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CHAPTER FOUR

BRIDGING SOCIAL CAPITAL, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, AND NETWORKS

Binding Action Networks.....................................................................................................................2

BANs and the Political Process Model of Social Movements........................................................3

The Communities Speak: Data from the Study...................................................................................7

NGOs............................................................................................................................................9

Churches in the Favelas and BANs............................................................................................13

Protests and BANs......................................................................................................................15

Media Framing and BANs.........................................................................................................16

Getting the Goods: Governmental Resources............................................................................18

Competing Hypotheses.......................................................................................................................20

Age and Size and Location as Determinants..................................................................................20

Long-term versus Short-term Residents.........................................................................................22

Another Take on Size of Effect: Three Regression Models..............................................................24

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The story above has shown that the government is not predisposed to aid the favelas, that the

aid that has been provided has been incomplete, and that there is no single answer for favela

improvement and development (NGO, AM, base community). we must turn towards the

complex open networks that allow the transfer of necessary local information to the external

shapers of opinion and decision makers.

In the highly politicized grassroots environment of favela residents and activists, many

believe that only the people (o povo) are capable of bringing about meaningful reform, which

leads some to reject outside solutions that dont first originate from the movement (o movimento)

as external connections are too often cheaply co-opted for the benefit of only a few. And while it

is true that local change can only be affected by locals at the local level, favelas are woven into the

fabric of society and so cannot simply turn their back on the rest of the world. To pursue their

goals outside of their communities, they must pursue external links to help them remove the

constraints, created externally, that define the possibilities of the locale.

Desmond Arias (2006) made an ethnographic study of two1 of these external networks

starting at the favela level. He found that government action only came about much later after the

original event and subsequent protests. The success that he reports for one community, Vigrio

Geral, was based on the ability of a group of active residents, fronted by a college-educated

community leader, who used external contacts with politicians and international funding agencies

to finance local-action NGOs. External financing motivated the NGOs to formalize and persevere,

and the prestige of the international element that captured the interest of the local, national, and

world-wide press that, after three years, pressured the government to help end violence in the

favela by installing an occupational force of police. Unfortunately, this was a short-lived solution

1 Three case studies are included in his research, but one community failed to make external connections because of

limitations placed by the drug gang, working in collaboration with the AM president.

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and Vigrio Geral remains one of the most violent favelas in Rio. In the long term, international

financing and support helped created and maintain a local alternative for youth recreation, Afro

Reggae. This local NGO now has branches in several other favelas, and makes international tours

in an attempt to lure kids away from the drug business and to raise awareness about the problem of

violence in the favelas of Rio (Junior, 2006).

The failure to address the underlying problem of Vigrio Geral exemplifies the biggest

limitation of the temporary nature of binding social capital in the face of the complexity of the

government, bureaucracy, and judiciary. It allows opposing interests to wait it out, safe in the

knowledge that popular contention rarely holds together for long and will likely dissipate before

any political changes are necessary. This is especially true among the poor residents who get no

quick reward for their investment in trying to influence the system, and so they must turn their

attention to more immediate concerns. The media is not a reliable ally in their struggle as the press

needs fresh news every day. With even the ongoing war in Iraq and Pakistan turning stale, how

can the comparatively small problems of small, unwelcome groups hope to keep the public eye

throughout their campaign?

Binding Action Networks

The creation of binding social capital with institutions outside of the favela is absolutely

necessary for the creation of the resilient action networks that distinguish successful cases from

those that fail to gain governmental resources. The important difference between a durable

network constructed from bridging social capital and a resilient network created from binding

social capital makes the latter, henceforth named Binding Action Networks (BANs), more difficult

to empiricize because each branch of the network may only be activated for a short time,

potentially never visible at the same time as any other branch. This collection of on-again, off-

again ties distinguishes itself by always activating around the same cause or idea, even though it is

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not central for most, or even any, of the actors. The various actors or elements in the network can

temporarily store the movement to reactivate it later, or can step in at key points to keep it going

all without formal coordination.

The lack of central organization means that the momentum of the movement may fade away

forever, or fade away temporarily only to be re-lit later by a new actor who just discovered the

cause, or by a previous actor whose priorities finally shifted to give the movement attention again.

This is the same basic picture that New Social Movement (NSM) theory creates for modern

movements, the difference with the BAN, particularly in the context of democratization, is that it

must involve certain actors: the residents of the poor community, the government, and intervening

actors that help to solidify the link between the former two. Consequently, the study of BANs

requires an understanding of the public policy process as well as the mechanisms of social

movements, which are described here through the lens of social capital. Because of the temporary

and fungible nature of the network, literature on interest groups and lobbyists overlooks BANs.

BANs and the Political Process Model of Social Movements

The most promising framework to understand the success in demand making of favela

residents in Rio is Sidney Tarrows (1998) Political Process Model (PPM). This model,

constructed to create a unified theory of social movements, is flexible enough to allow the struggle

in Rio to be described, but in trying to be all-encompassing, it obscures over the central character

of the movement thereits strength comes from binding rather than bridging, from being resilient

rather than durable.

Under a political process analysis of favela movements, we must consider their dual focus as

a competing frame in societal discourse, and as a political force competing for power in the state

system. The latter concentrates on elite-level politics where decisions are ultimately made, and the

former looks first for the consensus formation of the movement frame, and then for consensus

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mobilization wherein there are deliberate attempts to spread the views of a social actor among

parts of the population (p. 113). In the PPM, the creation of a mass base is most important in

terms of political leverage to be used by allies and third parties (p. 105) at times of changing

opportunities for political access or reductions in repression that lower the costs of collection

action, reveal potential allies, show where elites and authorities are most vulnerable, and trigger

social networks and collective identities around common themes (p. 20).

The life-changing aspect of social movements is important, but not as much for the way it

shapes how daily lives are lived as in Liberation Theology in the previous chapter, but because this

change cannot substitute organization. From the point of view of successful contention, identities

must be created and adopted that facilitate action, interaction, and alliances. In order to do this, the

shape of the identity must clearly identify movement members as different from the rest of society,

particularly distinguishing the militants2 (p. 119). Identity, in terms of BANs that recognize the

transient nature of associations, need only be enough of a priority put upon the same cause, out of

numerous other causes that might be held dear at any time, to create enough commonality around a

catalyzing event to bring individuals together in demand making, although the collaboration does

not have to occur at the same time (i.e. it can be asynchronous).3

In addition to an identity and a frame, the PPM looks at organization as another resource for

the movement in terms of a) hierarchical leadership, b) group cohesiveness when confronting the

enemy, and c) connective structures that link leaders and followers, center and periphery, and

different parts of a movement sector, permitting coordination and aggregation between movement

2 Tarrow uses the example of the solidarity movement in Poland to show how it was not a movement of Catholic

industrial workers, but rather industrial workers using the symbols of Catholicism to create a common language and

rallying point, perhaps more for its antithetical position in communist ideology and states than for the coherence of

movement ideas to Catholicism (1998, p. 119).3 This is not empirically tautological in the sense that the commonality exists if collaboration occurs, and

collaboration occurs when commonality exists. The commonality is visible, even when the actors are not

collaborating as will be demonstrated below.

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organizations and allowing movements to persist even when formal organization is lacking (pp.

123-24). In this research BANs are discussed in terms of social capital providing both intra-group

cohesiveness and inter-group commonalities for action. These networks remain interconnected

without hierarchical leadership or authority because of the Darwinian evolution of movement

tactics and ideologies that was strengthened over the long term by the cooptation and corruption of

movement leaders. Those movement cells with vertical leadership that were either rendered

powerless once accepted into the government structure, or succumbed to corruption, dissipated

leaving the rest of the movement temporarily weakened, but sturdier in the end. Now, movement

adherents, disenchanted with such leaders, now openly express suspicion of even the most well-

meaning organizers.

Tarrows conception of cycles of contention is particularly well suited to account for the ebb

and flow of the favela movement over the past four decades. The chapter above dealing with the

history of favelas detailed the changing field of political opportunities involving the porousness of

the state administration as well as its repressive capacity as well as the availability and sincerity of

potential institutional allies. Unions of favela workers, for example, were one of the results of the

turn-of-the-century vaccine revolt, however in the context of economic liberalism and later anti-

communism, they were not able to win any substantive gains. The Church was the only institution

ostensibly placed to continually pursue social justice worked more as an arm of the state until

torture and repression led to a change of heart. But by that time, its ability to make overt

challenges was effectively subdued. The effective Church action was, by necessity and by nature,

different from political action, and had its biggest impact through the development of Liberation

Theology and ecclesiastically based communities (CEBs) that changed the societal discourse

around the poor across the socio-economic spectrum.

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Describing the tension between these various forces is an appropriate use for PPM in

analyzing the favela movement. However, one of the most important changes that occurred

through unionizing and liberation theology was a change in the nature of the individual self worth

of the poor. While the first is a struggle for solidarity against bosses or for power, the second is a

path for personal transformation, and the two are mutually reinforcing. This is one mechanism in

the process of demand making that is lost in the PPM model.

As good of a job that the PPM does at describing the movement cycles in terms of

opportunities and restraints, it purposefully is not designed to capture the important social and

economic reality of the grassroots. For example, the post-dictatorship economic crisis in Brazil

increased the need of poor households to self-exploit, leaving less time and energy for

community participation. Additionally, the rise of Pentecostalism has substantially changed the

focus away from the earthbound reality of the poor towards the heavenly possibilities that may

exist for them in the afterlife. And finally, the para-statal drug gangs create a non-political

obstacle for organization and contention.

The PPM model provides a model for the context of the favela movement, and BANs help to

explain the actual mechanism. In the favelas, network actors include residents, AMs, other

neighborhood organizations, the press, NGOs , religious groups, and governmental offices. Figure

1below portrays the important limitations in interest sharing both between residents in the favelas

and between the residents and other, external institutions. The separation of the external

institutions indicates that they may not share the same interest in the favela, and so will only

activate on its behalf under separate circumstances. The areas of the favela residents that do not

intersect with any of the other residents represents the life that they dont share with other

residents, perhaps sharing only with their family, in a blinding group within the favela, earning

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income, or bridging outside of the favela. The small area of intersection of the three favela

residents indicates the difficulty that interests shared by many or all residents have in competing

with the other demands or opportunities for individuals time.

Figure 1: Overlapping interests external and internal to the favela

The Communities Speak: Data from the Study

If these ephemeral networks of favela residents, favela groups, and external institutions exist,

they should be apparent in a number of ways. NGOs may have information about projects in the

favelas in their reports or on their websites, they may be appointments on the books between AM,

church, or NGO leaders and governmental officials, and the beneficiary favelas should receive

treatment in the media that is different from the other favelas. Community leaders may also have a

relationship with individuals from these external institutions. Even though the entire network may

not be visible at one time, it is possible to assemble the threads of the action web in order to get a

good idea of how the connections work. The process of the BANs demands on policy output

requires a different study of local, state, and federal politics. But the process outputs are often

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more important than the process itself when considering the convoluted practices of legislation in a

system as rife with unrelated amendments and riders as that of the US. As outputs, the evidence is

clear which favelas have benefitted from those policies and which have not4.

The evidence presented below comes from two sources: the medias perception of 50 favela

communities between 1993 and 2000, and the residents own reports of their living conditions from

a 1998 census of the same communities. The PCBR and PCEBR are censuses of favelas complied

from individual interviews in the various communities about their perceptions of the favela around

them. The Conflict Database is a collection of thousands of articles culled by a team of researchers

from five different sources. The O Globo database comes from searching for each favela

individually in the newspaper electronic archive, and then collating, cleaning and coding

thousands of articles by a single researcher5.As described in a previous chapter, there is a high

correlation between related terms in the various data sets, which gives great confidence in the

construct validity of social capital as used in this research, as well as confirms the coding for the

164 conflicts from the conflict database, the PCBR and the PCEBR surveys, and the original

contextual analysis of more than 2,600 articles about the communities in the study.

The initial evidence presented uses correlations to confirm the relationships that are

hypothesized to be integral in augmenting the demand making of favela residents in the context of

a still-consolidating democracy. This chapter ends with the results of three models of a regression

equation linking social capital to group-level favela quality measures such as sewage, water

delivery, street quality, sports facilities, recreation opportunities, and facilities for basic health care.

4 I worked for three years trying to uncover the detailed governmental budget that would list the resources that were

invested in each favela in this study to no avail. There appears to be a purposive effort to obscure the final

destination for funding related to urban development in Rio de Janeiro, regardless the origin. Pursuing the trail, I

was advised three times, once by an AM president, once by a office assistant in the SMH, and once by a lawyer

friend that if you do end up finding out, youll never return home to see your family.5 Although I originally employed a research assistant to help with the coding, in the end I went back and checked or

recoded every article personally. I do wish to give thanks to the efforts of my assistant.

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NGOs

The link between NGOs6 and favelas may exist for the simple reason that NGOs budgets are

paid by the government and international aid, so they go to the poor communities in order to attract

money that is then turned into salaries for the NGO employees, and potentially not much else.

Interviews with numerous individuals in the larger favelas in Rio confirms that this type of

exploitation of misery is not unusual. They even have a name for the large NGOs (organizao

no-governemtal, ONG) that are known to have lots of input and little to no outputKing

kONGs (king-ee kong-ees). At the same time, there are many small NGOs that do meaningful

work in the favelas and mid-sized NGOs that specialize in demand making on the favelas behalf.

One example is ________ which is a grassroots police watchdog organization that bears witness

and files actions on behalf of the favelas they are involved with. But with over 800 favelas in the

city of Rio de Janeiro, it is impossible for this, or any other organization, to work with them all.

The hypothesis of this research is that communities with higher levels of social capital will be

successful in attracting and working with NGOs, and that these favelas are better off than those

that dont.

Indices of both passive social capital7 (r = .635, p = .066, n = 9) and those of active social

capital8 (r = .723, p = .018, n = 10) are highly positively correlated with the presence of

international NGOsC. And NGOs (domesticC and internationalC) are directly linked to all measures

6 This chapter relies on six different data sources (see appendix A for complete descriptions): two are from a single

census of 50 favelas of Rio de Janeiro, PCBR and PCEBR, the third is a database of more than 2,600 articles from O

Globo directly related to the same 50 favelas, the fourth is a database of conflicts reported in the news from 1993-

2000, the fifth is a series of 15 semi-structured interviews conducted with presidents of favela residentsassociations, and the sixth is from a municipal database of favelas (IPP). It makes for awkward reading and writing

in this chapter to continually report the data in the exact terms that the data sources allow (the relationship betweena higher percentage of articles about social capital and portion of the favela population made of longer-term

residents for example). In order to make this more readable but take nothing away from the transparency of the

science behind the writing, each statistic is marked by a superscript letter indicating its origin: A = PCBR, B =

PCEBR, C = O Globo Articles, D = Conflict Articles, E = Interviews, and F = IPP.7 Membership in any neighborhood associationA + moved to favela because of friendsA + percentage of clients of

businesses within the favela who are also from the favelaB

8 participation in the AMA + favela improved because of residentsA + water connections made by self-help groupA

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of life qualityA in the favelas where r > .5 and p =< .000 (n = 34). A reading of the articles that

include international NGOs reveals that they include the Inter-American Development Bank

(Banco Inter-Americano do Desenvolimento, BID) that co-financed the largest in situ favela

urbanization project in Rio de Janeiro, Favela-Bairro, that had been implemented to some degree

or another in 155 favelas by 2000. Other international NGOs made the news during the time of

this study for opening art schools in poor communities, providing language classes, contributing to

Escolas de Samba, and even coordinating the visit of Prime Minister Tony Blair of England.

Fulano de Tal9, the president of a South Zone AM, admits that both international and local

NGOs have helped improve the quality of life there, however he complained that they are more

interested in publicity and news coverage than actually helping. The NGOs apparently control the

contact with the media, even preventing reporters from talking with residents and community

leaders so that the NGO does not get associated with just one community. As the methodology for

gathering these O Globo articles was to search by community name, the NGOs included in this

study are not of that type to any large extent.

Whether NGOs are attracted by communities where there are already strong social networks,

or whether the presence of the NGO helps to create the social capital is not certain. The hypothesis

of this study is that NGOs are the product of social capital rather than the opposite. There is a

strong association between favelas with NGOsC and favelas with social capital in the newsC (r = .

398, p = .013, n = 38) despite that there are only two of 65 (3.07%-- 39 ONGs, 26 social capital)

articles that include both social capital and NGOs. Counter to the BAN hypothesis, that bridging

or binding to external institutions should not negatively affect the social capital levels or quality

within the community, participation in the AM is inversely correlated with NGOs (r = -.294, p = .

9 As promised in the pre-interview release, names have been changed and locations are not exact to prevent

identification of sources.

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069, n = 39). On the other hand, three indices10 of active social capital are positively correlated (r

= 1).721, 2).723, 3).635, p = .019, .018, .066, n = 10, 10, 9), and none of the other variables in these

indices have significant correlations with NGOs .

Controlling for NGOs in first-order partial correlations helps clarify the picture of where

they fit in to community organization. The results of relating the social capital measures to

measures of favela quality reveal that without NGOs there is less organization11around the

problem of sewage (r = .393, r1st =.395; p = .004, p1st= .381; n = 51, n1st= 5) and recreation (r = .

574, r1st= .727; p = .013, p1st= .064; n = 18, n1st= 5) taking NGOs out of the equation. In other

words, NGOs have a augmentative effect on the organization in favelas that have problems with

sewage and recreation. Although, because the data on infrastructure is not longitudinal, it is not

possible to know what the results of this organizing effect are. On the other hand, the links

between both active and passive social capital and the quality of life in the favela have already

been demonstrated, so it is fair to suggest that the organizing effect of the NGOs on favelas will

eventually produce positive outcomes.

The presence of NGOs has a suppressing effect on the association between AM membership

and trash collection, at least where the collection is good. That is, there is a higher correlation

between trash collection rated good and AM membership (r = .508, r1st= .846; p = .031, p1st= .

016; n = 18, n1st= 5) and participation (r = .407, r1st= .795; p = .094, p1st= .032; n = 18, n1st= 5), as

well as with participation in other favela organizations (r = .490, r1st= .832; p = .039, p1st= .020; n =

18, n1st= 5) when controlling for the presence of NGOs. In this case, NGOs reduce both the size of

the correlation as well as the probability that the relationship between the variables is not by

chance. Trash collection, however, is a special case among the government services to favelas as

10 1) AM participationA, better b/c residentsA, water by groupA, and protestsC, 2) AM participation, better b/c

residents, water by group, and 3) AM participation, better b/c residents, protests11 AM membership, AM participation, any other bairro association.

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COMLURB has been proactive in trying to prevent urban pollution from the favelas since 1989

when they implemented and funded thegari communitrio program.

For most (66%) of the AM presidents interviewed for this study, the monthly stipend for the

localgaris is the only money they receive, and for 100% of them, it is the only state money they

receive. The result has been symbiotic in that the program solves the access problem that was

plaguing COMLURB, improved the health of the favelas and the surrounding neighborhoods, and

strengthened the AMs by giving them authority, albeit limited, in the community and a raison

dtre. As such, NGOs are not necessary and apparently dont interfere where there is no need.

The suppressing effect of NGOs in this case is due to NGOs associating with favelas where the

trash collection isnt good. That suggests that NGOs play an important part in favela BANs,

working and drawing resources to where there is necessity rather than wherever is easiest.

The same can be said for favelas in which the water delivery is clean and constant: there is a

suppressing effect of NGOsC on the correlation of AMsA that have already been successful with

this resourceA . A second-order partial correlation with AMs, controlling for both NGOs and ageF

of the favela shows that age also affects the delivery of water (r = -.097, r2nd = .860; p = .498, p2nd =

.028; n = 18, n2nd = 4). In other words, AMs have a strong positive correlation on their own that

becomes obscured when considering the age and presence of NGOs in the favels.

Controlling for favela age alone, also reveals the suppressing effect of the year of occupation

on the relationship between AMs and the quality of trash pickup (r = .508, r1st= .894; p = .031, p1st=

.007; n = 18, n1st= 5). Removing AMs, on the other hand, shows that older favelas tend to have

worse trash pickup (r1st = -.817, p1st = .025, n1st = 5), worse sewage (r1st = -.792, p1st = .034, n1st = 5),

and worse streets (r1st = -.698, p1st = .081, n1st = 5). Favelas with more AM membership, then, are a

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mitigating factor in the quality of group-level infrastructure, and therefore an important element of

the BAN.

Churches in the Favelas and BANs

The previous chapter examined the role of Catholic base communities (CEBs) in fostering

the capacity for favela residents to work together, and additionally carrying their voice12 to the

government through the developed institution of the Church and its longstanding involvement with

the government13. This is one example of an external link that can bring about real change, not

only in the government, but also in the social discourse. However, as Catholicism has given way

to Evangelicals whose focus is more heavenward than to present conditions on Earth, the Churchs

power has diminished as a movement leader. That religious institutions have taken a step back

from politics does not affect their position as a social actor in a BAN for any given favela. The

historic relationship between churches and the favelas, coupled with the religiosity of the Brazilian

culture, has created a generalized trust around them. Additionally, the evangelical services that

popularize their religion through music and socializing create space for civil discourse within a

bonding context. The role of the churches in the favela movement is to foster the creation,

strengthening and maintenance of social capital. The leadership of the church is also a link outside

of the favela, providing the resource of contacts and, potentially, influence.

There is a strong correlation between favela residents reporting that their community was

improved by religious organizationA and the number of articlesC produced about that community

suggesting a potential network connection between the church or church groups and catching the

12 At some point, a discussion should be taken up as to how authentic Liberation Theology represents the peoplesvoice. From a rational choice frame, because it is a preferential option for the poor, it certainly makes sense that

that is what the poor would support. At the same time, for millennia around the globe, religions have been

successful at keeping the poor quiescent to the will of the rich drawing Marx to call religion the opiate of the

masses. I mention this here only to indicate that, in the discussion about the authenticity of the voice of the people,

neither Liberation Theology nor Evangelicals message has been questioned in the public arena.13 Although the Church supported the military regime at the start, a decade of violent repression, particularly against

the poor, drove it to take up the cause of defending them in the early 1970s.

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attention of the press. It appears that the variable representing favela improvement by religious

organizationsA suppresses the relationship between protestsC and articles about religionC. In a

partial correlation controlling for better because of religion, a strong relationship appears (r = .

821, p = .000, n = 12) that did not exist before (r = .177, p = .231, n = 39). The lack of correlation

(r = .140, p = .396, n = 39) between the total number of articlesC and the number of articles linking

religion and favelasC indicates that the former relationship is not a side product of reporting on an

church in the favela and picking up on another story. Still controlling for religionA, communities

with more articles about religion are associated with more articles about environmental problems (r

= .711, p = .004, n = 12), threats of removal (r = .759, p = .002, n = 12), legal cases (r = .495, p = .

072, n = 12), and NGOs working in the community (r = .930, n = .000, p = 12). This fits the

hypothesis that the churches in favelas are a part of getting their voice out, not directly in this case,

but by creating the civil space for bonding, organizing, and reaching out.

Thinking of a BAN as a series of branches or links between other networks, the high

correlation (r = .693, p = .038, n = 9) between religious organizations improving the favela A and

the index of passive social capitalA described above suggests that the complete mechanism starts

with the residents, passes through the AM and local churches to the press. To complete the

process, the press would have to attract governmental attention.

Testing this hypothesis, that the press is most active

In articles that were coded as providing a positive frame for the favelas, residents reported

that clinics (r = .513, p = .002, n = 33) and crches (r = .549, p = .001, n = 33) were on the very

good end of the scale. Also, streets (r = .553, p = .001, n = 33), sewage (r = .286, p = .003, n =

108) and trash collection (r = .500, p = .003, n = 33) as well as sports (r = .474, p = .006, n = 33)

and recreation activities (r = .472, p = .006, n = 33) were likely to be rated as very good by the

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residents in these communities. The importance of this congruence between these two different

sources is that it is a basic test of the accuracy of this studys context analysis of the O Globo

articles.

Protests and BANs

A history of protests (manifestaes) C is associated (r = .229, p = .160, n = 39) with

journalistic framing of a favela as unhealthy caldrons spilling into other neighborhoodsC, as is AM

membershipA (r = .285, p = .078, n = 39). There is no significant correlation between protests and

AM membership (r = .150, p = .361, n = 39). Protests are also linked positively to a measure of

active social capital, water connections by group self-helpA (r = .551, p = .099, n = 10), as well as

an index created from this first plus participation in the AMA and residents improving the

communityA (r = .571, p = .085, n = 10). Protests are positively related to a measure of passive

social capital, residents as client base for favela commerceA (r = .362, p = .038, n = 33).

An indication of residents political action is their tendency to take cases to court. While this

was captured to some extent in the conflicts database, it can be tied directly to the communities

through the database of O Globo articles. These articles include suits for regularized title to

occupied land (usocapio), wrongful death suits against the police, and requests for resources

based on comparative inequality. The correlations here are consistent with these motives, with a

justifiable complaint about access to water (r = -.28, p = .086, n = 39) and other trash collection (r

= -.72, p = .003, n = 15). Sports and recreation, a big problem in these tightly packed

communities, are often developed through government construction of basketball/soccer courts and

skate ramps as well as through large, off-site recreation centers known as Vilas Olmpicas. In

some communities, the city pays for youth sports training. On site sports projects tend to be cheap

tokens to give to a floundering community. Nevertheless, the sports (r = -.45, p = .089, n = 15)

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and recreation (r = -.45, p = .093, n = 15) facilities reported by the residents in communities with

articles about legal cases by residents tend to be poor.

But because legal cases from favelas concern three main reasons, abusive police, lack of

infrastructure, or land title, and favelas with both shorter- and longer-term residents suffer equally

from these problems, a natural hypothesis is that these two variables would not correlate

significantly. Contrary to intuition, legal cases are positively related to higher percentages of

newer residents (under 10 years) (r = -.349, p = .043, n = 34). There is a two-part explanation for

this phenomenon that starts with the AM being the primary source of origination of legal cases,

and ends with the reluctance of longer-term residents to interact with it, as mentioned above.

Media Framing and BANs

In the sample of articles for this studyC, more are written about favelas that provide stories of

police violenceC (r = .622, p = .000, n = 108), traficantes and bandidos (r = .498, p = .000, n =

108), whereas communities that receive positive coverageC in the press even once receive less

coverage overall (r = -.379, p = .001, n = 108). Furthermore, articles about public safetyC (read

favela related violence or death) are generally longer (r = .307, p = .001, n = 108) than all others.

One of the consequences of this tendency to exaggerate the violent aspect of the favelas is that the

media becomes its own victim, it cant sell another version of favela stories and so it is stuck with

the pattern of drugs and violence. Also, and this is not to deny the real danger that can exist for

strangers asking questions in favelas, reporters are nervous to enter and end up getting most of

their information from the police (Arias, 2004), so they dont know the other side of the storythe

side that reflects 99% of the daily life in the community14. The corollary is that, because of this

fear, the media doesnt develop relationships with the AMs or small, local NGOs who could use

14 In a 1984 study, more than 13% of favela residents reported that police were discriminatory while only 3.65% of

people outside of favelas felt the same way (Pedrosa et al., 1990, p. 27). In 2004, 52% of the favela residents

interviewed reported similary

(Perlman, 2004, p. 32).

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the public voice to speak to the government. This is one of the reasons that so much of the

political action of favela residents must take place on the streets outside of the community. It is the

only place where they will be noticed and have their story heard. Across the interviews with AM

presidents in this study, they were consistent about the difficulty of going through channels and

waiting in the lobbies of the public ministries, secretariats, and politicians.

At the same time, an index of active social capital15 is also highly correlated with the number

(r = .662, p = .037, n = 10), average length (r = .628, p = .052, n = 10) 16, and positive frame (r = .

316, p = .050, n = 39) of O GloboC articles during the time of this study. This suggests the

potential for active groups to somehow gain the attention of the press.

There is a strong, positive correlation (r = .450, p = .008, n = 34) between favelas with

violence as their main problemA and newspaper articles about police violence. This confirms the

findings from the database of conflictsF where public safety in the favelas is almost exclusively a

concern about police violence. O GloboC, on the other hand, frames public safety around favelas

from the point of view of the asfalto where traficantes (r = .680, p = .000, n = 39) and bandidos17

(r = .855, p = .000, n = 39) leave the favelas to attack members of the surrounding community.

When O Globo articlesC were framed to show favelas as sources of environmental problems

(pollution, erosion, problems of sanitation, deforestation), the PCBR dataA concurs that those

identified are less likely to be connected to city sewage (r = -.428, p = .007, n = 39) more likely to

use an uncontained sewage runoff area (r =.486, p = .002, n = 39) or a nearby river (r = .368, p = .

021, n = 39). Also, the water connectionA to the homes is more likely to have been constructed by

individuals (r = 0.720, p = .019, n =10). This measure, the opposite of active social capital, is

15participation in the AMA + favela improved because of residentsA + water connections made by self-help groupA16 There is no significant correlation (r = .064, p = .698, n = 39) between number of articles and average length of the

articles, which strengthens the argument that it is the intervening variable of active social capital that is responsible

for the high correlation above.17 Literally drug dealers and bandits

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actually quite telling as it is strongly related to a bad image of the favelas infrastructureC (r = .692,

p = .027, n = 10), and more reports about sanitationC (r = .667, p = .035, n = 10).

Getting the Goods: Governmental Resources

In those favelas where governmental housing programs were reportedC, all measures of

collective goods such as sportsA (r = .660, p = .007, n = 15) and recreationA (r = .640, p = .01, n =

15); streetsA (r = .691, p = .004, n = 15), sewageA (r = .547, p = .000, n = 39), and trash collectionA

(r = .561, p = .030, n = 15); crchesA (r = .719, p = .003, n = 15) and clinicsA (r = .699, p = .004, n

= 15) were strongly skewed towards the very good end of the five-point Likert scale. Rightly

then, there is a strong feeling (r = .495, p = .061, n = 15) that the favela improved because of the

governmentA where the BID-financed Favela Bairro program made the newsC. There is not such a

relationship (r = -.132, p = .603, n = 18) with all of the locations in which it was implemented by

1998, the year of the survey, however. This is surely due to the legendary disconnect between

allocation and availability of government funds mentioned in the previous chapter.

It is interesting to note that the program similar to Favela Bairro that was designed for

smaller and less populous favelas, Favela Bairrinho, doesnt share the same relationship to

residents reporting that their communities improved due to other (r = .624, n = 013, p = 15), not

the government, not residents , and not religious organizations. There are many public complaints

regarding the top-down style of implementation in the larger Bairro program even though the

design called for including residents in the planning and construction phase in each favela. These

same complaints are not as typical for the smaller program, perhaps because it was easier to

include and employ a representative sample of residents in the smaller community for the group

opinion to be satisfied.

On the other hand, the Bairrinho project has a significant association to the articles

mentioning clientelistic practices in the favelas (r = .700, p = .000, n = 39). This supports the

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speculation that the Bairrinho program was begun in communities with an understanding that they

were the beneficiaries of a single politicians good will.

Further support is the 36.4% of the AM presidents (100% response rate) who reported that

they knew their community had received resources from the government in exchange for votes

during the period of this study. The real percentage is likely higher as the average of the 75% of

those who responded suggests that more than 85% of favelas have exchanged votes for

government resources. Clientelism tends to provide particularistic rather than general benefits as

the politicians, although they like to be seen in favelas around election time, prefer to deal with a

broker who usually includes his own fee on top of what he must promise the community.

Clientelistic relationships could be counted as a logical aspect of BANs as the exchange requires a

certain amount of solidarity on the part of the residentsI was given numbersF between 33-50%

solidarity among the community as the going rate for these brokered exchanges. But, as this study

is looking to the BAN model to help describe democratic participation from the grassroots,

clientelism will have to be considered as a non-democratic subset of external connections. The

regular patron or pastor of the communities should also fall into this non-democratic category.

These are the contacts within the government who the AM presidents can call when they need

something. Around a third of the favelas in this study have such a relationshipF, however, only

three (20%) indicated that it was a stable, long-term relationship.

In addition to infrastructure upgrades and sports programs, government services must be

counted as benefits that can be courted through BANs. Police and security service is not always

negative in the favelas, but it is rare to hear more than equivocal support for the police as an

institution. The data in this study, unfortunately, has only negative associations to report.

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Police violenceC is inversely related to membershipA in the associaes de moradores (r =

-.269, p = .098, n = 39). One of the two possibilities that come from the qualitative part of this

research is that because the AM doesnt have the power of the masses behind it, it is not able to

effectively negotiate with the police, and the favela suffers as a consequence. A second possibility

is that the low AM membership is due to the active presence of drug gangs that attract the police

whose encounters often involve shootouts. Removing the effect of drugs in the favelaC the partial

correlation coefficient between police violence and AM membership is no longer significant (r =

-.350, p = .506, n = 5) suggesting that the second possibility is more likely correct.

Almost half (46.3%) of the 82 articles that were coded as pertaining to public health issues

were also marked as having positive framing for the favela, which explains the positive

relationships with measures of health-related infrastructure. Clinics (r = .85, p = .000, n = 15) and

crches (r = .83, p = .000, n = 15) in or accessible to these communities skew strongly towards the

high end of the five-point Likert scale. Potential public-health-related spillovers are less likely

because, although there is less likelihood of the communities in this group being connected to the

city sewage lines (r = -.35, p = .027, n = 39), they are quite likely to have enclosed septic tanks (r =

.57, p = .000, n = 39), which are considered equally sanitary, and trash collection is also reported

positively (r = .86, p = .000, n = 15). Unrelated to the topics in the articles that were coded as

pertaining to public health, streets also tend towards very good (r = .82, p = .000, n = 15) as well

as sports (r = .83, p = .000, n = 15) and recreation opportunities (r = .45, p = .093, n = 15). These

correlations must be due to an intervening variable such as location or government funds.

Competing Hypotheses

Age and Size and Location as Determinants

The ages of the favelas in this study were determined by either their official history

maintained by the AM that reports the year of occupationE,F, or by an official entry in the municipal

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registry that was opened in 1981F, or the first year of legalization of tenure of at least one parcel in

the favelaF. In most cases in this study, all three dates were obtained. The age of the favela as

measured from the date of foundingF definitely plays a role in the types of problems that the

favelas confront. For example, the older favelas are inversely related to reports of infrastructure

problemsC (r = -.330, p = .046, n = 37), as are South Zone and city-center communitiesF (r =

-.422, p = .007, n = 39). This geographic measure of inequality is particularly vivid in light of the

relative freedom these two fashionable areas have from raw sewage in the aquiferA (r = -.391, p =

.005, n = 51). Age and infrastructure are conceptually related to the lack of governmental projectsC

in the younger favelas

F

(r = .291, p = .085, n = 36). Newer favelas also have to worry more about

being targets for removalE,F (r = -.437, p = .007, n = 37), and the perception in the news trends

away from positive framingC (r = .429, p = .009, n = 36), which suggests they should receive less

sympathy from society at large.

In terms of size, there is a direct relationship between the area occupied by the favela F and

the populationA (r = .639, p = .000, n = 49)18, which is only surprising in the face of the vertical

growth and increasing population density in the older and more urban favelas. The large

population creates a profitable market base for drug gangs, and the large area makes hiding from

police raids easier, consequently police violenceC is higher (r = .39, p = .016, n = 38), and is

confirmed by the residentsA (r = .874, p = .000, n = 17). As sex and violence make for good

entertainment, which is enough of a reason that the more violent favelas get more coverage.

Larger favelas are not only more violent, they are also more likely to be visible from the street and

known by name. This familiarity to the medias audience is another reason that there are more

articles written about the more populous favelas (r = .90, p = .000, n = 38).

18 The relationships of all of the following correlations provided parenthetically are reported consistently with age,

population, size, and percent all having the same directionality. I have tried to use a more natural language to

describe the relationships such as reporting that newer favelas tend to be smaller, which is an inverse relationship

between size and age and the r-value is presented as a negative number.

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The chapter on the history of favelas described the growth pattern of the communities as

moving from the center of the city and port area to the South Zone and then populating the North

Zone as jobs drew workers in that direction. The favela removals in the 1960s and 1970s started

the move into the West Zone and eradicated most of the South Zone and some of the central

favelas. There is currently a patchwork of founding dates across the map of Rio, so the statistical

relationship between the year of founding of the community and geographic zone are not

significant.

Long-term versus Short-term Residents

The time of residence in a community is important for many reasons, and the collection of

the benefits and drawbacks due to the distribution of individuals time in residence help shape the

character of the community. The percentage of residents who have lived in the same favela for 1

to 3, 3 to 5, 5 to 10, and more than 10 yearsA is directly linked to its ageF and populationA (r = .275,

p = .064, n = 46). Probably due to this, the more residents in a community with long periods of

residence live with less fear of removalA,E (r = -.381, p = .026, n = 34), better water deliveryA (r = .

279, p = .060, n = 46), and better conditions overallC (r = -.347, p = .021, n = 34). The common

sense explanation, that older favelas have had more opportunity to be developed bears out under

statistical investigation.

Newer favelasE tend to have shorter term residentsA (r = -.394, p = .007, r = 46) whereas the

longer term residentsA (10 years or more) can just as distinctly be found in the older ones (r =.384,

p = .008, r = 46). This becomes important when social capital is introduced to this explanation as

the natural expectation is that in communities with longer-term residents would have more social

capital built through the repeated interactions of daily life (r = .264, p = .076, n = 46), more time to

be picked up by the newsC and turned into a household name (total articles: r = .306, p = .078, n =

34), and more chances for institutionalized external relationships . Of course, there are some

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confounding circumstances such as the larger populationA, area, and violenceA,C associated with

longer-term residents, as well as clientelismC associated with governmental projectsC (r = .745, p

= .000, n = 3919). These variables should detract from social capital.

All the same, the larger the percentage of long-term residentsA in a favela, the higher the

correlation with measures of social capitalAC, which makes sense given the discussion on how

social capital is formed in the preceding chapter. More iterated interactions between individuals

means greater predictability of future interactional outcomes at the very least. It also allows time

for individuals with similar interests to find each other and create friendships or familiarities.

Turning to the individual-level data, there is a strong, positive relationship between the amount of

time an individual resides in a favelaA and belonging to some community organizationA other than

the AM (r = .363, p = .000, n = 13131). No significant correlation was found between AM

membership and length of residence in the favela, although from qualitative interviews, longer-

term residents expressed a marked lack of sympathy for the games of the AM.

19 Based on coding from the O Globo articles for this study.

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Another Take on Size of Effect: Three Regression Models

Table 1: Regression Models Relating Social Capital and NOGs to an Index of Infrastructure Quality in the FavelasCollinearityStatistics

BStd.Error Beta t Sig.

Tolerance VIF

Model 1Constant -2.882 0.945 -3.049 0.038

Pct. Clients are ResidentsB

3.966 1.105 0.513 3.590 0.023 0.596 1.678Pct. Articles re. Soc CapC 0.508 0.208 0.380 2.445 0.071 0.505 1.981

Pct. Any Org w/in FavelaA 3.200 0.869 0.507 3.683 0.021 0.644 1.554Pct. Soc Cap: Move b/c

FriendA -1.346 0.419 -0.365 -3.214 0.032 0.945 1.058

R R SquareAdjusted R

Square Std. Error Sig.0.975 0.951 0.903 0.091 0.007

Model 2Constant -3.044 1.469 -2.072 0.093

Pct. Clients are ResidentsB 3.814 1.729 0.494 2.206 0.078 0.606 1.649

Pct. Any Org w/in FavelaA 3.921 1.407 0.621 2.787 0.039 0.612 1.635

Local NGOC 0.359 0.219 0.408 1.640 0.162 0.491 2.038

R R Square

Adjusted R


Model 3Constant -3.176 1.549 -2.051 0.096

Pct. Clients are ResidentsA 4.002 1.818 0.518 2.202 0.079 0.597 1.676

Pct. Articles re. Soc CapC 0.460 0.340 0.344 1.356 0.233 0.512 1.954

Pct. Membership in AMA 3.594 1.386 0.580 2.593 0.049 0.661 1.514

R R SquareAdjusted R


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Dependent Variable = pct. Sewer goodA + pct. Recreation goodA + pct. Trash goodA + pct. Clinic goodA

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References Cited:

Arias, Enrique Desmond. 2004. "Faith in Our Neighbors: Networks and Social Order in Three

Brazilian Favelas."Latin American Politics and Society 46 (1):1-38.. 2006. "The Dynamics of Criminal Governance: Networks and Social Order in Rio De

Janeiro."Journal of Latin American Studies 38:293-325.

Junior, Jos. 2006.Da Favela para o Mundo: A Histria do Groupo Cultural Afro Reggae. Rio deJaneiro: Ediouro Publicaes SA.

Pedrosa, Fernanda, Francisco Luis Noel, Luarlindo Ernesto, and Srgio Pugliese. 1990.A

Violncia que Oculta a Favela. Porto Alegre: L&PM.

Perlman, Janice. 2004. "Marginality: From Myth to Reality in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, 1969-2002." In Urban informality : transnational perspectives from the Middle East, Latin

America, and South Asia, ed. A. Roy and N. AlSayyad. Berkeley: UC Berkeley.

Tarrow, Sidney G. 1998.Power in movement : social movements and contentious politics. 2nd ed.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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