Participatory Planning of Social and Spatial Organization in Agrarian Reform Policy in Brazil： An Assessment of the Implementation Challenges

The social endeavors for Agrarian Reform in Brazil have a history of at least sixty years. Throughout this time, distinct political regimes, increased land concentration, disordered urbanization and the development of a dynamic agribusiness sector inserted in global economy led to both the aggravation of social conflicts over land in Northern and Southern Brazil as well as new inquiries on the features necessary for an efficient Agrarian Reform Plan in the authors＇ country. Focused on the agrarian reform projects in the Brazilian Amazon, this work discusses on the political and methodological perspectives drawn in II PNRA （second National Plan of Agrarian Reform）. The authors frame their account mostly along the theoretical scaffolding provided by the Bloomington School of Institutional Analysis. The authors analyze the multiple challenges facing the organization and the maintenance of the institutional structure designed to facilitate participatory planning and governance of collective resources in periurban settlements. The authors portrait these settlements as highly complex socio-ecological systems wherein socioeconomic asymmetries, cultural diversity and poor social capital and education promote political and ideological disputes that jeopardize safeguarding global commons.