Assistant Professor Guy Burton has recently been analysing the presidential impeachment crisis in Brazil for Chinese and Malaysian radio.
Brazil is presently in the grip of a political crisis. On 17 April the legislature voted to impeach the president, Dilma Rousseff, for allegedly fiddling the public accounts to aid her re-election campaign in 2014. Her position became significantly weakened as a result of dissolving political support, which has coincided with the country’s economic slowdown – the worst since the 1930s – and amid a wider investigation into a political corruption scandal involving Petrobras, the state oil company.
In order to make sense of the crisis and provide context, Dr Burton was interviewed by China Radio International and the Kuala Lumpur-based radio station, BFM, around the time of the impeachment vote.
Dr Burton was able to provide expert commentary on the subject owing to his specialist knowledge on Latin American politics – and specifically the politics of Brazil, a country where he carried out fieldwork for his PhD. Dr Burton regularly uses the experience of Latin America in his teaching, including courses on global political economy and development, which he teaches at both undergraduate and Masters levels.
Dr Burton’s interviews are available on the following podcasts; China Radio International (first hour, third topic) and BFM.
Posted on 6th June 2016