Abstract, "State, State Institutions, and Political Power in Brazil" by Armando Boito and Alfredo Saad-Filho

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State, State Institutions, and Political Power in Brazil 
by Armando Boito and Alfredo Saad-Filho

The political conflicts during the Workers’ Party administrations led by Luís Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff have been driven by disputes between two fractions of the country’s bourgeoisie: the internal and the internationalized bourgeoisie. Their ideologies, policies, institutions, and forms of political representation have determined government policies and outcomes. These processes have unfolded within an authoritarian democracy whose structures have not been challenged by the party. The party’s limited power and continuing timidity have produced an aggressive reaction by the internationalized bourgeoisie and the upper middle class, leading to a severe crisis in the administration of President Dilma Rousseff.

Abstract, Deconstructing the Post-Neoliberal State: Intimate Perspectives on Contemporary Brazil by Wendy Wolford and John D. French

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Deconstructing the Post-Neoliberal State: Intimate Perspectives on Contemporary Brazil 
by Wendy Wolford and John D. French

The last three presidential administrations in Brazil, including the two presidencies of Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva (2002–2010) and the first term of Dilma Rousseff (2010-2014), have complicated widely held understandings of the Brazilian state. It is no longer possible to characterize recent governments as simply authoritarian, patrimonial, or divorced from the experiences of the Brazilian public (see Pereira in this issue). The path to “deepening democracy” (Fung, Wright, and Abers, 2003) has not been an easy or straightforward one, as recent protests and ongoing corruption scandals have shown, and yet a brief history of the recent past illustrates dramatic change. In 1985 a 21-year dictatorship—what Peter Evans (1989) called a “developmental state”—was defeated only to be followed by debt-fueled crisis and a decade of economic stagnation. Hyperinflation and economic uncertainty led in turn to an era of neoliberal governance, including the privatization of state-owned enterprises, reduction of trade protections, and establishment of regional free-market zones (Baker, 2002; Corrales, 2012; Power, 1998; Wolford, 2005).