CLAS Faculty Publishes Op-Ed on Brazilian Presidential Election
Jeffrey W. Rubin, Boston University Associate Professor of History and affiliate faculty at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS), published an article in The Conversation on the Brazilian presidential election that took place on October 2, 2022.
The article, titled “Brazil’s election goes beyond a battle between left and right – democracy is also on the ballot,” was co-authored by Rafael R. Ioris, Professor of Modern Latin America History at the University of Denver. In it, Ioris and Rubin explore the two paths Brazil could go down given the election results and the broader crisis of liberal democracies around the world given the rise of right-wing authoritarians. The authors break down Brazil’s evolving political land from “Operation Car Wash,” which generated widespread anger toward the country’s progressive politicians, to the rise of President Jair Bolsonaro on this wave of anti-left sentiment. Bolsonaro has consistently attacked Brazil’s democratic institutions, and with the election headed for a run-off vote, Ioris and Rubin believe there is “more than just the future of Brazil…at stake in these elections.”
The full op-ed can be read on The Conversation‘s website.
Jeffrey W. Rubin is the author of Decentering the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, Mexico (Duke 1997) and co-author of Sustaining Activism: A Brazilian Women’s Movement and a Father-Daughter Collaboration (Duke 2013). A specialist on social movements in Latin America, Rubin combines innovative methodological approaches with the study of democratic possibility in Latin America over the past thirty years. Read more about Professor Rubin on his faculty profile. See a full list of CLAS faculty on the Center’s website.