Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

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The objective of this study is to understand the logic of popular mobilization in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and New Delhi (India) and to explain why subaltern groups use their political freedoms to mobilize on some issues and not on others. More specifically, the study attempts to address a puzzle: Why do the popular sectors not mobilize to make claims for health when the vast majority of the urban poor experience severe health deficits? My contention is that the nature of public discourse determines both the emergence of popular movements and the issues on which they engage in claims-making. Competing ideas about what democracy is and what it ought to be, the meaning of social justice, and the relationship between democracy and social justice, constitute the 'raw materials' around which mobilization frames are created. The empirical evidence presented in this study supports my claim that the nature of public discourse is crucial for democratic deepening from below. / Based on extensive field research in low-income communities in Sao Paulo and New Delhi, my study explains the differences and similarities in the political actions of the urban poor. In India, the near-absence of a public discourse on health accounts for the lack of mobilization by subaltern groups to seek improvements in their health situation. In contrast, I find that there has been a tradition of public discourse on health in Brazil since the 1970s when "external actors" such as doctors and progressive Church officials became engaged in social causes and contributed to the emergence of health movements. However, since Brazil's transition to democracy, this public discourse has fractured, becoming more receptive to "new" health issues such as violence, even though "old" health problems continue to persist. While the popular sectors experience the dual burden of "old" and "new" health problems, they are perceived to be the cause of many "new" health hazards like violence rather than its victims. The disengagement of "external actors" from "old" health issues and the widespread perception that the popular sectors are themselves to blame for the "new" health problems has inhibited popular mobilization for health in democratic Brazil.

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