June Days Protests (Brazil, 2013)

Abstract

The June Days protests (Jornadas de Junho) constituted the most significant protest cycle in contemporary Brazilian history. Between June and July 2013, millions of people mobilized across more than 400 cities in the country, numbers only comparable in breadth and scope to the mobilizations against the military regime in 1984 and the protests demanding the impeachment of President Collor de Melo in 1994. While the protests were initially triggered in response to a relatively small rise in public transportation fares in the city of São Paulo, local states' repression soon led to a national escalation of conflict. The scope of grievances expanded rapidly, spanning the state's long‐standing mismanagement of public services – education, health, housing, environmental issues – the defense of sexual and racial minorities' rights, the denunciation of political corruption, and demands for fiscal reform. This manifold set of grievances was accompanied by increasing hostility against political parties and deepened political polarization, making political elites' responses fall short of protesters' expectations.