Participatory Institutions Transforming Movements’ Repertoire

The literature on social movements has predominantly concentrated on the internal organizational aspect of institutionalization. This focus aims to delineate the rationalization of social movement activities, their bureaucratization, and professionalization (Della Porta and Diani Reference Della Porta and Diani2006). McCarthy and Zald (Reference McCarthy and Zald1977) in their foundational model of resource mobilization, explain that social movement organizations arise from the need for collective actors to manage resource flows to resolve their collective action dilemma (Olson Reference Olson1965).

Institutionalization is thus seen as the main factor explaining a movement’s durability. In other words, movements with a more robust organizational structure are considered more likely to sustain themselves over time (Walker and McCarthy Reference Walker and McCarthy2010). However, this postulate is strongly challenged by the contentious politics theory, which sees institutionalization as synonymous with the domestication of social movements, characterized by the abandonment of protests from their repertoire (Meyer, and Tarrow Reference Meyer and Tarrow1998), the routinization of their activity (Pruijt Reference Pruijt2003), thus distancing these movements from their social base (McAdam Reference McAdam1999) or, more broadly, a deradicalization and loss of identity (Kriesi et al. Reference Kriesi, Koopmans, Willem Duyvendak and Giugni1995).

However, literature on the women’s movement has more recently shown how institutionalization can provide access to new resources and constitute a lever of empowerment for movements (Stoffel Reference Stoffel2007; Banaszak Reference Banaszak2009; Bereni and Revillard Reference Bereni and Revillard2018). Mobilizations have also led to the opening of intersections between the state and SMs (Banaszak Reference Banaszak2009), within which activists could act relatively autonomously to advance the movement’s interests. These intersections can act as spaces for institutional socialization of the claims waged by activists;they can also deploy a repertoire of institutionalized confrontational action, imbued with bureaucratic and movement dimensions (Bereni and Revillard Reference Bereni and Revillard2018).

In Brazil, the existence of multiple arenas for interaction between public authorities and civil society has led several authors to consider institutionalization through the prism of a complex and interdependent relationship between state and social movements. As a site of routinization of interactions between government and civil society (Wampler Reference Wampler2012), PIs have indeed been considered in the literature as vectors of institutionalization of claims, actors, and social movements. The concept of institutionalization then refers above all to the integration of SMs’ demands and actions within state institutions (Dagnino and Tatagiba Reference Dagnino and Tatagiba2010), or to a transformation of movements into state institutions (Lavalle et al. Reference Gurza Lavalle, Szwako and Carlos2019). From the angle of the modes of action, institutionalization can be characterized by the progressive focus on the use of formalized and codified arenas to channel demands and interact with state authoritiesas opposed to opting forprotests or street actions.

By offering new codified spaces to channel demands, PIs have a transformative effect on the repertoire of SMs. For some, it involves introducing an organizational logic (Hornhart Reference Hornhart2018) that prioritizes collaboration with state authorities over contestation (Dagnino and Tatagiba Reference Dagnino and Tatagiba2010). Indeed by mainly driving participants to discuss certain public policies, PIs also involve specific activities and work rhythms, potentially irreconcilable with those previously used with SMs (Silva and Job Schmitt Reference Silva and Job Schmitt2012). Moreover, participation in PIs presents a high cost for movements since they require their leaders to acquire technical qualifications (Dagnio and Tatagiba Reference Dagnino and Tatagiba2010). Acting through participatory institutions can then become a source of hierarchical and organizational conflict (Pismel Reference Pismel2019), with some activists being reluctant to change their practices. From a more general perspective, the emergence of the movement-based Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) favored the introduction of activists into public institutions viaa process of professionalization (Goirand Reference Camille2019) which is often considered detrimental to the autonomy of social movements (Dagnino and Tatagiba Reference Dagnino and Tatagiba2010).

However, a counterargument to these assertions is that they often overlook the ability of social movements to preserve their autonomy (Lima Reference Lima2021) and their inclination to employ hybrid strategies (Dowbor Reference Dowbor2012) by combining action via institutions and outside institutions. Accordingly, authors understand the state as a heterogeneous and permeable entity (Armstrong and Bernstein Reference Armstrong and Bernstein2008; Lavalle et al. Reference Gurza Lavalle, Szwako and Carlos2019) traversed by multiple contradictions through which SMs can advance their respective claims (Dowbor Reference Dowbor2012). Subsequently, in line with Banaszak’s (Reference Banaszak2009) thesis, Abers (Reference Abers2019) considers that PIs and the presence of SMs within state institutions enable the presence of bureaucratic activism.

In terms of modi operandi, rather than a simple deradicalization, Carlos (Reference Carlos2020) argues that the insertion of SMs within PIs has diversified their repertoires by deepening their links with political institutions and their relations with other SMs and nongovernmental organizations, by restructuring their relationships with the state through a more cooperative approach to the state and by complexifying their internal organizations. Müller (Reference Müller2022) corroborates these assertions by studying the district of Lomba do Pinheiro in Porto Alegre, showing that hybrid repertoires allowed the district’s SMs to locally reduce the erosion of PB. Drawing on this literature, I consider that the possibility of channeling demands within participatory institutions has profoundly modified and complexified the practices and strategies of social movements (Carlos Reference Carlos2020), introducing the use of institutionalized channels of interactions with state institutions. The focus on these new tools over the use of protest routines is then defined as an institutionalization of the SMs, from the perspective of their means of action.

While institutionalization has been a central preoccupation of Brazilian social movement scholars within the context of the multiplication of participatory spaces invested in by SMs, the reverse process remains overlooked in the literature. Hence, as these participatory institutions are transforming and, in some cases, even disappearing, the question of the deinstitutionalization of social movements’ repertoires remains unanswered. In Brazil, the progressive narrowing of channels of interactions between social movements and the state invites us to question the future of SMs in the face of the loss of arenas that had become central to their claims. In this article, I address this issue from the angle of the adaptation of strategies and repertoires of interaction, seeing the erosion of PB as a vector of deinstitutionalization for SMs.

It is necessary to mention that from neo-institutionalist perspectives, the concept of deinstitutionalization describes a set of mechanisms of democratic backsliding, in Latin America and Brazil, in the face of a return to authoritarianism. Withinthis perspective, it has meant the delegitimization of the participatory infrastructure (Bezerra et al., Reference Bezerra, Rezende de Almeida, Gurza Lavalle and Dowbor2024) and the fragilization of institutional fits (Castro et al. Reference Castro, Serafim and Trindade2022), which describes participatory institutions as anchor points within the state for movements. (Lavalle et al. Reference Gurza Lavalle, Szwako and Carlos2019; Carlos Reference Carlos2020) In the case of Belo Horizonte’s PB, Montambeault (Reference Montambeault2019) uses the concept to describe the institutional changes that gradually led to a delegitimization of PB in the eyes of its participants. Although these neo-institutionalist perspectives contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of democratic backsliding, the focus on institutional changes does not allow for in-depth reflection on its consequences for social actors.

While it is not common in social movements theory, the term deinstitutionalization has previously been used by Rodgers and Knight (Reference Rodgers and Knight2011) to describe the organizational transformations of the women’s movement in Canada in the face of the recent dismantling of the institutional mechanisms that had financially supported it and provided a platform for its demands. More recently, Pereira, Aragusuku, and Teixeira (Reference Pereira, Araujo Aragusuku and Moraes Teixeira2023) have described deinstitutionalization as a process of withdrawing demands, actors, and categories of social movements from the state. Drawing on the institutional fit approach, they demonstrate how conflicts between the LGBTQIA+ movement and anti-gender activism in Brazil have led to the deinstitutionalizationof one and the institutionalization of the other.

Focusing on the hybrid strategies of SMs, I refer to deinstitutionalization to describe the gradual decline in the use of institutionalized modes of action. While institutionalization referred to the progressive shift toward channeling the demands of movements within state institutions (Dagnino and Tatagiba, Reference Dagnino and Tatagiba2010; Lavalle et al. Reference Gurza Lavalle, Szwako and Carlos2019), deinstitutionalization signifies a reversal of this process, marked by an increased reliance on routines outside of institutionalized arenas. This enables a better understanding of how actors enduringly embedded in participatory institutions have progressively adapted their strategies following the loss of an arena that had become central to their claims. In doing so, I analyze the long-term effects of participatory institutions on the way SMs make and aggregate demands, even after being stripped of their redistributive potential. Additionally, it provides original insights into the potential consequences of democratic erosion at the local level from the perspective of social movements.

Focusing on meansof action, I use the approach of repertoires of interactions, developed by Abers et al. (Reference Abers, Serafim and Tatagiba2014) to answer this question. It is based on an amplification of the concept of repertoires of actions (McAdam et al. Reference McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly2001), allowing us to incorporate a diversity of routines used by social movements beyond the sole possibility of protest and confrontation, and to examine how they have been used, combined, and transformed. Following this approach allows us to highlight how PIs have complexified the repertoires of SMs underlining their role as vectors of institutionalization.

Four common routines of interaction between the State and movements can thus be identified. First, both protests and direct action aim to exert pressure on public authorities via the demonstration of a movement’s capacity to mobilize; this routine designates the use of actions, the most common of which is the use of demonstrations. Second, institutionalized participation is characterized by the use of official channels of interaction with the state, ofwhichrules are defined beforehand and accepted by all the actors involved. Drawing on the iconic experience of PB, I will show how a successful PI encourages SMs to focus on this routine, therefore becoming a vector of institutionalization of social movements. Third, proximity politics represent a form of individualized interaction operating through interpersonal contact, implying asymmetric relationships and informal exchanges between activists and State representatives. Fourth, bureaucratic activism (Abers Reference Abers2019), represents the occupation of positions in bureaucracies, through which activists continue to pursue the objectives of their movement.

In this article, I analyze how the progressive erosion of a PI has led SMs away from codified spaces for interacting with the state, thus deinstitutionalizing their repertoires. After discussing the case of Porto Alegre’s PB as a vector of institutionalization, I illustrate how its erosion fosters a reverse process of deinstitutionalization in the repertoires of urban movements, which have become more complex and diversified over time. This article thus demonstrates that the erosion of PB leads to a decrease in the use of institutionalized participation—although it has not entirely disappeared—in favor of registers rooted in proximity politics and bureaucratic activism.

Investigating Thirty Years of PB in Porto Alegre

This article adopts a processual and historical approach to analyze the evolution of the means of actions of urban social movements following the erosion of a PI at the municipal level. It is based on an ethnographic survey conducted in the city of Porto Alegre, often considered the birthplace of participatory budgeting (even if similar experiences were the forerunners of Porto Alegre’s PB), whose introduction and success are the result of multiple interactions between SMs and municipal authorities (Fedozzi Reference Fedozzi2000). Porto Alegre’s PB stood out as a singular instance of social movement institutionalization, becoming the principal arena where urban movements articulate their demands, consequently reshaping their strategies. The examination of Porto Alegre’s case provides an extensive and nuanced exploration of the implications of democratic erosion for actors deeply entrenched within participatory institutions.

Porto Alegre comprises several subdivisions (districts), each consisting of numerous neighborhoods. Previous research has highlighted how the integration of PB varies across these districts, with the associative tradition being a significant explanatory factor (Fedozzi Reference Fedozzi2000; Abers Reference Abers2000; Baiocchi Reference Baiocchi2005). Building on this literature, this article examines the case of Partenon, characterized as a historically active and organized district with a robust network of associations predating the introduction of PB. It stands out as a unique example of urban activism deeply embedded in a participatory institution, as evidenced by Baiocchi (Reference Baiocchi2005). Given its robust associative tradition and deep engagement in PB, Partenon emerges as an especially compelling case for exploring the broader implications of the closure of a participatory institution. Consequently, this case study offers an opportunity to observe and delineate the process of deinstitutionalization within a context characterized by intricate socio-state interactions. From a temporal point of view, my analysis starts from the year 2002, chosen as the beginning of the decline of PB (Fedozzi Reference Fedozzi2009; Siqueira and Marzulo Reference Siqueira and Pires Marzulo2020; Müller Reference Müller2022). The end of my analysis is set for 2023, the year of our five-monthon-site research.

Studying a declining participatory institution presents some important methodological challenges. First, starting in 2017, the municipal administration stopped giving reliable data about PB such as the amount of money invested . For the time being, my messages to the authorities remained unanswered. Second, residents’ associations and urban movements in Brazil represent a heterogeneous, unstable, and changing whole (Sader Reference Sader2007). Many AMs have deeply transformed their activities during the last decades, many others stopped being active, and very few have kept systematic archives. Third, the individuals engaged in these movements have moved from one neighborhood, non-government organization, or institution to another.

To address these challenges, I used an ethnographic approach centered on semi-structured interviews. I interviewed community leaders and presidents of AMs who have historically been involved in their district to explore the evolution of social mobilization in their neighborhoods, their personal trajectories, and their connections with PB, past and present. As many community leaders and former PB participants had ceased their activism, as shown by Junge (Reference Junge2014), I mainly relied on word of mouth and snowball sampling to locate them for data collection. To mitigate selection and sampling biases and to diversify my venues of access, I conducted ethnographic observation of PB reunions and other forms of mobilization within and outside state institutions. I also reached out to current PB participants. As a result, I conducted 20 interviews over a five-month period in Porto Alegre, while living in Partenon.Footnote ⁶

Porto Alegre: At the Origins of SM Institutionalization through PB

In Porto Alegre, the inhabitants of more precarious neighborhoods historically put up fierce resistance to the military regime in the late 1970s, which addressed accelerated favelization with a policy of forced and often violent expulsions. In a general context of efforts to re-democratize the country, Porto Alegre’s urban movement emerged as an important force for confronting the public authorities and fighting for the right be part of the city, particularly concerning the introduction of infrastructures and access to public services (Fedozzi Reference Fedozzi2000).

In Partenon, a dense network of combative associations (about 20 AMs) already existed before the democratic transition. At the end of the 1970s, several residents’ associations were created, to organize action and reflection on the improvement of living conditions in neighborhoods under-equipped with public infrastructures. During the 1980s, they first engaged indisputes with the municipal authorities, leading to the achievement of some improvements for their communities following a routine of direct actions and protests. For instance, in 1984 activists occupied the Riogrande government for ten days (Baiocchi Reference Baiocchi2005).

Their coordinated actions, along with other AMs throughout the city, led to the construction of a singular participatory institution that was to profoundly transform the urban landscape and their relationship with municipal authorities. Implemented by a newly elected Petista administration starting in 1989, participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre emerged from interactions (often tense) between urban movement representatives and public authorities. Although it has had several models (Fedozzi Reference Fedozzi2000), in its most mature form, PB consists of a

As it starts to bring concrete results, PB quickly gains in popularity among the residents of peripheral neighborhoods. The urban movements of Porto Alegre, directly involved in the construction of the institutional design of PB, will massively invest in this new channel to voice their claims, as it offers real chances to improve the quality of living in their neighborhoods. A vast literature has developed about Porto Alegre’s PB, regarded as a pioneering democratic experience and an innovative tool for empowering grassroots mobilization, encouraging their self-organization (Baiocchi Reference Baiocchi2005), and promoting horizontal, cooperative relations between residents, with an asserted desire to resist state control (Abers Reference Abers2000). The PB experience also enabled activists to engage in every stage of the revitalization process in peripheral neighborhoods, while facilitating the successful implementation of public infrastructures (Pimentel Walker Reference Walker and Paula2016, 58)

PB favored the creation of new formalized AMs, to collect the residents’ demands but also to manage some of the projects and infrastructures set up through PB (often in the case of schools or nurseries for example). To present a demand, participants were asked to join or to create a formal association, implying a series of documents. Consequently, the number of associations in Porto Alegre grew sharply following the implementation of PB: from 240 active neighborhood associations in 1986 to 450 in 1994, then 600 in 2000 (Baiocchi Reference Baiocchi2005). These changes in the organizational patterns came along with a profound transformation of the type of actions used in Porto Alegre. Promoting more cooperative attitudes toward the municipal administration, which have proven to be responsive and attentive to the needs of peripheral neighborhoods, the introduction of PB has led above all to the use of institutionalized participation strategies, gradually relegating direct action to the background.

Indeed, PB allows activists to converse with the municipal authorities in an arena where their actions are framed by official and known rules, the content of which they were able to partly determine. It also opens a codified channel of dialogue with the public authorities and allows activists to directly influence the implementation of public infrastructures through their participation, thus advancing their claims. Based on data collected through local media, Baiocchi (Reference Baiocchi2005) observes that protests, demonstrations, land invasions, occupations, and petitions aimed at the municipal administration drastically reduced following the introduction of PB: from more than 30 per year between 1986–88 to 10 per year for the 1996–98 period.

When it comes to the case of Partenon, empirical inquiries have shown that PB has progressively absorbed preexisting autonomous networks of activism. Indeed, to articulate their demands, AM representatives can rely on the forum do orçamento participativo (FROP), which offers an institutionalized space for organizing and aggregating the demands previously approved by district-level assemblies. The trajectory of the Conselho popular do Partenon (CPP), an autonomous forum of AMs formed in the 1980s who traditionally occupied this aggregative function, gives us an iconic example of this absorption process.

As Antonio, one of the founding members of the Conselho who also worked for the Petista administration as a PB coordinator, explains to us word for word, PB has become so central and popular that ithas begun to monopolize time and attention:

While PB becomes the central space where urban movements aggregate and formulatetheir demands, institutionalized participation becomes the main routine of interactions with the municipal administration. Indeed, PB allows activists to exert direct influence on the proposal and implementation of public policies, while also opening a codified space for challenging local authorities. Even if they don’t disappear, protests and direct action then lose their raison d’être as tools to exert pressure on public authorities and to force negotiations, as soon as demands and interactions with public agents are institutionalized within PB. To close this section with the words of Mariluz, ex-CPP member and PB delegate, it shows that movements in Partenon before PB had the “will to get things done, but [they] didn’t have the way. The FROP became the way because there were resources there.”

Partenon stands out as one of the first districts to become integrated into PB (Baiocchi Reference Baiocchi2005), with its pre-existing networks of activism gradually absorbed into this institutionalized space of socio-state interactions. Examining this particular case enables us to meticulously investigate the enduring effects of a participatory institution over time. Moreover, considering the established status of PB as the primary platform for expressing demands, the repercussions of its decline are increasingly becoming evident and pronounced. For these reasons, the Partenon case study emerges as particularly fruitful for better understanding the process of deinstitutionalization.

Through PB, movements in Partenon were able to introduce public infrastructures in historically precarious neighborhoods. While protest and direct action didn’t disappear from existing repertoires, their efficiency becomes questionable in comparison to the certitudes that institutionalized participation now offers. The introduction of PB can be considered a vector of institutionalization of urban movements, as it strongly encouraged them to go through a codified and formalized space to channel their demands and voice their claims. Nevertheless, the next section shows that this affirmation indeed remains true as long as PB brings concrete results.

Deinstitutionalized Repertoires Following the Erosion of PB

In 2002, a municipal financial crisis initiated a phase of decline for PB, after nearly 20 years of construction and consolidation (Fedozzi Reference Fedozzi2009; Siqueira and Marzulo Reference Siqueira and Pires Marzulo2020; Müller Reference Müller2022). The number of unfulfilled demands accumulates from this period, and popularity of PT erodes. In 2004, the Petista coalition lost the municipal elections after having served four consecutive terms from 1989–2004. For many of the interviewees, 2004 is remembered as the beginning of the end for PB, as it has been strongly associated with the PT, even though the succeeding administration pledged to keep PB running, which remained very popular.

Despite this promise, PB’s redistributive capacities gradually diminished in the years that followed. Between 2005 and 2010, the municipal government completed only 47% of the projects approved through PB. The value of completed projects fell from R$524 million between 2001 and 2004 to R$18 million between 2013 and 2016 (Siqueira and Marzulo Reference Siqueira and Pires Marzulo2020). This gradual decrease continues over time so from 2013 to 2019, 91.4% of demands were overdue (Müller Reference Müller2022). Meanwhile, the presence of executive branch representatives at meetings is becoming increasingly rare (Melgar Reference Melgar2015).

Once the demands made within PB begin to accumulate without leading to the implementation of infrastructures, it gradually ceases to be a relevant space for the action of SMs. The accumulation of pending demands, emptying PB of its redistributive potential, leads to a progressive delegitimization of PB (Montambeault Reference Montambeault2019). This change in the configuration of spaces for interaction between public authorities and social movements has proven less favorable to the use of institutionalized participation and does not lead to a renewed reliance on direct action and protest.

While actions within state institutions have not disappeared, they are increasingly individualized and rely on proximity politics, involving interpersonal relations between community leaders and politicians. Although asymmetric relations have always existed within PIs (Montambeault Reference Montambeault, Maxwell, Hershberg and Kenneth2012; and Montambeault and Goirand Reference Montambeault and Goirand2016) their erosion tends to exacerbate these relations as the uncertainty of seeing a demand implemented drives the search for other ways to ensure results. This section shows how the professionalization of activists has led them to prioritize actions such as proximity politics and bureaucratic activism over returning to routines of direct action and protests. Thus, I illustrate that the erosion of PB has encouraged a gradual deinstitutionalization of urban movements, as actors shift their focus away from institutionalized participation toward other routines.

A Limited Return to Protest and Direct Actions

As previously noted, the consolidation of PB in the 1990s resulted in a gradual decrease in protest actions by more than a third between 1986 and 1998 (Baiocchi Reference Baiocchi2005). This shift facilitated a substantial increase in institutionalized participation. However, the decline in PB did not reverse this trend. According to interviewees, confrontations with public authorities are infrequent and localized to specific neighborhoods, rather than being widespread across the region. Non-institutional actions, such as marches, demonstrations, or street blockades, are primarily triggered when an existing service is under threat or when basic needs are at stake.

The most recent instance of a district-wide mobilization in Partenon dates back to 2007 when a proposed transfer of health competencies from the regional to the municipal level posed a threat to the closure of eight health posts. In response, community leaders, many of whom were active participants in the municipal health council, orchestrated marches throughout Partenon, passing by the jeopardized health posts to raise awareness among the population. Their efforts were reinforced by the support of local health professionals. The most contentious incident unfolded when one of the main roads in Porto Alegre, traversing Partenon, was blocked, causing a traffic jam between the capital and its neighboring cities to the east. Mobilizations were regularly held at each of the health posts, and activists engaged local media to spread their message. This situation persisted for nearly a month until the municipal authorities ensured the continued operation of all affected health posts. Since then, subsequent mobilizations have occurred, but none has left a lasting impact at the district level.

As an example of more localized direct action, minor mobilizations occurred when a local university attempted to construct a parking lot on a space occupied by its neighboring community. Coordinated through the local AM, residents began a campaign to raise awareness among students. They strategically placed posters condemning the potential eviction in areas frequented by students and distributed informative pamphlets near the campus. The university’s image was adversely affected, prompting the rector to personally engage with the local community. Subsequently, negotiations took place, leading to the relocation of the parking lot project. The regular occurrence of droughts during the summer also prompts residents to periodically organize street blockades. These actions are intended to capture the attention of authorities and compel them to intervene in addressing the water scarcity issue.

Protest actions played a central role from the 1970s to the 1990s but have gradually waned as institutionalized participation proved more effective and basic needs diminished. The following excerpt from my conversation with Rosa Helena, an active participant in the local health movement, vividly illustrates the challenges faced by activists in organizing protests:

In the same way, Copinaré, a former AM president who has been active throughout the region for years as a mediator for the municipality corroborates Rosa Helena’s experience saying

These days, the activities undertaken by the AMs are primarily focused on service-oriented initiatives, including community kitchens, social assistance programs, the organization of recreational activities, and educational endeavors. Nongovernmental organizations have multiplied in the outskirts of Porto Alegre since 2004, as the newly elected Fogaça administration sought to rely more on the private sector in its policies toward marginalized neighborhoods (Junge Reference Junge2014). Many associations have established agreements with the municipality, securing financial support from public authorities to deliver services, predominantly in the realms of education or social assistance. This trend is also intricately tied to the success of PB, as numerous daycare centers, schools, and social assistance centers have emerged from demands articulated through the PB process. Once approved, these facilities are routinely placed under the supervision of the AMs and their respective presidents, who played a pivotal role in formulating the demands.

Angela, a PB participant and a member of the PT for over two decades, has been actively involved with numerous AMs since she joined the UAMPA, the Union of Residents’ Associations in Porto Alegre. In 2023, she served as president, and her current role primarily involves assisting and supporting associations in their day-to-day tasks. Her experience with the establishment of a partnership between a community organization and the state vividly underscores the challenges involved, notwithstanding the acknowledged benefits to the community in gaining access to these services:

According to Angela’s explanation, the substantial effort required to maintain these public services places a significant demand on the time of the AMs. This frequently results in the prioritization of service-related tasks at the expense of the organization of protest actions or meetings. In conclusion, the decline of PB has not been accompanied by a return to protest and direct action. This section demonstrates that PB has durably transformed the repertoires of interaction and that its decline does not imply a return to pre-PB forms of interaction with public authorities.

Toward Hybrid Routines of Proximity Politics and Bureaucratic Activism

Up to this point, this article has shown that SMs in Porto Alegre persist in hybrid strategies, combining institutionalized participation and direct action. However, the effectiveness of the former has been significantly undermined by the diminishing legitimacy of PB, while the latter has become more sporadic and localized. In the next section, we will explore how strategies associated with proximity politics and bureaucratic activism have gained prominence in the repertoire of interactions for these social movements. PB plays a pivotal role in this transition, having provided since its early beginning a space where the administration and activists could meet and negotiate. Rather than inherently embodying democratizing virtues and fostering the autonomy of social movements, participatory institutions allow and sometimes encourage practices of individualized co-optation and informal exchanges (Rocha, Reference Rocha and de2013; Montambeault and Goirand, Reference Montambeault and Goirand2016). However, these dynamics do not necessarily indicate political allegiance of community leaders toward decision-makers (Sa Vilas Boas and Tarragoni, Reference Sa Vilas Boas and Tarragoni2015). Instead, participatory institutions integrate into preexisting relationships, where participatory ideals and informal exchanges coexist (Montambeault, Reference Montambeault, Maxwell, Hershberg and Kenneth2012; Dagnino and Tatagiba, Reference Dagnino and Tatagiba2010).

First, institutionalized participation within PB has allowed urban activists to better understand the process of policymaking and the functioning of democratic institutions, through a mechanism of institutional learning (Baiocchi and Ganuza Reference Baiocchi and Ganuza2014; Montambeault Reference Montambeault, Maxwell, Hershberg and Kenneth2012; Wampler Reference Wampler2012; Talpin Reference Talpin2012; Melgar Reference Melgar2015). This has often led to the professionalization of some of the most mobilized resident association members, regular participants often being recruited by municipal authorities or local politicians to serve in political and administrative bureaucracies.

Some are hired by municipal authorities to manage the regional or municipal coordination of PB, due to their experience with the process and their proximity to the administration in charge. We have seen some examples so far, with Copinaré or Antonio, who both worked for municipal administrations. Several local elected officials (municipal or state deputies) also recruit local PB leaders into their offices, giving them a role as intermediaries between peripheral neighborhoods and elected officials. The vast majority of the interviewees I mentioned so far have worked at least once for a politician, often from the PT (only one didn’t).

Second, several longstanding PB participants and community leaders leverage the reputation and technical skills gained through PB to pursue their own political careers, as demonstrated by Junge (Reference Junge2012) in his ethnographic study of the Beira Rio district in Porto Alegre. Since the introduction of PB, numerous participants who have served as PB councilors or delegates have contested local elected positions including municipal deputy and frequently, children’s rights advisor (conseilhero tutelar).Footnote ⁸ They then hire activists from their entourage to work in their cabinet. For example, a former PB councilor from Partenon district, Aldacir Olbioni, was elected deputy of Porto Alegre (for the PT) in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2016, and 2020. He hired several activists within this office throughout the years.

Third, the regular presence of public officials at PB-related meetings also contributes to the convergence between community leaders and public authorities. Since the introduction of PB, representatives of the municipality have been regularly called upon to address residents’ assemblies. These meetings have been linked to issues discussed in PB and aim to inform participants about legislation or the implementation of public policies, such as health or social assistance. The frequency of these interventions varies from one municipal government to another, depending on the commitment of elected officials. Observations have shown that many leaders and officials are personally acquainted with each other, particularly due to frequent interactions between AMs and specific municipal departments. Departments such as water and housing are commonly solicited by the AMs, fostering a close and familiar relationship between community leaders and municipal officials.

The three dynamics outlined—professionalization and co-optation, initiation of political careers, and convergence—encourage the development of individual contacts and connections between community leaders and politicians. This results in activists becoming part of public bureaucracies and institutions and creates fresh avenues for activists to individually advance their community’s demands, often through personal engagement with local elected officials. As an illustration, in 2023, a community leader who was employed by a municipal deputy leveraged this connection to orchestrate a meeting with the municipal authorities. The purpose was to thwart the auctioning of a vacant lot, land that the local AM had wanted to own since 2003, to establish a PB-approved health post. A meeting ensued between the concerned residents’ association and local elected officials, presided over by the municipal deputy who employed one of the community leaders. As a result of this collaboration, the decision to auction the lot was revoked.

Personal contact with municipal deputies also facilitates the establishment of public infrastructure in peripheral districts. This phenomenon, reflective of the impact of the erosion of PB, has seen the refurbishment or expansion of several nurseries and schools in outlying neighborhoods through public funds provided by local elected officials. As an indicator, in the year 2023, each municipal deputy had R$1.4 million at their disposal to invest in public projects of their choice. In comparison, the budget allocated to PB in 2023 was set at R$652,000 for each district. An AM leader in Partenon provided an insightful explanation of how and why he consistently addressed his community’s issues with the assistance of municipal deputies:

• ‘Look, I’ve had a problem in my community for 25 years: people can’t shower, they have to wait till early in the morning to shower. We have to resolve this […] you have to help me, look: it is that, and I need [this], but when I go to the municipality there is a protocol, we must wait, they don’t answer and so on

• ‘OK, what do you need?

• I’m have a water problem, my residents have no water, we have water, but not enough.

• ‘OK [consider it] done.

Following PB’s erosion, proximity politics, through personal contact with a local elected official or public servant have now gained a central position in the SMs repertoires. It constitutes a more individualized routine, based on personal skills and relationships. Thanks to their presence inside bureaucracies, some activists manage to advance their community’s needs, by expressing their demands and transmitting information between public institutions and the neighborhoods. Nevertheless, these interactions frequently take place in non-institutionalized settings, relying on private and informal negotiations between activists and politicians or public servants. This poses significant challenges for urban social movements, as proximity politics entails asymmetric relationships, with decision-makers having control over public resources.

Conclusion: The Enduring Effects of PB on Local SMs

Above all, this analysis shows that participatory institutions produce enduring effects on the way local SMs present demands and interact with public authorities. Indeed, the introduction of PB initially led to a gradual transition towards strategies rooted in institutionalized interactions with municipal authorities, relegating direct actions such as marches, street occupations, and other forms of protest to the background. From this point of view, the introduction of participatory institutions represents a vector for the institutionalization of SMs, putting them into codified spaces for channeling their demands, while discouraging the use of confrontational strategies and protest actions.

The suspension of PB reverses this process, primarily by denying social movements an arena that had become central to the formulation and channeling of their demands. The gradual delegitimization of PB in the eyes of Partenon’s AMs has significantly diminished the use of institutionalized participation in their repertoires, especially when it is no longer perceived as an effective means of achieving tangible results. With the removal of this crucial anchor point within political institutions (Carlos Reference Carlos2020; Müller Reference Müller2022), residents’ associations gradually distance themselves from institutionalized channels of interaction. Drawing on these insights, the erosion of participatory institutions can be interpreted as a driver of deinstitutionalization for social movements, removing institutionalized routines from their repertoires.

The Partenon case underscores that this deinstitutionalization does not necessarily result in a straightforward return to protest and direct action. Instead, many activists have integrated into bureaucracies and municipal administrations. Consequently, activists are involved in individualized routines of interaction, often navigating a blurred mix between routines of proximity politics and bureaucratic activism. In Partenon, the decline of PB is coupled with the emergence of dependencies between local leaders and politicians in a district known for its historical combative and autonomous associative tradition, as indicated by the works of Fedozzi (Reference Fedozzi2000), Baiocchi (Reference Baiocchi2005) and Abers (Reference Abers2000). While their repertoires were significantly deinstitutionalized by the loss of the codified space where they used to present demands, individualized interactions based on personal skills and relationships allowed Partenon’s community leaders to keep a foot close to state institutions.

In conclusion, this article has illustrated the profound and lasting impact of participatory institutions on the strategies employed by social movements. Taking the emblematic case of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, I have examined how the construction, consolidation, and ultimately the erosion of a PI coincided with a process of institutionalization and subsequent deinstitutionalization of local SM’s repertoires of interactions. Interviews and observations on site have brought to light new findings on the erosion of PB experienced by local movements, and the profound transformations it implies. From a theoretical perspective, this article contributes innovatively to the literature on the institutionalization of social movements by proposing insights on the reverse process of deinstitutionalization, which remains underexplored. This process involves the gradual retreat of social movements from institutionalized arenas of interaction with the state. Institutionalization and deinstitutionalization can be seen as part of an ongoing process, following the transformation of the repertoires utilized by social movements. To do so, I have used an approach that considers the permeability of the boundary between the State and movements, demonstrating that despite a context of democratic erosion and a narrowing of their space for action, movements maintain hybrid strategies, combining actions within and outside institutions.

Finally, Brazil has recently experienced a significant period of attacks on its participatory architecture, particularly during the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro (Bezerra et al., Reference Bezerra, Rezende de Almeida, Gurza Lavalle and Dowbor2024). Even before the rise of Bolsonaro, the many PB initiatives that had developed in Brazil due to the electoral success of the PT were on the verge of extinction (Wampler and Goldfrank Reference Wampler and Goldfrank2022). Porto Alegre and its participatory budgeting thus appear as forerunners, first in terms of opening up the participatory space and including social movements in decision-making, and second in gradual de-democratization (Fedozzi et al. Reference Fedozzi, Ramos and de Gonçalves2020; Müller Reference Müller2022). Investigating the consequences of democratic erosion in Porto Alegre represents an important step towards understanding what this phenomenon means for those directly affected. In this article, I have explored how urban movements and community leaders have adapted their strategies to sustain their engagement in the wake of the gradual loss of an arena that they had contributed to build.