Lula, the workers' party and the governability dilemma in Brazil

Abstract

As the author states in the Introduction, "given its trajectory, the PT in the national government seemed determined to make a dramatic impact in state-society relationships", but an examination of aspects of the petista agenda shows that "the Lula administration embarked on a very different political path, away from the party's main goals and strategies".The book promotes a constant dialogue between the party's mobilising and participatory legacy of its formative years, the innovations undertaken in its experiences in local government and the constraints imposed by the interests of dominant strategic actors present in the context of national government. In an attempt to elucidate the ways in which the petista government managed the conflicts caused by the dilemma of governability, the book makes an important contribution towards understanding the strategies of integrating interests within the state.Given the great production already in existence about the party and its recent transformations, the book's main novelty is this: an approach that essentially focuses on the * http://dx