Prado Júnior, Cardoso, and Fernandes set two general guidelines that influenced the development s... more Prado Júnior, Cardoso, and Fernandes set two general guidelines that influenced the development strategy adopted by Brazil's Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (Social Democracy Party-PSDB) and Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party-PT) between 1994 and 2016. The first aimed to strengthen the internal market, the second to maintain national capital control of key sectors. This consensus did not extend to policy. The PSDB's adopted macroeconomic adjustments, while the PT's stressed poverty alleviation and mass consumption. The differences extended to the choice of a profile of favored businesses. The PSDB supported globalized entrepreneurs, while the PT preferred businessmen with working-class backgrounds or with historical ties to national developmentalism. This political choice backfired. Provided with public funds, those businessmen embarked on international acquisitions to the detriment of internal development, and in 2018 the economic crisis paved the way for the political ascent of the far right.
Boito and Saad-Filho interpret the rise and fall of the power bloc that has sustained Brazil's PT... more Boito and Saad-Filho interpret the rise and fall of the power bloc that has sustained Brazil's PT governments in the tradition of Poulantzas's work on classes, class struggle, and the state. They consider the Brazilian state to be the main arena in which classes manifest their interests and power to influence economic outcomes. As did Poulantzas, they fall into the trap of structural determinism, in which collective choices and actions are derived mechanistically from fixed social spaces. I disagree with their thesis that the PT administrations represented an internal-bourgeoisie power bloc in an alliance with the middle classes and the popular masses and instead describe those administrations, especially under Lula, as left Bonapartist. The federal government under them exhibited greater autonomy from the bourgeoisie because of positive economic indicators such as a large trade surplus through commodities exports, the expansion of incoming foreign direct investment, and the capitalization of state-controlled pension funds. The increasing fiscal efficiency of the state led the government to amass unprecedented financial power. Further, that autonomy was translated into instrumental policies directed personally by Lula to bestow public funds on two types of business groups: companies that were close to the national developmentalist governments of the 1950s and conglomerates founded by self-made capitalists from working-class and lower-middle-class backgrounds. The development strategy sought to transform national companies into global actors by financing foreign acquisitions in the belief that their technology and productivity would trickle down to Brazilian industry and project a positive image of Brazil as a progressive capitalist model that reconciled economic growth with social equity. However, once these Brazilian companies acquired global standing, they abandoned the Brazilian market, provoking a decline in capital accumulation and eventually a fiscal crisis. Finance capital, represented by Brazil's largest private banks, was slowly consolidated as the hegemonic fraction of the Brazilian bourgeoisie. Boito and Saad-Filho's argument may be summarized as follows: 1. Since redemocratization, class struggle within the state has been consumed by two competing power blocs led by the internal and the interna-tionalized fractions of the Brazilian bourgeoisie. Brazil's unions, social Jawdat Abu-El-Haj is a professor of political science and sociology at the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil. He thanks Ronald Chilcote, Richard Harris, and Rosalind Bresnahan for their valuable suggestions and corrections.
This article analyzes the continuity of the Middle East conflict, having the period between the O... more This article analyzes the continuity of the Middle East conflict, having the period between the Oslo Agreement and the Camp David Summit as a reference. It inquires about the reasons that led the PLO and Israel to perform a drastic revision of its doctrines and even then, they were unable to close a deal in 2000, despite the relative political stability. The analysis was made in two steps. The first presents a history of diplomatic talks intermediated by Norway between Palestinians and Israelis. The second details the doctrines and political strategies that guided the actions of the two protagonists since the 1940s, and how they interacted with the international context. It argues that the Oslo accords were motivated by the end of the Cold War and the regional consequences of the first Gulf War of 1990. The doctrinal revisions made by Arafat and Rabin, however, lost the momentum in the late 1990s, when the regional political system suffered a crisis of legitimacy caused by a permanent social crisis. Absent from the political scene, the pan-Arabism and the Marxist left favored the strengthening of Islamic fundamentalism, becoming the main unifying opposition force in the Arab world. In Israel, a similar trend occurred with the hegemony of ultraconservative parties, declared enemies of the Oslo accords. Palestinians and Israelis plunged into a period of extreme violence, "Second Insurgency", a reissue of the existential struggles of the 1940s. However, the structural changes in the political life, caused by the "Arab Spring" now open a new window that favors the election of Palestinian moderates and progressive forces in the Arab world. It concludes asking whether the Israeli left have ambition and enough strength to regain the political initiative and negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict.
Prado Júnior, Cardoso, and Fernandes set two general guidelines that influenced the development s... more Prado Júnior, Cardoso, and Fernandes set two general guidelines that influenced the development strategy adopted by Brazil's Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (Social Democracy Party-PSDB) and Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party-PT) between 1994 and 2016. The first aimed to strengthen the internal market, the second to maintain national capital control of key sectors. This consensus did not extend to policy. The PSDB's adopted macroeconomic adjustments, while the PT's stressed poverty alleviation and mass consumption. The differences extended to the choice of a profile of favored businesses. The PSDB supported globalized entrepreneurs, while the PT preferred businessmen with working-class backgrounds or with historical ties to national developmentalism. This political choice backfired. Provided with public funds, those businessmen embarked on international acquisitions to the detriment of internal development, and in 2018 the economic crisis paved the way for the political ascent of the far right.
Boito and Saad-Filho interpret the rise and fall of the power bloc that has sustained Brazil's PT... more Boito and Saad-Filho interpret the rise and fall of the power bloc that has sustained Brazil's PT governments in the tradition of Poulantzas's work on classes, class struggle, and the state. They consider the Brazilian state to be the main arena in which classes manifest their interests and power to influence economic outcomes. As did Poulantzas, they fall into the trap of structural determinism, in which collective choices and actions are derived mechanistically from fixed social spaces. I disagree with their thesis that the PT administrations represented an internal-bourgeoisie power bloc in an alliance with the middle classes and the popular masses and instead describe those administrations, especially under Lula, as left Bonapartist. The federal government under them exhibited greater autonomy from the bourgeoisie because of positive economic indicators such as a large trade surplus through commodities exports, the expansion of incoming foreign direct investment, and the capitalization of state-controlled pension funds. The increasing fiscal efficiency of the state led the government to amass unprecedented financial power. Further, that autonomy was translated into instrumental policies directed personally by Lula to bestow public funds on two types of business groups: companies that were close to the national developmentalist governments of the 1950s and conglomerates founded by self-made capitalists from working-class and lower-middle-class backgrounds. The development strategy sought to transform national companies into global actors by financing foreign acquisitions in the belief that their technology and productivity would trickle down to Brazilian industry and project a positive image of Brazil as a progressive capitalist model that reconciled economic growth with social equity. However, once these Brazilian companies acquired global standing, they abandoned the Brazilian market, provoking a decline in capital accumulation and eventually a fiscal crisis. Finance capital, represented by Brazil's largest private banks, was slowly consolidated as the hegemonic fraction of the Brazilian bourgeoisie. Boito and Saad-Filho's argument may be summarized as follows: 1. Since redemocratization, class struggle within the state has been consumed by two competing power blocs led by the internal and the interna-tionalized fractions of the Brazilian bourgeoisie. Brazil's unions, social Jawdat Abu-El-Haj is a professor of political science and sociology at the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil. He thanks Ronald Chilcote, Richard Harris, and Rosalind Bresnahan for their valuable suggestions and corrections.
This article analyzes the continuity of the Middle East conflict, having the period between the O... more This article analyzes the continuity of the Middle East conflict, having the period between the Oslo Agreement and the Camp David Summit as a reference. It inquires about the reasons that led the PLO and Israel to perform a drastic revision of its doctrines and even then, they were unable to close a deal in 2000, despite the relative political stability. The analysis was made in two steps. The first presents a history of diplomatic talks intermediated by Norway between Palestinians and Israelis. The second details the doctrines and political strategies that guided the actions of the two protagonists since the 1940s, and how they interacted with the international context. It argues that the Oslo accords were motivated by the end of the Cold War and the regional consequences of the first Gulf War of 1990. The doctrinal revisions made by Arafat and Rabin, however, lost the momentum in the late 1990s, when the regional political system suffered a crisis of legitimacy caused by a permanent social crisis. Absent from the political scene, the pan-Arabism and the Marxist left favored the strengthening of Islamic fundamentalism, becoming the main unifying opposition force in the Arab world. In Israel, a similar trend occurred with the hegemony of ultraconservative parties, declared enemies of the Oslo accords. Palestinians and Israelis plunged into a period of extreme violence, "Second Insurgency", a reissue of the existential struggles of the 1940s. However, the structural changes in the political life, caused by the "Arab Spring" now open a new window that favors the election of Palestinian moderates and progressive forces in the Arab world. It concludes asking whether the Israeli left have ambition and enough strength to regain the political initiative and negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict.
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