshadowing on its Facebook page of the coming wave of
protests. The first mention of the transportation protests on UNEs Facebook page
refers to the third protest organised by the MPL in So Paulo on 11 June (in which
UNE participated, but not as an organiser); UNE also posted a statement repudiating
the police violence after the protests of 13 June. During the major national protests on
1720 June 2013, UNE posted pictures and sent out teams to do reporting, but did
not play a coordinating role.
The participation of traditional student organisations in the mobilisations was met
with scepticism by many protesters, including some organisers of the early protests. In
an interview, an MPL member complained that the student organisations were taking a
free ride on the protests. The MPL denounced the use of the media by the traditional stu-
dent organisations in trying to present themselves as partners or organisers of the early
protests. This sentiment was echoed in hostile comments posted on UNEs Facebook
page, many of which accused UNE of opportunism and selling out (an accusation
repudiated by UNEs defenders on the site). As the rallies became about more than the
20 cents [of the fare increase], some commenters questioned why UNE was less quick
to embrace the anti-corruption banner and critique of spending on the World Cup and
the Olympics. The presumed answer had to do with UNEs proximity to the governing
PT; the Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B), which had controlled UNE for most of
the past three decades, was in charge of the Ministry of Sports.
In this context, many traditional leftist student groups feared a loss of control of
student protests, an uneasiness that was often expressed as a critique of the lack of
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 Angela Alonso and Ann Mische

direction of the mobilisations. These fears have some grounds. While media reports
mentioned the participation of students or student movements in most of the June
events, only a few mentioned a specific organisation. UNE and UBES were not mentioned
at all, while university-based student organisations such as the DCEs (Central Student
Directorates) were mentioned mostly in regional protests. Some dissident left-wing stu-
dent organisations show up in the reporting of the early June protests. These include
Juntos! and ANEL (Free National Assembly of Students), two student groups associated
with left opposition parties, PSOL and PSTU, respectively. ANEL advocated indepen-
dence in relation to the federal and state governments and positioned itself as left-wing
opposition to PT and PC do B student leaders, who were seen as supporting the Roussef
government. While socialist in orientation, ANELs support for direct action tactics and
internal democracy within the student movement gave it affinities with the autonomist
approach advocated by the MPL.
The earliest protests (310 June) thus stemmed from a radical autonomist
direct-action style student group (the MPL) with loose ties to dissident opposition
wings of the socialist student movement. During the next phase of movement expansion
in response to police repression (1120 June), many activists and organisations in
Brazils broad progressive sector joined the protests. However, as Brazilians began to
appear on the streets on a massive scale including people who had never before taken
part in political mobilisations the tone and repertoire of the protests became more
diversified and complex.

Repertoires of Contention: Cultural Sources

During the June cycle of protest, actors borrowed from three broad repertoires of con-
tention while constructing their political performances. We will call them the socialist,
autonomist and patriotic repertoires, and consider these as tool kits (Swidler, 1986),
from which actors took elements to build hybrid performances. These repertoires are
international, in the sense of having been used by social movements worldwide. The
socialist repertoire is well known; it was highly visible in Brazils waves of protest in
the 1980s and 1990s, and was adapted in different ways to local contexts across Latin
America (Eckstein, 2001: 911). It consists of highly committed activist communities,
public displays of organisational membership (such as red flags and banners, party
badges and T-shirts with party or movement symbols), centralised and hierarchical
organisation, and high leadership visibility. Their claims centre on a critique of capi-
talist exploitation, social inequality and class-based exclusion. Previous protest cycles
were characterised by the strong presence of the socialist repertoire, shared to varying
degrees by the student, popular, labour, and land reform movements.
The autonomist repertoire, which gained global attention during Seattle protests in
1999, can be seen as a reframing of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century anar-
chist forms of organising that reject centralised leadership and authority, particularly
those of the state. Recent elements that have been appearing in youth-based movements
worldwide include conventional non-violent marches and confrontational direct action
(such as sit-ins and occupations), along with some violent displays of resistance such as
black bloc tactics, the burning of objects and damaging of symbols of state and economic
power (Dupuis-Deri, 2010). This repertoire has dominated the global justice movement,
with strong expression in the World Social Forums that began in Porto Alegre in 2001,
as well as in popular and indigenous protests in Latin America. It is marked by a prefer-
ence for horizontal organising forms and a rejection of the goal of seizing state power,

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 June 2013 in Brazil

seeking to generate alternative sources of power outside of the state ((Holloway, 2002;
Sitrin, 2006; Zibechi, 2010).
The third repertoire, which we call patriotic, invokes nationalist sentiment, which
always has historical and situational meanings. In Brazil it received its content from
a local political tradition built up during two previous waves of nationwide protest.
The first cycle, the Diretas J movement, consisted of the 1984 campaign for direct
presidential elections during the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The
protest cycle was composed of huge demonstrations and strikes with millions of people
in the streets, including trade unions and urban popular movements (also informed
by socialist repertoires), as well as teachers, public servants, religious leaders and
professional associations. Differently positioned groups rallied for diverse causes for
changes in labour and urban living conditions, against inflation and unemployment,
and for political amnesty but nevertheless coalesced under the unifying master frame
of Redemocratisation. These events consolidated a patriotic repertoire of contention,
with preferential actions (marches), symbols (the anthem, the flag, national colours),
and organisational models (internal hierarchies). Many of those claims came to be
codified as political and social rights in the 1988 Constitution, which became an
authoritative document supporting the agenda of many social movements concerned
with health, social services, education, housing, land reform, the environment and
minority rights.
Another major cycle of protests arose in 1992 in opposition to corruption in the
government of President Fernando Collor de Melo, along with criticisms of high infla-
tion and economic liberalisation. As the extent of government corruption was revealed
in media and congressional investigations, a broad-based opposition movement erupted
into massive demonstrations following a series of civic and student-led protests in
August. The Fora Collor mobilisation, like Diretas J, brought together a wide swathe
of Brazils organised sectors, including oppositional parties, trade unions, social move-
ments, professional associations, and religious leadership. However, the 1992 protests
were largely identified as youth and student protests, projecting the leadership of the
UNE, UBES and other traditional left-wing student organisations (Mische, 2008). This
cycle centred its claims around the master frame of ethics in politics and a critique of
corruption in the political system. It also revived the Diretas J campaigns patriotic
repertoire, including non-violent marches through major cities and the use of national
symbols and slogans, with an aesthetic innovation: the festive pageantry of the caras
pintadas (painted-faces), young protesters who painted their faces the colours of the
Brazilian flag.
The June 2013 cycle of demonstrations inherited the patriotic repertoire from the two
previous cycles, including the use of national symbols and public demonstrations (from
the Redemocratisation cycle) and the focus on anti-corruption claims (from Fora Collor).
It also incorporated political symbols and performances from the socialist repertoire,
which appeared in both previous cycles, but was much less salient in 2013. While some
sectors of the 2013 protests explicitly positioned themselves against the organisational
legacy of these previous waves especially the hierarchical structures of traditional par-
ties, unions and social movement organisations the continuities are also clear.

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 Angela Alonso and Ann Mische

Hybrid Repertoires in Strategic Action Fields

In the June 2013 protests, actors created hybrid political performances, drawing upon
different combinations, adaptations and uses of the symbols, expressive forms and
slogans from global (autonomist and socialist) and local (patriotic) repertoires to
express their claims. Although there is no direct correspondence between actors and
repertoires, we observe two distinct strategic action fields composed of mutually
oriented sets of actors who mount challenges to the state in quite different ways. These
can be considered as part of a macro-field in opposition to the government; however
they are in tension with each other, so we find it useful to consider them as separate
fields. The fields are not internally consistent, but consist of hybrid repertoires, multiple
organisational foci, and smaller independent mobilisation outbreaks. Nevertheless,
some dominant trends reflect the main dimensions of differentiation within the protest
cycle.
We call one of the fields patriotic, since it was dominated by the patriotic repertoire.
This field was often antagonistic towards socialist performances, even as it incorporated
some of the calls for expanded social services usually associated with the socialist left.
The other field calls itself autonomist, although it had elements of the socialist ori-
entation (such as the collectivist demands of MPL), even while rejecting hierarchical
forms of organisation. There is also evidence of some fascist and right-wing groups,
who gravitate towards the patriotic register. However, while visible, these were by no
means prevalent in the mobilisation. The early round of smaller protests was dominated
by the autonomist field (MPL and allied groups), while the patriotic field grew as the
protests expanded to the broader population. While there was overlap and exception,
these two repertoires encompass the major fields of engagement during the June protests,
displacing the earlier dominance of the socialist repertoire.
The patriotic field consisted mostly of protesters without previous activism who
joined the protests individually, summoned to the streets by what they saw in the press
and on the internet. Their actions were expressive and playful, without coordination.
Their purpose was immediate and expressive. They were moved by vague nationalism
and a strong anti-PT sentiment, and stood mostly to the right of the government. Posters,
clothing, flags and face painting revived patriotic symbols from the Diretas J and Fora
Collor cycles, echoing the latters slogans of opposition to corruption and ethics in poli-
tics. The patriotic repertoire was visible in its use of national colours (green and yellow);
conventional symbols (the flag and national anthem); slogans (the giant has awakened,
you will see that your child does not run from a fight); and canonical spaces (such as
the Avenida Paulista, used in the former cycles).
The autonomist field has a clearer delineation, composed of many small but well
organised movements (such as the MPL) that had previously engaged in sustained,
multi-year campaigns of political activism, with in-person meetings for the planning of
events. New technologies and social media were used less for organising the protest than
for coordination between groups during the events. This field was guided primarily by
the autonomist repertoire: horizontal forms of organisation, rejection of gender hierar-
chy and formal political leadership, decision-making by consensus and the replacement
of electronically amplified sound-trucks by playful chants (the jogral), in which the
first row of protesters shouts out short phrases repeated by consecutive rows. Global
symbols were incorporated, such as the punk aesthetic (wearing black), the use of arts
and music (percussion fanfares), performative actions (the burning of turnstiles), and
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 June 2013 in Brazil

the occupation of symbolic spaces (such as a fancy bridge in a So Paulo neighbourhood

recently occupied by banks, businesses and major media outlets).
The autonomist repertoire was the novelty of this cycle of protest. The more decen-
tralised form of organisation can be seen as a reaction to the hierarchical structure and
democratic centralism that has long characterised Brazilian left-wing parties (and tra-
ditional left parties worldwide). It points to the exhaustion of the socialist ideal as the
primary guide to movements and the emergence of a new orientation to public demon-
strations. Many explicitly socialist groups are organised primarily as parties (e.g. PSTU,
PSOL, PCO), while new movements (environmental, feminist, anti-discrimination) crys-
tallised as NGOs. Dissatisfaction with both models paved the way for a reframing of
anarchist ideals, in which horizontal forms of organisation align nicely with the new
internet technology an old ideology in a contemporary form.
The two strategic action fields in the June mobilisations constituted social spaces
in which hybrid performances were created and disseminated in the public arena. In
one field, patriotic symbols and slogans appeared more consistently, while in the other,
the autonomist repertoires were more widespread. However, these were not pure or
exclusive types; some actors mixed both repertoires, or combined them with claims and
symbols associated with the socialist repertoire.

Contending Claims in a Divided Field

A parallel cleavage between strategic action fields can be detected in the criticisms and
demands voiced by different groups of protestors. As it expanded, the June cycle of
protest attracted a broader array of adherents who brought their own agendas, often
leading the early risers to modify their grievances. Through the cycle three broad areas
of claims coalesced (see Table 1).
One of the thematic axes is the inciting of protest itself (Come to the streets, Wake
up Brazil!), i.e. the call for more people to take to the streets. This theme emerged
after police repression, often accompanied by a plea against violence (police violence in
particular).
The two other axes point to major themes, both of which related to the former
cycles. On one side, protesters demanded an expansion of public services and social
rights. The original public transportation claims expanded to include a plethora of
grievances, including complaints about precarious urban infrastructure and police vio-
lence. The agendas of consolidated social movements appeared a bit later, including
issues related to sexuality and gender (LGBT rights, slut walks), racial equity and
labour rights (teachers, doctors, truck drivers). As a whole, those actors presented a
plea for more efficient state administration and the improvement of social policies and
services transportation, healthcare, education along with guarantees of human and
social rights. This was a demand for a stronger and better state (i.e. one that lives up to
FIFA standards).
On the other side, there was a conflicting agenda that explicitly opposed the expan-
sion of the state, which was depicted as inefficient, dysfunctional and corrupt. Grievances
included calls for lower taxes, less corruption and a reduction in swollen government
spending. This sector saw the state as obstacle to their business, careers and even val-
ues; they criticised political institutions and politicians and demanded the elimination of
malfunctioning state agencies. This sector tended to be virulently opposed to President
Roussef and the PT government.
2016 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research 2016 Society for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research 11
 Angela Alonso and Ann Mische

Table 1. Protest Themes

Category Theme Examples of slogans

Incitement to protest Call to mobilisation
and reaction to
violence
Calls for peaceful protests
Expansion of state Improvement in public policies
services and and services (transportation,
protection of rights education, health, housing)
Guarantee of rights (freedom of
expression, gender, sexual and
racial equality)
Corruption, fiscal Against corruption and impunity
accountability and a (of politicians, political
smaller state institutions, and political parties)
For lower taxes, fiscal reform and
reduced state spending
Come to the streets, The giant has
awakened, Wake up, Brazil
Without Violence, Without
vandalism, Enough of war: for
another police
If the fare does not go down So
Paulo will stop, Schools and
Hospitals at Fifa Standards
Shove the 20 cents down the SUS
(Health System)
For the Liberty to Proclaim ones
own Beliefs
Against the Gay Cure, More Love,
Less Pastor
Passive people, active corruption
Either the robbery stops or we stop
Brazil
Enough taxes without return
More Brazil, less taxes

Hence, varied social segments shared some of the same frustrations such as dissat-
isfaction with state inefficiency but not all of the same demands. The same can be said
about the normative orientation of the protests. Some protestors questioned capitalism
as a way of organising society and the economy, whether from a socialist or autonomist
perspective. However, others protested in favour of market freedom and a neoliberal
state.
This differentiation does not map directly onto the two strategic actions field, which
were internally heterogeneous in their claims on the state (even though one field leans
left and the other leans right in relation to the federal government). Those adopting
the patriotic repertoire, in particular, straddled all three categories in Table 1, includ-
ing young people from the precarious urban middle classes demanding expanded state
services, as well as more affluent sectors calling for lower taxes and reduction in state
spending. Those in the autonomist field focused on the first two categories, and joined
the organised progressive sector in supporting human and social rights.

Partisan Hostility on the Left and Right

Protesters and analysts have classified these events as non-partisan. Not only were par-
ties absent from the direct leadership role that they played in previous protest cycles, but
generalised opposition to all political parties (no party represents me!) was thematised
via signs, slogans and social media postings. This provoked a de facto national debate
about the role of partisanship in Brazilian politics, with critics and defenders of political
parties challenging each other on social media and in the streets.

2016 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research 2016 Society for Latin American Studies
12 Bulletin of Latin American Research
 June 2013 in Brazil

Our interviews with demonstrators suggest that this antagonism toward political
parties was distributed across the political spectrum, with different expressions in the
autonomist and patriotic fields. When asked to map the field, interviewees split the spec-
trum of protesters into two oppositional fields, one to the left and the other to the right
of the national government. Since the PT controls the government, we can ask whether
the protesters genuinely had no party or were anti-PT. We suspect, once again, that the
answer is complex: anti-incumbency blended with a more generalised disillusionment
with the political system, as well as with resolute opposition to the PT from some (but
not all) social sectors.
For some protesters in the patriotic field, anti-partisan sentiment seems to express a
craving for unity as a nation above partisan divisions, and a sense that participants
did not feel represented by any of the existing parties. This diffuse and generalised
anti-partisan sentiment was expressed with chants such as The people, united, dont
need parties and We dont have a party. We are Brazil. For others, opposition to par-
ties was associated with varying kinds (and degrees) of criticism of the PT government.
These criticisms intensified over the course of the protests as a number of popular Face-
book pages (such as AnonymousBrasil and Brasil Contra Corrupo, which served as
online hubs for the emerging protests) posted increasingly hostile condemnations of the
Roussef regime.
The traditional left was taken aback by the ferocity of opposition to political parties
coming from many in the patriotic field. This antagonistic response was exacerbated
when the national president of the PT, on the night before the massive 20 June protests,
urged party militants to reassert their right to the streets by wearing red (a symbol of
the socialist repertoire). This strategy backfired, as identifiable partisan activists (i.e.
those carrying flags or wearing party t-shirts) were harassed, shouted down, and in some
cases beaten or chased off the streets. In So Paulo, partisan activists formed a human
chain to protect themselves from attack, as party flags were seized and burned by hostile
protesters.
Of course, most of the protesters were not physically attacking party activists; calls
for the rallies to be without violence were as strong as call for them to be without
party. While responsibility for the anti-partisan aggression was unclear, these actions
were denounced by many on the left as fascist and right wing, drawing analogies with
the suppression of political parties by Mussolini and the Brazilian dictatorship. Many
long-time progressive activists were deeply unsettled by the virulence of the anti-partisan
hostility, and began to withdraw from the protests after 20 June. The MPL denounced
the anti-partisan aggression and declared that, having won a fare reduction from the
state and municipal governments, it would stop organising protests (only to reappear a
few days later in protests for health and housing in So Paulos poor periphery). Other
groups vowed to continue in the streets; but after that point the mobilisation began to
fragment into smaller, more thematic protests. Some focused on corruption and taxes,
some on improving social services (transportation, healthcare, education, housing), and
others on LGBT rights and gender equity.
Why this intense hostility towards parties? The answers are complex, and cannot
be fully elaborated here. Suffice it to say that Brazil has a long history of ambivalence
toward parties and partisanship, given the history of corporatism, corruption and coop-
tation. On the left, parties have played crucial roles in movements for democracy, work-
ers rights, public services, education and land reform since the 1980s (Mische, 2008).
But they have also struggled with tendencies toward sectarianism, opportunism, and
bureaucratism, particularly as the left has made electoral gains and become entrenched
2016 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research 2016 Society for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research 13
 Angela Alonso and Ann Mische

in the challenges and apparatus of governance. Recently, there has been widespread
disappointment with the corruption that some PT leaders have engaged in, as well as
with many government mega-projects (such as those related to the World Cup and the
Olympics). In the self-identified progressive sector, there was also anger at the fact that
the government had appointed a racist, gay-bashing pastor to head the congressional
human rights commission.
Within the autonomist field, opposition to partisanship took a very different form,
associated with a principled rejection of hierarchical political institutions. For example,
the Occupy Brazil Facebook site aligned with the autonomist sector posted a series
of images challenging the left-wing equation of anti-partisanship with fascism. Rather,
they argued for direct democracy as an alternative political model not based on parti-
san representation, but on the direct participation of citizens in local decision-making
forums. Working on this horizontalist model, participatory assemblies sprang up in a
number of cities. In Belo Horizonte, for example, the Horizontal Popular Assembly
carried out an extended occupation of the Municipal Council building and campaigned
for an investigation into the public transportation sector (among other issues).
In short, opposition to partisanship in the June protests was multi-faceted. Among
some protesters, it reflected a craving for national unity, as well as frustration with the
manipulation, corruption and ineffectiveness of the political class as a whole. For others,
it represented an opportunity to push forward their opposition to the PT regime from the
right. For still others, it involved a rejection of hierarchical political forms and an affir-
mation of the decentralised, horizontal organising strategy that characterises emergent
sectors of the global left.

Conclusion
The mobilisations in Brazil did not end in June 2013 and neither does our research. Many
demonstrations followed over the next two years, with a new peak in March 2015, and
the actors and repertoires have shifted. Our goal was to give an organised account of
what happened in June (it was a cycle of mobilisation, not a unified social movement),
how it happened (it was oriented mainly by two repertoires), and in which directions it
pointed (towards more or less state intervention, against partisanship), with particular
attention to the role of student groups.
We have emphasised the diversity of claims, actors and forms of action that converged
to constitute the Brazilian cycle of protest. Hybrid performances were constructed by
combining elements from three different repertoires, with the patriotic and autonomist
repertoires dominating. Performances divided into two fields of collective action, with
some actors on the right, others on the left, with the national government as the water-
shed between them. This heterogeneity shows that there was no general entity identi-
fiable as the streets; rather there was a major divide within the demonstrations that
mirrored the divide within the political system itself. This point is worth highlighting.
Since Redemocratisation, Brazils demonstrations had been mostly leftist in orientation.
After a decade of centre-left governments, a more eclectic mix has taken to the streets.
Despite these differences, the autonomist and patriotic performances share some com-
mon traits. Both position themselves against the state and demand more autonomy for
society vis--vis political institutions. And both contain a romantic trace, a sort of desire
for community, a call for a new social foundation and form of political belonging.

2016 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research 2016 Society for Latin American Studies
14 Bulletin of Latin American Research
 June 2013 in Brazil

While the June protests have continuities with previous Brazilian protest cycles, they
also mark notable shifts. Although the socialist repertoire that dominated Brazilian
mobilisations on the left in the last half-century appeared in June, it lost its domi-
nant position, displaced by the autonomist repertoire. Along with their embrace of the
direct action model and horizontal decision-making, some autonomist sectors have been
increasingly receptive to the use of violence as a political weapon (especially via black
bloc tactics). Moreover, the March 2015 protests were marked by the increasing visi-
bility of the patriotic field, along with growing opposition to Roussef and the PT from
the right (including groups calling for military intervention). At the same time, there
has been a smaller scale resurgence of the socialist repertoire orienting protests on the
left. Thus the heterogenous (if volatile) mixing of repertoires of the June 2013 protests
appears to be undergoing a process of deepening polarisation.
These shifts have provoked discussions about the crisis of representativity of par-
tisan organisations, leading to the formation of some new movement groups on both
the left and the right. Where these diverse and contending groups will take this newly
stirred up mobilising energy is not clear. Nor it is clear what relationship they will
develop with institutional politics. Will they continue to reject them, or will they develop
a multi-pronged repertoire capable of working both inside and outside of the state?
In its strong anti-institutionalist stance, the Brazilian cycle of pro test is closely linked
to the recent global waves of protests. Many of those cases such as the Spanish 15M,
Occupy and the Turkish uprisings have involved mass mobilisations, criticism of polit-
ical parties and the state, and the plea for better forms of governance, along with an
emphasis on autonomy and spontaneity. However, this analysis leads us to consider
the limits of the radical horizontalism and anti-institutionalism of recent transnational
movements. After you throw the bums out, what then? The improvement of social
services, urban infrastructure, and state accountability the cornerstone demand of the
protests depend on effectively functioning government and on electing people to gov-
ern who are in sympathy with those demands. Despite their limitations, political parties
are bridging mechanisms by which social grievances and aspirations can be carried into
the structures of government. The strong repudiation of political parties can thus under-
mine the possibility of implementing the social reforms demanded by the protesters.
We have described the internally complex and contested nature of the June protests in
Brazil, while raising broader questions about the relationship between social movements,
political parties, and institutional politics. The fierce debates provoked by the chants
of sem partido continue to reverberate, in Brazil and elsewhere. As these movements
challenge power-holders in provocative new ways, they also pose challenges to analysts,
who need to understand these protests in their full breadth and complexity.

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to comments received when this paper was presented, during 2014,
at the Seminrio Sociologia, Poltica, Histria, University of So Paulo, Cebraps semi-
nar series, the Studies of Politics and Movements Workshop at the University of Notre
Dame, the Latin American Studies Association meeting in Chicago, and the Conference
on Catching Up to the Future? Advances and Challenges in the Politics, Society and
Social Policies of Contemporary Brazil at the Watson Institute for International Studies,
Brown University.

2016 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research 2016 Society for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research 15
 Angela Alonso and Ann Mische

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