ABSTRACT
Social movement rank and file across Brazil took part in the creation and development of the party which put into practice an organic and symbiotic relation between the two and subsequently broke with the traditional transmission belt model. Many social movements have come to depend on PT governments to express and successfully achieve their existential and program claims while others have abandoned their goals of social transformation for specific social programs which they call the struggle for the possible. The result is that social movements, in their relationship to the ruling national party, contribute to reproducing the structure of power, but open a political space for the excluded populations they represent. This chapter analyzes the relationship between social movements and political parties through a comparative study of three Brazilian social movements, such as So Paulo housing movement, the women's movement, and the MST and their relationship with the Workers Party since it gained power at the national level in 2003.
