Explaining Brazil
News from Brazil, by The Brazilian Report — an independent media outlet uniquely positioned to offer an insider’s view of current affairs in Brazil.
Episodes
In Latin America, 2026 quite literally got off to an explosive start.
Just before sunrise on January 2, the city of Caracas was violently awoken by the sound of bombs, as US forces launched a sudden, high-intensity strike on the Venezuelan capital. Within hours, President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were in American custody — flown out of the country and headed to New York to face criminal charges.
The Venezuelan gover...
In any democratic republic, it’s normal for the executive, legislative, and judicial branches to clash. That’s a sign of mutual oversight. It’s also normal for politicians to make concessions to their adversaries. That’s a sign of democracy.
But the sequence of recent events in Brazilian politics has turned into a sweeping narrative about what happens when these dynamics of checks and balances slide into sheer revanchism and bargain...
In a country with 27 state governments, more than 5,000 city halls, and around 12 million people working in the public sector, calls to reform — or improve — Brazil’s civil service never really seem to go away.
We talked to Brazil's special secretary for state transformation — and asked him to compare the reform proposals coming from the lower house with the Lula administration's approach.
Carlos Nobre, head of the Planetary Science Pavilion at COP30 in the Amazon, talks to us about the conference’s results, the climate emergency we are living through, and what Brazil can still do.
Five years ago, Brazil launched a public digital payment infrastructure — and its impact on the financial market and society has been immense.
Over the past decade, Brazilian lawmakers have steadily built up procedures to expand their powers over the purse. That has included increasing the overall volume of congressional grants; making a large share of them mandatory spending; limiting the Executive’s discretion over when to release those funds, and creating ways to erase transparency and traceability from the process. A perfect recipe for corruption, which has now trickl...
Each passing year, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) gains more urgency. More and more biomes around the world are approaching what scientists call tipping points — the Amazon chief among them. Hosting the 30th edition of COP in Belém, one of the Amazon’s biggest cities, therefore represents one of the most significant responsibilities Brazil’s diplomacy has taken on in recent times.
This week, we are joined by exp...
Justice Luís Roberto Barroso is retiring. We unpack how factors such as trust, political ties, and electoral considerations may guide President Lula’s next choice for the court.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on The Brazilian Report.
President Lula’s popularity has risen. We examine how this might impact the political landscape ahead of the next presidential election.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on The Brazilian Report.
Brazil’s Congress is discussing a proposal for income tax reform. Backed by the Lula administration, the bill seeks to make the country’s system more progressive. But just how unequal are taxes in Brazil?
This week, we host economist Davi Bhering, who co-authored a Paris School of Economics study on Brazil’s tax income system. In our newly released episode of the Explaining Brazil podcast, he unpacks:
- Why Brazil’s income inequ...
Crowds on Sunday fanned out across Brazil’s 27 state capitals to denounce two measures moving through Congress: a constitutional amendment proposal that would essentially shield lawmakers from prosecution, and a bill that could forgive or soften penalties for those convicted of a coup attempt masterminded by former President Jair Bolsonaro and his acolytes.
The demonstrations, initially organized in a spontaneous, online f...
A massive police operation exposed how deep Brazil's largest criminal organization has penetrated the legitimate economy.
Rafael Alcadipani, a professor at the FGV’s School of Public Administration and a member of the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, unpacks:
- How the PCC evolved into a mafia-like organization, with multiple economic activities.
- The impacts of this expansion on democracy.
- Brazil’s federal and state-...
The Brazilian Supreme Court has reached a majority to convict former President Jair Bolsonaro of leading a conspiracy to overturn his 2022 electoral defeat.
The trial is about to bring an end to a political career long marked by authoritarian views and practices. To review Bolsonaro's political path, the Explaining Brazil podcast invited journalist Juliana Dal Piva. She is the author of the book “O Negócio do Jair” (...
The final stage of Jair Bolsonaro’s coup trial kicked off on September 2 in Brasília. After months of evidence-gathering, arguments and testimonies, the justices are expected to deliver their ruling by September 12, in what is arguably the most consequential trial in Brazil’s recent history.
At the center of the case are the riots that occurred on January 8, 2023. They looked eerily like January 6 in the United States — bu...
At a time when US President Donald Trump is pressuring Brazil on both trade and military fronts, the country’s digital vulnerabilities have come into focus. The notion of sovereignty now extends beyond borders to the infrastructure, systems and data that underpin the digital world.
How prepared is Brazil to secure its digital sovereignty?
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts or on The Brazilian Report.
A political drama has unfolded inside Congress. It started with a show of force: after former President Jair Bolsonaro was placed on house arrest, lawmakers loyal to him occupied both chambers, bringing the legislature to a halt. But beneath the theatrics, something more profound is unraveling — a leadership crisis. Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts or on The Brazilian Report.
In this edition of #InsiderTalks, we’ve invited experts on law, democracy and electoral trends to analyze the trial of Bolsonaro and his allies for an alleged coup plot. Subscribe to Explaining Brazil Plus on Apple Podcasts for the full episode or go to The Brazilian Report and subscribe to get all of our content.
Professor Felipe Campante of Johns Hopkins sees little room for success in negotiations between Brazil and the US, as only the former is following the rule of law. Subscribe to Explaining Brazil Plus on Apple Podcasts for the full episode or go to The Brazilian Report and subscribe to get all of our content.
In this episode of Explaining Brazil Plus, we analyzed Donald Trump’s threat of a 50% tariff on Brazil and its possible impacts on the country's economy and politics. Subscribe to Explaining Brazil Plus on Apple Podcasts for the full episode or go to The Brazilian Report and subscribe to get all of our content.
A major social security scandal causes a government headache. Brazil’s beef sector needs major changes to hit emissions goals. And Lula is off to Rome for the pope’s funeral, but who’s going with him?
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