29. Participatory Ideology of the Workers' Party of Brazil from a Regional Comparative Perspective

Abstract

One of the most traditional left-wing parties of Latin America is the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores in Portuguese -- henceforth referred to as PT). The PT was born as a result of several trends in Brazil in the late twentieth century. Industrialization led to the formation of unions and workers from these unions wished to advance their interests through the formation of an organized party. Consequently, the PT was formed in 1980 with the main goal of unifying workers. The party changed some of its structural and programmatic characteristics since its inception, as analyzed by Hunter (2007). However, few scholars have analyzed the regional differences between the PT’s governments. Thus, the present research project will focus on analyzing the variations between the PT in different Brazilian municipalities. Instead of addressing the party ideology as a whole, the paper will focus on the party’s regional variations when it comes to its defense of participatory initiatives. For instance, in the 1990s the PT implemented several participatory budgeting institutions across different municipalities. Among other factors, the party’s ideological differences in the different locations determined the effectiveness of the institution’s implementation and endurance. In order to identify and analyze the core participatory principles of the party when compared to the regional variations, primary sources will be presented and discussed.

Keywords: Partido dos Trabalhadores, ideology, participatory budgeting, municipalities, differences.