Weffort, Francisco Correia (1937–)

Francisco Correia Weffort is one of Brazil's leading political scientists, known for his probing analysis of populism, syndicalism, and the role of leftist and labor-based political movements in the consolidation of democracy in Brazil and other Latin American nations with a history of authoritarian and corporatist regimes. A 1962 graduate of the University of São Paulo, Weffort has taught in Brazil and abroad. He is a faculty member of the Political Science Department of the University of São Paulo and a founding member of the Center for the Study of Contemporary Culture. In 1984, he published Por Que Democracia?, an important statement of the Brazilian left's renewed commitment to democracy after decades of military rule. Weffort was one of the original founders of the Workers Party (PT), serving as its secretary general in the early 1980s. In 1995, however, he became minister of culture under Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, with whom he had a long personal association. As minister, he tried to promote the wider availability of libraries and culture in general while at the same encouraging a move away from a state-centered vision of culture and cultural promotion and toward more private sources of funding.

See alsoBrazil, Political Parties: Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB); Brazil, Political Parties: Workers Party (PT); Cardoso, Fernando Henrique; Universidade São Paulo.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

French, John D. The Brazilian Workers' ABC: Class Conflict and Alliances in Modern São Paulo. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.

Gianini, Adhemar and Francisco C. Weffort. PT, um projeto para o Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1989.

Weffort, Francisco Correia. O Populismo na Política Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1980.

Weffort, Francisco Correia. Por Que Democracia? São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1984.

Weffort, Francisco Correia. Qual Democracia? São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1992.

                                 Andrew J. Kirkendall