Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:26:33.141Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Community Participation, the Environment, and Democracy: Brazil in Comparative Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Jamie Elizabeth Jacobs*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science at West Virginia University

Abstract

Grassroots environmental activism among Latin America's poor has altered the debate over environmental policy, social welfare, and citizenship. Yet the question remains whether this social mobilization of the poor is part of a larger trend toward broader environmental concerns and democratic political participation, or a shortlived movement susceptible to the same pressures that have dissolved community mobilization in the past. This article compares Brazil with other Latin American and European countries in surveys of environmental awareness, concerns, and reported behavior. It finds that Brazilians residing in the urban periphery link their own local environmental concerns to more global considerations, and that concern for and activism on environmental issues is positively related to wider community involvement.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Associação de Moradores do Bairro de Anaia. n.d. Anaia: percepção e acao ambientais—uma estratégia para promover conscientização e acao ambiental nas populações periféricas de cidades grandes do Brasil. Mimeograph.Google Scholar
Baiocchi, Gianpaolo. 2001. Brazilian Cities in the Nineties and beyond: New Urban Dystopias and Utopias. Socialism and Democracy 31 (Fall). Also at http:www.pitt.edubaiocchibaiocchisd31.pdf.Google Scholar
Broad, Robin. 1994. The Poor and the Environment: Friends or Foes World Development 22, 6: 811922.Google Scholar
Cable, Sherry, and Charles, Cable. 1995. Environmental Problems, Grassroots Solutions: The Politics of Grassroots Environmental Conflict New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Carvalho, Alessandra, Beatriz, Gang, Mariana, Perri, Marise, Wanderley, and Maya, Contucci. 1993. Relatório de diagnóstico: comunidade de Anaia. Mimeograph.Google Scholar
Cornelius, Wayne. 1975. Politics and the Migrant Poor in Mexico City Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Euro, Barometer 1992. Euro-barometer 37.0: Awareness and Importance of Maastricht and the Future of the European Community. Survey. March-April. Icpsr 9847. Available through the Inter-University Consortium for Political Science Research, http:www.icpsr.umich.edu.Google Scholar
Fernandes, Domingos. 1994. Official, Partido Verde. Author interview. São Paulo, October 6.Google Scholar
Forum de Ongs, Brasileiras 1992. Meio ambiente e desenvolvimento: uma visão das ONGs e dos movimentos sociais brasileiros Rio de Janeiro: Forum de ONGs Brasileiras.Google Scholar
Fundação Estadual de Engenharia do Meio Ambiente (FEEMA) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 1994. Resumo do estudo de recuperação do ecosistema da Baia de Guanabara. Internal document.Google Scholar
Gay, Robert. 1994. Popular Organization and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro: A Tale of Two Favelas Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Gomes, Herbene Maria. 1994. Past President, Neighborhood Association of Anaia Pequeno. Author interview. September.Google Scholar
Guimarães, Roberto Pereira. 1991. The Ecopolitics of Development in the Third World: Politics and Environment in Brazil Boulder: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Ann. 1993. Contested Ground: International Environmentalism and Global Climate Change. In The State and Social Power in Global Environmental Politics, ed. Ronnie, D. Lipschutz and Ken, Conca. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Hicks, Barbara. 1996. Environmental Politics in Poland: A Social Movement Between Regime and Opposition New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald. 1990. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald. 1995. Public Support for Environmental Protection: the Impact of Objective Problems and Subjective Values in 43 Societies. PS: Political Science and Politics 28, 1 (March).Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret. 1995. Social Equity and Environmental Politics in Brazil: Lessons from the Rubber Tappers of Acre. Comparative Politics 27, 1 (July): 409–24.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret, and Kathryn, Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Latinobarómetro, 1996. Public Opinion Survey: Trade, Foreign Investment and Politics. http:www.latinobarometro.orgEnglishinicuest-i2.htm Google Scholar
Leeds, Elizabeth. 1996. Cocaine and Parallel Polities in the Brazilian Urban Periphery: Constraints on Local-Level Democratization. Latin American Research Review 31, 3: 4783.Google Scholar
Linz, Juan, and Alfred, Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Looye, Johanna W. 1995. The Carioca River Clean-up: Environmentalism or Basic Sanitation? Paper presented at the 19th International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, Dc, September 2830.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott. 1989. Grassroots Popular Movements and the Struggle for Democracy: Nova Iguaçu. In Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation, ed. Alfred, Stepan. New York: Oxford University Press. 168204.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott. 199596. Brazilian Party Underdevelopment in Comparative Perspective. Political Science Quarterly 107 (Winter: 677707.Google Scholar
McAdam, Douglas. 1996. The Framing Function of Movement Tactics: Strategic Dramaturgy in the American Civil Rights Movement. In Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, ed. McAdam, John, McCarthy, D., and Mayer, N. Zald Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 338–55.Google Scholar
Nash, Nathaniel C. 1992. Squalid Slums Grow as People Flood Latin America's Cities. New York times October 11: 1.Google Scholar
Pádua, José Augusto. 1991. O nascimento da política verde no Brasil: factores exógenos e endógenos. In Ecologia e política mundial, ed. Hector, Leis. Rio de Janeiro: Federação de Orgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional (FASE).Google Scholar
Peluso, Nancy L. 1992. Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rohter, Larry. 2001. Rio's Squatters, by Guided Tour. New York times May 20.Google Scholar
Rumo ao Novo Milênio. Website. http:www.Rocinha.com.br Maintained by Tv Roc, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Last updated 1999. Accessed December 29, 1999.Google Scholar
Seligson, Mitchell, et al. 1995. Who Votes in Central America? A Comparative Analysis. In Elections and Democracy in Central America Revisited, ed. Seligson, and John, A. Booth Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 151–82.Google Scholar
Snow, David A., and Robert, D. Benford 1992. Master Frames and Cycles of Protest. In Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon, Morris and Carol, McClurg Mueller. New Haven: Yale University Press. 133–55.Google Scholar
Viola, Eduardo 1992. O Movimento Ambientalista no Brasil (1971–1991): Da denúncia e conscientização pública para a institutionalização e o desenvolvimento sustentavel. In Ecologia, ciência e política, ed. Mirian, Goldenberg. Rio de Janeiro: Revan.Google Scholar
von Mettenheim, Kurt. 1990. The Brazilian Voter in Democratic Transition, 1974–1982. Comparative Politics 23, 1 (October): 2341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wapner, Paul. 1995. Politics beyond the State: Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics. World Politics 47, 3 (April): 311–40.Google Scholar
World Bank. 1994. World Development Report 1994: Infrastructure for Development. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar