WHEN BUREAUCRATS BECOME ACTIVISTS*
There is growing interest in how activist bureaucrats change policies; however, it remains unclear how bureaucrats become activists. This article develops a framework for the emergence of bureaucratic activism using the case of Brazilian prosecutors in the Belo Monte dam, a project that drew attention due to its social and environmental impacts. I show that two different types of prosecutors were involved in this case: activist prosecutors, who were committed to the proactive defense of affected communities, and conventional prosecutors, neutral agents that resorted to traditional tactics. Based on 82 interviews, document analysis, and participant observation, I argue that rather than being self-selected, prosecutors within conducive settings engaged in activism after they joined the state by developing long-term ties with local groups. By discovering the problems faced by affected communities and mediating their struggles with other policy actors, prosecutors internalized the grievances of these groups, building commitments to defend their causes.
Contributor Notes
* Luiz Vilaça is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame and a PhD fellow at the Kellogg Institute. Please direct correspondence to: lvilaca@nd.edu.
† Special thanks to Erin McDonnell, Rebecca Abers, and Marisa von Bülow for the thoughtful feedback and support throughout this project. This article also benefited greatly from suggestions by Terry McDonnell, Carla Teixeira, Ann Mische, Rory McVeigh, J. Samuel Valenzuela, Paul Burstein, Eugene Halton, David Gibson, and Garrett Blad, as well as from the insightful comments from the editor and anonymous reviewers of Mobilization. Early versions were presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, the Studies of Politics and Movements group at the University of Notre Dame, and the research cluster Rethinking State-Society Relations at the University of Brasília.