This issue is devoted to Brazil and examines how the last few years have brought significant transformations to the government and society, which defy earlier expectations, both positive and negative. Articles focus on political and economic subjects ranging from public demonstrations and labor unionization, the results of the PT administrations’ policies of land reform and healthcare management, to the difficulties brought on by the international recession, as well as questions of historical formation, cultural construction, self-identity, self-definition and criticism, and the conservative backlashes which have led to the rise of the rightist regime now in power.
