Roberto Mangabeira Unger - Political Engagement

Political Engagement

Unger has a long history of political activity in Brazil. He worked in early opposition parties in the 1970s and 80s against the Brazilian military dictatorship, and drafted the founding manifesto for the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) in 1980. He served as an intimate adviser to two presidential candidates, and launched exploratory bids himself in 2000 and 2006. He was the Secretary for Strategic Affairs in the Lula administration from 2007–2009, and is currently working on a number of social and developmental projects in the state of Rondônia.

Driving Unger's political engagement is the idea that society can be made and remade. Unlike Mill or Marx, who posited a particular class as the agent of history, Unger does not see a single vehicle for transformative politics. He advocates world-wide revolution, but does not see this happening as a single cataclysmic event or undertaken by a class agent, like the Communist movement. Rather, Unger sees the possibility of piecemeal change, where institutions can be replaced one at a time, and permanent placticity can be built into the institutional infrastructure.

This position has made Unger's engagements episodic. He has been involved at the national and local levels in Brazil by supporting candidates who promised change and himself running for office, and by serving in the central government and partaking in political and social projects around the country.