Brazil’s 2013 mass protests preceded far-right authoritarian rule

Evidence

At the beginning of 2013, it was possible to claim that Brazil’s Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), or Workers’ Party, had carried out the most significant social democratic project in the history of the Global South. Outside the rich countries of the First World, a left-leaning government had managed to combine economic growth, within the capitalist world system, with social policies that meaningfully alleviated poverty, garnering widespread support within a liberal democracy. It appeared to Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, that the people on the streets in June 2013 were simply asking for more. But just a few years later, the country would be ruled by the most radically right-wing elected leader in the world, a man who openly called for a return to dictatorship and mass violence. Public services would fall apart as poverty mounted and officials bragged about the state murder of Brazilian citizens. In short—the Brazilian people got the exact opposite of what they appeared to ask for in June 2013. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 41

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on how progressive mass mobilizations since 2010 (Arab Spring, Occupy, Hong Kong) were followed by backlash outcomes; also resonates with the learned-notes material on fascism and backlash in The Frankfurt School volume. — connects to: No settled explanation exists for Brazil’s protest-to-authoritarian reversal — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 39; Social media microtargeting drove Brazil’s 2018 far-right electoral outcome — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 1336; Dominant authoritarians migrating through leftist movements skew revolutions toward dictatorship (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Authoritarianism can manifest on the political left as well as right #complicates (0.75) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 446
• Dominant authoritarians migrating through leftist movements skew revolutions toward dictatorship #expands (0.72)