Du Brésil au monde et retour : mouvements sociaux localisés et en résonance

Abstract

This article attempts to outline a sociopolitical landscape of global dimensions, within which we could situate the June Journeys. Certain significant characteristics of movements held in various countries, since 2010, are common to the Brazilian movements, irrespective of the city (although Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are the most oft-cited): the desire to do away with leaders; an obstinate presence in the streets; the voice addressed directly to governments to demand that they govern with good sense; the aversion to revolution, in the sense given to the word in previous centuries. The Brazilian Spring is an active critique of historical modes of politics – and a proposition of new ones. From Brazil to rest of the world, there appears to be an emerging process of affirmation of unprecedented modes of democratic legitimacy, which is not aimed at destroying, but rather at questioning representative democracy, or even instating it where none exists.

Keywords

• social movements
• leaderlessness
• horizontality
• history of hierarchy
• political history
• direct democracy