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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 October 2022
This article examines popular participation in the making of Brazil's 1988 post-authoritarian “Citizen Constitution.” In 1987, Brazilians submitted 122 popular amendments (emendas populares) supported by over 12 million signatures to the National Constituent Assembly (1987–88). As this article contends, this extraordinary experiment in popular constitution-making problematizes notions of Brazil's transition from authoritarian to democratic rule as the most conservative of those that swept Latin America at the end of the Cold War. The popular amendments emerged amid a nationwide campaign for popular participation that saw millions of Brazilians participate in letter-writing campaigns, protests, and debates over the constitution that carried over into the halls of the Constituent Assembly itself. I argue that the popular amendments countered the arbitrary authoritarianism of the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship (1964–85) with a constitutionalism in which everyday Brazilians would safeguard democracy through popular participation in government. While only partially consolidated, this vision offered diverse marginalized groups an opportunity to claim full citizenship in Brazil's nascent democracy, especially in ways that more overtly addressed issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and disability. This article thus shows that far from being the exclusive province of political elites, everyday people meaningfully shaped the constitutional restorations in late twentieth-century Latin America.
Research for this article was funded by Brown University, Harvard University, the University of Rochester, and the Fulbright-Hays program. An earlier version of this article was presented at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. The author would like to thank James Green, Victoria Langland, Sidney Chalhoub, Brodwyn Fischer, Daniel Rodríguez, Jennifer Lambe, and Cody Williams for their comments on this article and its previous iterations. The author also thanks the editor and two anonymous reviewers of The Americas for their generative feedback.
1. Scholars have increasingly termed the authoritarian regime as a “civil-military” dictatorship to reflect the prominent role of civilians in its operations, including the 1964 coup. See Fico, Carlos, O Golpe de 1964: Momentos decisivos (Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV, 2014)Google Scholar. Several recent articles have debated the nature of the regime, including Ridenti, Marcelo, “The Debate over Military (or Civilian-Military?) Dictatorship in Brazil in Historiographical Context,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 37:1 (January 2018): 33–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pagliarini, Andre, “‘De Onde? Para Onde?’ The Continuity Question and the Debate over Brazil's ‘Civil’-Military Dictatorship,” Latin American Research Review 52:5 (December 2017): 760–774CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and de Melo, Demian Bezerra, “Ditadura ‘civil-militar’? Controvérsias historiográficas sobre o processo político brasileiro no pós-1964 e os desafios do tempo presente,” Espaço Plural 13:27 (July-December 2012): 39–53Google Scholar.
2. Câmara dos Deputados da República Federativa do Brasil, Diário da Assembléia Nacional Constituinte [hereafter Diário da Assembléia] (Suplemento “B”), August 28, 1988, 445–457. This article uses a shortened version of the official nomenclature for clarity when referring to individual popular amendments in the text. PE-56, for example, is a simplified rendering of the official designation “PE0056-3” in which the operative number “56” refers to the order in which the popular amendments were received and cataloged by the ANC.
3. Câmara dos Deputados da República Federativa do Brasil, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), September 1, 1987, 489–492.
4. This article examines the Brazilian democratic transition (1985), principally in the context of other countries in the Southern Cone, including Argentina (1983), Uruguay (1985), Paraguay (1989), and Chile (1990). On Brazil as a “conservative transition to democracy” or “military-controlled,” see especially Power, Timothy J., The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 4, 9–16Google Scholar. A more recent example of this characterization is in Arslanalp, Mert and Pearlman, Wendy, “Mobilization in Military-Controlled Transitions: Lessons from Turkey, Brazil, and Egypt,” Comparative Sociology 16:3 (June 2017): 311–339CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Works representative of the broader literature on Latin American transitions to democracy include Juan J. Linz and Alfred C. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); and Alfred C. Stepan, ed. Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). While too extensive to list here, works on civil society during democratization include Maria Helena Moreira Alves, State and Opposition in Military Brazil (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985); Eder Sader, Quando novos personagens entraram em cena: Experiências, falas e lutas dos trabalhadores da Grande São Paulo (1970–80) (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1988); and Sonia E. Alvarez, Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women's Movements in Transition Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
5. As political scientist Cicero Araujo writes, the relatively progressive political program of the 1988 Constitution reflected the purposeful concentration of progressive deputies serving on thematic commissions in the ANC on rights and social welfare issues, despite the moderating influence of the far larger bloc of center-right deputies, the “Centrão.” The result was a political regime that was “indisputably democratic, but moderate in its propositions,” yet whose “adhesion to a project of confronting social inequality is evident.” The Constitution of 1988 thus “consecrated, in its material dimensions, a program of social democratic character” at a time when the post World War II welfare state model was in retreat. See Araujo, Cicero, “Trinta anos depois: a crise da Constituição de 1988,” Locus–Revista de História 24:2 (February 2019): 303–305CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6. This minimal definition reflects that used by constitutional scholar Leonardo Augusto de Andrade Barbosa. As Barbosa notes, while constitutionalism and constitutions are often conflated, there have been a great many constitutions that have not met this standard. See Barbosa, História constitucional brasileira: Mudança constitucional, autoritarismo e democracia no Brasil pós-1964, Colóquios de Excelência, no. 2 (Brasília: Centro de Documentação e Informação, Edições Câmara, 2012), 17.
7. Diana Kapiszewski, Steven Levitsky, and Deborah J. Yashar, eds., The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 21–24. The authors argue that the “inclusionary turn” in Latin American politics stemmed from the persistence of both inequality and democracy from the 1990s onward, resulting in a situation in which relatively consolidated democracies allowed for more inclusionary policies without triggering the conservative backlashes that resulted in dictatorships across the twentieth century. On the “multicultural turn” and multicultural constitutionalism in late twentieth-century Latin America, see Lee Van Cott, Donna, “Latin America: Constitutional Reform and Ethnic Rights,” Parliamentary Affairs 53:1 (2000): 41–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tianna S. Paschel, Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno-Racial Rights in Colombia and Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 4–6; and Jean Muteba Rahier, Black Social Movements in Latin America: From Monocultural Mestizaje to Multiculturalism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
8. To cite one example, recent literature has highlighted the overlooked role of Afro-Brazilians in the shaping of Brazilian political citizenship. See Mota, Isadora Moura, “Other Geographies of Struggle: Afro-Brazilians and the American Civil War,” Hispanic American Historical Review 100:1 (February 2020): 35–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Celso Thomas Castilho, Slave Emancipation and Transformations in Brazilian Political Citizenship, Pitt Latin American Series (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016).
9. This coalition would become known colloquially as the “BBB” caucus, after the Portuguese words for Bible, bullets, and beef. See Cowan, Benjamin, “A Hemispheric Moral Majority: Brazil and the Transnational Construction of the New Right,” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 61:2 (November 2018): 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Antônio Flávio de Oliveira Pierucci, “Representantes de Deus em Brasília: A bancada evangélica na Constituinte,” in A realidade social das religiões no Brasil: Religião, sociedade e política, Antônio Flávio de Oliveira Pierucci and Reginaldo Prandi, eds. (São Paulo: Editora Hucitec, 1996), 163–191.
10. The best account of the popular amendments remains the analysis compiled shortly after the 1988 constitution by some of the chief architects of the popular amendments. See Carlos Michiles et al., Cidadão constituinte: A saga das emendas populares (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1989). On the resonance of popular amendments among urban activists, see James Holston, “Insurgent Citizenship in an Era of Global Urban Peripheries,” City & Society 21:2 (December 2009): 258–259. On popular participation in the Constituent Assembly, including mobilizations as well as letter-writing and suggestions sent to the assembly, see Pérsio Henrique Barroso, Constituinte e Constituição: Participação popular e eficácia constitucional (1987–1997) (Curitiba: Juruá, 2003); Rodrigo Mendes Cardoso, A participação popular na Constituinte de 1987–1988 (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Lumen Juris, 2017); Ozias Paese Neves, “A trajetória dos primeiros embates do Movimento Pró-Participação Popular na Constituinte—MPPC (1985–1988): Afetos e temores na ‘transição política,’” Diálogos 23:3 (October 2019): 176–195; and Maria Helena Versiani, Correio político: Os Brasileiros escrevem a democracia (1985–1988) (Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa/FAPERJ, 2014).
11. On Brazil, see Victoria Langland, Speaking of Flowers: Student Movements and the Making and Remembering of 1968 in Military Brazil (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013); Snider, Colin M., ““Deficient Education,’ ‘Academic Questions,’ and Student Movements: Universities and the Politics of the Everyday in Brazil's Military Dictatorship, 1969–1979,” The Americas 75:4 (October 2018): 699–732CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eyal Weinberg, “‘With Colleagues Like That, Who Needs Enemies?’: Doctors and Repression under Military and Post-Authoritarian Brazil,” The Americas 76:3 (July 2019): 467–505; James N. Green, “‘Who Is the Macho Who Wants to Kill Me?’ Male Homosexuality, Revolutionary Masculinity, and the Brazilian Armed Struggle of the 1960s and 1970s,” Hispanic American Historical Review 92:3 (August 2012): 437–469; Bryan McCann, Hard Times in the Marvelous City: From Dictatorship to Democracy in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014); and Thiago Nunes Monteiro, Como pode um povo vivo viver nesta carestia: O Movimento do Custo de Vida em São Paulo (1973–1982) (São Paulo: Humanitas, 2017).
12. Jennifer Adair, “Democratic Utopias: The Argentine Transition to Democracy through Letters, 1983–1989,” The Americas 72:2 (April 2015): 223.
13. From the 1980s to the present, the proliferation of diverse forms of participatory and direct democracy across Latin America has attracted significant scholarly attention, especially from social scientists. See for example Donna Lee Van Cott, Radical Democracy in the Andes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Margaret E. Keck, The Workers’ Party and Democratization in Brazil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Teresa Caldeira and James Holston, “Participatory Urban Planning in Brazil,” Urban Studies 52:11 (August 2015): 2001–2017; and Françoise Montambeault, The Politics of Local Participatory Democracy in Latin America: Institutions, Actors, and Interactions (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2020).
14. Elected assemblies wrote the 1891, 1934, 1946, and 1988 constitutions. Authoritarian governments issued constitutions in 1937 and 1967. Emperor Dom Pedro I decreed Brazil's post-independence 1824 constitution after he disbanded the Constituent Assembly of 1823.
15. José Honório Rodrigues, A Assembléia Constituinte de 1823 (Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 1974), 16. On constitution-making in Latin America, see Gabriel L. Negretto, Making Constitutions: Presidents, Parties, and Institutional Choice in Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
16. Even as many of the coup leaders and its supporters were influenced by positivism, the constitutional assembly and republic that it created were dominated by regional political elites, especially from the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. Their power-sharing arrangement became known as “the politics of coffee and milk” (a política do café com leite).
17. On women's mobilizations around the 1933–34 constitutional assembly, see Rita de Cássia Barbosa de Araújo, “O voto de saias: A Constituinte de 1934 e a participação das mulheres na política,” Estudos Avançados 17:49 (December 2003): 133–150. On the participation of the PCB in the 1946 constitutional assembly, see Evaristo Giovannetti Netto, A bancada do PCB na Assembléia Constituinte de 1946 (São Paulo: Editora Novos Rumos, 1986). On the 1946 assembly, see also Octaciano Nogueira, A Constituinte de 1946: Getúlio, o sujeito oculto, Coleção Temas Brasileiros (São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2005). On the 1964 coup, see especially Carlos Fico, Além do Golpe: Versões e controvérsias sobre 1964 e a ditadura militar (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 2004); and Daniel Aarão Reis Filho, Ditadura militar, esquerdas e sociedade (Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2000).
18. Presidência da República, Casa Civil, Subchefia para Assuntos Jurídicos, Ato Institucional No. 1, April 9, 1964, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/ait/ait-01-64.htm. Capitalization reflects original text.
19. Barbosa, História constitucional brasileira, 45.
20. Thomas E. Skidmore, The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964–85 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 56–57, 100. Constitutional Amendment No. 1 of 1969 has sometimes been referred to as a new constitution entirely, since it so heavily revised the 1967 constitution.
21. The full text of the declaration was reprinted in “A ‘Carta de Recife,’” Folha de São Paulo, July 5, 1971, 7. The document was composed by a committee of MBD members led by Ulysses Guimarães as part of the II Seminário de Estudos e Debates da Realidade Brasileira. On rural laborers and conflict in Brazil's Northeast after 1964, see Thomas Rogers, The Deepest Wounds: A Labor and Environmental History of Sugar in Northeast Brazil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 157–201. The open letter included demands for agrarian reform, especially “in the many centers of rural tension,” a reference to the persistent conflict over land by peasant groups and rural labor unions in the Northeast and elsewhere in rural Brazil.
22. An initial strike in the Saab-Scania factory in São Bernardo do Campo in the industrial ABC suburbs of São Paulo in May 1978 led to a series of escalating strikes that lasted into 1980. The general strikes of 1979 and 1980 marked the peak of a new ideology of labor activism, novo sindicalismo. A surge in neighborhood activism in the urban peripheries of São Paulo where many strikers lived, and in other growing cities in Brazil, reflected the new energy in the labor movement. In São Paulo, progressive sectors of the Catholic Church organized lay people into base communities and mothers’ clubs (clubes de mães), which as part of the Cost of Living Movement launched a petition that received 1.2 million signatures and demanded action to lower food prices. On labor, see Ricardo Antunes, A rebeldia do trabalho: O confronto operário no ABC Paulista: as greves de 1978/80 (Campinas: Editora da Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 1988); and Gay Seidman, Manufacturing Militance: Workers’ Movements in Brazil and South Africa, 1970–1985 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). On urban grassroots movements and the Catholic Church, see Ana Maria Doimo, A vez e a voz do popular: Movimentos sociais e participação política no Brasil pós-70 (Rio de Janeiro: ANPOCS/Relume Dumará, 1995) and Sader, Quando novos personagens entraram em cena.
23. A comunidade negra e o 15 de novembro, Movimento Negro Unificado Contra a Discriminação Racial, in Movimento Negro Unificado, III Assembléia Nacional, Salvador/BA, November 14, 1985, Arquivo Nacional [hereafter AN], Fundo Serviço Nacional de Informações [hereafter FSNI], AC ACE 073/78. On the Movimento Negro Unificado, see Michael George Hanchard, Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945–1988 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
24. Mário Cléber Martins Lanna Júnior, ed., História do movimento político das pessoas com deficiência no Brasil (Brasília: Secretaria de Direitos Humanos; Secretaria Nacional de Promoção dos Direitos das Pessoas com Deficiência, 2010), 48–54. On the history of the disabled movement in São Paulo during the dictatorship and democratic transition, see Cody Williams, “The Embodiment of Struggle in Greater São Paulo: Organized Labor, Human Rights, and Disability, 1964–2010” (unpublished manuscript, April 23, 2021).
25. On women's movements during the dictatorship and the democratic transition, see Alvarez, Engendering Democracy in Brazil.
26. The “Carta aos Brasileiros” was reprinted in “‘Só o povo pode elaborar uma Constituição,’” Folha de São Paulo, August 9, 1977, 6.
27. On the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), see Carlos Fico, Ibase: Usina de idéias e cidadania (Rio de Janeiro: Garamond, 1999).
28. See Michiles, Cidadão constituinte, 41. On January 17, 1985, diverse entities of the opposition to the dictatorship met at the Instituto Sedes Sapientiae at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. While most groups were from São Paulo, delegations from Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, and Rondônia attended. While a motion to create a national committee for popular participation stalled, the Plenário of São Paulo was created after a subsequent meeting on January 28, 1985.
29. Francisco Whitaker Ferreira, interview with author, February 22, 2018.
30. Márcio Thomaz Bastos, “Constituinte, quando, como, por quem,” Folha de São Paulo, January 30, 1985, 3. See also Michiles, Cidadão constituinte, 41–44. The authors cite the Movimento Gaúcho Pró-Constituinte in Rio Grande do Sul and the Comitê Pró-Participação in Minas Gerais as early examples.
31. “Carta pede Constituinte desvinculada do Congresso,” Folha de São Paulo, July 18, 1985, 5.
32. “Plenário leva propostas a Brasília,” Folha de São Paulo, August 20, 1985, 4. See also, “Ato do Plenário reúne 700 pessoas no centro,” Folha de São Paulo, August 23, 1985, 5. Between August 17 and November 22, a congressional commission (comissão mista) convened to discuss the Sarney government's request that a constitutional assembly be called by way of a constitutional amendment. On August 20, 1985, the PPPC organized a series of caravans to the capital and coordinated a letter-writing campaign to the commission's chairman, Flávio Bierrenbach (PMDB). Bierrenbach, a member of the former opposition party MDB and supporter of Diretas Já, advanced a proposal calling for a plebiscite to decide whether the constitutional assembly would be elected for that purpose (constituinte exclusiva) or be composed of Congress. In response, Sarney and party leaders in PMDB stripped Bierrenbach of his chairmanship in October 1985.
33. Centro de Documentação e Memória, Universidade Estadual de São Paulo [hereafter CEDEM], Fundo Clube de Mães da Zona Sul [hereafter CMZS], box 10, folder 37, doc. 1.
34. Michiles, Cidadão constituinte, 56–57. See also “Plenário quer ter bancada no Congresso constituinte,” Folha de São Paulo, September 20, 1986, 8. National and local groups met in Rio in May 1986 and declared September 7, 1986 as National Constituent Assembly Day. In particular, the national organization for Brazilian bishops joined in calling for mechanisms for direct participation in both the writing of the constitution and in its final text. “Por uma nova ordem constitucional–declaração pastoral,” Coleção Documentos da CNBB, no. 36 (São Paulo: Edições Paulinas, 1986), 7.
35. The heterogeneous Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, successor party to the dictatorship-era opposition Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, won 303 of the 559 competitive seats, by far the most of any party, and won control of legislatures in all but one state. But their victory belied the diminishing power of the party's progressive wing after joining the Sarney government, a rift that would lead center-left PMDB leaders to form the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, PSDB) in 1988. Likewise, right and center-right parties won significantly more seats (188) than their left and center-left counterparts (50). See “PT triplica bancada, mas a votação decepciona dirigentes,” Folha de São Paulo, November 23, 1986, 5.
36. “Iniciativa Popular Constituinte, primeira conquista a assegurar,” O São Paulo, February 13-20, 1987, 10. Fourteen senators and 76 deputies endorsed the proposal.
37. “Presidente afirma que resultado foi justo,” Jornal de Brasília, February 2, 1987, 2. The PPPC's president, Francisco Whitaker, believed that the committee adopted the proposal out of fear that progressive forces would continue attacking the constitutional process as illegitimate if popular participation were not included. See also Michiles, Cidadão constituinte, 58–59. The popular amendments were included in Article 24 of the Regimento Interno, approved on March 25, 1987.
38. “Comissões que farão a Carta estão compostas,” Correio Braziliense, March 31, 1987, 2. Eight thematic commissions and 24 subcommissions were established on April 1 and April 7, 1987. In April and May, these commissions elaborated sections of the draft constitution. The groups interested in organizing popular amendments closely monitored the drafts as they wound their way through the commissions, waiting to launch their amendments once a finalized text appeared.
39. Michiles, Cidadão constituinte, 67–69. The organization was called the Articulação Nacional de Entidades pela Mobilização Popular na Constituinte. In São Paulo, the PPPC and its allies established a central location for signature-gathering, the “Sala da Constituinte,” in the University of São Paulo's law school downtown, where anyone could come and sign popular amendments supported by these groups.
40. “Sala da Constituinte quer tirar dúvidas da população,” O São Paulo, June 6-11, 1987, 8.
41. “Emendas populares ganham as ruas,” Correio Braziliense, June 29, 1987, 5.
42. “Intercarta Cidadão 30.000,” no. 1, May 1987, from the personal collection of Pe. Antonio Marchioni.
43. “Intercarta Cidadão 30.000,” no. 3, July 1987, from the personal collection of Pe. Antonio Marchioni. While expounding the urgency of making those mechanisms for popular participation permanent, the issue also promised to print in full the texts of amendments submitted from groups around the country. But as the second issue declared, the response was so overwhelming that only short summaries could be printed, and only of a handful of the submissions.
44. “Constituição: com povo cria tudo de novo!,” Centro de Defesa dos Direitos Humanos Oscar Romero, n.d., from the personal collection of Pe. Antonio Marchioni. The Centro Oscar Romero is a human rights organization affiliated with the archdiocese of São Paulo.
45. The Catholic Church played an essential role in this effort through the CNBB and its pastoral outreach arms. The coordinator of the PPPC, Francisco Whitaker Ferreira, wrote a form letter to all the bishops in Brazil notifying them of the CNBB's endorsement and providing the text of the amendment and official signature sheets. Francisco Whitaker Ferreira to bishops, May 8, 1987, from the personal collection of Pe. Antonio Marchioni.
46. Centro de Formação Urbano-Rural “Irmã Araújo” (CFURIA), July 2, 1987, AN, FNSI, ACT ACE 6536/86. Despite the return to democratic rule in 1985, intelligence forces continued surveillance of ostensibly “subversive” organizations. The archbishop quoted in the report was Dom Afonso Niehues, who oversaw the archdiocese of Florianópolis, Santa Catarina.
47. “Nós e a Constituinte,” Boletim de Intercâmbio das Organizações Populares de Mulheres, no. 4, September 1986, CEDEM, CMZS, box 10, folder 37, doc. 17.
48. Relatório do encontro Nós e a Constituinte, September 1986, Rede Mulher, CEDEM, CMZS, box 10, folder 37, doc. 42.
49. Comissão de Sistematização, Assembléia Nacional Constituinte, Emendas populares, Vol. 2 (Brasília: Centro Gráfico do Senado Federal, 1987), 20.
50. Versiani, Correio político, 42.
51. On “Diga Gente!,” see Caroline Silveira Bauer, “Presenças da ditadura e esperanças na Constituição: as demandas da população sobre a prática da tortura,” Estudos Ibero-Americanos 45:1 (March 2019): 97–98.
52. Suggestion submitted by Angelo Fortuna, January 14, 1987, Arquivo Histórico do Senado Federal, Fundo Sugestões da População para a Assembleia Nacional Constituinte de 1988 (SAIC). Pro-participation organizers noted that public enthusiasm for participating in the Constituent Assembly remained high despite Brazil's roiling economic crisis in the 1980s and repeated setbacks in the struggle for democratization. See also Michiles, Cidadão constituinte, 12.
53. Câmara dos Deputados da República Federativa do Brasil, Diário da Assembléia (suplemento ao n. 62), May 20, 1987, 165. José Antônio de Souza Mascarenhas was the communications director of Triângulo Rosa. On the gay movement during the dictatorship and democratic transition, see James Green, Além do Carnaval: A homossexualidade masculine no Brasil do século XX, 3rd ed. (São Paulo: Editora da UNESP, 2022).
54. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (suplemento ao n. 62), May 20, 1987, 126.
55. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (suplemento ao n. 63), May 21, 1987, 96.
56. Ana Luzia Backes, Débora Bithiah de Azevedo, and José Cordeiro de Araújo, orgs., Audiências públicas na Assembleia Nacional Constituinte: A sociedade na tribuna (Brasília: Câmara dos Deputados, Edições Câmara, 2009), 515.
57. “Índios invadem Congresso e entregam propostas,” Correio Braziliense, April 23, 1987, 5. The article specifically cited the presence of representatives from the Xavante, Karajá, Canoeiros, Kaiapós, Txucarramae, Terena, Krahô, and Caiapó nations.
58. Florestan Fernandes, “Invasão e desafio,” Folha de São Paulo, May 8, 1987, 3.
59. “Nas ruas do Rio, a passeata das emendas,” O Estado de São Paulo, July 18, 1987, 7.
60. “Ulysses recebe vaias durante ato no Congresso,” Jornal de Brasília, August 13, 1987, 3.
61. Comissão de Sistematização, Assembléia Nacional Constituinte, Emendas populares, Vol. 2 (Brasília: Centro Gráfico do Senado Federal, August 1987), 6. PE-1 was sponsored by the Comissão Nacional Criança e Constituinte. The amendment PE-96, proposing stricter laws against child labor, was backed by the National Movement for Street Children (Movimento Nacional de Meninos e Meninas de Rua), the national pediatrician's association, Catholic entities, and the National Association for the Defense of Children's Rights (Frente Nacional de Defesa dos Direitos da Criança). A third amendment, PE-64, likewise proposed rights explicitly for children.
62. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 48–53. On agrarian reform and the popular amendments in the Constituent Assembly of 1987–88, see José Gomes da Silva, Buraco negro: A reforma agrária na Constituinte de 1987/88 (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1989), 163–168.
63. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 23–24, 32–33, 72–74. The cited amendments included PE-72 by oil workers in Bahia; PE-74 by metalworkers, miners, and small farmers in Minas Gerais; PE-23 by port and transportation workers in Santos, São Paulo state; and PE-34 by steelworkers and community groups in Volta Redonda, Rio de Janeiro state.
64. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 102–103.
65. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 32.
66. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), August 31, 1987, 428–429. On the Brazilian student movement, historical memory, and the dictatorship, see Langland, Speaking of Flowers. Other proposed political reforms that relitigated conflicts over the pace and profundity of democratization included PE-88, which called for direct election of the president; PE-100, which instituted a four-year term for president beginning with the current president, José Sarney; and PE-108, which set term limits for the presidency.
67. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 7–8. As PE-2 protested, over 500 artistic projects had been prohibited since the return to democratic rule in 1985, even after 21 years of artists’ struggles against censorship under the dictatorship.
68. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 79–80. PE-84 acquired 67,156 signatures, while the two anti-censorship amendments PE-2 and PE-91 received 62,420 collectively. On morality and television in Cold War Brazil, see Thamyris Almeida, “‘Soul of a Modern Nation’: Television in Cold War Brazil, 1950–1985” (PhD diss.: Brown University, 2022).
69. While growing rapidly, Brazil's Pentecostal and evangelical churches did not sponsor a popular amendment, although the syncretic New Thought Japanese religion, Seicho-no-Ie, sponsored the anti-abortion PE-78. The other three anti-abortion amendments, all sponsored by various entities associated with the Catholic Church, included PE-7, PE-11, and PE-99. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 10–11, 13–14, 76, 93.
70. Popular amendments sponsored by police associations included PE-6, PE-38, PE-94, and PE-102. See Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 9–10, 35, 88, 95–96.
71. PE-98 affirmed property rights against any redistribution through agrarian reform. See Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 92–93. In addition to PE-26, popular amendments proposed creating the state of Iguaçu (PE-32) out of Paraná and Santa Catarina to resemble the former Território Federal do Iguaçu; the state of Triângulo (PE-67) out of western Minas Gerais; the state of São Francisco (PE-93) from parts of Minas Gerais and Bahia; and the state of Santa Cruz (PE-113) out of parts of Bahia. In contrast, PE-85 prohibited any division of Bahia. See Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 26–27, 31–32, 67–68, 80, 86–88, 101–02.
72. Five popular amendments dealt with the preservation of the constellation of the public-private vocational training and service entities SENAI, SENAC, SESI, and SESCL; these were PE-36, PE-37, PE-68, PE-95, and PE-122. They were sponsored by business federations such as FIESP (Federação das Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo), by the vocational entities themselves, or by labor groups representing workers within those entities. See Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas Populares, 34–35, 68–70, 88–90, 107–108.
73. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 46–47. On the Reforma Sanitária, see Sarah Escorel, Reviravolta na saúde: Origem e articulação do movimento sanitário (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz, 1999); and Jairnilson Silva Paim, Reforma sanitária brasileira: Contribuição para a compreensão e crítica (Salvador and Rio de Janeiro: EDUFBA/Fiocruz, 2008).
74. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), August 28, 1987, 410–415. Additional popular amendments proposed rights to health care (PE-50), childcare (PE-73), education (PE-121), and transportation (PE-109).
75. Amendments for rights expansions included those for Afro-Brazilians (PE-104), Indigenous peoples (PE-39, PE-40), women (PE-19, PE-20, PE-23, PE-65), children (PE-1, PE-73, PE-96), the elderly (PE-3, PE-7), incarcerated persons (PE-16), and consumers (PE-45). See Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 7–8, 10–11, 17, 19–20, 35–38, 41, 64–65, 73–74, 90–91, 96–97.
76. “Referendo popular,” Jornal do Brasil, October 5, 1988, 12.
77. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), August 27, 1987, 405.
78. PE-104 banning racial discrimination and prescribing rights for Afro-Brazilians was one such amendment that advanced in this manner. The amendment's sponsors—the Centro de Estudos Afro-Brasileiros (CEAB), the Associação Cultural Zumbi, and the Associação José do Patrocínio—obtained only 2,074 signatures, but the amendment advanced with the co-sponsorship of constituent deputy Carlos Alberto Caó. See Natália Neris da Silva Santos, “A voz e a palavra do Movimento Negro na Assembleia Nacional Constituinte (1987/1988): Um estudo das demandas por direitos” (MLS Thesis: Escola de Direito de São Paulo, Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 2015), 140–146.
79. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 56–57.
80. Comissão de Sistematização, Emendas populares, 22–24. PE-21 also included a measure whereby any congressional action regarding citizenship rights could be put to referendum should a portion (0.5%) of the electorate petition it. The amendment further proposed that any constitutional amendment approved by Congress but voted against by 40 percent or more of congressional deputies, or conversely, any amendment rejected by Congress but for which 40 percent of congress deputies voted in favor, be submitted to a national referendum. The mechanism for making popular constitutional amendments permanent, known in juridical terms as amendment by “popular initiative” (iniciativa popular), required signatures from one percent of the national electorate. Citizens could propose regular legislation on an equal basis with legislators with just 70,000 signatures, after which Congress had 180 days to vote on the proposed legislation.
81. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), September 1, 1987, 441.
82. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), August 27, 1987, 421–423.
83. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), September 4, 1987, 572.
84. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), September 4, 1987, 573–574.
85. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), September 4, 1987, 402–403.
86. Câmara dos Deputados, Diário da Assembléia (Suplemento “B”), September 4, 1987, 406–408.
87. “Carta inclui as emendas populares,” O Globo, July 3, 1988, 7. In the registries produced by the Comissão de Sistematização, the initial approval rate for popular amendments is recorded as slightly higher, with 48 (39%) receiving either partial or total approval. Notably, those that met the requirements for an oral defense were substantially more likely to be approved than those that did not, representing 83 percent (40) of all approved amendments despite composing only 68 percent (83) of the total 122 popular amendments submitted. For amendments that received an oral defense, see Comissão de Sistematização, Assembléia Nacional Constituinte, Projeto de constituição: substitutivo do relator (Brasília: Centro Gráfico do Senado Federal, 1987), 4–11. For amendments that did not meet the requirements for a defense and thus were co-signed by a constituent deputy, see Comissão de Sistematização, Assembléia Nacional Constituinte, Parecer sobre as Emendas oferecidas em Plenário ao Projeto de Constituição (Brasília: Centro Gráfico do Senado Federal, 1987).
88. For an overview of the 1988 constitution, see Reis, Daniel Aarão, “A Constituição cidadã e os legados da ditadura,” Locus: Revista de História 24:2 (February 2018): 277–279Google Scholar.
89. Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil: Texto constitucional promulgado em 5 de outubro de 1988, com as alterações determinadas pelas Emendas Constitucionais de Revisão nos 1 a 6/94, pelas Emendas Constitucionais nos 1/92 a 91/2016 e pelo Decreto Legislativo no 186/2008 (Brasília: Senado Federal, Coordenação de Edições Técnicas, 2016), 11.
90. See “A democracia participativa na Assembléia Nacional Constituinte e na Constituição de 1988,” Revista Brasileira de Estudos Políticos 121:2 (July-December 2020): 438–440. The authors identify seven laws that have begun as leis de iniciativa popular since 1988: PL 2710/1992, which proposed a national fund and oversight council for public housing (Fundo Nacional de Moradia Popular e o Conselho Nacional de Moradia); PL 4146/1993, which altered law concerning homicides after the murder of telenovela star Daniella Perez; PL 1517/1999, on anti-corruption measures related to vote buying; PL 7053/2006, dealing with issues of sentencing for violent crimes; PL 1472/2007, which proposed measures clarifying taxes paid for goods or services by consumers; PLP 518/2009, which created the anti-corruption “Clean Slate Law” (Lei da Ficha Limpa); and PLP 321/2013, on minimum levels of public health funding.
91. Brazil would hold a truth commission investigating human rights abuses during the dictatorship only in 2012–14, the last country in the Southern Cone to do so.
92. On these movements and Herbert de Souza's NGO Ibase, see Carlos Fico, Ibase.
McDonald supplementary material
