Bryan Pitts is assistant director of the UCLA Latin American Institute. His book, Until the Storm Passes: Politicians, Democracy, and the Demise of Brazil's Military Dictatorship, was published in 2023 by University of California Press.
What the Aftermath of January 8 Tells Us about Brazilian Democracy By Bryan Pitts Sunday, January 8, the world watched, horrified, as hordes of supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro broke into Congress, the presidential palace, and the Supreme Court in Brasília. They sprayed graffiti, smashed priceless art and furniture, and assaulted janitors. Convinced […]
Brazil faces a stark choice in its presidential runoff Sunday. Can Lula and the Left overcome Bolsonaro’s misinformation and attempts to buy the vote? By Bryan Pitts for NACLA n Sunday, up to 156 million Brazilian voters will go to the polls to choose a new president in a run-off election. The stakes could not […]
By Bryan Pitts The weeks since the Russian invasion of Ukraine have witnessed an astonishing unity of purpose among the world’s democracies, as leaders from Washington to Warsaw, from Wellington to Athens, have set aside their differences to stand against Russian aggression. Or so the story goes. What this narrative leaves out, however, is that […]
By Bryan Pitts. Ever since the Obama administration’s silence in 2016 when Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was removed in a legally-spurious impeachment that constituted a congressional coup, the question of the role of the United States in that process has been the elephant in the room. Even a casual student of history knows that the […]
The United States has spent over a century meddling in Latin America. Recent crusades against corruption in Latin America are only the latest chapter. Today Brazil is on the front lines of the US battle to re-establish its hegemony in the region. by Bryan Pitts When you study Latin American history, as I have for […]
President Dilma Rousseff appears to have weathered calls for her impeachment, but the ruling Workers’ Party is in tatters, and a resurgent right is threatening the social progress of the last 12 years. Yet despite recent setbacks the left is showing signs of regeneration. Sunday, August 16, witnessed a third round of protests against Brazil’s […]
Sunday, April 12, was supposed to be bigger than ever before. The same groups that organized Brazil’s March 15 demonstrations against Dilma Rousseff’s government via social media had planned a new wave of protests across Brazil. Today they are undoubtedly privately disappointed. The early crowd estimates indicate a drop of at least 50% in every […]