THE DEPLORABLE REPUBLIC OF BRAZIL

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Before the anxious eyes of the international community and amidst expectations of mega events and emerging contributions to world order, since 2013 Brazil has seen a declining economy in a contested political landscape.

Revista FIDES, 2019

Originated from some questions of British academics (mainly from the University of Kent) about the Brazilian political reality, it was sought, based on historical and social elements, to analyse the presidential election of 2018. This text, which was presented in November 2018 in a seminar in Canterbury, has, in addition to the introduction and the final considerations, three parts: a brief history of the Brazilian formation, an analysis of the capitalist crisis and the previous governments, and an approach of the political manipulations carried out through social networks. Finally, the fascist leitmotiv of the Bolsonaro´s campaign was also analysed, problematizing its nuances in a dependent and underdeveloped country. (Originado de alguns questionamentos de acadêmicos britânicos (principalmente da Universidade de Kent) sobre a realidade política brasileira, buscou-se, com base em elementos históricos e sociais, analisar as eleições presidenciais de 2018. Este texto, apresentado em novembro de 2018 em um seminário em Canterbury, além da introdução e das considerações finais, possui três partes: uma breve história da formação brasileira, uma análise da crise capitalista e dos governos anteriores e uma abordagem das manipulações políticas realizadas por meio de redes sociais. Por fim, também foi analisado o leitmotiv fascista da campanha de Bolsonaro, problematizando suas nuances em um país dependente e subdesenvolvido.)

Revista História e Economia, 2011

Brasília, 21 março 2009, 24 p. Paper preparado para o VIII Congresso Brasileiro de História Econômica - ABPHE (Campinas, 6 a 8 de setembro de 2009; Módulo III: Brasil República). Publicação na Revista História e Economia (vol. 8, n. 1, 1º semestre de 2011, p. 59-78; ISSN: 1808-5318). Relação de Publicados n. 1052.

Saúde em Debate, 2016

RESUMO O artigo defende que o impeachment ocorrido no País em 2016 não representa uma crise institucional, mas uma crise política. Foi a ação coordenada de atores, e não nosso modelo institucional, que levou à ruptura democrática. Dentre outros fatores, o texto destaca a politização do Judiciário e a aliança entre partidos e movimentos sociais conservadores. Ao fim, mirando numa agenda de reconstrução, afirma-se a urgência de uma ampla coalizão de corte progressista para conter o avanço dos retrocessos hoje em curso no Brasil. Em tal coalizão, é central a capacidade de abertura e articulação com e entre clivagens sociais diversas, vozes democráticas e múltiplas frações de classe.

The Brazilian people need to understand that small changes or simple reforms are not enough in political institutions and existing legislations and in fiscal adjustments like PEC 241/55 of the Michel Temer government to overcome the current economic crisis because the Brazilian crisis is structural. It is fundamentally urgent to overcome the gigantic economic crisis, the deep political crisis, the management crisis of the public administration and the moral and ethical crisis that threaten Brazil's future. It must be understood that all these crises are interconnected and that none of them will be overcome in isolation without overcoming the others. The first of the crises to be overcome is the political crisis in the face of the absence of governability of President Michel Temer with the convening of a new National Constituent Assembly to reorder the national life in new bases aimed at overcoming the economic crises, of management of public administration and ethical and moral.

Boletín Mexicano de Derecho Comparado

En 1988, Brasil promulgó su nueva Constitución, que representaba el acto final de la larga transición democrática iniciada una década antes. En ese momento, contrario a la tendencia dominante en el Occidente capitalista, se hizo un compromiso con el bienestar social, enfocándose en la acción estatal y en la expansión de la participación democrática como formas de superar una larga historia de desigualdad y exclusión. Las promesas constitucionales, sin embargo, no se han cumplido plenamente. El país enfrentó largos períodos de graves dificultades financieras que limitaron la capacidad de los gobiernos para actuar. Al mismo tiempo, las fuerzas conservadoras resistieron continuamente, buscando vaciar el proyecto estatal prometido en 1988. A pesar de las dificultades, la sociedad ha experimentado grandes avances, sin embargo, la ruptura soñada con una realidad de pobreza y exclusión no sucedió. Y hoy, ante un escenario de recesión económica mundial y extrema fragilidad financiera del Es...

The political model implemented in Brazil based on the 1988 Constitution are broke because, apart from being contaminated by the corruption that involves all powers of Republic, does not guarantee the governability of the country because the presidential system in force failed completely because it has been generator of political and institutional crises throughout its history and also in the contemporary era. In turn, representative democracy in Brazil manifests clear signs of exhaustion not only by corruption scandals in the powers of the Republic, but especially by failing to consider the effective popular participation in government decisions.

Latin American Research Review

Journal of Constitucional History, 2020

This article formulates an intellectual history of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, describing the cleavages that accompanied its birth and the political and ideological disputes that marked its existence. The text describes three moments of the political constitutional imaginary. The first concerns the issue of the nature and boundaries of constituent power and, consequently, of the Constituent Assembly model that would be in charge of bringing the authoritarian cycle (1977-1994) to an end. The second refers to the legal and politological debates that took place after the political regime found its routine, which concerned its governance model, i.e. how the political powers – Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary – should relate to each other (1994-2013). Finally, this study dares to provide an explanation for the current constitutional crisis (2013-2018), starting from the clashing thesis of the two models through which the Constitution had been interpreted: that of coalition presidentialism and the judicialization of politics.

Latin American Politics and Society, 2001

symposium on "The Comparative Analysis of the Whole Society, " World Congress of the International Sociological Association, Uppsala, Sweden, August, 1978

Presented is a historical synthesis of the development of the modern Brazilian state since its patrimonial origin. The peculiarity of its patrimonialism is examined against the historical background of Spanish-American patterns of state building. The process of bureaucratization & the institutionalization of a legal-rational pattern of authority during the nineteenth century is examined through the role of the Guarda Nacional, a corporation of freemen & honoratiores in care of administrative tasks. The dynamics of the modern state are interpreted by examining the trends toward increasing centralization & bureaucratic authoritarianism as well as the collective demands for social & political participation. The role of the positivist ideology, well adjusted to the centralized character of the new bureaucratic administration, is examined. Dynamics are also illustrated by examining two approaches to education in the second quarter of this century: the liberal & scientific strategy sponsored by the U system in Sao Paulo vs. the technical & positivist one sponsored by the federal administration. Original, historical sources are interpreted. (Copyright 1978, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all rights reserved.).

2017

Although recent interpretations of Brazil’s current political crisis are not wrong in bringing out the institutional problems related to presidencialismo de coalisão and with the judicialization of politics, they do not take into account an important factor fueling the crisis: the acute decrease in the legitimacy of political institutions, and particularly of the president. After briefly showing that this decrease cannot be credited to poor economic performance, I analyze the big media coverage of President Dilma Rousseff and of her party (Workers’ Party), to reveal its tremendous negative bias, if compared to other political figures and parties. I conclude by pointing out that the oligopolistic hold that the large politically active conservative media conglomerates have on the flux of political information must be take into account in political analysis and that it is a major problem for the stability of democracy in Brazil.

The first aim of this paper is to discuss the current challenges of democracy in Brazil, from a historical perspective. It starts by stating the theoretical standpoint used to approach the subject: power relations stem from, economic, social and cultural features of a given society. In this context, Brazilian society has been characterized from the start by inequalities, patronage and personal relations. The medieval roots of the colonization mixed with modern slavery to produce a society composed by subjects to the king and local potentates from several centuries (1500-1889). The late introduction of such concepts as citizenship and democracy, from the early republican period, 1989 onwards, meant the maintenance of several traditional features of social relations, such as several rights restricted to the elites, clientage, and the continued exclusion of the large majority of the population of political life. From the 1930s, with the emergence of nationalism and the continued struggle of the subaltern, advances such as the female right to vote (1934), were followed by a crypto fascist regime (1937)(1938)(1939)(1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945). The struggle against Nazi-fascism in Europe (1942)(1943)(1944)(1945) led to the demise of the dictatorship and the establishment of democracy (1945)(1946)(1947)(1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956)(1957)(1958)(1959)(1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964). However, in the context of the Cold War , democracy was mired by conflicts and contradictions, with the exclusion of communists and of illiterates of the body politic. At the heyday of the Cold War, long military rule stamped out opposition, several people were killed and many more expelled or internally exiled. The struggle for democracy gained momentum from the 1970s, as the military enacted an amnesty (1979), and elections for state governors and senators (1982).

Tempo e argumento, 2021

The article analyzes the democratic crisis experienced by Brazil from the second decade of the 21st century onwards. The aim is to investigate how this historical period can be characterized. The text asserts that it is inappropriate to understand Brazil without observing its historical distrust of democracy and lack of commitment to the rule of law. The research is based on the assumption that Brazilian modernization in the transition from the 20th to the 21st century was ambiguous but with important achievements. However, the authoritarian mentality and the gap in terms of the quality of political participation are factors of structural permanence. The hypothesis is that Brazil is experiencing a specific moment characterized by the awakening of an authoritarian and conservative mentality that impacts both the State and civil society. The research methodology is based on a bibliographical discussion, with contributions in history, political science, and law. The subjects are discussed in theoretical terms to understand the problems related to the political participation gap, the inequality between citizens, the difficulties of civic culture (mainly in the digital environment), and some inherent weaknesses in democratic performance. Starting from the idea that civic culture influences institutions and these, in turn, impact civic culture, Brazil is currently experiencing a political and cultural setback. Contrary to what could be imagined a few years ago, the process of Brazilian social modernization is threatened in its most important achievements, which implies a danger to the values that sustain democracy.