The History and Historiography of Populism in Brazil (1930–1964)

The first decades of the 21st century brought back to the international arena a family of terms well known in Latin America to designate both styles of politics and the leaders who embodied them: populism and populists. Brazil is seen as a paradigmatic example of this type of experience, called “classic populism,” for two periods of its history, corresponding to its process of transition from a “traditional” society to a “modern” economy and society. The first period ran from the 1930 revolution until 1945, with the fall of the Estado Novo and the removal of its “leader,” Getúlio Vargas. The latter period covered the 1950s, “the golden years of populism,” since, despite the socioeconomic development achieved, democracy did not manage to establish itself in the country. The populist interpretation of this period of Brazilian history was formulated and shared by academia, essentially after the 1964 coup, and was dominant in the 1960s and 1970s. However, it extended these frontiers, using the language of the media, political conflicts, and the common sense of Brazilians. Widely used, the concepts of populism and populist were conflated with the events and characters they name, only being critiqued in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, the number of scholars seeking other references has grown, whether redrafting the meanings of the original proposal, the case of the “populist political system,” or abandoning it completely, in the example of the “trabalhista pact.” In this dense debate, one constant can be observed: in Brazil populism became a “category of accusation,” translating negative values present in the “other” to whom one is referring. Although many academic studies do not use this pejorative tone, it is so consolidated in Brazilian politics that it has become part of the political culture of parties and trade unions, circulating widely.