Repertoires of State-Society Interaction in a Heterogeneous State: The Lula Era Experience

This article examines the combination of interaction routines of the State with social movements in the designing of public policy during the Lula government in three sectors: rural development, urban policy and public security. The central argument is that in a context characterized by unprecedented permeability of the State, social movements and State actors created a historical pattern of State-society interaction. Under the motto "participation of civil society", social movements and state actors resorted to a repertoire of diversified interaction, which included institutional participations, protests, occupying posts in the pubic bureaucracy and personal relationships, with varying emphases depending on past patterns of State-society interactions in each sector.