Pitt Seminar to Explore Impact of Brazilian Presidential Election

October 9, 2002

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh is offering a seminar titled "The Brazilian Presidential Elections: Implications for U.S.-Brazil Relations," which will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15, in the Kurtzman Room of the William Pitt Union, 3959 Fifth Ave., in Oakland.

Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies in Pitt's University Center for International Studies, the seminar will explore the contrasting political, economic, and social platforms of the front-running candidates in the Brazilian presidential elections and the implications of the various possible outcomes for political and economic relationships between Brazil and the United States

Brazil held its presidential election on Sunday, Oct. 6. Although former union leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of The Workers' Party finished first, he faces a runoff vote later this month with government-backed candidate Jose Serra of the Social Democracy Party. Serra is a former member of Brazil's congress and senate. He has the endorsement of outgoing President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Speakers at the seminar will be University of Pittsburgh Assistant Professor of Sociology Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Barry Ames, a professor in Pitt's political science department.

Baiocchi, who specializes in the study of Brazilian popular movements, is the editor of the forthcoming book Radicals in Power: The Workers' Party and Experiments in Urban Democracy in Brazil (St. Martin's Press), the only comparative study of the party.

Barry Ames, one of the most widely recognized North American experts on the subject of Brazilian politics, is the author of Democracy and its Limits: Lessons from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East (University of Notre Dame Press, 1999).

The event is open to the public. For more information, call 412/648-7391.

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