Lula The Workers Party And The Governability Dilemma In Brazil

While scholars, activists and pundits from around the world have heralded the Lula years as a breakthrough for poverty reduction and the forthcoming emergence of Brazil as a dynamic economic superpower, many of their counterparts in the country as well as a number of Brazilianists elsewhere, have expressed great disappointment. Tracing back the trajectory of Brazilian Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores - PT), Hernán F. Gómez Bruera explores how holding national executive public office contributed decisively to a pragmatic shift away from the party’s radical redistributive and participatory platform, earning the approbation of international audiences and criticisms of domestic progressives. He explains why a unique party, which originally promoted a radical progressive agenda of socio-economic redistribution and participatory democracy, eventually adopted an orthodox economic policy, formed legislative alliances with conservative parties, altered its relationship with social movements and relegated the participatory agenda to de sidelines. Touching on multiple dimensions, from economic policy and land reform to social policy, this book offers a distinct explanation as to why progressive parties of mass-based origin shift to the center over time and alter their relationships with their allies in civil society. Written in a clear and accessible style and featuring an enormous wealth of firsthand accounts from party leaders at all levels and within different factions, Gómez Bruera offers much needed new insights into why progressive parties alter their discourses and strategies when they occupy executive public office.

This edited collection interprets and assesses the transformation of Brazil under the Workers' Party. It addresses the extent of the changes the Workers' Party has brought about and examines how successful these have been, as well as how continuity and social change in Brazil have affected key domains of economy, society, and politics.

A history of the Workers Party in Brazil recounts their origins and four successive tries for power before Luiz Incio Lula da Silva's 2002 election as the first democratically elected socialist leader since Salvador Allende. Reprint.

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Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) became Latin America's first democratically elected socialist leaders since Salvador Allende on October 27, 2002. He achieved nearly 62 per cent of the vote, to become the first left-wing politician to win his country's presidency. But behind this victory for Lula and his Workers' party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT) is a long and difficult struggle for ascendancy which began in the early 1980s. Written by a Brazilian academic and a British journalist who have long associations with the PT, this book tells the story of the PT's origins and electoral history, outlining the key politicians behind it, as well as their four subsequent tries for power.

As the first legal mass party of the left in Brazil's recent history, the Worker's Party has reflected and contributed to the country's transition from military rule to democracy. Keck describes its origins and formative years in the context of the growing political opposition to military rule.