The Workers' Party in Brazil
From social struggles to the tests of power
par Camille Goirand
Summary
Has the Workers' Party in Brazil become a party like any other, to the point of losing its soul? Long seen as a party that defended the poorest, born out of opposition to the authoritarian regime and formed in the midst of workers' movements in the São Paulo region, the PT entered the game of political institutions in the 1990s. After taking control of several regional metropolises, it gradually gained a foothold throughout the country, culminating in the presidential victory of its emblematic leader, Lula, in 2002. The career of this charismatic figure in the PT, from the deprived lands of the Nordeste interior to the presidential palace, is indicative of the social transformations that have taken place in this party, which has gone from being a protest party to a party of government.
Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Recife, in north-east Brazil, and a localised analysis of politics, this book looks at the biographical paths of local party activists and executives. It examines the apprenticeship of the political profession, the social roots of the party, changes in the way campaigns are run and the meaning of partisan commitment.
Author
Camille Goirand is a professor of political science at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l'Amérique Latine (IHEAL) and a researcher at the Centre d'Etudes et de Documentation sur les Amériques (CREDA - UMR 7227).
She is pursuing comparative research on political involvement and participation in Brazil and Latin America, as well as on mobilisations and their repression.
She is the author of The politics of the favelas (Karthala, 2000), and directed Places of anger (Karthala, 2015, with David Garibay and Hélène Combes) as well as a dossier entitled Impeachment(s) in Brazil (published in Lusotopia, n°17, 2018), with Marie-Hélène Sa Vilas Boas.
Contents
Foreword - The PT in turmoil
Introduction
Part One - From social movement to party: the making of a protest party
Chapter 1: Facing the end of authoritarianism
Chapter 2: Building the party from the bottom up
Chapter 3: A decade of mobilisation
Part Two - The institutionalisation of the party in the 1990s
Chapter 4: Entering the institutions: consolidating the pt
Chapter 5: between activism and local mandates: political professionalisation at the pt of recife
Chapter 6: power games within the pt
Part Three - From challenge to prosecution
Chapter 7: Workers' Party, Government Party
Chapter 8: A segmented party: personal rivalries within the pt
Chapter 9: Disenchantment and disengagement
Conclusion
At the PT, what remains of past commitments?
Interpretation community and "group style
Routes of protest, routes of power
Reviews and speeches
Le monde diplomatiqueBooks of the Month, May 2019, p. 24.
Cahiers des Amériques latines2020, no. 94, Damien Larrouqué, p. 255-257.
Review HumanitiesMay 2019, no. 314, Nicolas Journet
JSSJ - Justice spatiale/Spatial justice, October 2019, n°13, Bernard Bret
Camille Goirand, Marie-Hélène Sa Vilas Boas, 2018, " Accounting for the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff: proposals for a scientific agenda ", Lusotopian°17, p. 11-33.
Camille Goirand, 2016, " Le PT light on the campaign trail. The institutionalisation of the Workers' Party (Brazil) as seen from its electoral campaigns, 1980-2010", Politix, 29 (113), p. 65-89.
Daniella de Castro Rocha, Camille Goirand, 2010, Access to Workers' Party archives in Brazil: cross-experiences and scale games, International Journal of Comparative Politics, n°4, vol. 17, p. 109-125.