In this article we discuss the Brazilian social policy guided by the government's aspirations to transform Brazil (since the 1930's) into an emergent potency through a development process managed by the State. However, these transformations depended on the international capital, and they combined ruptures and continuities. The periods of dictatorship and the recent neoliberal dominance contributed to that situation, which deepened social inequalities and prevented the social policy from making social rights that were formally conquered actual.
Brazilian developmentalism; Social policy; Neoliberalism; Social inequality; Dismantling of rights
