Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation.

Abstract

The peaceful transfer of power to a civilian president in in March 1985 marked the end of one of Latin America's most enduring and - until the economic crisis of the 1980s - economically dynamic military regimes. In this companion volume to Authoritarian Brazil, a distinguished group of Brazilian and American scholars - Albert Fishlow, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Thomas Skidmore among them - analyze the decade-long process, known as abertura, by which dictatorship gave way to civilian rule. Democratizing Brazil focuses specifically on the severe problems that the country now faces as a fledgling democracy. The contributors provide an examination of the 1974-88 period in Brazilian history, exploring not only the larger political struggles between government and opposition but also the role played by economic policy, the debt crisis, and community-based movements led by the Church, neighbourhood associations, women and trade unions.