Fernando Henrique Cardoso

President of Brazil (1995–2003)

• Born: June 18, 1931
• Place of Birth: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

As an academic, Cardoso authored a seminal work on underdevelopment and dependency theory. In his public career as a senator, cabinet minister, and president, he guided Brazil’s transition from an authoritarian military regime to a civilian and democratic government. He worked to stabilize the economy and government by defeating chronic hyperinflation by applying a program of economic and fiscal reforms based on the creation of a new currency, the real.

Early Life

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (fayr-NAHN-doh ahn-REE-kay kar-DOH-zoh) was raised in São Paulo, the center of what would become his scholarly and political career. Descended from generations of military officials with significant roles in government, he studied and worked from 1949 on at the University of São Paulo under the French-influenced first generation of Brazilian sociologists, including Roger Bastide (also a literary critic) and Florestan Fernandes. In 1961, he began a distinguished academic career as a social scientist with books on Brazilian slavery and economic development. Although he was never a member of the Communist Party, he was sympathetic to Marxism and was a fervent supporter of political programs for social justice.

A military coup overthrew the civilian government of Brazil in 1964, forcing leftist intellectuals into exile. Fleeing to Chile, Cardoso began teaching there in the company of other exiled leftist Brazilian intellectuals. With Enzo Faletto of Chile, he published one of his most influential books, Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina (1969; Dependency and Development in Latin America , 1979). The book was republished numerous times and translated into many languages. Teaching in France during this period as well, he received authorization in 1968 to return to Brazil. Prohibited from continuing his academic career in public universities, he and a group of fellow academics founded a private research and teaching institute, Centro Brasileiro de Analise e Planejamento (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning), financed through consultation and courses offered in Latin America, Europe, and the United States.

Life’s Work

Members of the officially sanctioned opposition party in Brazil, the Movimento Popular Brasileiro, or MPB (Brazilian Popular Movement), sought the advice of the Center for Analysis and Planning. Increasingly Cardoso became involved with its leading members in São Paulo, yet he continued his academic career, teaching at Princeton University in the United States and Cambridge University in England. His books and articles during the 1970s concentrated on party politics and Brazilian democracy. Running in 1978 for a national senate seat representing São Paulo, he received the second-highest number of votes, qualifying to become a supplementary senator, one who could fill the vacancy of the first-elected, the incumbent, should that person leave office. Such a vacancy occurred when the incumbent became governor of São Paulo. Cardoso replaced that person in 1983 and, with reelection, remained in the senate until 1992.

Social, political, and economic tensions mounted during the 1980s because of rampant inflation, widespread unemployment, and political repression. The military resolved to withdraw from operating the government and authorized civilian candidates to dispute the presidential succession of 1985. The candidate of the opposition, Tancredo Neves, won but died before being able to take office; he was replaced by his vice president, José Sarney. In the senate, Cardoso became the leader of his party. However, in 1988 he founded a new political organization, the liberal-centrist Brazilian Social Democratic Party (Partido de Social Democracia Brasileira, or PSDB), symbolized by the tropical tucan bird (party members came to be known as tucanos).

The presidential election of 1989 brought to power a youthful populist, Fernando Collor de Melo, with senior statesman Itamar Franco as his vice presidential running mate. Cardoso supported the new government in its attempt to overcome inflation. However, even the government’s most drastic anti-inflation measures proved unsuccessful. The revealing of Collor’s financial corruption brought about his impeachment and resignation from office at the end of 1992. The new president, Franco, appointed Cardoso minister of foreign relations because Cardoso was known internationally for his intellectual and political integrity. In this position, Cardoso was successful in negotiating issues with the United States, Portuguese-speaking Africa, and the Southern Cone (southernmost neighbors), and the following year he was offered the most challenging position in the government, heading the ministry of finance.

Occupying this post from the middle of 1993 to the middle of the following year, Cardoso confronted the perennial dragon of the modern Brazilian state, runaway inflation. Success in subduing a challenge that had overcome so many previous ministers would leave him a prime candidate for the presidency itself. In facing the challenge, he reversed basic tenets of his socialist background, acceding to neoliberal economic ideas globalized by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and US president Ronald Reagan. Cardoso severely reduced the federal budget for social programs and supported the sale of state-owned corporations, allowing international capital to acquire them. The strategy was to reduce government debt and increase assets in order to sustain a new, more stable currency, the real. This project became known as the Plano Real (Real Plan). Complex in its preparation and execution, it was not initially effective in reducing inflation.

Nevertheless, for the presidential election of 1994, Cardoso was nominated by his party and supported by a coalition of center-right parties. As the Plano Real began to reduce inflation dramatically, Cardoso moved rapidly forward against his main opponent, Luis Inácio da Silva, candidate of the Workers’ Party. On October 3, Cardoso won the presidency with more than 34 million votes, 54 percent of the total.

Taking office on January 1, 1995, Cardoso pursued a detailed execution of the Plano Real. Subduing inflation and establishing a stable currency, he further reduced government debt, built up government capital, and welcomed greater foreign investment. Nonetheless, he denied that he was a neoliberal and reaffirmed his commitment to social democracy.

The economic success of his first administration encouraged him to seek a second term. Successive presidential terms required an amendment of the constitution. With such a change achieved, in 1998 he was elected to a second four-year term, winning 53 percent of the vote and again defeating da Silva as his opponent. Inaugurated again in January 1999, he continued his policies of privatizing state enterprises in communications, transport, electricity, oil, and minerals; encouraging foreign capital; and guaranteeing access to education and health care for those with the lowest incomes.

Following the end of his term in January 2003, Cardoso remained an influential figure in Brazilian politics as well as in the academic sphere. Between 2003 and 2006, he served as the president of the Club of Madrid. From 2003 to 2008, he taught as a professor-at-large at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, before becoming a board member. In 2005, the British monthly Prospect named him among the world’s top one hundred public intellectuals, listing him as number forty-three. He continued to publish books, including a memoir of his time in office, The Accidental President of Brazil (2006). An in-demand lecturer, he delivered talks at various institutions worldwide. In 2013, Cardoso was inducted into the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

In the 2010s and 2020s, Cardoso was an active figure in a number of social service organizations. In addition to being a member of the world peace–promoting Fondation Chirac, Cardoso was a founding member of the think tank Inter-American Dialogue; served as director of the World Resources Institute; was a member of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy; and chaired the Global Commission of Drug Policy. In 2017, he received the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award from the Inter-American Dialogue. Cardoso lived in Brazil’s capital of São Paulo and continued to be involved with politics into the 2020s, including a 2024 meeting with sitting President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Significance

Cardoso the scholar propounded the theory of underdevelopment and associated dependency with developed economies. Cardoso the statesman was exiled for his ideas by the military. Upon returning to Brazil, he aided the opposition party in formulating policies for the restoration of democratic government. Hyperinflation had undermined the military regime and threatened the stability of the nascent democratic government.

In various legislative and executive positions, and finally as president of Brazil from 1995 to 2003, Cardoso subdued the chronic threat of inflation to Brazilian economic and political stability through a series of economic, fiscal, and currency reforms. That he was elected twice in succession to the presidency, an unprecedented achievement in Brazilian history, shows his popularity. Moreover, at the end of his mandate, he turned the government over to the constitutionally elected leader of the opposition Workers’ Party. Cardoso remained an influential public figure following the end of his term, demonstrating the importance of his academic, economic, and governmental contributions to Brazil.

Bibliography

"About." The Dialogue, 2024, www.thedialogue.org/about/. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, and Enzo Faletto. Dependency and Development in Latin America. U of California P, 1979.

Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, and Brian Winter. The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir. Public Affairs, 2006.

Goertzel, Ted George. Fernando Henrique Cardoso: Reinventing Democracy in Brazil. Rienner, 1988.

"Fernando Henrique Cardoso." Global Commission on Drug Policy, www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/commissioner/fernando-henrique-cardoso. Accessed 10 Jun. 2024.

"Fernando Henrique Cardoso." The Elders, theelders.org/profile/fernando-henrique-cardoso. Accessed 10 Jun. 2024.

Fiuza, Renan, and Lucas Schroeder. "Lula's Visit to FHC in SP Lasted About Half an Hour." CNN, 24 June 2024, www-cnnbrasil-com-br.translate.goog/politica/visita-de-lula-a-fhc-em-sp-durou-cerca-de-meia-hora/?‗x‗tr‗sl=pt&‗x‗tr‗tl=en&‗x‗tr‗hl=en&‗x‗tr‗pto=sc. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

Green, Duncan, and Sue Branford. Faces of Latin America. 4th ed., Monthly Review, 2013.

Kahl, Joseph Alan. Three Latin American Sociologists: Gino Germani, Pablo Gonzales Casanova, Fernando Henrique Cardosa. Transaction, 1988.

Kingstone, Peter R., and Timothy J. Power, editors. Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions, and Processes. U of Pittsburgh P, 2000.

Rohter, Larry. Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed. Macmillan, 2012.

Smith, William C., and Nizar Messari. Democracy and Reform in Cardoso’s Brazil: Caught Between Clientelism and Global Markets? North-South Center, U of Miami, 1998.

Vigevani, Tullo, and Gabriel Cepaluni. Brazilian Foreign Policy in Changing Times: The Quest for Autonomy from Sarney to Lula. Translated by Leandro Moura. Lexington, 2012.