XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Ashamed technocracy: think tanks and the rise of neoliberal ideology in post-authoritarian Brazil

• In Event: 1964 in Perspective, 60 Years After the Coup Part III: Afterlife of Authoritarianism

Abstract

Approaching the end of the dictatorship in the early to mid 1980s, Brazilian right-wingers rearranged their political positions in order to adapt to the process of democratization. Members of the business community—including those who actively participated in the regime or greatly benefited from it—sought to detach themselves from their previous place of supporters of the regime. This was part of a broader phenomenon described by political scientists as the “ashamed right,” in which conservative actors tried to reposition themselves by denying their right-wing credentials. Building on the understanding of this process of self-denial, my work analyses the creation of think tanks that served as a conduit for the development of neoliberal ideology in Brazil. More specifically, I look into the Liberal Institute and the Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies (both founded in the first half of the 1980s) and how they used the character of the business intellectual, construed as a technocrat whose supposed expertise in economics afforded him the capacity to shape policy outcomes. The deployment of technocratic discourse made it possible for these activists to navigate the landscape of shame within the right, avoiding the labels of “conservative” or even “right-winger” and gaining legitimacy while disseminating their free-market ideology. Understanding these institutions and their relationship to other right-wing movements is especially relevant given their success in bringing neoliberalism to the mainstream of Brazilian politics after its initial failure during the first few years of the dictatorship.

Author

• Guilherme Sena de Assunção, UC San Diego