Dilma Rousseff, Brazilian Cultural Politics, and the Rio 2016 Olympics: Left in Lula’s Wake

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil and 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro were part and parcel of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (popularly referred to as Lula) leftist populist swell with the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, or Workers’ Party) in Brazil. The Cup and the Games were integral elements of Lula’s political agenda and legacy. To the internal Brazilian audience, the Cup and Games became expressions of Lula’s perceived character as a man of and from the people whose charisma stimulated and simulated his political leadership. Yet, his hand-picked successor in 2011, Dilma Rousseff, did not experience the same levels of support or appeal despite maintaining many of Lula’s policies. Within a period of political, economic, and social change in Brazil, Rousseff was unable to maintain political leadership of the PT and her coalition government. In the wake of Lula’s populism, Rousseff may have lacked Lula’s charismatic populism but she also suffered the gendered and misogynist discourses associated with a right-wing backlash, which ultimately led to her impeachment just prior to the Olympic Games. This chapter examines the political, economic, and social context of Brazil around the 2016 Olympic Games produced by, and productive of, the political populism of Lula, Rousseff, and the PT.