Urban Protest in Mexico and Brazil

Kathleen Bruhn is a leading expert on the Mexican Left. Her first book, Taking on Goliath, analyzes the emergence and early consolidation of the primary Left party in Mexico, the PRD. She is also the author, with Daniel C. Levy, of a textbook on Mexican politics, Mexico: The Struggle for Democratic Development. She has lived for extended periods in both Mexico and Brazil. She has three times won fellowships to write at the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at UCSD and once won a fellowship at the Kellogg Center at the University of Notre Dame, also to write. Her research has been supported by the Stanford Institute for International Studies, the MacArthur Foundation, the UC Council on Research, the UC Faculty Senate, and the Institute for Social and Behavioral Research at UCSB. She is currently an associate professor of political science at UCSB.

“Kathleen Bruhn, whose earlier work on the Mexican left remains the definitive analysis of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, adds to her initial scholarly reputation with a fascinating, detailed, original exploration of protest movements in Mexico City and São Paulo, based on a unique, author-generated, extensive data-base from newspaper archives. Bruhn masterfully combines a rigorous comparative framework and empirical analysis with qualitative insights and assessments drawn from years of field research, noting the importance of such variables as organizational culture, resources, political context, and party alliances in explaining differences in protest behavior. Urban Protest in Mexico and Brazil establishes a notable benchmark for understanding the nature and impact of social movements in the region.” Roderick Camp, Claremont McKenna College

• 1. Riding the tiger: urban protest and political parties; 2. Setting the stage: research design, case selection, and methods; 3. The limits of loyalty; 4. A union born out of struggles: the union of municipal public servants of Sao Paulo (SINDSEP); 5. Partisan loyalty and corporatist control: the unified union of workers of the government of the federal district (SUTGDF); 6. Clients or citizens? Neighborhood associations in Mexico City; 7. Favelas and corticos: neighborhood organizing in Sao Paulo; 8. The dynamics of protest.