(Un)changing inequality : economic life, social movements, and policymaking during years of inflation in urban Brazil, 1944-1978
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation is a study of inflation and inequality in urban Brazil from 1944-1978. Examining the feedback loop among economic life, social movements, and policymaking, it analyzes how different people experienced inflation, the social movements they formed to protest against it, and how some policies enacted to address it helped exacerbate inequality. The first half features chapters about the unequal lived experience of the high cost of living in the 1940s and the public protest campaigns carried out by women and students in Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s and 1950s. The second half examines the American consulting firm Klein & Saks' 1954 mission that studied why food prices were so high in urban Brazil; the wage policy in 1964's PAEG that reduced workers' wages as a way to fight inflation; and the anti-inflation advertising campaigns in 1973 and 1977 that blamed urban women, shopkeepers, and consumers for inflation. Integrating methods from social, cultural, and intellectual history with those from economic history and political economy, while using an array of qualitative and quantitative primary sources, this dissertation makes several arguments. First, we cannot understand urban Brazilians' lived experience from the 1940s-1970s without appreciating the degree to which inflation influenced their daily lives, and how this varied by socioeconomic status and gender. Second, analyzing the women- and student-led social movements in the 1940s and 1950s not only enhances our knowledge of these groups' agency and political action but also of their successes and failures in influencing policymakers. Finally, we have an incomplete conception of both the range of policy options available to policymakers and the results of policies that scholars have overlooked. Ultimately, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of state-society relations, political legitimacy, and the persistence of inequality in Brazil, and it provides lessons for countries today and in the future facing economic imbalances.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2021; ©2021 |
| Publication date | 2021; 2021 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Nestler, Matthew Edward |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Frank, Zephyr L, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Frank, Zephyr L, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Borges, Dain Edward |
| Thesis advisor | Haber, Stephen H, 1957- |
| Thesis advisor | Wolfe, Mikael |
| Degree committee member | Borges, Dain Edward |
| Degree committee member | Haber, Stephen H, 1957- |
| Degree committee member | Wolfe, Mikael |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of History |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Matthew Nestler. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of History. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2021. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/rs559sw1389 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2021 by Matthew Edward Nestler
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...