Natália Bueno

A year after the 2014 national elections Mozambican security forces began increasing the pressure on Renamo, the main opposition party and former guerrilla movement, to disarm. Following several attacks on his entourage since September, Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama has gone into hiding. On 19 November the Mozambican president and leader of the ruling Frelimo party, Filipe Nyusi, called for “restraint” in disarming Renamo – thereby exposing an unusual degree of friction between the more radical wing and the moderates within Frelimo.

Meaning different things to different people, one could argue that there is no consensual definition of reconciliation, leaving room for contestation, conceptual stretching, and measurement problems. Moreover, many definitions do not have a direct correspondence with reality and are overtly normative. After violent conflicts and repressive rules, some societies may be considered as having achieved a successful reconciliation, while others may not. Aiming to contribute to this debate, I propose a new definition of reconciliation. Its constitutive dimensions are inclusion, truth, and justice, and to evaluate them different indicators are attributed to each of these dimensions. Furthermore, from this new understanding of reconciliation, I also argue for the categorization of reconciliation into subtypes. The minimal reconciliation, the alethea reconciliation, and the righteous reconciliation are the three subtypes suggested. They obey the “diminished subtype” or “concept/–adjective” logic proposed by Collier and Levitsky and by Goertz, respectively. More specifically, these subtypes help to explain cases located in the gray zone, in which one or more secondary-level dimensions of reconciliation are not present.

In 1985 Brazil returned to democracy after more than twenty years of military rule. Political transformation was accompanied by economic changes as well. The former state-led development model collapsed giving way to a new economic model. In comparison with some Latin America countries, Brazilian neo-liberalism is peculiar because of its relative lateness and gradualism. Brazil liberalised its trade and capital accounts during the 1990s, while other countries adopted neo-liberal policies in the late 1970s and 1980s. Only in 1994 did Brazil experience a successful stabilisation of the economy (essential antecedent of any structural reform) through the implementation of the Real Plan, designed by the Ministry of Finance, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. In the following years, Cardoso occupied the presidency for two terms and implemented some neo-liberal reforms. Nevertheless, in the last years of his second term, the support for his government’s economic policy eroded. There was an evident necessity for an alternative way to address the social conflicts and diverse interests of Brazilian society. In 2002, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, a left-wing candidate, was elected and expected to transform the country. Surprisingly, Lula’s government has not implemented a progressive programme. Conversely, his economic policy is much like a continuation of Cardoso’s economic model, despite Lula’s rhetoric of change. The aim of this dissertation is to analyse the underlying causes of Lula’s continuity. It argues that the continuum of reforms and economic policy is part of a dual process of limitation and choice, which are founded on the political and economic development of the country.