Roger Thayer Stone Center For Latin American Studies

Tulane University

Timothy Power discusses Brazil's Democracy and Presidents Lula and Dilma

January 7th, 2013

On December 5, 2012, Tulane's Center for Inter-American Policy welcomed Dr. Timothy Power, Director of Graduate Studies in Politics at Oxford University. Dr. Power opened his lecture, "Brazilian Democracy from Lula to Dilma," by providing a brief overview of Brazil's political system and a summary of the country's 2010 presidential election. He illustrated how Brazil's political system represents a sort of hybrid between European coalitional politics and American presidentialism, a "coalitional presidentialism" in which two presidential parties lead legislative party coalitions. The 2010 election itself was the largest election in the history of Latin America, though it was not, in Dr. Power's view, a "change election." Instead, the election reflected the desire of most Brazilians to maintain the lines of public policy implemented by Lula da Silva, including the preservation and further development of an important social safety net.

Dr. Power reviewed some of Lula's most salient accomplishments as President of Brazil, including the country's impressive economic record during his tenure. After decades of flat growth, Brazilian GDP finally resumed growth at rates not seen since the 1960s. Furthermore, under Lula's leadership, poverty and inequality decreased dramatically. Dr. Power underscored how Lula's signature social safety net program, Bolsa Familia, became the crowning achievement and legacy of his presidency. Other indicators of the rising standard of living in Brazil under Lula include an explosion of consumer credit and increased access to communication, automobiles, and travel. As an example he mentioned that the number of Brazilian air travellers more than doubled between 2002 and 2010. Altogether this earned Lula and his PT party considerable political clout.

Dr. Power then turned to discuss current president Dilma Rousseff, focusing on the salience of Lula's popularity and legacy for her presidency. In her youth, Dilma was active as part of an armed guerrilla movement that opposed Brazil's military regime. Such political activity led to six years in jail during which she endured torture at the hands of her captors. However, until six months prior to the 2010 election, Dilma was virtually unknown in Brazil and had never held elective office. Dr. Power related how Dilma earned the esteem and confidence of Lula after effectively managing a scandal for the president in 2005. In the months leading to the 2010 election, Lula presented Dilma as his candidate of choice, and she rapidly garnered widespread popularity. In Dr. Power's view, the pervasiveness of Lula's popularity among Brazilians rendered his endorsement of Dilma politically potent and decisive. With Lula's backing, essentially all that Dilma needed to achieve in order to win the presidency was to avoid making mistakes during the campaign, something she accomplished. However, a negative consequence of this is that, unlike Lula, Dilma is not entirely "the author of her own government," and must define her own roadmap and legacy if she is not to remain dependent on Lula's popularity.

-Hannagan Johnson

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Rethinking State-Society Relations in Contemporary Latin America

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The emergence, crisis, and collapse of neoliberalism gave way to new types of political regimes that set themselves the task of redefining state-society relationships to promote more socially inclusive polities. The accomplishments and shortcomings of those processes need yet to be evaluated, particularly from an encompassing, historically-informed perspective that is not afraid of challenging established assumptions and mainstream understandings of Latin America to do justice to current developments. What are the continuities/ discontinuities in terms of state-society linkages that the various processes of change experienced since the return to democracy introduced in the Latin American landscape? Is Latin America moving towards a more democratic and inclusive society? What is the nature of the new patterns of state-society interaction? Have they drastically altered the legacy of populism, bureaucratic-authoritarianism, and neoliberalism?, in which specific ways? Are emerging regimes promoting new patterns of exclusion or novel forms of authoritarianism?

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The University of Georgia, Tulane University, and Vanderbilt University will collaborate to offer a Summer Institute on Brazilian Culture and Portuguese Language. K-12 educators of any discipline and grade-level are welcome to apply to attend this 4 day institute. The goal of this institute is to encourage and promote the teaching of Portuguese and the culture of Brazil through film, literature, service learning, and technology in any K-12 classroom. The institute will focus on the language, history, and geography of Brazil. Sessions will include Portuguese language instruction and participants will explore the culture, history, and geography of Brazil. Film screenings and other presentations will be incorporated into the institute to highlight contemporary and engaging cultural content for the K-12 classroom. During the week, educators will work in teams to develop interdisciplinary units that address applicable state learning standards, which they will bring back to their schools to teach and share with colleagues. Educators may receive a certificate of completion for 20 hours of professional development if desired.

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All majors are welcome to apply to spend two weeks in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. Ecuador: Tropical Field Biology and Conservation gives students the opportunity to apply the theory and knowledge they have acquired in the classroom to the real world. Students will travel with Dr. Karubian and Dr. Duraes to Ecuador for a two-week intensive field course. While on the course, students will experience first-hand the challenges and rewards of conducting field research and implementing conservation activities in tropical environments. These activities will take place within a context of community engagement based on active collaboration and interaction with Ecuadorian local residents in a variety of contexts.

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We welcome papers that address any facet of the Caribbean radicalis and radical approaches to Caribbean identity, culture and social practices. Papers may focus on one country or invoke comparative strategies of any regions contained in the greater Caribbean, beyond the confines of the Caribbean sea, northeast of the Florida straits and into the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans, and south, along the Atlantic coast, past Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil. Papers may be in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese, though English is preferred.

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