In the midst of a rapidly shifting global economy, Brazil has emerged
as a powerful new player on the geopolitical stage. Against all odds,
the Latin American nation managed, in just three years, to repay a
2002 $15.5 billion IMF bailout loan thanks to aggressive economic
restructuring and a series of alliances that have placed it at the
center of political and economic power in the region.
From the outside, Brazil is a poster
child for neoliberal capitalism. Yet inside the country, the lives of
the Brazilian people are still marked by vast inequities in wealth
and access to social services--a striking disparity with the nation's
newfound power in the global economy. In June of 2013, protests
against the increasing costs of public transportation swelled to mass
demonstrations against the Rousseff government's failure to address
this disparity, leading many to wonder whether the popular movements
in Brazil may be just powerful enough to shift the nation's influence
towards a wholly new economic model based in regional integration.
The New Brazil explores this
disparity. Will the nation serve as the glue that holds together the
Latin American states, distancing themselves from the neoliberalism
of the United States and Canada? Or will Brazil simply become another
world superpower, able to subject the rest of Latin American to its
will? Only time will tell.
