Citizenship Action in Brazil: a new design of organizational practices in the nineties

Abstract

The efforts of the civil society in Brazil have given life to Acción de la Ciudadanía, a social movement fighting against hunger and misery, and promoting citizenship rights. Social actors, not political representatives, established the movement. These actors were perceived as protagonists of their own needs and demands. The new government of Fernando H. Cardoso, however, has paced structural obstacles in the path of Acción de la Ciudadanía in the form of the Programa Comunidad Solidaria, similar to Mexico's PRONASOL. Thos program purports to take political control of this new organizational proposal of the civil society in Brazil.