ABSTRACT
The emergence and formative years of the PT attracted enormous scholarly attention and great enthusiasm among progressive intellectuals worldwide. 1 For a number of reasons, ranging from its internal cohesion and discipline (Mainwaring 1995:375) to its “solid base in labor and social movements” (Keck 1992:3) to the fact that its creation represented a “break with the old left tradition” and so-called real socialism (Sader and Silverstein 1991:15–6), scholars presented the PT as an “anomaly” (Keck 1992:3); an “exceptional political enterprise” (Sader and Silverstein 1991:3), a “sui generis” political phenomenon (Lima 2005:44) or even as a “a new day in Brazilian politics” (Miguel 2006:123). Several features made the PT different from most parties in Brazil and Latin America, and even from social democratic or labour-based parties in Western Europe. In this chapter I focus on those aspects that made the party unique in its approach towards civil society.
