ABSTRACT
The objective of this chapter is to analyze the trajectory of the agenda and agency for racial equality from three cycles of democracy in Brazil, namely democratization, democratic establishment, and de-democratization. The first cycle corresponds to the period 1978 to 1989; the second from 1994 to 2015, and the third refers to 2016 to 2019. The focus of the research will be the relationship between social movements, political parties, and the state. This is a sociological approach with a longitudinal character that seeks to understand the trajectory, types, and quality of socio-state interactions. The main hypothesis is that the social movements passed through three moments: the contestation of categorical inequalities; the institutionalization of mediation spaces with the state; and, finally, the process of de-democratization. This latter moment refers both to the delegitimization of equality and rights agendas and to the de-institutionalization of state agencies and formal paths of access for civil society agents to the state, whereby the state is becoming increasingly closed and more hostile to the interests of groups historically underrepresented in Brazil.
