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Roundtable: The far right rises in Brazil: what explains and what to expect from Bolsonaro’s electoral victory

08 Nov, 17:00 - 19:00

Fitzpatrick Hall, Queen’s College, Cambridge, CB3 9ET

Speakers

Maite Conde (University of Cambridge)

Malu Gatto (University of Zurich)

Nadya Araujo Guimarães (University of São Paulo)

Alfredo Saad-Filho (SOAS, University of London)

Graham Denyer Willis (University of Cambridge)

Pedro Mendes Loureiro (University of Cambridge)

On 28 October, Brazil became the latest country to elect a far-right head of state, amplifying Latin America’s drift from the left and following the global rise of the far right. The election took place amidst massive economic and political crisis, rising crime rates, and growing inequality and poverty. In the middle of this turmoil, president-elect Jair Bolsonaro led a campaign built openly upon misogynistic, racist, homophobic and anti-democratic positions, cruising to win 55% of valid votes, against 45% of the Workers’ Party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad. Bolsonaro’s platform drew on widespread disillusionment with the PT, promising to reduce crime rates via shoot-to-kill policies and to eliminate corruption, combined with affirmations of broad economic neoliberalisation under the aegis of Chicago-trained economist Paulo Guedes.

This panel will explore some explanations for Bolsonaro’s electoral victory, the prospects of his government, and some of its national, regional and international implications. Are social, political and economic rights doomed to democratic collapse, or are Brazil’s institutions and popular organisations strong enough to check the president-elect’s authoritarian promises? What has enabled the far right to win in Brazil, and how is this related to previous PT governments and the ongoing national economic and political crisis? What are the likely spaces for resistance, and what does his victory imply for Latin America and the world? The panel includes contributions from six speakers with varied backgrounds, to be followed by discussion.

Organisers: Gabriela Ramos, Graham Denyer Willis, Maite Conde, Pedro Mendes Loureiro.


Maite Conde is University lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her research and teaching focuses on Brazilian culture, with an emphasis on film and visual culture. She is the author of Foundational Films. Early Cinema and Modernity in Brazil (2018) and Consuming Visions. Cinema and Writing in Rio de Janeiro (2012), and editor of Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes on Brazil and Global Cinema and Between Conformity and Resistance. Essays on Politics, Culture and the State by Marilena Chauí (2011). Maite has recently completed an edited collection, Manifesting Democracy? Urban Protests and the Politics of Representation in Brazil post 2013, which will be published by Wiley and Blackwell next year.


Malu Gatto is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich. Her research explores questions about the gendered dynamics of political behaviour, representation, and policy-making with a regional focus on Latin America, especially Brazil. She is completing her first book, Insecure Men: Resistance to Gender Quotas in Latin America, which tackles the puzzle of why male-dominated legislatures adopt gender quotas. From January 2019, Malu will be Lecturer of Latin American Politics at the Institute of the Americas at UCL.


Nadya Araujo Guimarães holds the Chair in
Sociology of Work at the University of São Paulo, Sociology Department. She is also associated to CEBRAP (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning) and in 2016 she was inducted into the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. She has been researching on the Brazilian labor market focusing on: economic change and workers trajectories; gender/race inequalities; comparative studies on unemployment, employment flexibility and labor market intermediaries; care and care workers. In 2010, she received the Jabuti Prize - Brazil's premier book award - for Trabalho flexível, empregos precários? Uma comparação Brasil, França, Japão ("Flexible work, precarious jobs? Brazil, France, Japan in comparative perspective"), co-edited with Helena Hirata and Kurumi Sugita.
Alfredo Saad-Filho is Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS. He has written extensively on neoliberalism and its implications for developing countries. His books include The Value of Marx: Political Economy for Contemporary Capitalism (2002), Marx's Capital 6th ed. (with Ben Fine, 2016), and most recently, Brazil: Neoliberalism vs Democracy (with Lecio Morais, 2017).

Pedro Mendes Loureiro is a University Lecturer in Latin American Studies at the Centre of Latin American Studies at Cambridge. He has written on the political economy of Latin America, dealing with inequality, structural change and development strategies. He has published articles on topics ranging from Marxism to the Pink Tide in Latin America.


Graham Denyer Willis is Senior Lecturer in Development and Latin American Studies at Cambridge University. His first book, The Killing Consensus: Police, Organised Crime and the Regulation of Life of Death in Urban Brazil (California, 2015), examines how homicide detectives in São Paulo encounter and negotiate the violent practices of police, organised crime and death squads in this city. Related work has been published or is forthcoming in Comparative Studies in Society and History, World Development, the American Political Science Review, and the Latin American Research Review, among others. He is joint Editor of the Journal of Latin American Studies.




Dr Ewa Karwowski
Senior Lecturer in Economics
Hertfordshire Business School
University of Hertfordshire

Phone: 01707 285559
Office M247

go.herts.ac.uk/Ewa_Karwowski
Latest working paper: Financialising the State: http://www.fingeo.net/financialising-the-state-recent-developments-in-fiscal-and-monetary-policy/


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