The formation of the Brazilian environmental movement

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.