Not Just Another Labor Party: The Workers' Party and Democracy in Brazil

This paper analyzes Brazil's Partido dos Trabalhadores, The Workers' Party (PT), from its origins in social movements to becoming one of the largest political parties in Brazil. The party's trajectory from semi-clandestine meetings during Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-85) to a successful national organization with international linkages is an instructive case-study of how labor parties can contend in democratic politics during the neoliberal era. The party developed an innovative, grassroots structure that has sustained ties with both labor and non-labor movements, community movements, the progressive Catholic Church, and a growing sector of non-governmental organizations in Brazilian civil society.