1st Edition
Brazil after Bolsonaro The Comeback of Lula da Silva
Brazil after Bolsonaro captures and presents the voices of a wide range of stakeholders including academics and journalists in Brazil and abroad to produce the first systematic engagement with Lula’s latest presidency.
Providing fair and balanced perspectives on Lula, the authors examine the legacy of Lula’s previous presidency; what happened in the interim in the eras of Rousseff, Temer, and Bolsonaro; and what are the challenges facing a new Lula administration. This book is divided into three main sections (Background to change, Context and issues, and Foreign policy) and chapters detail the political, social, and economic dimensions of change in Brazil and its wider repercussions. A fourth section sees Luís Guillermo Solís Rivera, President of Costa Rica from 2014 to 2018, offer reflections on Lula from the perspective of a fellow president.
Assuming no prior knowledge and written in an accessible style, this book is ideal for those seeking to further their understanding of contemporary politics in Brazil and to learn the context and consequences of the transfer of power from Jair Bolsonaro to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
List of figures and tables
Contributors
Preface and Acknowledgements
Part I: The person and situation
1. Lula and the PT in Brazilian politics, 1980-2022
Leslie Bethell
2. A new chance for Lula
Thomas Traumann
3. Why Bolsonaro failed, just
Oswaldo Martins Estanislau do Amaral
Part II: Context and issues
4. A tropical game of thrones: Courts and executive-legislative relations from Bolsonaro to Lula
Marcus André Melo and André Regis de Carvalho
5. The return of Lula and the challenges facing Brazil’s economy: Will the chicken fly?
Edmund Amann
6. Social policies, poverty, and hunger in Brazil: The social and institutional legacy of the Lula/Dilma governments
Paulo Jannuzzi
7. A state of ignorance: Bolsonaro and Brazil’s historic hostility to mass education
Eduardo Bueno
8. Black Identity, mobilisation and politics in Brazil
Gladys Mitchell- Walthour
9. Crime, violence and public security
Anthony Pereira and Renato Sergio de Lima
10. Human rights: Public policies and systems before and after Bolsonaro, and the challenge to rebuild them
Rogerio Sottili and Juliana Bueno
11. Lula and Amazonia
Philip M. Fearnside
12. Lula’s comeback – a new era for Indigenous peoples?
Fiona Watson
Part III: Foreign policy
13. Pink tide revisited: Bolsonarismo, social movements and the future of South American integration
Luísa Calvete Portela Barbosa
14. Brazil in the world
Nelson Franco Jobim
Part IV: The perspective of another President
15. Personal reflections: A colleague’s perspective on Lula
Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera
Index
Biography
Richard Bourne is an author and retired journalist, who was formerly education correspondent of The Guardian as well as a senior fellow at the Institute for Commonwealth Studies. Bourne is author of several books including Garibaldi in South America – an Exploration, Lula of Brazil – the Story so Far, Assault on the Amazon, Getúlio Vargas of Brazil: Sphinx of the Pampas, and Political Leaders of Latin America.
"This volume offers a timely and insightful overview of Lula's return to office and the challenges faced by his new administration. The contributors—including leading experts in the field—provide clear analysis of topics including the political conflicts of the last decade, the persistence of Bolsonarismo, and the politics of social spending, higher education, Black representation, public security, human rights and environmental protections. This is an extremely valuable contribution to understanding current Brazil, both for specialists and a broader audience."
Bryan McCann, Georgetown University
"This insightful book is about the electoral defeat of the extreme-right populist president, Jair Bolsonaro, by a democratic coalition that gave Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva his third term in the presidential office. It is also about the legacy of political radicalization and destruction of state capacities the new president will have to face and overcome. Certainly, a topic of greatest interest for readers that care for the future of democratic politics worldwide."
Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida, University of São Paulo
“This is an essential book to understand today’s Brazil and Lula, whose success is paramount for the aspirational Global South.”
Krishnan Srinivasan, The Wire
"[The] first in-depth assessment of the country's shifting political scene since the sea-change of the October 2022 presidential poll."
Robert Plummer, The Round Table
