The Political Construction of Brazil: Society, Economy, and State Since Independence

Brazil: a history of long cycles and short political pacts -- Colonial constraints: why Brazil was left behind -- For reasons of state: territorial integration -- Herding oligarchs: empire, constitutionalism, and federalism -- The first republic: prerequisite to Brazil's capitalist revolution -- Igniting capitalism: the profitable revolution of 1930 -- Imperialism and industrialization: the 1930 national-popular pact -- Crisis, coup, and democracy: resuming developmentalism after 1945 -- Coffee, cold war, and coup (again): the end of the national-popular pact -- The crisis of the 1960's: inflation and the emergence of popular participation -- The military in power: the authoritarian-modernizing pact -- The logic of domination: the limits of dependency theory -- Neutralizing the Dutch disease: exporting manufactured goods -- The military in office: rise and decline in the 1970s -- The democratic-popular pact: the bourgeoisie and the working class -- The lost decade: stagnation and inertial inflation in the 1980s -- The crisis of 1987: the collapse of the democratic popular pact -- From elite to social democracy: the 1988 constitution -- Neoliberal rule: privatization and the 1991 liberal-dependent pact -- Tackling high inflation: the real plan -- Liberal rhetoric: the trap of overvalued exchange rates and high interest rates -- Lula, Dilma, and the alienation of the elites -- The pact that never was -- The quasi-stagnation since 1981 -- Preference for immediate consumption and loss of the idea of nation -- Brazil's capitalist revolution, democracy ... and then?