Breakfast Discussion with Governor Jaques Wagner

**To read the full report for this event, please click on the cover image to the left or scroll down to the report link at the bottom of the page. Below is a brief summary of the events proceedings.**
In an effort to provide Brazilian leaders with greater exposure to the Washington policy community and advance understanding of Brazilian issues in the United States, the Brazil Institute continued its breakfast discussion series with a high-level meeting with Jaques Wagner, Governor of Bahia.
On September 11, 2007, Governor Wagner assessed the challenge to the Lula government of transforming the president's immense popularity into effective measures to advance a stalled policy agenda during the final three years of the Lula presidency. Despite the frequency of political scandals that have gripped the country, the ability of Brazil's "Teflon" president to remain popular as well as the resurgence of the PT rest on the success of their social agenda. Governor Wagner cautioned against viewing the ‘new left' governments throughout Latin America through a unitary lens. Rather, the region's leaders were elected through legitimate democratic processes, and the underlying dynamics that influenced the electoral outcomes must be understood. Not all countries are repudiating the market reforms of the 1990s and adopting more populist economic policies, he said.
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Brazil Institute
The Brazil Institute—the only country-specific policy institution focused on Brazil in Washington—aims to deepen understanding of Brazil’s complex landscape and strengthen relations between Brazilian and US institutions across all sectors. Read more
Latin America Program
The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. Read more