Liberalism in Brazil
Liberalism in Brazil refers to a set of political ideas and parties that, since the nineteenth century, have advocated constitutional government, representative institutions, individual rights, and—at varying times—decentralisation and market-oriented economic policy. In the imperial era, self-described liberals (known as luzias) opposed centralising conservatives (saquaremas) within a constitutional monarchy; in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, "liberal" labels have been adopted by a variety of organisations spanning centre to right, reflecting Brazil's fragmented party system and shifting ideological coalitions.