Brazil

Plebiscite on the FTAA

City/State/Region
Begin – End: 2002 – 2002
Name of organization in charge: Assembleia Popular
Type of organization in charge: civil society
Level: national

Impact

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Implementation: was the innovation effectively, partially or not put into practice at all?

Fulfillment of Aims: were the goals of the innovation completely, partially or not achieved at all?

Output: has the innovation generated recommendations, initiatives, decisions or policies?

Outcome: if there were a policy output, was it enacted or implemented?

Implementation: yes
Fulfillment of Democratic Innovation’s aim: yes
Output: yes
Policy Outcome: yes

The plebiscite on the FTAA consisted in a campaign organized by various civil society organizations in Brazil to discuss and ask citizens if they agreed on the country?s accession to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. The plebiscite took place between September 1st and 7th, 2002, in 3,894 municipalities. 98% of the 10,149,542 voters were contrary to the accession. In addition to this question, two other questions were submitted to the referendum: 1. Do you approve or not of the presence of Brazil in the negotiations to form the economic block of the Americas? 2. Do you approve of the bill that would allow the United States to use the Alcântara launch base? 96% or 9,737,190 people defended that the Brazilian Government should suspend the negotiations to form the block and more than 99%, or 10,006,740 voters, were contrary to assigning Alcântara. The goal of the movement was to stimulate the federal government to convene an official plebiscite on the topic, but political authorities at the time did not do so.

Institutional design

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Formalization: is the innovation embedded in the constitution or legislation, in an administrative act, or not formalized at all?

Frequency: how often does the innovation take place: only once, sporadically, or is it permanent or regular?

Mode of Selection of Participants: is the innovation open to all participants, access is restricted to some kind of condition, or both methods apply?

Type of participants: those who participate are individual citizens, civil society organizations, private stakeholders or a combination of those?

Decisiveness: does the innovation takes binding, non-binding or no decision at all?

Co-governance: is there involvement of the government in the process or not?

Formalization: not backed by constitution nor legislation, nor by any governmental policy or program
Frequency: single
Mode of selection of participants: open
Type of participants: citizens civil society
Decisiveness: democratic innovation yields a non-binding decision
Co-Governance: no

Means

Deliberation
Direct Voting
E-Participation
Citizen Representation

Ends

Accountability
Responsiveness
Rule of Law
Political Inclusion
Social Equality

Policy cycle

Agenda setting

Formulation and decision-making

Implementation

Policy Evaluation