Latin America’s urban poor are often portrayed as the innocent victims of repressive and exclusionary regimes.¹ Victims they undoubtedly are; innocent, however, they are not. Indeed, there is increasing evidence from a variety of contexts that the urban poor have been active, organized, and aggressive participants in the political process and that popular organizations, in particular, have had a significant impact on the relationship between the urban poor and political elites.²

This book tells the story of Vila Brasil and Vidigal, twofavelas,or slum neighborhoods, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.³ It tells of their constant struggle...

No visitor to Rio can fail to be impressed by the contrast between the city’s stunning physical beauty and the squalor of much of its urban environment, so much so that a visit to one of the region’s favelas has become an essential stop on many a tour. It is as if the city has finally come to terms with the fact that the favelas are a permanent and essential feature of everyday life. If such an accommodation exists, however, it is both fragile and of recent origin. For until the mid 1970S, the favelas had been widely regarded as...

It is a widely held belief that the favelas of Rio house an unorganized and largely ignorant population that is easy prey for those who would exploit the misery and uncertainty of favela life. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Over the years, the population of the favelas has learned to participate in politics in ways that have significantly increased its share of the spoils. This chapter tells the story of the favela of Vila Brasil, a favela whose participation in the political process represents a calculated and pragmatic response to prevailing political opportunities, both past and present....

In this chapter we turn our attention to a favela whose involvement with the popular movement in Rio in the late 1970S provoked a very different response than that which we encountered in Vila Brasil. Before it was faced with the threat of removal from its present site in 1977, the favela of Vidigal was much like any other in Rio in that its fate was in the hands of a local political broker whose concern for the community manifested itself during brief periods of electoral activity. The success of the population ofVidigal in halting the removal process and the...

The neighborhood associations that we encountered in the favelas of Vila Brasil and Vidigal represent common yet contrasting responses to urban poverty in Rio. The neighborhood association in Vila Brasil, on the one hand, has evolved in ways that reflect its president’s efforts to make the most of the limited opportunities provided by clientelist politics. The neighborhood association in Vidigal, on the other hand, has evolved in ways that reflect its leadership’s steadfast refusal to exchange votes for favors. Nowhere were the differences between the two favelas more marked than in the events leading up to the elections in Rio...

At the beginning of this book, I argued that the urban poor have been active, organized, and aggressive participants in the political process. Thus far, however, I have talked almost exclusively about the relationship between the leadership of two neighborhood associations and political elites. What follows, therefore, is an examination of the relationship between the strategies adopted by the two neighborhood associations and the political preferences, attitudes, and beliefs of the population of the two favelas. Before I do this, however, I need to say something about the context and significance of the elections in 1986.

On November 15, 1986,...

In January 1978 state government officials failed in an attempt to force three hundred or so families to abandon their homes in Vidigal. In November 1982, state government trucks paved every road and alleyway in Vila Brasil. Two seemingly unrelated and insignificant events in two of Rio’s five hundred or so favelas. The evidence presented in this book suggests otherwise, however. Indeed, it suggests that not only are these two events intimately related but that they in fact tell us a great deal about the different strategies and demands of the urban poor. Most important of all, however, they tell...