Tropical Dystopia: The Bolsonaro Government and the Destruction of Modern Brazil

Abstract

In this paper we offer a succinct interpretation of the Brazilian state trajectory from the Portuguese Colony to the present. As part of the literature argues, in Brazil, as in all Latin America, there are certain colonial traits that continue to influence the country’s institutional and economic trajectory. Our hypotheses is that these features decay and reappear depending on forces originating from the international economy, such as major crises and geopolitical changes. In this sense we visualize a structural continuity from the colony, through the Empire to the Old Republic. Then, the crisis of 1930 had a huge impact on Brazilian statehood. From then on colonial social aspects were partially attenuated, notwithstanding the continuities inherent to structural heterogeneity and the very unequal distribution of power and wealth. Later, the debt crisis of the 1980s and the rise of neoliberalism helped the rebirth of the old colonial elements that were believed to be overcome, by strengthening anti-developmental political coalitions and offering increasing material incentives to productive primarization.