Our aim was to describe the mechanisms that drive this difference in success among groups of urban squatters in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The purpose is to find how space for democracy may be created at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid in the context of great social, political, and economic inequality. Exposing the avenues and methods of successful demand making of the poorest of Rio’s citizens contributes to a deeper understanding of how democracy develops, deepens, and functions—particularly under unfavorable conditions. Moreover, understanding how and why the poor choose to access or avoid the government when they do is an important first step in trying to build a relationship between the state and the slums. Developing this relationship is imperative in order to turn the current unsustainable drain of uncontrolled urbanization by poor migrants who choose to avoid the state’s purview, into a positive contribution to state and society. How to bring in those with an exit option to participate in the state is the real challenge of the slums.
A new model of social and political movements is presented here that captures a heretofore unobservable phenomenon: that of binding, or temporary, cooperative relationships between individuals in a community that form groups; between these temporary groups and influential institutions outside of the community; and de facto, asynchronous cooperation between the institutions on behalf of the community. The presence of these Binding Action Networks is empirically tested, as well as the results for communities where the Binding Action Networks are relatively stronger or weaker. In the final analysis, this dissertation develops a new view of social movements among the worst off in society, and consequently captures an element of democracy and democratization that has been overlooked until now. In the final analysis, social capital, both within the community and bridging outside of the community plays an instrumental role in the political voice and the material well being of those pushed to the political and economic margins of society.