Institutional activism in the legislative branch: contentious politics, activist advisors and parliamentary fronts

The literature on the relations between social movements and the State recently produced in Brazil has shown the interpenetration between institutional and extrainstitucional politics. Most of this literature analyses the relations between social movements and the Executive, focusing especially on the activism of progressive bureaucrat activists. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate, by analyzing institutional activism in the Legislative in the episode of contention between progressive LGBT movement activists and conservative familist movement activists in the Brazilian National Congress between 2003 and 2014. This analysis is based on twelve interviews with parliamentary advisors and parliamentarians involved in this conflict. The results point to the importance of “activist advisors” and parliamentary fronts for institutional activism and contentious politics in the Legislative.

Keywords:
social movements; contentious politics; institutional activists; parliamentary advisors; parliamentary fronts