“Brazil: Social Change from Import-Substitution to Neoliberalism and the ‘Events of June’” By Alfredo Saad Filho originally published at nuvole.it Introduction [1] Large demonstrations erupted unexpectedly in Brazil in June 2013. The wave of protests lasted until mid-July, and it involved well over one million people in several hundred cities. At an immediate level, the […]
In 2001 when Brazilian democracy proved strong enough to bring ex-metalworker and union head Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the Presidency the country became an international sensation receiving compliments from some of the most important leaders around the world as well as the United Nations. Equally important the economy was stable and grew at an average […]
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 […]
Brazil’s political climate is as polarised and fractious as ever, and it’s getting nastier. While some desperately attempt to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, a minority of right-wing protesters are openly asking for a military intervention. This comes a year after a major report on the use of torture under the military regime that ran Brazil from 1964-1985. With those memories still so fresh, another […]
By Jan K. Black It was often said in Latin America in the early 1960s that when the United States sneezed, Latin America caught pneumonia. In fact, it was repeated year after year until the fall of 2008, when the United States caught pneumonia and Latin America sneezed. Brazil, in particular, after a short spell […]
The partnership between Brasil Wire and LeMonde Diplomatique Brasil continues with our second shared article, by Dr. Marcio Pochmann, one of Brasil’s most important developmentalist economists. The filters that uphold Brazil’s meritocracy are expressed in social monopolies through education, recommendation networks and relationship circles. Public policies for inclusion are challenging them on several levels, revealing […]
‘Transforming Brazil: a History of National Development in the Postwar Era’ critically revisits the context of the time in Brazil in order to reexamine traditional questions and notions pertaining to the nature of Latin America’s political culture and institutions. It was in this period that the region lived some of its most intense and successful […]
In her 1977 book “United States Penetration of Brazil“, former CIA researcher, Professor Jan K Black exposed the complex role the US had played in Brazil’s 1964 coup and its governance since. This extremely detailed forensic investigation should be a standard reference for anyone studying the 1964 coup, the dictatorship period and relations between the countries, both then, […]
Successive demonstrations in its most important cities, brawls between militants of opposing ideological sides who see the other as an enemy rather than a political adversary, growing numbers of strikes, verbal and written attacks in the media, rising polarization in Congress. A good description of what has been taken place in the country of the […]
Operation Car Wash, the investigation into the misuse of funds within Brazil’s partially state-owned oil company Petrobras, is little over a year old – but it has already taken as many twists and turns as a Brazilian telenovela. Federal judge, Sergio Moro, and federal prosecutors are investigating a complicated scheme in which construction companies allegedly bribed Petrobras […]