Lula and the Politics of Racial Reclassification in Brazil
Posted inPolitics Social

Lula and the Politics of Racial Reclassification in Brazil

Brazil’s 2022 presidential contest is one of the most anticipated elections since the return to democracy. It will be particularly interesting to see how the leading candidates address race, racism, and the effects of Brazil’s overlapping political, economic, health, and environmental crises on citizens of Afro-Brazilian descent.  Former president Luiz...
September 28, 2021Posted inPolitics, Social11 Comments
Is There Public Support for the Brazilian Supreme Court in a Time of Crisis?
Posted inInstitutional Judiciary Politics

Is There Public Support for the Brazilian Supreme Court in a Time of Crisis?

The political crisis in Brazil has escalated in recent weeks, and increasingly put the Supreme Court (STF) in the crosshairs of the President. In early August 2021, the Supreme Court (STF) responded to a request by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to investigate Jair Bolsonaro for disseminating fake news about the use...
September 21, 2021Posted inInstitutional, Judiciary, Politics
The Breakneck Dilution of Brazilian Electoral Law
Posted inInstitutional Politics

The Breakneck Dilution of Brazilian Electoral Law

In the midst of all of Bolsonaro’s bombast and bluster this past month, it has been easy to get distracted from other pressing issues. The past few years have brought a number of statutory rollbacks of anticorruption legislation in Brasília. But the brazenness with which a permissive new electoral code...
September 14, 2021Posted inInstitutional, Politics
Labor regulations and globalization
Posted inEconomics Social

Labor regulations and globalization

How do market-oriented reforms matter to workers outside the formal economy? This is an important question for developing economies, where formal labor markets often coexist with large pools of informal labor, in which workers are offered fewer protections, little training, and few if any benefits.  But it is also a...
June 4, 2021Posted inEconomics, Social
Reflections on Bolsonaro’s Brazil
Posted inJudiciary Politics Social

Reflections on Bolsonaro’s Brazil

In case you missed it, American University's AULA Blog has posted two good reflections on Bolsonaro's Brazil in recent days: Ingrid Fontes, a senior at American University, writes about the Bolsonaro administration’s devastatingly incompetent response to the pandemic, showing Brazil’s comparatively high death rate and low vaccination rate, as well...
June 2, 2021Posted inJudiciary, Politics, Social
Reshaping the meaning of politics
Posted inEnvironment Politics Social

Reshaping the meaning of politics

Brazil’s political turbulence remains difficult to fully comprehend, in part because of the enormous concussive shock with which the seemingly golden years of pre-salt oil and commodity-driven prosperity suddenly met a grim sequence of protest, impeachment, and scandal. Scholarship has been challenged by the historical contingency of the unprecedented, fluid...
May 17, 2021Posted inEnvironment, Politics, Social
Discussing Legislative Effectiveness with Rodrigo Maia
Posted inPolitics

Discussing Legislative Effectiveness with Rodrigo Maia

CLALS Research Fellow Beatriz Rey recently discussed the issue of legislative effectiveness in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies with former speaker Rodrigo Maia. In the conversation, Rey and Maia delve into the conditions that foster bill sponsors' and rapporteurs' ability to move their agenda items through the legislative process and into...
April 27, 2021Posted inPolitics
Don’t Count on the Amazon
Posted inEnvironment Foreign Policy Judiciary

Don’t Count on the Amazon

Can the international community rely on carbon sequestration in the Amazon as a strategy for halting global warming? Don’t count on it, even after Jair Bolsonaro’s grudging green conversion this past week.  Convincing Bolsonaro to change his tune must have been no small task, judging by the ratcheting up of...
April 23, 2021Posted inEnvironment, Foreign Policy, Judiciary2 Comments