From Lula to Bolsonaro: The Crisis of Neodevelopmentalism in Brazil

• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211058172
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Dario Clemente
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211058172

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 243, Vol. 49 No. 2, March 2022, 87–103

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211058172

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

87

From Lula to Bolsonaro: The Crisis of

Neodevelopmentalism in Brazil

by

Dario Clemente

Translated by

Victoria Furio

Examination of the rise of Bolsonaro in Brazil shows that, since 2013, neodevelopmen-

talism has been shattered in all its dimensions—a true crisis of hegemony that has led to

a reconfiguration of power relations and the end of the state cycle that began in 1988.

Calculating the depth of the collapse produced in the previous phase is essential in reflect-

ing on the current situation.

Un análisis del ascenso de Bolsonaro en Brasil muestra cómo, a partir de 2013, el

neodesarrollismo se ha resquebrajado en todas sus dimensiones—una verdadera crisis de

hegemonía que ha llevado a una reconfiguración de las relaciones de fuerza y al cierre del

ciclo estatal comenzado en 1988. Dimensionar la profundidad del quiebre que se ha pro-

ducido en la etapa anterior es una tarea fundamental para poder reflexionar sobre la situ-

ación actual.

Keywords: Neodevelopmentalism, Bolsonaro, Lula, Crisis of hegemony, State

Jair Messias Bolsonaro’s election as president of Brazil in late 2018 would be

incomprehensible without analyzing the disintegration of the neodevelopmen-

talist order that made it possible. Examining the fascist threat that seems to be

brewing in this new phase and the possibilities for resisting its advance makes

sense only if we assess the depth of the reconfiguration of the forces on the

ground that was produced in the previous phase. This is the task I have under-

taken in this article in terms of a Gramscian concept of social classes, the state,

and hegemony drawing on the work of Juan Carlos Portantiero.

In the first part of this article I reconstruct the specificity of neodevelopmen-

talism in Brazil (2003–2018) as a hegemonic system with its own developmental

and hegemonic models in contrast to those of the previous governmental

phase. It projects a new relationship among the bourgeoisie, the state, and the

workers and paves the way for an attempt at reform of the previously prevail-

ing neoliberalism. In the second part I illustrate the crisis of hegemony (2013–

2016) that marked the decline of the neodevelopmentalist state, a product of the

interlacing of three crises—economic, political, and of the power bloc—that

Dario Clemente is a researcher and faculty member at the Instituto de Estudios de América Latina

y el Caribe (IEALC) of the Universidad de Buenos Aires and a postdoctoral fellow of the

Argentina’s Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas. Victoria Furio is a

conference interpreter and translator located in Yonkers, NY.

1058172LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211058172Latin American PerspectivesClemente / CRISIS OF NEODEVELOPMENTALISM IN BRAZIL

research-article2021

88 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

marked the definitive breakdown of popular consensus toward neodevelop-

mentalism and of the hegemonic balance among the fractions of the bourgeoi-

sie. In the final part I reconstruct the authoritarian solution to the crisis of

hegemony (2016–2018) attempted by the dominant classes, arguing that it

points to the end of a broader state cycle that began with the return to democ-

racy and with the 1988 Constitution, characterized by the bourgeoisie’s effort

to shape a stable hegemony around neoliberalism. Finally, I link my theory on

the end of a state cycle with the recent events in Brazil, in which the radical

degradation of the political scene and the shortage of “political inventions” for

addressing it seem to indicate that we are on the verge of a new state cycle, with

all its uncertainties and possibilities.

NeodevelopmeNtalism iN Brazil as a HegemoNic system

In order to shed light on the recent Brazilian situation and Bolsonaro’s rise

to power, we must locate these events in an analysis of the power relations in

Brazil that takes into consideration how they are reflected in the government,

which I call a neodevelopmentalist state (2003–2018). In particular, Bolsonaro’s

emergence is a result of the crisis of this state phase and hegemonic system in

their multiple dimensions, which amounts to a crisis of hegemony or “crisis of

the state as a whole” and of the attempt by the dominant classes to resolve it

through an authoritarian solution. I propose to deal with this task with a

Gramscian theoretical toolkit based on Portantiero’s (1979) suggestion that we

consider Gramsci a “theorist of the conjuncture” and an advocate of a true

“methodological canon” for the concrete analysis of power relations in a par-

ticular society at a given historical-social moment.

The Gramscian (1971) concept of hegemony is different from other theories

in that it refers to the problematic unity of the use of coercion and consensus by

the dominant classes over the whole of the subalterns and in this connection is

inextricably linked to Gramsci’s theory of the “integral” or “extended” state

(Thwaites Rey, 2010). Gramsci “expands” the state beyond the view of it as a

mere tool of domination to the sphere of civil society, the scene of class struggle

and of the assertion of bourgeois hegemony over the whole of society and the

place where the use of domination is legitimized and consensus is built around

the role of political society or “the state in the strict sense”— the set of political,

judicial, and repressive institutions (Thwaites Rey, 2010). Recapturing Marx’s

suggestion, Gramsci therefore considers the state the historical product of the

growing complexity of society and therefore obliged to continually reproduce

the separation between these two spheres, which in reality are connected

(Ouviña, 2002). This view allows for considering the existence of “moments”1

(Zavaleta Mercado, 1986) and “cycles” (Oliver, 2018) that bring together differ-

ent arrangements in the relationship between political society and civil society

and different power relations between the classes.

In Portantiero’s (1979) view, a Gramscian approach aims to analyze the cap-

italist state as a “hegemonic system of multiple determinations”—as part of a

social reality that is an organic whole and not simply a social formation, an

intertwining of various modes of production. The means to conceptualize this