Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals (May 2004)
Democracy and Development in Brazil: The Relevance of the Politico-Institutional Dimension
Abstract
In this article, the author analyses the long process of Brazil’s recent history, which has made it possible and feasible to construct an alternative project of power and culminated in Lula’s victory in the 2002 elections: from the break with the country’s previous trajectory and its transition to democracy, to the achievements reached in the macroeconomic sphere, which, nevertheless, have not prevented secular models of injustice and social inequalityfrom being maintained. After making an assessment of the first year of Lula’s Government, marked by continuity and orthodoxy in its macroeconomic policy, which has had a high social cost, and by innovation in the area of foreign policy, the author reaffirms the need to break with the inertia of the established policies and give priority to a new path committed to the national project, orientated toward a new strategy of sustainable development and associated with an innovative form of international integration. Analysts increasingly reaffirm the idea that, despite the Government’s need to meet its foreign commitments, it is possible for it to adapt to world circumstances without renouncing the changes essential to fulfillingthe mandate conferred on it by the ballot boxes.
