The formation of the Brazilian environmental movement

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Date
2005Author
Alonso, Angela
Costa, Valeriano
Maciel, Débora
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Abstract
Relying on a conceptual synthesis provided by the Political Processes Theory, this paper explains the
formation of the Brazilian environmental movement from the 1970s to the 1990s. The authors argue that
this formation process went through three political opportunity structures – redemocratisation,
constituent assembly and Rio 92 – in that each of them provided opportunities for increasing
environmental mobilisation as well as forcing isolated environmental groups to answer problems of
coordination of collective action, regarding mobilising strategies and frames. Agreements on these points
made durable coalitions among environmental groups possible. The answer to these challenges provided
the steps for building an environmental movement’s identity.
Keywords: Brazilian environmental movement, political opportunity structure, micromobilisation
contexts, collective identity, framing processes and mobilising strategies.