Post-Marxism and Politics - The Case of the Brazilian Workers' Party

Since the 1980s the Brazilian Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT) received attention due to its heterogeneous composition of social activists and innovative governing practices. By making a discourse analysis of the PT Pessoa examines the trajectory of its political dis­course as the party goes from opposition to holding municipal office. After establishing the party's political discourse based on a hegemonic political strategy and with an objective to radicalize democracy Pessoa analyses how the PT confronts institutional limits in trying to materialise its original political discourse. The key question that Pessoa tries to answer is whether the party has been able to bring about transformative changes once it reached municipal office or whether the PT has become just another political party within the Brazilian political regime.