Political Report # 1379 Brazil's history is repeating itself: democracy at stake

By  Norberto Montani Martins Jaime Ernesto Winter Hughes León Institute of Economics (IE), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) written for LAP

On October 7^th, 2018, Brazilian citizens witnessed the consolidation of the far-right as the leading political force in the country. The former military Jair Bolsonaro almost won in the first round for the presidency. His party – the Social Liberal Party – achieved one of the largest congressional benches in the Chamber of Deputies (51 out of 513 seats) and candidates associated to Bolsonaro excelled in Senate, Gubernatorial and Legislative Assemblies elections all around Brazil.

The country seems to mirror the path that was already trailed by European countries, such as Austria, Germany, Poland and Italy – not to mention Trump’s election in the U.S. The recent Brazilian experience is connected with this broader global movement towards the far-right, an outcome of a structural crisis of capital in its neoliberal phase.

Differently from Europe, xenophobia does not seem to play a relevant role in the Brazilian case – even though Bolsonaro has already referred to recent immigrants in Brazil as the ‘scum of the world’. Indeed, the very possibility of Bolsonaro taking over is an outcome that combines this global element with the authoritarian political culture in Latin America. The current rise of the far-right, which follows the fall of the 2000s’ Pink Tide, reproduces and synthetises the swing of democratic and anti-democratic regimes that historically characterises politics in the region.

The former Brazilian dictatorship started in 1964 and formally ended in 1985. A democratic period was set up when the so-called citizen Constitution was released. It became the mark of a transition from the dictatorship to a democratic period: the ‘new Republic’ (1988-2015). However, the self-amnesty of the militaries (1979) and the continuity of former political forces in power show that this label ‘democracy’ should be relativized.

Abstract, “Seven Erroneous Theses” 50 Years Later

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“Seven Erroneous Theses” 50 Years Later
by Rodolfo Stavenhagen


I am convinced that, for every year that has gone by since I wrote “Seven Erroneous Theses,” at least one or two additional erroneous theses about Latin America have been advanced. I will not list them here; I leave that to my students. However, there are also many valid theses that I have not yet dealt with and that will be the subject of critical deliberation in the forthcoming years. The magic number “7” felt appropriate to me especially because it recalled—as readers will have guessed—the great Mariátegui’s Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality, which we read avidly during my youthful college years.

I can say that I am satisfied with my text’s publication history. It was first printed in the Mexican newspaper El Día on June 25 and 26, 1965, and was well received. Shortly afterward it appeared as a chapter in anthologies and as an article in several specialized journals both in Mexico and in other Latin American countries. It was soon translated into other languages and has had a long career, continuing to appear in new publications to this day. I have sometimes been asked to reassess or update it. In 1985, 20 years after its first appearance, I gave a lecture on the topic at the Universidad Superior de San Andrés in La Paz, Bolivia, and in 1995 I did the same at a sociology congress in Bogotá. I cannot remember if these texts were published.

Book Review, The Diplomacy of Revolution and Counterrevolution: Some of the Secrets Revealed

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The Diplomacy of Revolution and Counterrevolution: Some of the Secrets Revealed
by Nelson P. Valdés

Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana

LeoGrande William M. & Kornbluh Peter Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.

The authors and publishers of Back Channel to Cuba have an extraordinary—in fact impressive—sense of timing. The book became available to the general public just a few weeks before the Cuban and American presidents announced, on the same day (December 17, 2014), that full diplomatic relations would be restored by the governments of the United States and Cuba. LeoGrande and Kornbluh describe their book as presenting “a comprehensive chronicle of the history of dialogue between the United States and Cuba since 1959” (3). They call this unknown history “secret back-channel diplomacy”and note that the process of negotiation has been arduous, difficult, and complex. Indeed, and long overdue.

Book Review, Cien Años de Lucha: Narratives of Cuba’s Revolutionary History

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Cien Años de Lucha: Narratives of Cuba’s Revolutionary History
by William M. LeoGrande

Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality

Lamrani Salim Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2015.

The Last Soldiers of the Cold War: The Story of the Cuban Five

Morais Fernando The Last Soldiers of the Cold War: The Story of the Cuban Five. London: Verso, 2015.

Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape

Ritter Archibald R. M. & Henken Ted A. Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2015.

The Structure of Cuban History: Meaning and Purpose of the Past

Perez Louis A.,Jr. The Structure of Cuban History: Meaning and Purpose of the Past. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.

Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959–1979

Guerra Lillian Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959–1979. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

Revolutionary Cuba: A History

Martínez-Fernández Luis Revolutionary Cuba: A History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014.

“Revolution means . . . changing everything that must be changed,” said Fidel Castro on May 1, 2000. This slogan has become the watchword for the far-reaching changes under way since 2008, when Raúl Castro succeeded Fidel as president.1 In 2011 Cuba embarked upon a fundamental reorganization of the economy as outlined in the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution adopted at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, 2011). Then on December 17, 2014, President Castro and President Barack Obama stunned the world by announcing their agreement to begin normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations, setting aside half a century of hostility.

Book Review, Changing Dynamics in Bolivia

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Changing Dynamics in Bolivia
by Linda Farthing

Unresolved Tensions: Bolivia, Past and Present

Crabtree John & Whitehead Laurence (eds.). Unresolved Tensions: Bolivia, Past and Present. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.

The Bolivian Revolution and the United States, 1952 to the Present

Siekmeier James F. The Bolivian Revolution and the United States, 1952 to the Present. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.

Along the Bolivian Highway: Social Mobility and Political Culture in a New Middle Class

Shakow Miriam Along the Bolivian Highway: Social Mobility and Political Culture in a New Middle Class. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

Mobilizing Bolivia’s Displaced: Indigenous Politics and the Struggle over Land

Fabricant Nicole Mobilizing Bolivia’s Displaced: Indigenous Politics and the Struggle over Land. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia

Webber Jeffrey Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia. Chicago: Haymarket, 2011.

Bolivia’s recent trajectory toward greater inclusion of its indigenous majority has brought more scholarly attention to the Andean country than in any previous era. The five books reviewed here, published between 2008 and 2014, reflect this international interest in what Evo Morales’s government calls the “process of change.” Three of the books address political economy broadly speaking, and the other two are anthropological studies of two groups—the emerging middle class in the provincial town of Sacaba, outside Cochabamba, and the landless workers in the eastern lowlands in Santa Cruz. Taken together they consider Bolivia from the national political and economic scale to the specificity of daily life.

Book Review, Between Loyalty and Legitimacy: Leadership in the Cuban Revolution

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Between Loyalty and Legitimacy: Leadership in the Cuban Revolution
by Daniel Salas-González

Leadership in the Cuban Revolution: The Unseen Story

Kapcia Antoni Leadership in the Cuban Revolution: The Unseen Story. London and Halifax/Winnipeg: Zed Books/Fernwood Publishing, 2014.

For decades, historical and political studies about revolutionary Cuba have placed the personality of Fidel Castro at the center of their interpretive approaches. This sort of narrative has blurred the understanding of the Cuban case by exaggerating the role of the “commander in chief.” In Leadership in the Cuban Revolution: The Unseen Story, the historian Antoni Kapcia challenges “the assumption that he [Fidel Castro], and he alone, created, engineered, determined and . . . perhaps distorted and destroyed the Revolution” (1).

Abstract, Social Movements in Chile (1983–2013): Four Theoretical and Historical Moments

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Social Movements in Chile (1983–2013): Four Theoretical and Historical Moments
by Mónica Iglesias Vázquez         


During the 1980s, the study of social movements became a central element of Chilean social thought. In the context of the struggle against the dictatorship, the forms of organization and protest deployed by the popular sectors attracted the attention of academics and politicians in an attempt to determine their nature and democratizing potential. Hegemonic sociology concluded that social movements did not exist in Chile and that social mobilizations had to be subordinate to the strategy of political parties, thereby bestowing a “scientific” status on the social-political divide. In the 1990s, with the end of the dictatorship, those sociologists abandoned the study of social movements. Only social history persisted in the understanding of the formation of popular subjectivities, contributing tools for characterizing the popular realm and the most recent outbreaks of protest and mobilization.

Book, Intellectuals and the Search for National Identity in Twentieth-Century Brazil

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Intellectuals and the Search for National Identity in Twentieth-Century Brazil
by Ronald H. Chilcote

This book discusses twentieth-century Brazilian political thought, arguing that while Rio de Janeiro intellectuals envisaged the state and the national bourgeoisie as the means to overcome dependency on foreign ideas and culture, São Paulo intellectuals looked to civil society and the establishment of new academic institutions in the search for national identity. Ronald H. Chilcote begins his study by outlining Brazilian intellectuals' attempt to transcend a sense of inferiority emanating from Brazilian colonialism and backwardness. Next, he traces the struggle for national identity in Rio de Janeiro through an account of how intellectuals of varying political persuasions united in search of a political ideology of national development. He then presents an analysis by São Paulo intellectuals on racial discrimination, social inequality, and class differentiation under early capitalism and industrialization. The book concludes with a discussion on how Brazilian intellectuals challenged foreign thinking about development through the state and representative democratic institutions, in contrast to popular and participatory democratic practices.

Interview with Managing Editor, Ronald Chilcote, on The History and Development of LAP

Ronald Chilcote, Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives (LAP), discusses LAP's history, some foundational texts the journal helped create, and why LAP continues to be important for understanding the issues in Latin America, as a "Latin American journal".

Book, Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know

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Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know

by Miguel Tinker Salas

Among the top ten oil exporters in the world and a founding member of OPEC, Venezuela currently supplies 11 percent of U.S. crude oil imports. But when the country elected the fiery populist politician Hugo Chavez in 1998, tensions rose with this key trading partner and relations have been strained ever since. 

Book, Intellectuals and the Search for National Identity in Twentieth-Century Brazil

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Intellectuals and the Search for National Identity in Twentieth-Century Brazil
by Ronald H. Chilcote

This book discusses twentieth-century Brazilian political thought, arguing that while Rio de Janeiro intellectuals envisaged the state and the national bourgeoisie as the means to overcome dependency on foreign ideas and culture, São Paulo intellectuals looked to civil society and the establishment of new academic institutions in the search for national identity. Ronald H. Chilcote begins his study by outlining Brazilian intellectuals' attempt to transcend a sense of inferiority emanating from Brazilian colonialism and backwardness. Next, he traces the struggle for national identity in Rio de Janeiro through an account of how intellectuals of varying political persuasions united in search of a political ideology of national development. He then presents an analysis by São Paulo intellectuals on racial discrimination, social inequality, and class differentiation under early capitalism and industrialization. The book concludes with a discussion on how Brazilian intellectuals challenged foreign thinking about development through the state and representative democratic institutions, in contrast to popular and participatory democratic practices.

Book, Latin America: An Interpretive History

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Latin America: An Interpretive History, 10th Edition
by Julie A. Charlip and E. Bradford Burns

For courses in the History of Latin America and Modern Latin America.

A thoroughly updated examination of Latin American 
Latin America: An Interpretive History interweaves the story of Latin America with coverage of broader themes and regional differences. Building upon the work of original author E. Bradford Burns, current author Julie Charlip presents Latin American history as a continuum to help students make connections among time periods and events, and see the impact of the past upon the present. A new closing chapter examines in detail the “Pink Tide”–the swing left in Latin America that began at the end of the twentieth century and has continued over the last 15 years.  

Book, "Pachakutik: Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador" By Marc Becker

Pachakutik: Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador 
By Marc Becker

This authoritative book provides a deeply informed overview of one of the most dynamic social movements in Latin America. Focusing on contemporary Indigenous movements in Ecuador, leading scholar Marc Becker traces the growing influence of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), which in 1990 led a powerful uprising that dramatically placed a struggle for Indigenous rights at the center of public consciousness. Activists began to refer to this uprising as a "pachakutik," a Kichwa word that means change, rebirth, and transformation, both in the sense of a return in time and the coming of a new era. Five years later, proponents launched a new political movement called Pachakutik to compete for elected office. In 2006, Ecuadorians elected Rafael Correa, who many saw as emblematic of the new Latin American left, to the presidency of the country. Even though CONAIE, Pachakutik, and Correa shared similar concerns for social justice, they soon came into conflict with each other.