The beginning of the 21st century in Brazil witnessed contradictory historical developments. While the election of Lula da Silva in 2002 and the Workers' Party promised a real possibility for the lower classes to improve their living conditions, and the possibility of opening political institutions to a real democratization, these social transformations showed themselves to be complacent with conservative political practices. This book aims to reconstruct the role played by various left movements and organizations in Brazil from their process of renewal in the 1980s as they fought against the military dictatorship, going through the Workers' Party's governments in the 2000s, until the Party's dramatic defeat with the parliamentary coup in 2016. The essays collected in this volume try to understand the development of Brazilian Left in the light of socialist politics and especially Marxism, both in terms of political organizations and theory, representing an effort to rethink some aspects of the history of the Brazilian left and how it can reorganize itself after the conservative turn.

Offers a wide scope of analyses about the Brazilian Left from different academic disciplines, including Marxist readings, perspectives from the fields of political sciences, sociology, gender and queer studies, and decolonization and subaltern studies
Introduces debates about and problems in actual Brazilian left-leaning movements and organizations to an English-speaking audience
Provides a reconstruction of Brazilian contemporary history, focusing on different political actors and social groups and movements

Autorentext
Luis Felipe Miguel is Full Professor in the Political Science Institute at the University of Brasília, Brazil, where he leads the Research Group on Democracy and Inequalities. He is also a researcher in the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). He is the author of several books, including Democracia e Representação (2014), Feminismo e Política (co-authored with Flávia Biroli; Editora Boitempo, 2014), Consenso e Conflito na Democracia Contemporânea (2017), and Dominação e Resistência (forthcoming).

Vladimir Puzone is Research Professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Brasília (Brazil), where he is conducting a research on the history of the Workers' Party. He is the author of the book Capitalismo Perene: reflexões sobre a estabilização do capitalismo a partir de Lukács e da teoria crítica (Perennial capitalism: reflections on the stabilization of capitalism in Lukács and Critical Theory, 2016).

Inhalt
Editors Introduction **
** Part I: The Worker's Party and Its Administration
Chapter 1 - The Development of the Workers' Party: the Rise and Fall of a StarVladimir Puzone
Chapter 2 Past and Future of LulismAndré Singer
Chapter 3 - The Choices of the Brazilian Left: The Paradox of the New Developmentalist StateEvelina Dagnino
Part II: Social Movements
Chapter 4 - Unions in Brazil: Challenges and Opportunities for a Leftwing Labor PoliticsAdalberto Cardoso
Chapter 5 Feminist Challenges to Democracy in BrazilFlávia Biroli
Chapter 6 - Black Movements in Contemporary Brazil: Beyond the Left?Joaze Bernardino Costa
Chapter 7 - The LGBT Movement, the Brazilian Left, and the Process of DemocratizationJames Green
Chapter 8 Is There a Future for a Post-Lulist Left-Wing in Brazil? Theories, Perspectives and Conditions of Struggles in the Contemporary Brazilian Left Ruy Braga and Alvaro Bianchi
Chapter 9 The Dispersion of Demands in Recent Brazilian Digital ActivismKelly Prudencio
Part III: Special Issues
Chapter 10 - Indigenous Peoples, Traditional Communities, and the Environment: Violence and the 'Territorial Question' under the New Developmentist Agenda in BrazilAndréa Zhouri and Klemens Laschefksi
Chapter 11 - Brazilian Left, Latin America and the Regional Integration in the 21st century Luciana Maria de Aragão Ballestrin

Chapter 12 Democracy and the Left in Contemporary BrazilLuis Felipe Miguel