Scholarly consensus regarding Brazil’s Lula government characterizes its economic policy as surprisingly conservative but its foreign policy as roughly in line with the traditionally leftist principles of the Workers’ Party. While broadly accurate, this perspective tells us little about...

An enduring puzzle for scholars of Latin American policy reform asks how policy makers push through reforms with short term costs but long term benefits in mass democracies. Many answers have been given, including international pressures, cultural and ideational factors, the nature of political...