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E-book A Horizon of (Im)possibilities : A Chronicle of Brazil’s Conservative Turn

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Penilaian

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The 2018 presidential election result in Brazil surprised many. Since then, numerous debates and a growing body of texts have attempted to understand this result and unearth the seeds that sowed what was understood by different analysts as the country’s ‘conservative turn’. In this introduction, we will not elaborate on all the factors that constitute or contribute to this conservative turn; instead, after briefly sketching out key insights from recent studies on Brazil’s political and social transformations before and after the 2018 election, we focus on some relevant issues which we consider helpful in comprehending the historical moment of Bolsonaro’s ascendance to power. Alongside important disruptions, we place emphasis on continuities in relation to the country’s authoritarian tradition, an aspect which has been significantly overlooked in academic debates. In this sense, we argue that Brazil did not experience a sudden conservative turn, but rather a ‘conservative return’. In doing so, we stress the particularity of Brazil’s transformation in relation to an authoritarian and far-right rise at the global level, often with distinctly populist characteristics, while acknowledging their common ground. Finally, we briefly introduce each chapter in turn, discussing how their interdisciplinary perspectives allow us to approach the complex conditions in place from different, and often complementary, analytical angles A great number of analyses have focused on the factors that brought Jair Bolsonaro to power, and as the first mandate of his presidency is still unfolding, there will certainly be many more. In their discussion, Wendy Hunter and Timothy Power suggested that the ‘meteoric rise’ of Bolsonaro was made possible by ‘a combination of fundamental background conditions’ (such as economic recession, corruption and crime), political contingencies (especially the weakness of rival candidates) and ‘a shakeup in campaign dynamics produced by the strategic use of social media’ (Hunter and Power, 2019, p. 70). Many emphasised endogenous factors that purportedly determined Brazilians’ voting behaviour, such as the effects of economic and political events on people’s ‘conservative subjectivity’ (Pinheiro-Machado and Scalco, 2020) and a collective yearning for change and security (Singer and Venturi, 2019). While some regarded the political climate that led to the election as conjunctural and possibly temporary, others tied it to larger socio-political processes and a chronic ‘pendular movement’ (Avritzer, 2018) between democratic and anti-democratic political structures and forces in Brazil. Some underlined cultural and moral aspects behind voters’ support for Bolsonaro (e.g. Almeida, 2019) and the seismic effect of major corruption scandals that first broke out in 2005 (i.e. the so-called Mensalão, referring to the monthly allowance paid to deputies for loyal voting, which profoundly shook the first Workers’ Party government: see e.g. Bethell, 2018, p. 216) and were further unveiled through the Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation. Indeed, such was the avalanche of Car Wash-related developments – which culminated in the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff on charges of violating federal budgetary laws in 2016 and in the imprisonment of several prominent politicians, among them former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – in the years preceding the 2018 election that, for some analysts, ‘the histrionics over Brexit’ and ‘the conniptions over Trump in America are close to much ado about nothing’, as Perry Anderson (2019) emphatically suggested.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

304.681 ARR a

Penerbit

London : University of London Press., 2021

Deskripsi Fisik

257 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781908857927

Klasifikasi

304.681

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Population in Brazil

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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