Institutionalizing economies of opposition: explaining and evaluating the success of the MST's cooperatives and agroecological repeasantization

Abstract

Dominant conceptions of social movements consider their constitutive feature the disruption of order, not practices around building it. In this paper, I challenge this notion by analyzing the Landless Workers' Movement (MST)'s relatively successful efforts to institutionalize the practices of agricultural production developed by its members in cooperatives and agroecology. Through this analysis, I show that the movement's administration of a democratically managed form of agricultural production exemplifies a unique form of social movement resistance – namely, what I call self-governmental resistance. Rather than reformist or revolutionary contention, self-governmental resistance – performed by movements like the MST – redevelops state policies by vying for and often taking control over the design and implementation of agricultural production.

Keywords:

• cooperatives
• agroecology
• agrarian reform
• Brazil
• Landless Workers' Movement
• MST

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mark N. Hoffman, Rebecca Tarlau and the reviewers for the suggestions that greatly improved this contribution.

Notes

¹For more, see Carter and de Carvalho (2009).

²Riots, on the other hand, or even soldiers' ‘undeclared desertions’, as Scott reminds us (1990), are also classified as resistance. They do not constitute the mode of resistance that social movements undertake because they are not collective or sustained.

³I chose the term ‘institutionalization' over ‘organization' because the latter term entails actual buildings such as offices, general initiatives to mobilize protest or internal movement forms (e.g. compare Staggenborg 1988; Kriesi 1995; Lofland 1996; Tarrow 1998). I adopt the meaning of institutionalization as used in comparative politics (e.g. see North 1990 or Helmke and Levitsky 2004), which focuses on rules and procedures that affect action.

⁴For institutionalist analyses, see Shepsle and Weingast (1995) and Tilly, Evans, Rueschemeyer and Skocpol (1985).

⁵For more on the difference between state and government, see Nettl (1968). For more on state power see Mitchell (2006); Foucault (1991).

⁶Scholars of governance note the centrality of decision-making. Rosenau (1995) defines it as control and steering mechanisms. Schmitter (2002) discusses governance as rule-setting and decision implementation, while others include public good provision (Ronit and Schneider 1999; Pathberg 2004; Bevir 2007). Theorists of participatory democracy highlight decentralized decision-making (Avritzer 2006; Wampler 2007).

⁷While he does not make the distinction between reform and revolutionary struggles in the same way, Holloway (2002) also recognizes the same problem in social movement contention.

⁸This could be considered a form of governmentality, borrowing Foucault's terminology. As far as I know, however, Foucault never considered governmentality as a form of resistance. Appadurai (2001) attempts to do this, in a way, yet under-specifies the dynamics of ‘governmentality from below' and how it comprises a distinct form of contention.

⁹Gramsci understands the relationship of strategy and power as the difference between a ‘war of position’ and a ‘war of maneuver’, drawing our attention to the importance of dividing mobilization and preparation (1971, esp. 229–39). For game theorists, no matter the game – chicken, battle of the sexes, ultimatum – the desire to maximize payoffs drives planning and goal-directed behavior (Binmore 2007). To place content into such vague discussions of strategy, Jaspers (2006) and Maney et al. (2012) emphasize a focus on social context, time, culture, goals, emotions, dilemmas, symbols and interactions. I agree that strategy involves gain, goals and success, but not that all actors seek gain in the same way.

¹⁰In direct-action strategies, movements present their own demands and conduct their resistance themselves, or in a way that remains under their control. Direct action forces opponents into action outside typical, formal political channels. Mediated strategies depend on an actor other than the movement to express and implement goals. Within this general category, we find electoral, campaign or legislative strategies. In instrumental strategies, a movement requires another actor to execute an action, yet ultimate decision-making resides with the movement and not the non-movement ally.

¹¹For more on the historical context of this transition in the late 1970s, see Foucault, Senellart and Ewald (2009).

¹²Prior to the neoliberal turn, the Brazilian system was characterized by price controls for specific crops, subsidized credit for technological investments (e.g. tractors) and particular governmental agencies in charge of specific crops (e.g. coffee and sugar). These programs developed in the early twentieth century, based on goals to secure rural-to-urban population shifts and providing food cheaply to the newly amassing urban populations (Barros 2008).

¹³Reliance on private banks has caused large producers to incur significant debts; in 2000, debt was 25 percent of gross agricultural production, and in 2005, it was 25 percent (Damico and Nassar 2007), leading to government debt restructuring and bailouts twice over the last 15 years (Rezende and Kreter 2007).

¹⁴In one interview with a Ministério de Desenvolvimento Agrário or Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) official who works in the Secretário de Agricultura Familiar or Secretary of Family Farming (SAF), I was told how credit policies were intended to create ‘family farmers, you know, like what you have in the United States' (Interview with Representative of MDA-SAF, 11 February 2011). Others in the Instituto de Colonização e Reforma Agrária or Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) – the institution mainly involved in agrarian reform – would use ‘farmer' in English, to distinguish between ‘peasants' and the supposedly superior US ‘farmer' (Interview with Representative of INCRA, INCRA, 2 February 2011).

¹⁵The stipulations are the following: Group A (recently settled farmers), Group B (family famers not living on settlements), Group A/C (settled farmers previously in group A), agroindustry (for investments in infrastructure, crop commercialization, artisan production, rural tourism) agroecology (organic farming), Eco (sustainable development), Rainforest (sustainable development focused on reforesting areas), Semi-Arid (infrastructure development primarily in the northeastern part of the country), Woman (targeting programs for women), Youth, Defrayal and Commercialization (for farmers and their cooperatives), Quotas (for cooperatives), Microcredit and Food (for particular crops such as milk, rice, beans and wheat). PRONAF works by the government fixing interest rates on particular loans that are destined to these groups. Yearly defrayal interest rates are fixed for each PRONAF subcategory based on a farmer's income: to $5,000 Reais it is 1.5 percent; between $5,000 Reais and $10,000 Reais it is 3 percent; from $10,000 Reais to $20,000 Reais it is 4.5 percent; and from $20,000 Reais to $30,000 Reais, 5.5 percent. Investment credits are also fixed based on income levels: to $7,000 Reais, 1 percent per year; between $7,000 to $18,000 Reais, 2 percent; $18,000 Reais to $28,000 Reais, 4 percent; and from $28,000 to $36,000 Reais, 5.5 percent.

¹⁶The two main examples of the latter are the MST occupations of research centers of Aracruz cellulose in Rio Grande do Sul in 2006 and Syngenta in Paraná, 2007.

¹⁷There are two main kinds of MST-promoted cooperatives, the CPA and CPS. CPS, Cooperativas de Prestação de Servicos, or Service Cooperatives, do not collectivize production on site, but work mainly to produce technical assistance to members and facilitate production. For more, see MST (2008); ITERRA (2001).

¹⁸Besides COOPAN, the other CPAs I visited were Cooperativa Agropecuária Vista Alegre (COOPAVA) in São Paulo, Cooperativa de Produção Agropecuária Cascata (COOPTAR) in Rio Grande do Sul and Cooperativa de Produção Agropecuária Vitória (COPAVI) in Paraná.

¹⁹While this counters how typical businesses operate, it does not make the MST unique. From the cooperatives of Mondragón in Basque areas in Spain to the Kibbutz in Israel, equitable distribution of earning is a common cooperative practice. In fact, the MST crafted their form of cooperation by researching these cases (MST 2001).

²⁰While land occupations and encampments lead to settlements that are officially recognized by governmental authorities, numbers are unavailable concerning movement control of settlements.

²¹The number of families mobilized stands at a total of 494,428 in land occupations, with 311,160 of them – 63 percent – organized by the MST. The movement has also mobilized the most families in encampments, with over 58 percent of the total affiliated with the MST, or 85,205 out of a total 146,295 between 2000 and 2010. These figures also come from the CPT.

²²This sector changes again, currently existing as the Sector of Production, Cooperation and Environment since 2006.

²³These include: Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome or Ministry for Social Development (MDS); Ministério da Fazenda or Ministry of Finance; Ministério de Planejamento, Orçamento, e Gestão or Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management; the Ministério de Educação or MEC; and o Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento or Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA).

²⁴I conducted the search for these terms on the electronic MST database compiled and administered by O Centro de Documentação e Memória da UNESP, the State University of São Paulo (UNESP) Center of Documentation and Memory.

Additional information

Anthony Pahnke is currently a visiting professor in Political Science and Environmental Studies at St Olaf College in Northfield, MN. He earned his PhD in political science from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities after defending his dissertation on the Landless Workers' Movement (MST)'s efforts to govern education, agricultural production and agrarian reform. In addition to Latin American social movements, his research interests include food politics, environmental studies and political economy. He is currently working on how large-scale territorial purchases in Brazil impact sovereignty.