Brazil: third ways in the Third World
RECLAIMING LATIN AMERICA: EXPERIMENTS IN RADICAL SOCIAL DEMOCRACY (ZED BOOKS)
During Latin America’s 2005/06 election cycle, Jorge Castañeda observed two distinctive lefts: one, led by Venezuela and Bolivia, was characterized as turbulent and uncertain; the other, associated with Brazil and Chile, was seen as a more secure social democratic alternative (Castañeda 2006) . More recently Sandbrook et al. have suggested that while the governments of both the Workers’ Party (PT) and its predecessor the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) were social democratic, Brazil itself was not a social democracy (Sandbrook et al. 2007: 238-42) . Both suggestions seemed odd in the light of the PT’s supposed political and fiscal irresponsibility prior to its first presidential victory in 2002, and of the PSDB’s association with neoliberal policies. Indeed, both parties appear to share an identity that is centre-left, and increasingly middle-class, and have advocated social policies and programmes that would enhance the opportunities of the poor, including cheap AIDS drugs,...
