Brazilian Politics, Alfred P. Montero, Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2005, pp. 167.
Brazil is a country of contrasts. This is one of the first, and most
ubiquitous, phrases that one encounters with respect to this intriguing
country. Visitors to Brazil soon echo this sentiment as they note its
cultural sophistication in the arts, technological expertise in a number
of industries, its vast, diverse territory, as well as its extreme
economic and social disparity. It is the ninth-largest economy in the
world, yet it is also one of the most inequitable; the top 1 per cent of
the population retains 40 per cent of the country's wealth (5). It is
fitting then that this reality provides the integrative theme in Alfred
Montero's primer on Brazilian politics. The topic is first introduced
with an effective depiction of Brazilian president “Lula” da
Silva as he struggles to bridge competing social and economic imperatives
when he attends the World Social Forum held at Porto Alegre, Brazil, and
the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. The text concludes with an
observation that the president's adoption of a pragmatic agenda in
order to secure economic growth through global markets will not adequately
satisfy the desperate and immediate need for social reform where millions
suffer and comparatively few prosper. Montero asserts that the root of
this misery can be traced to the state's historic pattern of
clientelistic politics, oligarchical rule and
bureaucratic-authoritarianism (25).