This paper examines changes in the range of collective actions by social movements in Brazil, which are derived from contradictory transformations in the recent Brazilian context. Its objective is to understand the strategic dilemmas associated with the institutional insertion of these movements, a recurrent phenomenon from the 1990s onward, emphasizing the implications of the persistence of clientelistic relations and personalized political mediations as forms of access to the State. Through those contradictory and ambivalent combinations, which are woven into the fabric of Brazilian culture and politics, social movements shape their projects and strategic choices, thus conferring new meanings to the difficult construction of democracy in Brazil.