NEOLIBERALISM AND BOLSA FAMÍLIA: A THEORETICAL APPROACH¹

Abstract

Neoliberalism remains a central yet contested and often contradictory political concept. While some scholars employ it as a framework to explain virtually all contemporary phenomena, others reject its analytical utility altogether. This article engages with this debate through an ideological analysis of Brazil’s Bolsa Família program (PBF), demonstrating how such an approach clarifies the real-world manifestations of neoliberalism while addressing conceptual ambiguities and misapplications. First, the study contends that an ideological approach transcends the examination of isolated ideas, by emphasizing the dynamic interplay and conceptual rearticulation between competing ideologies. Next, it analyses the PBF, situating the program within Brazil’s historical context, and the Workers’ Party (PT) and Lula’s political ideas and policies. The analysis reveals that while the PBF drew partial inspiration from neoliberal premises, its implementation was rooted in a distinct ideological foundation.

Keywords
neoliberalism; citizenship; social rights; Bolsa Família ; Brazilian politics

Resumo

Apesar de ser um conceito político central, neoliberalismo permanece como uma ideia contestada e, frequentemente, contraditória. Enquanto alguns estudiosos utilizam o conceito para explicar praticamente todos os fenômenos contemporâneos, outros rejeitam por completo sua utilidade analítica. O presente artigo contribui para esse debate por meio de uma análise ideológica do programa Bolsa Família (PBF), demonstrando como esse tipo de abordagem pode esclarecer o que constitui manifestações reais ou não do neoliberalismo, e ambiguidades e equívocos nas aplicações do conceito. Primeiro, o estudo argumenta que uma abordagem ideológica vai além do exame de ideias isoladas, enfatizando, em vez disso, a interação dinâmica e a rearticulação conceitual entre ideologias concorrentes. Em seguida, analisa o PBF, situando o programa no contexto histórico brasileiro, assim como nas ideias e políticas do Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) e do governo Lula. A análise revela que, embora o PBF tenha se inspirado parcialmente em premissas neoliberais, a lógica do programa esteve enraizada em uma base ideológica distinta.

Palavras-chave
neoliberalismo; cidadania; direitos sociais; Bolsa Família; política brasileira

Introduction

Since the end of the XX century, studies on neoliberalism have multiplied, and neoliberalism has become an “academic catchphrase” and a “predominant concept” in the social sciences(BOAS;GANS-MORSE, 2009). If neoliberalism, during the XXI century, became increasingly contested, its resilience after several crisis stimulated new analyses and perspectives. From the world financial crises, a growing body of scholarship on neoliberalism have emerged. New interpretations and terms — such as “zombie neoliberalism” (PECK, 2010), “ongoing neoliberalism” (MUDGE, 2016), “actually existing neoliberalism” (CAHILL et al., 2018) — have sought to better describe the mutable, flexible, and diverse nature of neoliberalism. However, as Taylor Boas and Jordan Gans-Morse (2009) argue, despite the tremendous amount of work on neoliberalism, few of these works have focused on understanding the concept, and the term has become not less but increasingly more confusing and vaguer over the past years, reaching the breaking point where while some analysts relate every event to the phenomena, others have decided, as a reaction, to eliminate the term all together from their analyses due to lack of criteria for its employment (CAHILL et al. 2018, p. 4).

What explains this definitional crisis? Boas and Gans-Morse (2009) identify three core issues: persistent conceptual vagueness, ideologically motivated applications, and indiscriminate application to disparate phenomena (137). Recent years have seen important efforts to the definitional boundaries of neoliberalism, reducing some of its ambiguity. Yet, fundamental confusion persists in both academic and political discourse. The central problem lies in the continued use of neoliberalism as a blanket term. It is still frequently employed as shorthand for virtually anything associated with market-oriented policies or outcomes, rather than as a concept grounded in specific ideological reasoning operating within concrete historical contexts. Thus, although progress has been made in addressing definitional issues in recent years, a major challenge remains: understanding how neoliberalism operates in the real world.

In contributing to this timely debate, the present article argues that an ideological approach can significantly clarify what neoliberalism means in the real world. By an ideological approach, I do not refer to a traditional ideational approach that analyses key neoliberal thinkers and their “canonical urtexts” in search of the “true” neoliberal doctrine(s) (VENUGOPAL, 2015, p. 166). Rather, it requires examining neoliberalism as a living ideology — one that operates through the fundamental structures and dynamics of all ideologies: historical actors and groups engaged in continuous struggle to address concrete problems within specific contexts shaped by existing conventions and traditions.

In analysing ideological dynamics, conventions, and traditions, an ideological approach illuminates neoliberalism as it actually functions — not as some isolated theoretical construct, but as part of a dynamic political ecosystem in which it continuously interacts with and responds to competing ideologies. This perspective helps overcome the limitations of existing frameworks. While Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval (2013) rightly critique Marxist approaches for their economic reductionism and their inability to grasp neoliberalism’s novel techniques, their Foucauldian alternative risks creating its own analytical blind spots. By positing an all-encompassing “neoliberal rationality” that transforms individuals into “neoliberal subjects,” this approach tends to detemporalize social processes and dehistoricize political actors. This is why the authors, at the conclusion of their seminal book, argue that the left needs to create another “rationality” to completely overcome neoliberalism (pp. 395-396). It presents social change as a series of sealed paradigms, in which one totalizing worldview mechanically replaces another, rather than as an ongoing process of ideological contestation and adaptation.

While both Marxist and Foucauldian approaches provide crucial insights — the former offering a structural analysis of material transformations (DAVIES, JACKSON, AND SUTCLIFFE-BRAITHWAITE, 2021, p. 5), the latter revealing the capillary diffusion of neoliberalism into everyday life — they share a common limitation. Neither adequately accounts for the multiplicity of temporalities, traditions, and conventions that shape ideological evolution and political practice. These frameworks overlook how specific contexts emerge from distinct yet interwoven historical layers (KOSELLECK, 2002, p. 135), which generate complex syntheses of meanings, concepts, and political languages (POCOCK, 2009). Consequently, they fail to capture the dynamic processes of ideological conflict and reconciliation, continuity and rupture, or the ways in which ideologies co-opt, borrow, and re-signify elements from each other (FREEDEN, 2008).

This oversight often leads to a form of “analytical-ideological reductionism”: the reflexive categorization of any policy, government, or idea displaying superficial neoliberal characteristics as fundamentally neoliberal. Such reductionism operates on the flawed assumption that isolated ideological markers necessarily signify comprehensive doctrinal allegiance. This helps explain neoliberalism’s apparent omnipresence in contemporary scholarship — its deployment as a universal explanatory framework that too often obscures historical nuance and ideological complexity rather than illuminating them.

To demonstrate my argument, I examine the well-known Brazilian program Bolsa Familia (PBF) as a case study. Drawing on an ideological approach, the article seeks to answer the question: Was Bolsa Família a neoliberal program? This is a recurrent theme in Brazilian political debates that reflects a broader scholarly discussion about the Workers’ Party’s (PT) governments and the extent to which they deepened, modified or ruptured with the the neoliberal policies of the 1990s (see, for example, FIGUEIRAS, 2019, FRIEDMAN and PUTY, 2019, LOUREIRO, 2019, SAAD-FILHO, 2019; For perspectives characterizing the PT as modern social democracy, see AMARAL, 2010; BEKER, 2020; REIS, 2013; RIBEIRO, 2010; SAMUELS, 2004). The analytical challenges become particularly evident when examining the PBF. Although implemented by Brazil’s most significant left-wing government and demonstrably successful in reducing poverty and inequality, the program’s core features — means-testing, targeted benefits, and cash transfers — originate in neoliberal critiques of universal welfare models. However, as I will demonstrate, the strategic adoption of particular policy instruments does not necessarily imply ideological alignment. Political actors operating within specific historical contexts and traditions transform and repurpose practices derived from rival ideologies to serve their own worldview. The article makes a dual contribution: it develops a theoretical framework for analysing neoliberalism while applying it to a contentious case study, thereby demonstrating the analytical value of this approach.

The present study is divided into seven sections: the first section outlines the theoretical approach adopted in the article; from the second section, in order to contextualize the relevant traditions and historical background, I analyse the neoliberal conception of citizenship; next, the Brazilian social security history; followed by a brief history of cash transfer programmes; and then the political and ideological traditions of the Workers’ Party; in the fifth section I present the PBF policy; and, in the final section, I analyse the question “was the PBF a neoliberal program?”.

Theoretical considerations

Numerous studies on neoliberalism engage with neoliberal ideas, beliefs, thinkers, and texts. Many outstanding and innovative studies have significantly advanced our understanding of neoliberalism (MIROWSKI and PLEHWE, 2009; BURGIN, 2012; SLOBODIAN, 2018; MIROWSKI et al. 2020; SUTCLIFFE-BRAITHWAITE et al. 2021). Thus, this article does not claim that there is a lack of important analyses of neoliberal political ideas. Rather, it argues that an ideological approach entails a specific framework — one that understands ideology as a worldview in constant political and conceptual dispute with rivals ideologies rather than merely a collection of ideas.

Such an approach demands more than the analysis of ideas in isolation; it requires examining them within the broader functioning and dynamics of ideologies, grounded in a theoretical framework capable of explaining how ideologies operate. Furthermore, even studies that adopt an ideological perspective on neoliberalism rarely develop a robust theoretical framework — with rare exceptions, such as Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe’s (2009) successful application of “thought collective” theory.

Given this, it is essential to define what I mean by an ideological approach.

First, this approach treats ideologies as worldviews that provide both a distinct interpretation of reality and a blueprint for political action. Crucially, ideologies strive to present a comprehensive, correct, and unique understanding of the world (OSTROWSKI, 2022, p. 69).

More importantly, if ideologies provide us with a “worldview” and a “plan for action” they do so by combining contestable political concepts to suit their unique worldview and agenda. This is necessary because the social world is in constant flux, generating new problems and demanding new solutions. Since political concepts are essentially contestable⁵ — and thus open to endless reconfiguration⁶ — and ideological components are not mutually exclusive (FREEDEN 2008, p. 164) — most ideologies operate through the same key political concepts — , ideological actors and groups promoting a particular ideology will always, consciously or not, dispute conceptual meanings, coopting, reutilizing and re-signifying concepts. Political and social actors advancing a particular ideology constantly borrow and adapt ideas and policies associated with other ideologies to align them with their own worldviews, different objectives, and justifications. Political ideologies configure political concepts to create specific conceptual patterns. Therefore, political ideologies will promote their particular conceptions of core political concepts — ”human nature,” “liberty,” “equality,” “justice” — in order to institute what they consider the “correct usage” of the concept and establish socially legitimated meanings (FREEDEN, 2008, p. 177).

Many major political conflicts revolve around struggles over the meanings of essentially contested concepts. These concepts cannot be separated from political struggles , as they function as instruments of persuasion, rhetorical weapons, and markers of identity. Ideologies actively dispute the meanings of political concepts, seeking to legitimize and impose their own interpretations of these concepts as the “real” meaning (BALL, 1998, p. 82).

Therefore, our first theoretical premise is that, from an ideological perspective, an individual, group, movement, or government can only be classified as upholding a given ideology based on an analysis of their worldview (aims, justifications, idea of “good society”, plans) rather than the analysis of isolated ideas and policies.

This leads us to a crucial point: a government may implement policies or champion ideas widely regarded as neoliberal without necessarily adhering to a neoliberal worldview.

However, to properly understand an ideological worldview — the ways in which it assigns meaning to political concepts and incorporates them into its interpretation of reality and political agenda — it is essential to understand context and traditions.

An ideological approach must therefore explore context, but this involves more than merely examining the political, institutional, economic and social context. Following an approach that understands political concepts as contestable concepts deriving their meanings from specific constellations of words within particular conceptual frameworks, grasping a political concept’s meaning requires understanding the conventions, ideological contexts, and the linguistic environments. Therefore, focusing on the linguistic context and semantic particularities becomes central to understanding how ideologies compete over political concepts.

If ideologies, through their actors and groups, rearrange political concepts in ways that assign meanings suited to their worldviews, then an ideological approach must examine the range of possible meanings a concept may acquire within a specific linguistic and ideological context. Thus, an ideological approach must move beyond merely understanding an ideological worldview itself and instead investigate the various meanings that contested political concepts may assume within their political and linguistic contexts.

Therefore, our second premise is that an ideological approach must pay meticulous attention to the specific context being analysed, especially the usually neglected linguistic and ideological ones.

Finally, an ideological approach must incorporate a diachronic analysis that examines traditions and transformations across time. This requires understanding how concepts evolve historically in response to specific circumstances and ideological challenges. Only through such a temporal perspective can we properly assess both the enduring influence of political concepts and the continuity or transformation of their meanings. As Koselleck (1996, pp. 64-65) reminds us, political concepts emerge from “long-term semiotic processes” containing “manifold and contradictory experiences.” Consequently, concepts inherently contain multiple meanings. They embody historical traditions that continue to shape their contemporary significance and the discourses through which they are articulated.

c) The third premise, thus, holds that an ideological approach must adopt a diachronic perspective in order to understand the entire “film”, not only the “photo” (context). The meaning of a political concept is not only given through a context but also based on the relationship between the continuity of the past in the present times, the lasting traditions that influences and are used, consciously or unconsciously, in the contemporary contexts.

Most analyses of neoliberalism has conceived essential neoliberal ideas as their meaning were given. The primary issue with this approach is that by assigning fixed meanings to political ideas or practices — without critically interrogating them — they become automatically linked to a specific ideology. For example, when concepts like “individualism,” “meritocracy,” “austerity,” or “competition” appear in discourse, they are often uncritically associated with neoliberalism, as though these terms could not assume alternative meanings or uses. However, political actors can — and do — reinterpret and redefine political concepts, consciously or unconsciously even if constrained by their linguistic and ideological contexts. In the 19th century, conservatives incorporated the socialist notion of the “social” as well as progressive ideas associated with “nationalism” and “patriotism.” Decades later, fascists redefined “progress” and “revolution,” terms traditionally associated with the left. Similarly, “liberty” has been a core value for liberals, closely tied to the absence of coercion. Conservatives, by contrast, have treated liberty not as an absolute value but as an emergent property of organic society. The left, while historically framing liberty in its positive sense (as the capacity to act), has increasingly adopted the liberal, negative conception (freedom from interference) in recent decades. Liberty can also refer to external relations (e.g., between citizens and the state) or internal self-liberation (EATWELL, 1989, p. 54). The British welfare state offers another example of ideological reinterpretation. It was implemented by a Labour government, a social democratic party at the time, based on a liberal plan (Beveridge plan), and it was subsequently maintained by Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party. Despite their differing ideological commitments — social democratic, liberal, and conservative — these groups supported the welfare state system at certain point. However, they understood the values and objectives of the welfare state in very different ways, connected to their distinct ideological worldviews.

The examples are nearly endless, but the key point remains ideologies may emphasize different dimensions of political concepts and play a creative role in shaping their possible meanings in ways that align with their respective worldviews. Yet this can only be understood through an examination of ideological dynamics — exploring and understanding ideological worldviews and analyzing the contexts and historical traditions that continuously shape them.

By analysing continuities and ruptures, adaptations and transformations, or novel re-appropriations of ideas, an ideological approach clarifies what may be considered “neoliberal” in a given context. It also reveals how political actors, whether consciously or unconsciously, adopt, modify, or reject neoliberal ideas within their own ideological frameworks.

The neoliberal case for citizenship

To properly assess whether the PBF’s status as a social right and component of broader models of citizenship indicates neoliberal influence, it is first necessary to examine how neoliberalism conceptualizes citizenship and social rights. The postwar welfare state model implemented across the Global North, was founded on the principle that governments must guarantee all citizens “a decent minimum standard of life” and protection against “want and dependence” (MISHRA, 1990, p. 18). This model rejected charitable approaches and instead established social provisions as enforceable rights.

Within this framework, citizenship became instrumental in the pursuit of greater equality and social stability. The expansion of social rights represented the primary mechanism for achieving these objectives. Furthermore, such rights were understood to promote communitarian solidarity, social cohesion, and collective identity by establishing equal social worth. The foundational principles of this model — include universalism, equality, fairness, and uniformity — formed part of a cohesive discourse typically associated with social democratic or social liberal ideologies. This worldview positioned the interventionist state as the central actor in addressing poverty and inequality, using citizenship rights as key instruments for counteracting the socially harmful effects of the market and create a more equitable society.

Neoliberal thinkers launched a broad attack on the welfare model of citizenship and the very notion of social rights — a position that flows directly from their core ideological framework. Unlike classical liberals, neoliberals reject the idea that markets emerge spontaneously as natural social formations. Instead, they view markets as deliberate constructs requiring active political intervention to establish and sustain them. This foundational belief coexists with the conviction that collective institutions and projects of social solidarity are inherently prone to irrationality and authoritarian tendencies. Consequently, a central neoliberal imperative emerges: the need to protect markets from democratic pressures and collective social institutions.

At its core, neoliberalism is animated by what Mudge (2016, p. 98) calls “a deeply held moral conviction about markets.” This conviction rests on an idealized vision of “market rule and liberal freedoms” (PECK et al., 2018, p. 6) — a vision that combines faith in market rationality with competitive individualism while expressing profound scepticism toward social redistribution and collective solidarity. Although neoliberal strategies have evolved across different historical and geographical contexts, their ultimate objective has remained consistent: the construction and preservation of a competitive market order (SLOBODIAN AND PLEWHE, 2020). As William Davies (2017, p. xx) succinctly observes, neoliberalism represents “the disenchantment of politics by economics,” subordinating political deliberation to market logic and transforming the state into a guardian of markets against political and social encroachments.

This worldview helps explains neoliberalism’s hostility toward postwar conceptions of citizenship and social rights. From a neoliberal perspective, social rights fundamentally contradict the market’s central role in the allocation of resources. As King (1987, p. 165) notes, welfare regimes deployed social rights precisely to “counter market processes,” granting individuals economic security irrespective of their position within the market (HOOVER and PLANT, 1989, p. 88). More broadly, neoliberals oppose social rights because they require state intervention in private economic relations (FAULKS, 1998), which neoliberals regard as distorting market mechanisms, constraining individual freedom, and ultimately undermining the market’s purported efficiency and fairness.

Thus, the neoliberal conception of citizenship emerged as a direct counterpoint to the postwar welfare model. Within this framework, citizenship is redefined primarily as a mechanism for safeguarding market-oriented civil rights — particularly those protecting private property, contractual freedom, and entrepreneurial initiative. Neoliberal reforms systematically sought to relocate responsibility for social and economic security from the state to the private sphere (especially families and individuals), while insulating market mechanisms from collective social demands. This entails not only rolling back the state’s social role through privatization and austerity but also reconfiguring public goods as commodified services to be accessed through market participation rather than guaranteed as entitlements of citizenship. Social rights have to be eliminated or focalized and their provision is increasingly privatized. The protection of markets from the social and political spheres is paramount to neoliberal ideology.

Although there are varieties of neoliberalism, it is important to note that all neoliberal strands of thought have sought to replace the postwar “rights-based perspective” with an incentive-based one (MADRA and ADAMAN, 2018, p. 116). Even when neoliberals accept residual welfare policies, they are justified either as temporary concessions to political reality or as functional prerequisites for market stability (e.g., preventing social unrest that could disrupt economic activity). The market nevertheless remains central. This ideological consistency explains why neoliberal variants that tolerate limited social rights do so from a worldview fundamentally opposed to the post-war ideal of universal citizenship. As this article demonstrates, Brazil’s Bolsa Família (PBF) diverged sharply from this neoliberal logic. Rooted in a distinct normative framework emphasizing social rights and redistributive justice, the PBF achieved outcomes irreconcilable with neoliberalism’s core principles of market supremacy and individualized risk.

The Brazilian social security context and the PBF

Historically, social policies in Brazil were not designed to expand citizenship, alleviate poverty, or reduce inequality (CÂMERA and VERNEGO, 2007; PAIVA et al., 2013, cited in SAAD-FILHO, 2015). The country’s social security system emerged as a contributory regime, narrowly targeting formal-sector workers while excluding the vast majority of the population (SAAD-FILHO, 2015, p. 1228). Non-contributory benefits were virtually absent, with limited assistance provided primarily through philanthropic organizations (SOARES, 2011). In a country marked by pervasive informality and unemployment, this exclusionary framework denied full citizenship status to most Brazilians.

Furthermore, while many Western European countries were expanding citizenship and implementing more comprehensive welfare state after the Second World War, the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship was reducing and extinguishing fundamental individual rights and implementing policies that directly contributed to increasing inequality in an already brutally unequal country. Only during the 1980s — with the collapse of the dictatorship and the onset of redemocratization — did poverty and inequality emerge as legitimate political concerns (MATIJASCIC, 2015).

To further understand the Brazilian experience, history matters. The 1988 Constitution marked a decisive rupture with this past, enshrining a universalist vision of social security that promised to anchor an expansive social rights regime. Yet this institutional breakthrough unfolded amid contradictory dynamics: just as Brazil’s new democracy sought to institutionalize social rights, neoliberalism was achieving global hegemony — and soon influenced Brazilian policymaking. Despite the constitutional framework for a robust welfare state, governments during the 1990s prioritized monetary stabilization, fiscal austerity, and market liberalization, thereby severely constraining the development of universal social protections (MONNERAT et al., 2007).

From the late 1990s to the early 21st century, conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) proliferated across Latin America, emerging as cost-effective instruments for poverty alleviation and interrupting intergenerational deprivation. Most of these programs were implemented in Latin American countries during a period known as the Pink Tide; that is, the rise and electoral success of many left-wing parties throughout Latin American countries in reaction to neoliberal policies.⁷ As Andre Borges and Robert Vidigal (2023) pointed out, the growing politicization of social issues radically transformed the political landscape in Latin America during the early 2000s. While Europe dismantled welfare systems under neoliberal pressures, Latin America witnessed an unprecedented politicization of poverty reduction, with CCTs becoming emblematic of this shift.

In Brazil, some municipal conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs began to be implemented in 1995. CCTs entered the Brazilian political agenda largely through the influence of congressman and economist Eduardo Suplicy. A member of the Workers’ Party, Suplicy was deeply committed to the idea of universal and unconditional Universal Basic Income. Concerned with the Brazil’s longstanding problem of inequality problem and influenced by Brazilian authors such as Celso Furtado and Antonio Maria da Silveira (developmentists), he began developing develop proposals to tackle inequality and poverty in Brazil (WEISSHEIMER, 2006, pp. 30-31). Suplicy’s influential proposal was included in the PT’s 2002 policy program that led Lula to his electoral victory that year. CCT entered the Brazilian political agenda through left-wing actors that re-thought its mechanisms in light of a local left-wing intellectual tradition. These programs were reimagined not as technocratic fixes but as instruments of social transformation, consciously countering the neoliberal logic of the 1990s.

Although President Fernando Henrique Cardoso launched Brazil’s first national CCT in 1996, its impact remained limited. The paradigm shifted decisively under Lula (2003-2010), who elevated the eradication of poverty to the center of state policy. In his inaugural address, Lula declared ending hunger Brazil’s highest priority (LULA, 2003), institutionalizing this commitment through the new Ministry of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger. This marked a radical departure: social protection was no longer framed as collateral to labour or education policies, but as an autonomous right (OLIVEIRA, 2009, p. 50). The Bolsa Família Program (PBF), while the most visible, formed just one pillar of a comprehensive anti-poverty architecture that redefined Brazilian citizenship.

The Bolsa Família Program (PBF) was a comprehensive cash transfer program directed toward Brazil’s poorest families. To receive benefits, families had to meet specific conditions related to children’s education and health, including maintaining high school attendance for children and teenagers, ensuring regular medical check-ups for young women, and complying with prenatal and postnatal care for requirements for pregnant and nursing mothers.

The program pursued two principal objectives: immediate poverty relief through direct cash transfers and long-term poverty reduction through expanded access to education and healthcare. The conditionalities were designed not just as requirements but as mechanisms to strengthening social rights, particularly in public health and education, among historically marginalized groups. Therefore, it was created to alleviate poverty, while also effecting access to public services by excluded social groups (CAMPELLO, 2013, p. 16). According to Aguiar (2014), the PBF operated through three interconnected strategies: income transfers to alleviate poverty, conditionalities to reinforce basic rights, and complementary policies to help families escape poverty permanently.

The Bolsa Família results were significant. The Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Ipea) concluded that the PBF was responsible for reducing poverty by 15% and extreme poverty by 25%. The PBF was also estimated to have reduced inequality in Brazil by 10%. The conditionalities likewise had a powerful impact on people’s lives. The program reduced child mortality by 16%. It also increased school attendance and improved progression. It has a profound symbolic and political meaning for historically excluded groups (AGUIAR, 2014).

Yet, despite its achievements, the PBF has faced criticism and debate. Was PBF a neoliberal program? Were the conditionalities a conservative tool?

Cash transfer programs, Bolsa Família, and ideology

From an intellectual perspective, one of the main influences on cash transfer programs is Milton Friedman’s work. In his influential book Capitalism and Freedom (2014), the North-American economist laid the foundations for this program model. Friedman proposed a targeted mechanism known as the negative income tax (NIT) to replace the multiplicity of welfare programs with a single cash transfer system. The government would establish a minimum income threshold and provide cash supplements to ensure that no family fell below this standard.

The NIT was designed to replace existing social programs, drastically reducing bureaucracy, discretionary authority, and public spending. It was framed as economically efficient because it avoided public goods provision, instead allowing individuals to decide freely how to spend their money as market participants. While Friedman’s idea faced criticism even within neoliberal circles, it gained support from figures across the political spectrum (COLEMAN, 2022, p. 12). The negative income tax concept became popular among economists as a way to address poverty without distorting market price mechanisms — it worked through the market, not against it (VARGAS, 2021).

However, while cash transfer programs may have neoliberal origins, the conditionalities in Latin American programs have been criticized for reflecting conservative principles. Pires (2013) notes that while the targeting of the poor (rather than universal provision) aligns with neoliberal welfare models, conditionalities hark back to conservative corporatist systems that require beneficiaries to “deserve” benefits. The notions of the “deserving poor” and merit-based access to social rights are central to neoconservative critiques of welfare states while also resonating with neoliberal perspectives.

Therefore, at first glance, it may seem surprising that despite its neoliberal roots and supposedly conservative mechanisms, the PBF was implemented by a left-wing administration, has generally been celebrated by most progressive political people and groups in Brazil. Even as some leftist critics view the program as a neoliberal instrument contradicting the universalist principles of welfare systems and Brazil’s 1988 Constitution, the strongest opposition has come from right-wing parties, politicians, and voters.

Therefore, how does CCT fit into Brazilian history? Does it engage with the PT’s ideological traditions?

The History of the Workers’ Party and Lula’s administration: Ideology, social policies, and citizenship

The PT was founded in 1980. The party emerged from trade unionists fighting against the military dictatorship but also incorporating a broad range of actors. As a result, it developed a plural ideological foundation centered on democracy and a loosely defined socialist vision (PT, 1980). While fundamentally anticapitalist, the party was equally critical of the bureaucratic socialism practiced in the USSR.

During the 1990s, the Workers’ Party (PT) underwent a gradual moderation of its political discourse (AMARAL, 2010; SAMUELS, 2004; SINGER, 2010), particularly after its 1994 presidential defeat and the rise of Lula’s moderate faction within the party leadership. This transformation was driven not only by internal dynamics, but also by external pressures. The party’s anticapitalist rhetoric increasingly transformed into anti-neoliberalism (PT, 2007), shifting its primary focus from overthrowing capitalism to addressing poverty and social exclusion.

The culmination of this transformation occurred in the period preceding the 2002 election when the PT issued the Carta aos Brasileiros (Letter to the Brazilian People) to reassure financial markets and signal its acceptance of President Cardoso’s neoliberal macroeconomic policies. This move alienated longtime party members, some of whom accused the party of surrendering to neoliberalism, while certain intellectuals began associating the PT with a neoliberal agenda.

However, the situation was more nuanced. Although the PT moderated its rhetoric and adopted neoliberal economic policies to secure electoral victory, it was ultimately elected as an alternative to neoliberalism. While Lula formed alliances with right-wing figures and financial elites to win power, his electoral success was largely due to his role as the leader of the opposition (COUTINHO, 2006). Moreover, as economic conditions improved and Lula’s popularity increased, his administration gradually relaxed its macroeconomic orthodoxy and adopted a more interventionist economic approach. From 2006 onward (BEKER, 2020), Lula increasingly used state intervention to boost domestic demand and strengthen the internal market — policies that echoed the PT’s earlier economic debates from the 1980s, which had been influenced by Keynesian thought and left-wing intellectuals advocating for distribution-centered development (BIANCARELLI, 2014).

More importantly for our analysis, Lula championed a development model that placed social concerns at its center, grounded in the democratization of the state (PT, 2002). For his administration, the economic and social dimensions were fundamentally interconnected. This position stood in direct opposition to the neoliberal separation of the social sphere from economic policy. Instead, Lula argued that social priorities and collective action should actively shape economic decisions. Aligning more closely with social democratic principles, the PT viewed income redistribution as essential to economic growth. Lula (2016) maintained that economic expansion required incorporating the poor as full citizens through social rights, necessitating a new economic model to overcome Brazil’s historical patterns of exclusion (PT, 2002).

The PT government thus sought to reconcile economic growth with social justice (BIANCARELLI, 2014) — a concept fundamentally rejected by neoliberal thought. The party explicitly rejected the neoliberal notion that the social sphere should be self-regulated (BEKER, 2020) or privatized through the transfer of responsibility to families. Instead, it positioned the state as the central actor in implementing social policies and guaranteeing access to rights. During PT administrations (2003-2016), social policies were not just prioritized but consciously deployed as state instruments to combat poverty and inequality. As Tereza Campello (2013, p. 23), a key architect of the PBF and later minister under Rousseff, emphasized: Brazil learned that social development results from a deliberate and determined state action. This represented a complete inversion of neoliberal logic — rather than using the state to shield markets from social demands, the PT sought to protect social welfare from market forces.

In practice, Lula’s approach combined economic stimulus with social inclusion through multiple measures: consistent increases in the minimum wage, expansive cash transfer programs, the strengthening of social security, the expansion of subsidized credit, and increased public infrastructure investment (BIANCARELLI, 2014; BEKER, 2020). These measures were complemented by growing investments in social services and public facilities (OLIVEIRA, 2009, p. 49), all aimed at simultaneously boosting economic activity while incorporating marginalized populations into the formal economy and public welfare systems.

The Workers’ Party’s prioritization of social policy is further evidenced by its legislative activity during Lula’s administration. Congressional records indicate that nearly 60% of all bills introduced by PT representatives during Lula’s first term (2003-2007) focused on social issues. These proposals frequently aimed to expand citizenship rights and protect marginalized groups through both the creation of new social rights and the implementation of affirmative action policies. Even labour-related bills emphasized the protection and expansion of workers’ rights rather than promoting labour market flexibility (GOMES, 2016).

If the Workers’ period in office was marked by a strong emphasis on social issues and citizenship, how does the PBF fit the PT’s ideology?

The Bolsa Família policy

The most significant innovation of Lula’s administration was the elevation of social issues to the forefront of Brazil’s political agenda for the first time. Under PT governments, poverty, inequality, exclusion and hunger became dominant national priorities, with the state positioned as the primary agent for transforming Brazil’s social reality.

While the PT evolved from radical to moderate positions throughout its history, it consistently maintained democracy and the expansion of citizenship rights as central to its political project. This focus on citizenship formed a continuous thread connecting the party’s trade union roots in the resistance against military dictatorship to its strong intellectual basis. Traditions matter. The concepts of inclusion and access to rights featured prominently in Lula’s 2002 campaign platform, just as they had in his first presidential campaign in 1989. As early as 1989 (PT, 1989 apud MACIEL, 2011), Lula argued that true democracy required making citizenship rights substantive rather than just formal. The tension between exclusionary policies and a citizenship-protecting state remained central to his 1994 (MACIEL, 2011; PT, 2004) and 1998 (PT, 1998) campaigns, with the latter proposing an alternative national model based on social inclusion, democratization, income redistribution and stability — which ran against what the party called Cardoso’s neoliberal project.

The 2002 campaign program continued this tradition of citizenship-focused politics, proposing a new social contract grounded in comprehensive citizenship rights. This vision went beyond formal equality to include affirmative action addressing systemic injustices, aiming to incorporate historically excluded populations through an economic model combining development with social justice, universal rights and poverty reduction (PT, 2002). The enduring centrality of citizenship, the vigorous defence of social rights, and the belief that the state has a central social role are very perennial and central ideas within the PT’s ideological tradition. These debates surrounding citizenship had been shaped by the experience of decades of the dictatorial regime and the 1988 Constitution and how it placed social rights and a stronger state social role at the heart of the national political debate.

The PT maintained that Brazilian society owed a historical social debt to oppressed and marginalized populations (LULA, 2002), groups that had been systematically excluded from full citizenship rights (PT, 2002). The party viewed this lack of access to citizenship as the root cause of Brazil’s social and economic problems, making the expansion of the fundamental solution. This conviction shaped Lula’s 2002 campaign platform, which framed change as operating across two temporal dimensions: addressing both Brazil’s long history of exclusion and the more recent neoliberal policies of the Cardoso administration. Lula explicitly positioned himself against what he called the “individualistic culture” (LULA, 2003) and consumerist trends promoted by neoliberalism (LULA, 2002), with PT platforms (1998, 2002) consistently criticizing the social damage wrought by 1990s neoliberal reforms.

While Lula’s government incorporated certain neoliberal policy elements, it fundamentally rejected neoliberal ideology. These adaptations were, to a large extent, strategic rather than ideological, repurposing neoliberal instruments to achieve distinct results and engage with different reasoning. Lula’s worldview held that markets generated social injustice, poverty resulted from structural conditions, and the state had an obligation to correct market failures. In contrast to neoliberal doctrine, the PT viewed inequality as neither natural nor economically beneficial, insisting instead that economic growth required redistribution and social justice (LULA, 2002). These principles directly challenged Brazil’s neoliberal establishment, particularly the Liberal Institute — the country’s leading neoliberal think tank — which blamed state intervention for Brazil’s inequality (GROS, 2003, p. 126), whereas the PT attributed these problems to market failures. The market, not the state, caused profound social damage. In the Brazilian ideological context, PT’s ideas and practices were opposed to Brazilian neoliberal actors.

The PBF exemplified this approach. While using targeted delivery (a neoliberal technique), it pursued traditional welfare state goals of equality and inclusion. It was an efficient instrument in assisting the government in tackling social problems and combat structural injustices. The logic of the PBF was not linked to any attempt to reduce the state’s role and bureaucracy. Far from reducing state capacity, the program expanded bureaucratic reach and state power to counteract market-generated deprivation. The PBF functioned as a state instrument to mitigate the ills arising from the functioning of the market. The market was used but not trusted. This reflected the PT’s social democratic vision of harnessing markets while prioritizing social responsibility (BEKER, 2020), rejecting the primacy of market mechanisms and inequality in favor of equality, fairness and economic justice. As Lula (2013) noted, the PBF became both a practical instrument for immediate poverty relief and a symbol of Brazil’s new development model combining growth with social inclusion.

* * *

If the conditionalities were another controversial feature of the PBF, as critics argued that it opposed the idea of inalienable rights (MONNERAT et al., 2007), Lula maintained (2003) that they were nothing else than citizenship rights. In Friedman’s formulation, there were no conditionalities attached to the negative income tax (NIT), as it curtails individual freedom. More importantly, the neoliberal economist made clear that his support for NIT was not related to any idea of rights but was a way of “relieving distress.” Friedman did not believe that “anyone has a ‘right’ to be fed, clothed, and housed at someone else’s expense” (FRIEDMAN quoted in COLEMAN, 2022, p. 25). Instead, he justified NIT on charitable principles. Lula’s approach was fundamentally different — he positioned health, education and basic care as non-negotiable state-guaranteed rights (LULA, 2003), rejecting neoliberal critiques that social rights weakened citizenship.

While conditionalities deserve critical scrutiny, their practical outcomes in expanding access to public services are undeniable, as demonstrated by the statistics presented earlier. As Lula said, the conditionalities would increase demand, which in turn would increase state responsibility to strengthen and expand these services (LULA, 2003). Brazil’s implementation differed significantly from regional counterparts by avoiding proxy means testing and treating non-compliance as vulnerability rather than fraud (SOARES, 2011, p. 57-58). This reflected their design as a mechanism of inclusion rather than punitive tools. The conditionalities served to connect marginalized populations with public services. Thus, the conditionalities also encouraged demand for public goods from a population historically excluded from them.

It is not only a massive political change (acquired rights) but also a cultural one (the recognition of oneself as a citizen, with rights and access). As research has shown, the PBF has increased the political influence of poorer populations and also strengthened a more rights-based notion of citizenship (SANCHEZ-ANCOCHEA; MATTEI, 2011, p. 311). PBF beneficiaries seem to have acquired a stronger idea of their rights as citizens. Not only because beneficiaries started to understand their rights and use public facilities, but also because CCT protected citizens against the very common practice of clientelism (EATON, 2014, p. 79). Rego and Pinzani (2013) highlighted how it cultivated political autonomy — directly countering neoliberalism’s depoliticizing tendencies. Whereas neoliberalism fragmented citizenship, the PBF reconstructed it through concrete rights realization.

From this point we can answer the main article’s question: was the PBF a neoliberal policy? Or, in broader terms, was Lula government a neoliberal or even a type of “progressive neoliberalism” government?

Was Bolsa Família a neoliberal program?

As argued in this article, an individual, group, movement, government, or party can only be classified as neoliberal — and this analytical framework applies to the study of any ideology — if they adhere to the neoliberal worldview, its central tenets, and its use of key political concepts, goals, and agenda. Indeed, the absence of this foundational understanding is a major reason why “neoliberalism” is often exaggeratedly invoked to explain nearly every contemporary phenomenon.

Authors have been labelling a wide range of developments as neoliberal, and when they do not fully conform to the neoliberal framework, new hybrid categories emerge: “progressive neoliberalism,” “reactionary neoliberalism,” “authoritarian neoliberalism,” and so on. This is not to deny that such hybrids exist — ideological dynamics inherently involve constant processes of permutation, adaptation, and cross-pollination. However, the critical question remains: Do these hybrid forms still uphold the neoliberal worldview and its core principles, even with marginal assimilations (in which case might we retain the term “neoliberalism” with a qualifying adjective)? Or do they follow a fundamentally different ideological logic (requiring an entirely distinct ideological classification)?

Central to this analysis is understanding how an ideology — in this case, neoliberalism — re-signifies political concepts and integrates them into its worldview. Automatically classifying something as neoliberal simply because it employs a term such as “entrepreneurship,” for example, would be analytically reductive — and that is what always happens. Research must go deeper: What do neoliberals mean by “entrepreneurship”? What purpose does it serve in their framework? How does it interact with other key political concepts? How is it embedded in the neoliberal worldview, and how does it challenge earlier meanings? Furthermore, how do ideological competitors receive this concept — do they reject, contest, borrow, or adapt it to fit their own worldviews? And how do neoliberals respond to these challenges? Only through this rigorous examination can we avoid oversimplification and accurately assess whether a given idea, policy, or movement aligns with neoliberalism or instead represents a distinct ideological tradition.

From this perspective, and applying the ideological approach, the question “were the PBF and Lula’s government neoliberal?” can finally be answered. The answer should be clear by now: PBF was not a neoliberal program. Throughout the article, I briefly explored Brazilian history and contemporary political context, examined PT’s intellectual traditions and ideological affiliations, and analysed Lula’s government ideas, policies and results. Lula’s administration placed the fight against poverty and inequality at the very center of its political agenda. Poverty and inequality were understood as outcomes of historical dynamics but also as consequences of unfettered market mechanisms.

To overcome these conditions, PT bet on economic growth with social inclusion through state intervention, redistribution, and the expansion of social rights. Citizenship and social rights occupied a central place in this framework. The state had the obligation to mitigate the social harms caused by markets. Citizens had the right to be protected from market dynamics — the inalienable right, guaranteed by the state, to uphold minimum standards of dignity. The Workers’ Party never denied the market’s importance in creating economic growth and prosperity. However, Lula believed the state had to counter market excesses, an idea that resonates directly with social democratic thought that sees the state as having both the duty and right to control capitalism (CORRALES, 2012, 134). As social democratic, the Lula government did not separate political freedom from economic security, since economic security was necessary for political freedom.

This is where PBF became important. The program was part of the Workers’ Party strategy and agenda to reduce poverty and inequality through state intervention, redistribution, and the expansion of citizenship, particularly its economic and social dimensions. It served as an effective instrument to counter market inequalities, provide economic security and guarantee political freedom.

If neoliberalism defines its conception of citizenship in opposition to the postwar model of citizenship, particularly the Western European welfare state regimes — broadly understood as organized state efforts to modify “the play of the market” to benefit the poorest (MISHRA, 1990, p. 16), then PBF aligns much more with welfarist tradition than neoliberal one. In certain respects, it even went beyond traditional Western European models by including immigrants as beneficiaries — prioritizing human value over acquired rights, not limiting assistance only to citizens.

The evidence answers our central question: PBF was neither neoliberal in conception nor in practice. While employing certain neoliberal techniques like targeted delivery mechanisms and cash transfers, its fundamental objectives — expanding state responsibility, reducing inequality, and repoliticizing citizenship — stood in direct opposition to the neoliberal logic. The same applies to Lula’s government as a whole, which tactically utilized some neoliberal instruments while consistently rejecting neoliberal ideology at its core. This makes the label “progressive neoliberalism” fundamentally inappropriate. To qualify something as either neoliberal or progressively neoliberal would require submission to the neoliberal worldview — a condition Lula’s government never fulfilled.

A more plausible case for the designation “progressive neoliberal” might be made for Bill Clinton’s New Democrats or Tony Blair’s New Labour, whose programs appeared more thoroughly aligned with neoliberal premises. However, even these cases require careful, context-specific examination rather than blanket categorization.

There’s no denying neoliberalism’s pervasive influence across the ideological spectrum. As Slobodian and Plehwe (2020) demonstrate, this influence has manifested in social democrats deemphasizing redistribution and conservatives abandoning traditionalist positions (11) — though recent far-right resurgence may be altering this dynamic. Yet ideological cross-pollination shouldn’t be mistaken for ideological absorption or subordination. In pluralistic societies, competing worldviews continuously adapt — incorporating, reframing, and repurposing elements derived from rivals’ ideologies while nevertheless maintaining their distinctive ideological cores.

Lula’s selective adoption — whether conscious or not — of certain neoliberal methods and premises no more made him a neoliberal than Winston Churchill’s acceptance of some welfare state principles in British postwar context made him a social democrat. In both instances, these adaptations served to advance their own ideological projects rather than signaling ideological conversion. Despite their tactical flexibility and ideological absorption of some distinct ideological premises, the core character of their governments remained firmly rooted in their respective worldviews: Lula’s in social democracy, Churchill’s in conservatism.

This distinction between instrumental adoption and ideological allegiance is critical for rigorous political analysis. It underscores how policies and concepts — far from being inherently tied to a single ideology — can be resignified and repurposed to serve divergent political agendas. Just as conservatives reworked socialist and liberal ideas to fit their own ideological frameworks, leftist and centrist actors have at times appropriated neoliberal techniques without embracing neoliberalism itself. Recognizing this dynamic helps guard against reductive forms of ideological classification.

Conclusion

This article demonstrates how an ideological approach can deepen our understanding of neoliberalism. In advancing this argument, I did not mean to dismiss other methodologies, but rather to strengthen our analysis where they often prove insufficient — particularly in examining the persistent tensions between neoliberalism and rival ideologies, and how these competing worldviews struggle over policy implementation and political conceptual meanings. Through the case study of PBF, I’ve shown how Brazil’s Workers’ Party radically re-signified a policy model initially designed by neoliberals, repurposing it to serve fundamentally different ends rooted in a distinct ideological framework. While neoliberalism remains a dominant force in contemporary politics, we must resist the temptation to treat it as a catch-all explanation for every social and political development.

Why does precise terminology matter when discussing programs like Bolsa Família? First, it helps establish more concrete parameters for what actually constitutes neoliberalism in practice. As I have shown, the academic tendency to generate endless neoliberal hybrid terms (“authoritarian neoliberalism,” “progressive neoliberalism,” etc.) often reflects our inability to grapple with rapid contextual changes rather than genuine ideological evolution. An ideological approach cuts through this conceptual proliferation by demanding rigorous examination of core worldview adherence rather than superficial policy resemblances.

Second, this approach underscores a crucial reality: political actors constantly struggle over the meaning of concepts and policies. Simply employing a particular instrument or vocabulary doesn’t automatically signal ideological allegiance. Brazil’s debates surrounding financial education vividly illustrate this point. While much of the left dismisses financial literacy programs outright as neoliberal indoctrination, a younger generation — often from marginalized backgrounds — has challenged this orthodoxy. They argue that financial education, when detached from neoliberal forms of reasoning, can serve essential ends. This tension reveals a fundamental insight: no idea exists in ideological isolation. Concepts become meaningful through their relationship with a constellation of ideas, their incorporation into distinct worldviews, and their consequent operationalization in practice.

¹

This article has not been published on a preprint platform. All sources and bibliography used are referenced. No artificial intelligence tools were used in the writing of the article, gathering sources, analyzing data, or the translation of the manuscript. For their helpful comments on different versions of this paper, I am deeply grateful to Mark Blyth, Angus Burgin, Christopher Byrne, Margarita Fajardo, Pedro Mendes Loureiro, and Sean Purdy.

Funding

This work is supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo – FAPESP, under Grant 2018/01521-8.

⁵

According to W. B. Gallie (1956) classical analysis “essentially contested concepts”, concepts whose meanings inevitable disputable possess five characteristics: they are appraisive, (value laden); internally complex (encompass multiple dimensions); diverse describable (several possible descriptions), open to change (open to reinterpretation over time), and recognisable by rivals (rival recognize different meanings but try to forward its own meaning as legitimate) (171-172).

⁶

Despite unlimited possibilities for combination, the meaning of a concept is always restricted by logical and cultural limitations (FREEDEN, 2013, p. 161). Any conceptual innovation occurs “with reference to relatively settled and linguistic conventions (FARR, 1995 , p. 27-28) and its meanings has to be legitimated by the “community of speakers” (34)

⁷

Notably, Latin America was the first continent to witness neoliberal ideas and policies in action (with Pinochet in Chile), and also the continent with the strongest and most challenging reaction against neoliberalism. The Latin American context, in this way, is very unique.

Research data availability

all data are available in the text

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Contact:

Rua Cora Coralina, 100, 13083-896 – Campinas – São Paulo – Brazil. [e-mail]

Conflict of interests

Nothing to declare

Responsible Editors

Maria Cristina Correia Leandro Pereira and Miguel Palmeira

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  16 Oct 2026
• Date of issue
  2026

History

• Received
  04 June 2025
• Accepted
  23 Mar 2026