End of the Peasantry

by Pereira, Anthony W.

• ISBN13: 9780822956181
• ISBN10: 0822956187
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-03-06
• Publisher: Univ of Pittsburgh Pr

Summary

The rural labor movement played a surprisingly active role in Brazilrs"s transition to democracy in the 1980s. While in most Latin American countries rural labor was conspicuously marginal, in Brazil, an expanded, secularized, and centralized movement organized strikes, staged demonstrations for land reform, demanded political liberalization, and criticized the governmentrs"s environmental policies. In this ground-breaking book, Anthony W. Pereira explains this transition as the result of two intertwined processes - the modernization of agricultural production and the expansion of the welfare state into the countryside - and explores the political consequences of these processes, occurring not only in Latin America but in much of the Third World.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	ix
List of Acronyms	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	xv
Part I The Awakening of the Unions
From Peasant Leagues to Unions in Rural Brazil	3	(16)
The Past as Prologue	19	(20)
Part II Explaining the New Rural Labor Movement
Structural Change and Conservative Modernization	39	(17)
The Regulation of Conflict	56	(23)
Part III The Unions in the New Republic
Sons of Cane: Leadership Dilemmas Within the Unions	79	(24)
Sugar with the Taste of Blood: Landlord Violence	103	(16)
The Candidates: The Unions and Political Parties	119	(17)
The Struggle for Heaven on Earth: Unions and Agrarian Reform	136	(14)
Conclusion: The End of the Peasantry	150	(23)
Appendixes	173	(16)
Notes	189	(18)
Glossary	207	(4)
Bibliography	211	(16)
Index	227