Change or continuity: an interpretation of the economic politics of Lula’s government

Abstract

In the first year of government, the administration of Lula implanted a macroeconomic politics characterized by a strong fiscal and monetary restriction and for structural reformations (tributary and of the Social Security) before criticized by the Party of the Workers and for its bases of social support in the last two decades. Keeping in mind these facts and the international expectation generated by the election of a government of left in Brazil in front of the crisis of the neoliberal pattern in Latin America, this article has for objective to analyses: (i) the economic circumstances of the government’s principle Lula that conditioned the adoption of a transition strategy; (ii) the results of this strategy; and (iii) the aspects of continuity and change in the new government. Empiric evidences that sustain that the margin of manoeuvre of the new administration was sensibly narrow as to promote deep changes in the economic politics’s conduction, are presented. However, to part of those restrictions, inherited of the deregulated adjustment of the nineties, the government of Lula opted for the adoption of a group of politicians that will be able to generate a new trap of low growth with macroeconomic uncertainty, in the terms of that experienced in last decade.

Keywords

• brasil
• lula
• cambio
• continuismo
• política económica