Social Classes, Neodevelopmentalism, and Brazilian Foreign Policy under Presidents Lula and Dilma

The transition from the FHC to the Lula administration produced an epochal change within the power bloc. Large-scale international financial capital lost power, while the internal grande bourgeoisie ascended politically because of a policy-oriented broad-front approach that included even the popular classes. The Lula and Dilma governments did not break with the neoliberal model for capitalism, but because they represented a particular fraction of the capitalist class and because they owed their support to particular classes they introduced major changes in the economic policy, the political orientation, and the international performance of the Brazilian state.