Brazil - Cynical Citizenship: Gender, Regionalism, and Political Subjectivity in Porto Alegre, Brazil. By Benjamin Junge. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Pp. 286. $65.00 cloth.

Abstract

This book is part of a tradition of scholarship that views understanding citizenship as necessary for understanding the nature of democracy. Although based on fieldwork conducted more than 15 years ago, the book sheds considerable light on the state of Brazilian democracy today. Situated in the heyday of Porto Alegre’s international reputation as “a vibrant center of leftist political experimentation and civic participation” (1), the euphoria of Lula’s electoral victory, and the idealism of the World Social Forum, the book offers a nuanced multilevel perspective and careful analysis, identifying the underlying tensions and contradictions that would gradually undermine an ambitious political project and foreshadowing the threats they would subsequently pose for Brazilian democracy. In doing so, Junge’s book makes important contributions to literatures on citizenship and democracy—participatory democracy in particular—challenging much of the conventional wisdom of this field of scholarship through the sobering perspectives of ordinary citizens.