Brazil

**Brazil**, officially the **Federative Republic of Brazil**, is the largest country in South America and the Latin America region. It borders Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guyana.

## History

### Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century

In 1930 in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas supported by most of the military, led a successful revolt. Vargas was supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed the Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers. Three major attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power occurred: in the second half of 1932, in November 1935, and in May 1938. Being the second one, the communist revolt, used as an excuse for the preclusion of elections, put into effect by a coup d'état in 1937, which made the Vargas regime a full dictatorship.

With the allied victory in 1945 and the end of the Nazi-fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas's position became unsustainable and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with Democracy being "reinstated" by the same army that had discontinued it 15 years before. Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory posture towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises. His successor was Jânio Quadros, who resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office. His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military regime.

Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency, becoming unpopular during his tenure due to his failure in controlling the economic crisis and hyperinflation inherited from the military regime. Sarney's unsuccessful government allowed the election in 1989 of the almost unknown Fernando Collor, who was subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992. Collor was succeeded by his Vice-President Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso as Minister of Finance. The peaceful transition of power from Fernando Henrique to his main opposition leader, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, who was elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006, proved that Brazil had finally succeeded in achieving its long-sought political stability. Lula was succeeded in 2011 by Dilma Rousseff, the country's first woman president.

### Latin Spring Revolution

*See Full Article: Latin Spring*

On 12 August 2022, protests began in major Brazilian cities, inspired by the events in other Latin American countries, in a movement that would later be called the Latin Spring, and would be compared the Arab Spring of 2011. Favelas across Brazil erupted into violence as the police and military were sent in to control the protesters and break-up the protests. Within a week of protesters, independent analysts placed the death toll at somewhere around 25,000, with many people believing a civil war was about to begin in Brazil.

As unrest continued to spiral out of control, the military threatened President Joaquin Levy with a coup d'etat unless he stood aside. The following day, Levy resigned and handed power to Aécio Neves, who recieved military backing. Protests began to wind down, as Neves promised sweeping reforms.

## Government and Politics

The President of Brazil is the head of both state and government, elected for a four-year term, renewable once, and thus exercises executive power in Brazil. The bicameral National Congress acts as the legislature, comprising of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. The Judiciary is comprised of the Supreme Court and a number of civil law courts.

### Administrative Regions

Brazil is an ‘indissoluble union’ of 26 administratively autonomous states and one federal district, containing the capital city. The states maintain their own legislative bodies that collect their own taxes and receive a share of federal taxes. The states are normally divided into five regions; North, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and South.

### Foreign Relations

**Brazil** is a founding member of the BRICS and the New Development Bank, as well as a member of the G-30 and several other major international economic forums. They maintain close relations with Russia and China, while also developing stronger ties with many of its South American neighbors, predominantly Argentina. **Brazil** is seen as one of the world’s leading developing economies and an emerging global power.

## Economy

**Brazil** was considered one of the top developing economies in the early 21st century. Rio de Janeiro was a major tourism hotspot and Sao Paulo was the largest financial center in South America. Both Brazilian mega-cities had over ten million people and had both extravagant wealth and extreme poverty. **Brazil** had a growing middle class and a thriving manufacturing sector while also remaining plagued by poverty, crime and corruption.

**Brazil** entered recession during the global Great Recession of the mid to late 2010s an emerged with lower average GDP growth rates in the 2020s. **Brazil** nonetheless remained one of the world's top ten economies because of its shear size and abundant natural resources.