Cardoso's Political Project in Brazil: The Limits of Social Democracy

Abstract

Cardoso's work as a sociologist and political scientist from the early 1970s reflects a coherent political project with which his political practice over the last two decades has been consistent. It centres upon the democratization of the state and society in Brazil, and has consistently been social democratic rather than socialist in character. My argument is that thinking about an alternative socialist political project in Brazil entails understanding and engaging critically with this project. In doing so, we should avoid the easy but false impression that it represents a capitulation from a former radical to neo-liberalism. But at the same time we should consider its limitations, and explore the possibility that its role and significance today, in a very different conjuncture from that in which it was first proposed, are necessarily no longer what they were at the outset.