Introduction

This book reflects on the challenges and dilemmas that progressive parties of mass-based origin face when they exercise state power, by looking at the governing experience of the Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT). By mainly concentrating on what many consider a watershed government in Brazil, the Lula administration (2003–2006/2007–2010), this study explores how holding national executive public office contributed decisively to a pragmatic shift away from the party’s radical redistributive and participatory platform, earning the approbation of international audiences and criticisms of domestic progressives. The work explores why a unique party, which originally promoted a radical progressive agenda of socio-economic redistribution and participatory democracy, eventually adopted an orthodox economic policy, formed legislative alliances with conservative parties, altered its relationship with social movements and relegated the participatory agenda to the sidelines.