POLITICS IN BRAZIL
Frances Hagopian
Year of Current Constitution
1988
In 2002, after the two-term presidency of Fernando
Henrique Cardoso—whose administration delivered
stable prices, a more open economy, rising levels of
school enrollments, and a more efficient adminis-
tration of many public services—Brazilians boldly
handed the presidency in a landslide to Luiz Inacio da
Silva. "Lula," as he is known in Brazil, is a former met-
alworker and leader of Latin America's largest party of
the left. The voters imagined a country with a more
representative, honest, and accountable democratic
government, one that could adequately house, feed,
educate, and protect its people. In short, they loudly
proclaimed themselves to be in favor of a fairer and
more equitable society.
The first Lula government may have disappointed
supporters anxious for the prompt delivery of social
justice, but its fiscal conservatism, deep economic
reforms, and steady if gradual progress in social policy
pleasantly surprised many foreign and domestic credi-
tors and investors. Any gains, however, were overshad-
owed by a major corruption scandal involving top
leaders of the Workers' Party and President Lula's clos-
est political advisers. Though Lula was untouched by
the scandal, it nonetheless shattered the faith those
Head of State
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Head of Government
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Language
Portuguese
Religions
Roman Catholic 70%, Protestant 15%
across the political spectrum held in the integrity of
government leaders. Observers now wonder whether
Lula's second administration can recover and meet the
challenges facing Brazilian society.
CURRENT POLICY CHALLENGES
Brazilians share a common identity, allegiance to
their government, and political community. There is
no serious religious conflict, no large linguistic
minority, and the last armed confrontation between
any region and the central government was in 1932,
when Sao Paulo went to war with the Brazilian
federation.
Brazil is challenged to compensate for past racial
discrimination and exclusion, improve educational
and employment opportunities, and provide the full
rights of citizenship to its small indigenous and sub-
stantial Afro-Brazilian populations—communities
that clearly form part of the larger Brazilian commu-
nity. The other two broad challenges identified in
Chapter 1—fostering development and deepening
democracy—are still pressing.
501
502 Politics in Brazil
Successive Brazilian governments have been rea-
sonably successful at generating sporadic growth, and
Lula's government has been no exception. Although
political uncertainty surrounding the 2002 election
initially caused the currency value and the Sao Paulo
stock index to fall, the currency and stock market
rebounded quickly on strong signals from the Lula
camp that investors and creditors would have little to
fear. Exceeding expectations, the new administration
adhered to a tight monetary policy, which produced a
budget surplus, brought inflation back down to man-
ageable levels, allowed Brazil to pay off foreign loans
ahead of schedule, and reduced the public debt as a
share of the gross domestic product (GDP). Growth
rates lagged during much of the first Lula administra-
tion, but rebounded strongly in 2005 and 2006.
These accomplishments, however, have come
largely at the price of high taxes, high interest rates,
and low levels of government investment. Brazil's
tax-to-GDP ratio, which rose sharply after 1995, today
(at 37 percent) is twice as high as the rest of Latin
America and close to the average of the countries in
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). Such a high rate in a middle-
income country typically either drives economic activ-
ity underground or dampens it altogether. Many feel
Brazil needs to lower rates and to overhaul its tax
structure by unifying disparate state taxes on goods
and services and creating a single value-added tax
(VAT). In the absence of such reform, the government
has controlled inflation through monetary policy; that
is, with very high interest rates. High rates, in turn,
have choked private investment, discouraged job cre-
ation, and constrained public-sector investment. Most
critically, with the government unable to invest even in
maintaining the country's transportation system,
physical infrastructure is crumbling.
The government's priority for economic stability
has also relegated other economic and social develop-
ment problems to the back burner. Brazilians are
looking for better access to health and education, and
an end to grotesque poverty. The public health care
system that primarily services the poor has long been
underfunded and inefficient. Brazil's educational
system has been improved in recent years, but
nonetheless Brazil has a population that is less literate
and less well schooled than many of its neighbors.
Clearly, this is not only an injustice but also a
constraint on economic development. The poverty
rate, though steadily declining, remains stubbornly
high at 31 percent.
Brazil has one of the most unequal distributions
of income in the world. Brazilian society is stratified
by region, gender, and race. Increasingly, Brazilians are
beginning to understand that their country faces the
challenge of greater economic and social inclusion for
Brazilians of color, who represent nearly half of the
population.
Other policy areas also require attention. Environ-
mental protection is an important challenge not merely
because of the need to develop the Amazonian region's
natural resources in a sustainable way, but also because
many years of lax controls have compromised air and
water quality. Another challenge is to provide agricul-
tural land for the tiller, dramatized in recent years by
Brazil's movement of landless workers.
Now that Brazil is the second largest consumer of
illegal drugs (after the United States), Brazilians are
also acutely worried about the impact of drugs and the
criminal drug trade on public security. The govern-
ment faces the task of enforcing public order and
reducing a violent crime rate so high that it has driven
the rich to build higher fences, travel in helicopters,
and contract private security; and the poor to admin-
ister mob justice.
In attempting to meet the public security chal-
lenge, however, the government faces perhaps an ever
greater one: guaranteeing civil rights and the rule of
law for all its citizens, male or female, black or white,
rich or poor. After reestablishing democratic rule,
Brazil saw an erosion of human rights and civil liber-
ties. The murder rate (37,000 per year) is unacceptably
high. The judicial system is overwhelmed. Torture,
especially against poor criminal suspects in order to
extract confessions, is routine. Extrajudicial killings by
the police are disguised as shootouts with dangerous
criminals. Violence against women and children is
common. Freedom House has charged that "Brazil's
police are among the world's most violent and cor-
rupt," and that "human rights, particularly those of
socially marginalized groups, are violated with
impunity on a massive scale."1
Is Brazil's political system up to meeting these chal-
lenges? On the one hand, democracy is stronger than at
any time in Brazil's history. On the other hand, political
institutions do not function as smoothly as they might.

A new party law that took effect in 2006 should reduce
the age-old problem of a fragmented party system.
Political reformers have set their sights on strengthening
party loyalty, establishing a mixed-district voting
system, and reforming the system by which election
campaigns are financed.
Brazil's democracy was rocked in 2005 by the
revelation of a corruption scandal that engulfed the
government and the Workers' Party (PT). The scandal
was taken so seriously because Brazilians believed the
PT represented a new kind of politics, in which politi-
cians did not steal from the public purse, buy votes at
the ballot box, or buy votes on the floor of Congress.
When Brazilians learned that the PT had engaged in
these activities (see Figure 15.1), the scandal rever-
berated throughout the political system. Trust in
Congress, political parties, and politicians are at an
all-time low.
Whether the Brazilian government can sustain
growth, reduce poverty, redress inequality, improve
public services, and clean up government corruption—
or whether it will fail to develop its vast economic
potential and remain an elite-dominated polity that
neglects and represses its poor—is still uncertain. We
must understand the economic, social, and political
conditions that created Brazil's current policy chal-
lenges to understand its prospects for the future.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Brazil has a legacy of political order and several decades
of competitive government, but genuine democracy is
relatively recent. Brazil gained its independence from
Portugal in 1822 not by insurrection, as in Spanish
America, but by fiat of the Portuguese emperor's son.
For seven decades, Brazil was governed as an "empire,"
and successive emperors exercised strong central
authority. This type of rule prevented the fragmenta-
tion of territory and provided a unique degree of order
and political stability in the New World.
Brazil became a republic in 1889, one year after
slavery was finally abolished. The empire fell swiftly
and suddenly when disgruntled military and agrarian
elites separately withdrew their support. The military
wanted to replace the empire with a strong central
government committed to "order and progress"—a
motto still emblazoned on the Brazilian flag. By 1891,
Frances Hagopian 503 -M
however, civilian elites from the largest and economi-
cally strongest states had wrested control of the new
republic from the military. They favored a decentral-
ized federalism and framed a constitution that
accorded the states even wider latitude than did U.S.
federalism, from which it drew its inspiration. The
"Old Republic," as it was called, was dominated by the
regional oligarchies of the strongest states. The over-
whelming majority of Brazilians were without the
effective legal rights, levels of literacy, or socioeco-
nomic conditions of citizenship.
In 1930, a combination of labor unrest and protest
from young army officers, the world depression, the
crisis in Brazil's coffee economy, and regional rivalries
brought down the Old Republic and spawned a "revo-
lution" that brought a southern politician, Getiilio
Vargas, to the presidency. Vargas quickly strengthened
the central government at the expense of the state and
local governments, and enhanced bureaucratic auton-
omy. In 1937, impressed by the political and social
organization of fascist Italy, he reneged on a promise to
hold elections and instead exercised dictatorial powers
in a regime he called the Estado Novo (New State).
Postwar Democracy
With the defeat of the Axis powers and the collapse of
the prestige of fascism in 1945, Vargas reluctantly
restored democracy. With the growth of new social
classes, the political system was opened to broader
political participation and competition. Voters as a
percentage of the population rose from 6 percent in
1930, to 13 percent in 1945, to 18 percent in 1960.
Many of these new participants, especially from the
urban areas of the South and Southeast, were incorpo-
rated into the political system through loose associa-
tions with populist leaders, parties, and institutions.
Populist politicians nominally claimed to represent
the interests of the urban middle and working classes.
In practice, however, the urban lower classes were well
controlled and the rural lower classes were excluded
from political life altogether. Their interests were not
represented through any political party, they were not
allowed to organize rural unions, and most rural
workers, who were illiterate, could not vote.
In the next two decades, several political parties
competed for power at the national level, although
political bosses still exerted much local control.
 Politics in Brazil

5504

Media rnrtJBBft
campaign financing
scheme, caixa dois
(the second cash
register). PT mayors,
skimming from inflated
contracts to garbage
and transportation
companies, provided
PTB president and Lula ally, kickbacks to PT
Senator Roberto Jefferson, campaign coffers.
accused of extorting kickbacks
from government contractors,
reveals a grand corruption Finance Minister Antonio
scheme. Dubbed the mensalao PT admits to
and apologizes Palocci resigns, denying
(the big monthly), monthly allegations he visited a
to the nation for
bribes of $12,000 were tunneled mansion in Brasilia
illegal
from funds skimmed from where government
campaign
state-owned companies and bribes were
financing.
kickbacks to legislators divided and prostitutes met.
from other parties for
supporting the president's
legislative initiatives.

June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 December 2005

H March 2006 May 2006

Jos6 Dirceu, president Four prominent Though claiming Federal

Lula's chief of staff and
alleged mastermind,
resigned his post
and returned to his
Chamber seat. He was
later impeached for
"breaking parliamentary and Marcelo Sereno,
decorum."
PT leaders ignorance of the investigators
(Jose Genoino, mensalao scheme, announce 72,
president; Delubio Lula publicly mostly
Soares, treasurer, apologizes to the government-allied
Silvio Pereira, Brazilian people deputies, may be
general-secretary; and promises to involved in a
punish all involved. scam to
communications) skim from
resigned. ambulances
earmarked to
municipalities.
They become
known as the
"bloodsuckers."

Timeline of a Scandal FIGURE 15.1

The country prospered, especially during the late
1950s when physical infrastructure was laid. Foreign
auto plants settled in Sao Paulo, and a new capital,
Brasilia, was built in the interior.
In the early 1960s, however, Brazil's political sys-
tem began to strain. With thirteen political parties in
the Chamber of Deputies and the share of seats won
by small parties on the rise, the party system was so
fragmented that Congress was ineffective and no
president could count on a stable base of support.
Elites became threatened by the mobilization of peas-
ant leagues, the electoral advance of the populist
Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), and the leftist rhetoric
of Joao Goulart, who assumed the presidency in 1961
(see Figure 15.2). In March 1964, amid high inflation
and a stagnating economy, Goulart advocated revolu-
tionary change in the countryside and the Congress.
He supported the mutiny of a group of enlisted sailors
 Frances Hagopian 505

Year Nature of President against naval officers. Brazilian military officers, who
1946 Governmen had come to view movements of the left as threats to
t national security and economic instability as well as a
Eurico Dutra (PSD/PTB) breeding ground for subversive ideologies, interpreted
Civilian* these events as a signal that Brazil had entered a dan-
1951 Civilian Getulio Vargas (PTB/PSP) gerous phase of an internal war. Believing that civilian
politicians were ill equipped to contain such a threat,
they concluded that they themselves should assume an
1954 Civilian** Joao Cafe Filho (PSP)
expanded role in government and in politics.
1956 Civilian Juscelino Kubitchek (PSD/PTB)
The Military Steps In
1961 Civilian Janio Quadros In April 1964, the Brazilian military deposed President
(UDN/PDC/PL/PTN)
Goulart and instituted direct military rule. In order to
tackle inflation, attract foreign investment, and stimu-
late economic development, the military centralized
1961 Civilian** Joao Goulart (PTB)
economic policymaking. It strengthened the Executive
Branch by permitting it exclusive powers over the bud-
1964 Military Humberto Castelo Branco
get and the authority to rule by decree. It also replaced
1967 Military Artur Costa e Silva politicians with military officers and civilian econo-
mists, engineers, educators, and professional adminis-
1969 Military Emilio Garrastazu Medici trators. After one year in power, it abolished existing
political parties and cancelled future elections for state
1974 Military Ernesto Geisel
governors and mayors of state capitals and "national
1978 Military Joao Figueiredo security" areas.
The regime turned harshly repressive when
1985 Civilian** Jose Sarney (PFL/PMDB) "hard-line" military factions gained power in 1967,
Fernando Collor de Mello
especially toward the labor and student movements. It
1990 Civilian
(PRN) suspended habeas corpus; it imposed a state of siege;
and like other Latin American militaries of this period,
1992 Civilian** Itamar Franco it subjected enemies—real and imagined—to
arbitrary detention, torture, exile, and even death.
1995 Civilian Fernando Henrique Cardoso Nonetheless, even at the height of the repression,
(PSDB) Brazil's military regime was more moderate than those
of its neighbors. Military courts handed down some
1999 Civilian Fernando Henrique Cardoso not-guilty verdicts, only about 500 politicians lost
(PSDB) 'i their right to hold office (compared with 15,000 in
Uruguay), and the government was responsible for
"only" 333 deaths from 1964 to 1981. This death toll
2003 Civilian Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (PT)
in per capita terms was 100 times lower than that of
neighboring Argentina and fifty times lower than
2007 Civilian Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (PT)
Chile after military coups.
sneral, was directly elected as a Moreover, unlike other dictatorships in the region,
*Dutra, a ge of the PSD and headed a civilian the Brazilian military did not eliminate elections and
candidate it.
/ elected.
representative institutions altogether. It created a pro-
govemme
government party—the National Renovating Alliance
"Not directi
-W6URE 15.2 (ARENA)—and an official opposition known as the
Brazilian Administrations Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) to replace the
Since 1945 parties it had abolished. It permitted these parties to
506 Politics in Brazil
contest elections for members of the national and state
legislatures mayors of most cities and towns, and local
councils. The Congress remained in session through-
out military rule for all but two brief periods. Of
course, victories for ARENA were all but ensured by
manipulation of electoral law, and legislators and other
elected officials were divested of meaningful powers by
the 1967 Constitution. Nonetheless, the veil of legality,
a two-party system, and elections ultimately laid the
conditions for Brazil's particular path to democratiza-
tion in the 1980s.
Political liberalization began within the military
itself. In early 1974, General Ernesto Geisel, the new,
"soft-line" military president, signaled that he would
"relax" military rule by easing up on press censorship,
allowing a freer expression of ideas, and permitting
slightly freer elections. Geisel hoped that more political
freedom would check the power of military hard-liners,
and that more competitive elections would bring down
abstention rates and enhance regime legitimacy.
Having every reason to be confident of victory—
Brazil had experienced seven years of impressive
economic performance and the opposition was so
dispirited and disorganized that it had contemplated
disbanding—the government held new elections only to
suffer a stinging defeat. The opposition MDB won six-
teen of the twenty-two contested seats in the senatorial
elections, increased its share of the seats in the Chamber
of Deputies from 28 percent to 44 percent, and took con-
trol of five additional state legislatures. This stunning
victory was largely due to an effective media campaign
protesting bread-and-butter economic issues. Although
the military regime from that point on limited party
access to television and appointed one-third of the
Senate in order to secure its advantage in Congress, the
regular staging of elections allowed the regime's oppo-
nents to mobilize and pressure the government to stay
the course of its abertura politica (political opening).
The regime also faced an invigorated civil society.
The political opening allowed the Catholic Church and
several segments of elite opinion (including the press,
bar associations, and the business community) to
express grave reservations about military authoritari-
anism. As the political space opened, nonelite groups
that had either been silenced (such as the labor move-
ment) or not previously organized politically (such as
the women's movement) pressed for their specific
interests as well as for greater political freedom.
Democracy Restored
The military regime finally came to an end in March
1985. Amid rising inflation and unemployment and
popular disenchantment with the military, many of its
civilian supporters abandoned it. Regime supporters
and opponents together negotiated a series of political
deals that paved the way for a smooth road to a demo-
cratic regime. A civilian opposition leader, Tancredo
Neves, was elected president in an "electoral college" of
elite officeholders. After his untimely death, vice
president-elect Jose Sarney, the former president of
the promilitary party, was sworn in as president. The
franchise was extended to illiterate adults in 1985, and
congressional elections followed in 1986.
A new constitution, which expunged many author-
itarian laws and guaranteed basic political and social
rights, was promulgated in 1988. By 1989, when
Brazilians went to the polls to vote for president for the
first time since 1961, most people considered Brazil to
have established a democratic regime.
ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
In the past sixty years Brazil has undergone a socioeco-
nomic transformation as profound as any country has
ever experienced—from a nation that bore the obvious
imprint of having been an agricultural colony and a
slave society to one of the world's major industrial
countries. In large part, the state orchestrated that
transformation. Today, Brazil seeks to sustain its eco-
nomic expansion by scaling back the scope of the state's
economic intervention and allowing a greater role for
market forces. At the same time, it aims to eradicate
hunger, illiteracy, and the other bitter vestiges of
inequality.
Economy
Until 1930, plantation agriculture organized Brazil's
economy and society. Large-scale sugar estates along
the northeastern coast relied on slave labor well into
the 1800s. In the early 1850s, between 25 and 30 per-
cent of Brazil's population of 7.5 million were slaves.
After the sugar economy declined, new fortunes
were made further south in the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury in the cultivation of coffee. The Brazilian state
subsidized immigrant laborers from Southern

Europe, and coffee planters grew rich and politically
powerful.
When the bottom fell out of the coffee economy
with the stock market crash of October 1929, the
Brazilian state, like many others in Latin America at
the time, led an industrialization drive. It protected
markets for nascent industries, subsidized energy,
manipulated exchange rates to make imported indus-
trial inputs cheaper, and controlled the labor force.
This model, called "import-substituting industrializa-
tion," produced growth in the 1950s, but it strained in
the early 1960s when investment dropped and
inflation rose.
Under military rule, the state promoted industrial-
ization to an even greater degree. The Brazilian military
had long dreamed of developing Brazil's vast mineral
and agricultural resources and hydroelectric potential
in order to make Brazil a great power. Unlike in Chile,
where the military government pursued a radical free-
market economic experiment, the Brazilian military
government increased the state's revenue base, con-
trolled wages and prices, and ran hundreds of profitable
public-sector enterprises in the mining, petroleum,
public utilities, and transportation sectors.
Under the military, Brazil also successfully
attracted significant foreign investment in such sectors
as automobiles and petrochemicals which required
large capital investments and sophisticated technolo-
gies. From 1968 to 1974, the model produced an "eco-
nomic miracle." Gross national product doubled as the
economy grew on average by 11 percent per year,
industry by 13 percent, and the motor vehicle industry
by as much as 35 percent. But the fruits of growth did
not trickle down to much of the population. Some,
like World Bank President Robert McNamara, criti-
cized the Brazilian government for neglecting its poor.
Finance Minister Delfim Netto defended the model,
arguing that growth had to come first, or else "you'll
end up distributing what doesn't exist."
Growth rates finally slowed in 1974. Dependent for
80 percent of its energy needs on imported petroleum,
Brazil was hit hard by soaring oil prices brought on by
the Arab oil embargo and production cutbacks by the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC). Military rulers borrowed from abroad to keep
the economy growing and to pay the bills, a strategy that
backfired as oil prices continued to climb. Rising inter-
est rates and a recession that closed the markets for
Frances Hagopian 507|j
Brazil's exports drove the foreign debt up to $71 billion
in 1980 and, at its peak in 1987, to $123 billion.
Brazil's indebtedness dramatically changed the
country's economic prospects. Payments on the debt's
interest and principal averaged 43 percent of Brazil's
export earnings from 1985 to 1989. Interest payments
on the debt exceeded 4 percent of gross national prod-
uct (GNP) in 1985 and 1988. Servicing the debt
plunged the nation into a deep recession for much of
the 1980s. Inflation soared to four-digit annual rates.
Brazil finally renegotiated the terms of its debt with its
creditors in 1993.
By the early 1990s, then, the model of the heavily
indebted producer-state—which governed a protected
and regulated market and produced high fiscal deficits
and inflation—had revealed itself to be unsustainable.
The government began to dismantle trade protection
and deregulate prices and financial services. Brazil's
stubborn inflation was finally tamed in 1994 by a
currency reform known as the Real Plan (named for
the new currency it introduced). This gradually de-
indexed the economy and converted all prices to an
index pegged to the U.S. dollar. In the year immedi-
ately prior to the Real Plan, monthly inflation had
averaged 39 percent; after the plan, annual rates fell to
single digits. Policymakers expected that foreign
investment and privatization would accelerate new
growth, and the victory over inflation would be con-
solidated through public-sector reform.
In fact, barriers to direct foreign investment were
removed in 1995, and foreign direct investment
poured into Brazil. From 1996 to 2000, Brazil attracted
an annual average of $21 billion in investment. The
only emerging market to receive more foreign invest-
ment in this period was China. The sale of several key
state enterprises (the state mining company, several
electricity companies, a number of ports) and a series
of major concessions (in the telecommunications sec-
tor) after 1997 brought in $103 billion.2 Yet reform of
the public sector was slow in coming, and Brazil's
inability to reduce the state's financial commitments
jeopardized the positive results that currency reform,
foreign investment, and privatization had had on sta-
bility and growth. With reform incomplete, the lid was
kept on inflation with high real interest rates; in 1995
short-term interest rates exceeded 50 percent. Such
high rates slowed the economy and left an overvalued
currency vulnerable in foreign financial markets.
508 Politics in Brazil
When the Asian financial crisis hit in 1997, the
Brazilian government had to devalue the real. A recov-
ery in 2000 was derailed in 2001 by a severe drought, by
the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States,
and by a political crisis in neighboring Argentina. The
Cardoso administration made slow progress on relax-
ing job tenure for employees in the state administra-
tion (thus enabling the federal government to reduce
its payroll) and partially gained control of social secu-
rity obligations, but it failed to reform the tax code.
One of Cardoso's most significant accomplish-
ments may have been to lay the foundation for limiting
the deficit spending of the subnational governments.
After years of hard negotiations, the federal govern-
ment assumed the hefty debts of the state govern-
ments, which were given thirty years to repay them. In
return, the state governments agreed to privatize their
state banks and many state enterprises, and limit their
spending, especially on the state payroll. Because the
reforms were only partial, the Cardoso government
kept interest rates high (about 25 percent until 2001).
More ominously, shortfalls were covered by foreign
and especially domestic debt. Public debt as a percent-
age of GDP rose from 30 percent in 1994, just before
Cardoso assumed office, to 63 percent by the end of his
term. Inflation rates creeped back into double digits,
reaching 13 percent in 2002.
With little room for maneuver, Lula's govern-
ment, too, had to keep interest rates high. Inflation fell
steadily each year until it bottomed out at 4 percent
Pumps for alcohol and
gasoline are offered at
service stations in Brazil.
Brazil is a major producer
of alternative fuels.
John Maier, Jr./The Image
Works
in 2005. Though it has not tackled tax reform, Lula's
administration did reform the pension system for
public-sector workers, toughening the requirements
for retirement and reducing benefits. In all, the gov-
ernment impressively produced a fiscal surplus of
4.25 percent of GDP, voluntarily exceeding the budget
surplus target of 3.75 percent of GDP recommended
by the International Monetary Fund. Its frugality
allowed it to pay off its foreign public debt ahead of
schedule and reduce long-term debt from $210 billion
in 2000 to $171 billion in 2004. Moreover, invest-
ments in oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean by
Petrobras, the state oil company, and an innovative
alternative fuel program have made Brazil energy
self-sufficient.
Society
A Modern Society The rapid economic growth of
recent decades has fundamentally altered Brazilian
society. In 1940, when Brazil was predominantly a
rural, agrarian society, 68 percent of the population
lived in rural areas. Today, only about 17 percent of
Brazilians remain in the countryside, and there are least
thirty-six cities with more than half a million residents.
Equal percentages of the work force (19 percent) are
employed in industry and agriculture (most—62%—
work in commerce and services). Agricultural workers
are no longer primarily sharecroppers and renters; they
are wage laborers on some of the most modern and

productive farms in the world. In addition, women
entered the labor force en masse in the 1970s and
1980s. In the three decades from 1970 to 2000, women's
participation in the labor force rose from 18.5 to
44 percent.3
Brazilians also have greater exposure to modern
means of communication. In 2005, nine in ten house-
holds had televisions, for the first time exceeding the
number with radios. Also for the first time in 2005, the
percentage of households with cell phone service (60
percent) exceeded the number with fixed-line service
(48 percent). Thirty-seven percent of all Brazilians
now have personal cell phones, and just over a fifth in
all and one-third of youths aged 15 to 17 has Internet
access.
The modernization of society, however real, is
incomplete. Adult illiteracy stands at 11 percent of the
population, and about a quarter of Brazilians over age
10 have completed three years of formal schooling or
less. Just over half of the work force pays into the social
security system, and though that is the highest rate
ever, one quarter who work in the informal sector and
another quarter that is self-employed are left outside
the system. Seventy percent of the labor force works
more than forty hours per week (19 percent work
forty-nine hours or more); 28 percent earn less than
the minimum wage.
An Unequal Society Brazil has long been known as
one of the countries with the most unequal distribu-
tion of wealth in the world. The share of the national
income captured by the richest 10 percent of the pop-
ulation climbed steadily from 40 percent in 1960 to
52 percent in 1989, when the poorest 20 percent
received only 2 percent. The Gini coefficient (a standard
measure of inequality with 0 as perfect equality and 1 as
perfect inequality) reached a high of .64.4 Today, the
share of the wealthiest 10 percent has dropped to
45 percent, and the Gini coefficient has fallen slowly
every year since 1989 to .54 in 2005. Nonetheless, despite
recent improvements, income inequality stubbornly
persists and permeates virtually every aspect of society
from school quality to access to justice.
Inequality is reproduced across regions, which
have developed unevenly. According to convention,
Brazil has five regions: (1) the Northeast, (2) North,
(3) Southeast, (4) South, and (5) Center-West. The
nine states comprising the desperately poor and
drought-plagued Northeast (Maranhao, Piaui, Ceara,
Frances Hagopian 509
Rio Grande do Norte, Paraiba, Pernambuco, Alagoas,
Sergipe, and Bahia) now contain 29 percent of Brazil's
population. Yet, in 2003 the region contributed only
14 percent of the GDP (see Figure 15.3). The North,
comprising Brazil's Amazon region, and the Center-
West (Brazil's frontier) are relatively less populated
and developed than the coastal regions. Sao Paulo,
perhaps the most industrialized center of the Third
World, is part of the Southeast (along with states of
Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and Espirito Santo). The
Southeast is home to 44 percent of the population but
generates 55 percent of national economic activity and
wealth.
Living standards vary dramatically across regions.
In 2004, the adult illiteracy rate in the Northeast (22
percent) was double the national average of 11
percent. The Northeast's poverty rate was nearly three
times that of the more developed Southeast (56
percent of the region's population live below the
poverty line). The infant mortality rate in the
Northeast, while dropping dramatically from eighty-
eight per 1,000 live births in 1990 to forty-three in
2001, stubbornly remained at more than twice the
level of the Southeast and South.
Brazilian society is stratified by color as well as by
class and region. Brazilians classified as "black" by the
2000 census are estimated as 6 percent of the popula-
tion, with another 39 percent categorized as parda or
mulata (of mixed black and white blood), mestica or
mameluca (of white and Indian blood), cafuza (of
black and Indian blood), or simply of Indian descent.
With 75 million Afro-Brazilians, Brazil is the country
with the second largest black population in the world
behind Nigeria. Nonwhites make up 70 percent of the
population of Brazil's Northeast, about 36 percent of
the Southeast region, and about 15 percent of the
South. Although less than 1 percent of the Brazilian
population is of Asian origin, Sao Paulo has one of the
largest ethnic Japanese communities in the world out-
side of Japan.
Black Brazilians are poor, suffer harsh treatment
at the hands of the police, and find their promotions
blocked in public and private life. They are more than
twice as likely to be illiterate, and they earn consider-
ably less than their white counterparts. In 2003, the
average monthly salary for white men was 931 reais,
for white women, 554, for black men, 428, and for
black women, 279. Thus, black men earned less than
half as much as white men, and black women, less than
510 Politics in Brazil
□ North
□ Northeast
70
D Southeast
B South
■ Center-West
Population, GDP, 2003
2004
80
Regional Inequality
Sources: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica; Instituto Nacional de Seguridade Social.
one-third. Put another way, while Afro-Brazilians con-
stitute over 46 percent of the population, they account
for 60 percent who earn the monthly minimum wage,
63 percent of those who are inadequately nourished,
and 72 percent of those who are "seriously" hungry.
Racial discrimination, moreover, extends into the judi-
cial system. Black defendants in cases of violent crimes
are more likely than their white counterparts to be
held in custody pending trial, to rely on public defend-
ers, to be convicted, and to be severely punished.
Like the black population, Brazil's Indians have
been seriously disadvantaged from Portuguese colo-
nial days to the present. Portuguese settlers and their
descendants coveted Indian labor, lands, and more
recently, the timber and minerals on Indian lands.
They also threatened the very survival of Indian cul-
ture through various schemes to integrate Indians into
Brazilian society.
It was not until 1988 that the collective rights of
Indians—including the right to hold lands necessary
for production, preservation of the environment, and
their physical and cultural reproduction—were
Poverty
rate, 2002
FIGURE 15.3
constitutionally guaranteed. In contrast to the huge
population of African descent, today Brazil has more
than 200 Indian groups, located mainly in the Amazon
region, but these groups together have fewer than a
quarter of a million members.
INSTITUTIONS AND STRUCTURES OF
GOVERNMENT
Since the establishment of the republic in 1889, the
Brazilian state has been federal and presidential, with
three branches of government—executive, legislative,
and judicial. However, the distribution of power, the
limits on state and governmental authority, and how
policy is framed and executed have changed substan-
tially with each regime and constitution.
The Estado Ndvo and military dictatorships cen-
tralized decisionmaking and expanded state authority;
civilian elites have, as reactions to authoritarianism,
attempted to decentralize administration and decon-
centrate power. The framers of the 1988 Constitution

were highly motivated to check the unrestrained
exercise of state power. In order to eliminate the exces-
sive centralization of the authoritarian period and the
domination of the state and of society by the
Executive Branch, they strengthened the fiscal base
of the subnational governments, the powers of the
national Congress, and individual and collective civil
and political rights.
Federalism: The Union, States, and
Local Governments
Brazil is one of the most decentralized federations in
the world. Its federal system has three tiers of
autonomous governing bodies: (1) the central govern-
ment, in Brazil called the Union; (2) the state govern-
ments; and (3) local governments called municipios,
which are roughly equivalent to U.S. counties (see
Figure 15.4).
Each of Brazil's twenty-six states elects a gover-
nor, lieutenant governor, and representatives to a uni-
cameral state legislature, known as the Legislative
Assembly, who all serve four-year terms. The Federal
District also elects its governor and a District Assembly.
Brazil's 5,564 municipios are governed by elected
mayors, vice mayors, and local councils of from nine
to twenty-one representatives (municipios with more
than 1 million inhabitants have substantially larger
councils).
Throughout Brazil's history as a republic, there
has been a tension between the centralizing ambitions
of the central government and the states' aspirations
for greater autonomy. Under military rule, the central
government collected most taxes, dictated the rates on
the ones state and local governments were allowed to
levy, and restricted the use of federal revenue-sharing
funds intended to supplement state and local taxes.
With redemocratization, the Union restored sub-
stantial fiscal resources and autonomy to subnational
governments. Regional politicians succeeded in writ-
ing a "new federalism" into the 1988 Constitution,
which required that 21.5 percent of the income tax
and the industrial products tax be returned to the
states and 22.5 percent to the municipal governments,
with no strings attached. The automatic transfers gen-
erated by this provision, which increased in fifteen
years by over 200 percent, resulted in a dramatic
increase in the share of total expenditure by state and
local governments. This grew from 32 percent in 1980
Frances Hagopian 511-1
to over 40 percent in 2000, a figure comparable to U.S.
levels. Local governments in particular gained in com-
parison with the 1960s and 1970s. From 1975 to 1995,
the share of total national expenditures of Brazilian
municipalities nearly doubled.5
In May 2000, the government passed the Fiscal
Responsibility Law, which sets strict spending limits
for all levels of government and prohibits the central
government from refinancing subnational debt. It
incorporated the guidelines of the Cantata law, which
limited all state government payrolls to 60 percent of
total state revenues. After the Fiscal Responsibility Law
came into effect, the share of total government expen-
ditures accounted for by state and municipal levels of
government declined, in 2003, to 15 and 11 percent,
respectively.
The Executive Branch
The president is both the head of state and the head of
government. The president and vice president are
elected jointly for four-year terms (Figure 15.4). Since
1997 they can be immediately reelected once. The mil-
itary regime broadly amplified the powers of the
Executive Branch. The democratic constitution only
partially reinstituted congressional authority in many
of these areas. Today, the president has ample legisla-
tive powers, including the exclusive power to initiate
budget legislation and to issue emergency decrees.
The Legislative Branch
The national Congress is made up of two houses that
form a system of "balanced bicameralism" in that one
house does not clearly dominate the other. Both can
initiate legislation, and they share the power to review
the national budget.
The upper house, the Senate, has three senators
from each state and the Federal District, for a total of
eighty-one. Senators serve staggered eight-year terms;
elections are held every four years alternately for one-
third and two-thirds of the Senate.
The lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, has
grown in recent decades along with the addition of
more states. It now comprises 513 representatives from
twenty-six states and the Federal District. Deputies
serve four-year terms. The size of each state's delega-
tion is determined in proportion to its population—
but the Constitution establishes a minimum of eight
 U1
t—»

hi
o

3
Executive Branch Legislative Branch

Elects president for 4-year terms by majority vote (in

second round, runoff, if necessary)
President Congress
Central government
(Union) Elects 81 senators statewide by plurality for staggered, 8-year terms
Senate
Elects 513 deputies statewide by proportional representation for 4-year terms
Chamber of Deputies

Elect governors for 4-year terms by majority vote

States (26) (in second round, runoff, if necessary)
and Federal i Governors Legislative Assemblies
District
Elect state deputies by proportional representation for 4-year terms

County Elect mayors for 4-year terms

Mayors Councils
governments (5,564)
(munici'pios) Elect local councillors in proportional elections for 4-year terms
i
The Structure of Brazil's Federal Government FIGURE 15.4

3- &£Q 3^^§:£- S> 3 51 3i » '-*> " 9 £ n3 3


and a maximum of seventy deputies for each state.
These constitutional limits especially underrepresent
residents of the densely populated southeastern and
southern states. Whereas one deputy represents
approximately 40,000 residents in the Amazonian state
of Roraima and 60,000 in Amapa, each deputy in Sao
Paulo represents 530,000 citizens. While democracies
often overrepresent underpopulated regions in upper
chambers in order to safeguard the interests of all
federal units (as in the U.S. Senate), the malapportion-
ment of Brazil's lower house, exacerbated by the mili-
tary to advantage its supporters in the Northeast and
the Amazon, is unusual.
Congress is no longer the rubber stamp it was
during the military regime. Today it can initiate legis-
lation, review the budget, approve or reject emergency
laws, and override presidential vetoes. It conducts
public hearings on proposed legislation and summons
ministers of government.
With the approval of one-third of both the
Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, Congress can set
up Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry (CPIs).
In the 1990s, CPIs inquired into the financial crisis in
the state enterprises and severe breaches of public
Frances Hagopian 513
Brazilian President Lula,
during the 2002 campaign.
AP Images/Marcelo Hernandez
ethics, including the 1992 allegations of corruption
against President Collor de Mello and his campaign
treasurer, the 1993 congressional budget scandal, and
the 1997 controversy surrounding state government
bonds. In all, there were nineteen CPIs convened
during the 51st Congress (1999-2002) and ten in the
first three and one-half years of the 52nd Congress
(2003-2006). Among the most notable inquiries were
those reviewing the role of the National Economic and
Social Development Bank (BNDES) in the privatiza-
tion of the electrical energy sector; the PT campaign
finance scandal in 2005; and the corruption scandal
involving the so-called bloodsuckers, dozens of mem-
bers of Congress implicated in skimming off the sales
of ambulances at inflated prices.
The Judiciary
The Judicial Branch is comprised of the Supreme
Court, the Superior Court, five regional federal
appeals courts, labor courts, electoral courts, military
courts, and state courts. The Constitution stipulates
criteria for entry into judicial service (by means of a
competitive examination), promotion (by seniority
 114 Politics in Brazil
and merit), and mandatory retirement at the age of 70
or after thirty years of service. Eleven justices, or "min-
isters," are named by the president to the Supreme
(constitutional) Court—Supremo Tribunal Federal
(STF)—and approved by the Senate, as are thirty-
three ministers to the Superior (civil) Court.
The electoral courts constitute a subsystem of the
federal judicial system. The Superior Electoral
Court—Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE)—came
into being in 1932 to check the rampant electoral
fraud in the Old Republic. Today, electoral courts at all
levels rule on a variety of areas relating to party regis-
tration, the mandates of elected members of Congress,
the admissibility of candidacies, procedures for count-
ing ballots, and even the constitutionality of legisla-
tion governing these areas.
The labor courts were created by the Consolidated
Labor Code of 1943. Once the primary venue in which
grievances between labor and management were set-
tled, today superior and regional labor courts arbitrate
disputes between private-sector workers and employ-
ers and public-sector workers and governmental
authorities when they cannot come to an agreement
through collective bargaining.
The military justice system was also retained in
the 1988 Constitution, but its reach has been scaled
back since the dictatorship, when military courts had
the jurisdiction to try civilians for crimes against
"national security." Today, federal and state military
courts try military crimes. These include most crimes
committed by military police, which are responsible
for patrolling the streets (civilian police are investiga-
tors). Cases of intentional homicide by the military
police against civilians are now tried before civilian
judges and juries. Ordinary state courts enforce state
constitutions and state laws.
The courts today are stronger than ever before.
The 1988 Constitution notably expanded judicial
power, broadened individual rights, and expanded
access to the courts at all levels of the federal judiciary.
It also enhanced judicial independence by guarantee-
ing judicial budget autonomy, establishing profes-
sional procedures of appointment, and maintaining
stable terms for judges. As a result, judges enjoy a good
deal of independence even from superiors.
While most of these reforms have had salutary
effects, there have also been drawbacks. Most notably,
the federal court system is clogged and has been used to
stall or block policy. To give a comparative sense of the
federal courts' workload, Brazil has three-fifths the
population of the United States, but in 2001 Brazil's
Supreme Constitutional Court heard more than
110,000 cases, the STJ nearly 185,000, and five Regional
Federal Tribunals another 545,500. The number of
cases before Brazil's Supreme Court rose again in 2002
to 160,000. In contrast, in 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled on 7,852 cases and twelve U.S. Courts of Appeal
ruled on another 57,464.6
There are several reasons why the docket of Brazil's
federal courts is so overloaded. For one, because lower
courts' decisions are not binding or final, cases are
appealed repeatedly until they finally reach the STF.
Second, a legal instrument known as a direct action
of unconstitutionality (ADIN) allows plaintiffs (the
president, leaders of the Senate and Chamber, state gov-
ernors, the organization of Brazilian lawyers, political
parties with representation in Congress, and national
union or class associations) to question the constitu-
tionality of a policy directly at the STF without going
through the lower courts. Not surprisingly, most consti-
tutional challenges come from a select group of political
actors—state governors (27 percent), class associations
(26 percent), and political parties (21 percent)—not
ordinary citizens.7
When political actors do use the lower courts for
constitutional complaints, they do so in a strategic
manner, to benefit from the delay of decisions. Judicial
autonomy has promoted broad judicial activism,
which has benefited groups with privileged access to
the court system seeking to stall or block policies
coming out of the Executive or Legislative branches.
The Brazilian judiciary has been active in recent years
in tax, pension, and land reform issues, often ruling
against the Executive and Congress. Many judicial rul-
ings may have negatively impacted the economy.
During his presidential campaign in 2006, opposition
candidate Gerardo Alckmin highlighted judicial inse-
curity as an impediment to private-sector investment
and growth.8
Limitations on Governmental Authority
Elevating their symbolic importance, the opening para-
graphs of the 1988 Constitution exalt the principles of
sovereignty, citizenship, human dignity, social values,
and political pluralism. Substantively, the Constitution
extends the traditional guarantees of individual rights
to social groups and prohibits discrimination against

minorities. It also grants parties, unions, and civic
associations legal recourse against the actions of other
social actors and permits them to challenge before the
Supreme Court the constitutionality of legislation and
administrative rulings. Individual rights are inviolable,
and articles stipulating the federal form of the state, the
direct, secret, universal, and regular periodic vote, and
the separation of powers cannot be amended. Other
articles can be amended by initiative of one-third of the
Chamber of Deputies or the Senate, the president, or
by a relative majority of the state Legislative Assemblies.
Successful passage of constitutional amendments re-
quires a three-fifths vote of both houses, on two
separate occasions.
The Brazilian executive must observe limits when
invoking a state of siege in order to restore public
order (the president may declare an unlimited state of
siege in wartime). A state of siege must be approved
by an absolute congressional majority, not exceed 30
days, and is renewable only once. In cases of war or
public disturbance, the government can suspend the
right of free assembly and institute procedures of
search and seizure. However, it cannot lift the immu-
nity of federal deputies and senators, and its ability to
censor the press, telecommunications, and private cor-
respondence is limited.
Each tier of the court system is vested with the
power of judicial review. Traditionally, Brazilian courts
had the power to review legislation only on a case-by-
case basis. Today, with the broader power of abstract
review, courts may assume a more activist bent. The
Supreme Court is charged to review the constitution-
ality of legislation, as well as to try the president and
members of Congress for common crimes. With the
power to determine the constitutionality of electoral
legislation, the Superior Electoral Court constitutes
another check on government.
An important, newly redesigned institution is the
Minist6rio Publico (Public Prosecution). It became
formally independent of the Executive and Judicial
branches of government with the 1988 Constitution
(under military rule, it was part of the Executive
Branch). The Public Prosecution is responsible for
defending the constitutional interests of citizens and
society at large, safeguarding the environment, protect-
ing consumers, guaranteeing minority rights, and
monitoring public administration at both the federal
and state levels. It can take to court any person or entity
for any breaches of collective rights or the artistic and
Frances Hagopian 515
cultural autonomy of the nation. The independence of
its more than 300 federal and nearly 1000 state-level
members, who enter through a civil service exam, is
safeguarded through life tenure.
Since it came into existence, hundreds of mayors
and ex-mayors have been charged and convicted for
the misuse of public funds, and even members of
Congress have been investigated for corruption. The
Public Prosecution has received high marks from the
most respected newspapers in Brazil for providing a
"new sense of hope that we can end public impunity."9
Additionally, the Tribunal de Contas, a federal
court of accounts, though formally part of the Legis-
lative Branch of government (six of its nine members are
appointed by Congress), acts more like an independent
agency overseeing accounts rendered by the president
for administration of the Brazilian government. It has
broad oversight powers, and it can investigate even con-
gressional accounts. Crucially, its members, like those of
the Ministerio Publico, have job tenure.
POLITICAL CULTURE
Most observers would agree that Brazil's politics are
elite-dominated, a consequence of a centuries-long
pattern of socioeconomic inequality and the country's
political inheritance. Although general laws exist for
all citizens, Brazilian society confers advantages on
those who are "somebody." As one noted Brazilian
anthropologist put it, social differentiation before the
law means that the "somebodies" are above and
beyond the reach of the law, but the masses are subject
to and victims of the law. The "somebody" can say to
"the people," "Voce sabe com quem estd falando?" ("Do
you know with whom you are speaking?").10
Brazil also has a legacy of patrimonialism, a tradi-
tional system of domination of society by a strong
state with a centralized bureaucracy. For most of the
twentieth century, Brazilians from the left to the right
of the political spectrum looked to the state for solu-
tions. Both right and left became disenchanted with
statism during the dictatorship. For the right, the state
was too interventionist and impermeable to societal
interests; for the left, the dream of an egalitarian state
was turned into a nightmare of violence and repres-
sion. Many Brazilians henceforth began to view their
trust in the state as folly and looked instead to civil
society to lead the way toward change.
516 Politics in Brazil
Civil Society
During the military regime, ordinary citizens came
together in independent organizations for social soli-
darity, to petition government for better services, and
to oppose authoritarian rule. Brazilian civil society
witnessed an unprecedented spate of associational
activity among new social movements—of neighbor-
hood associations, women, blacks, ecologists, and
grassroots Catholics. These new social movements,
some have contended, contributed to the democrati-
zation of political culture by socializing the women,
religious workers, and slum dwellers who joined them
into the norms of participatory democracy. Since the
transition to democracy, membership in these organi-
zations has only grown.
Religion and Political Culture Brazil is a Catholic
nation, and the country with the largest number of
Catholics in the world. Nevertheless, religious obser-
vance has traditionally been low, and unlike many
other predominantly Latin and Catholic countries, the
church did not exercise significant influence in the
educational system. Religion was not an important
factor in elections. Before 1964 the church had a con-
servative orientation, and was generally supportive of
the state and the dominant elites, but it did not attempt
to impose a radically conservative order.
After 1964, the Brazilian Catholic Church earned
the reputation of being one of the most progressive in
the world. Much of the hierarchy shared with parish
priests, nuns, and the laity a vision of a "popular"
church committed to the poor. During the military
regime, the church became an important and effective
opponent of authoritarian rule. It provided a safe
haven for the victims of state repression of various
faiths and their families, and in the late 1970s it shel-
tered striking workers. Members of the popular
church helped to organize the labor movement and
supported the Workers' Party. Political action and a
commitment to working for social justice and a redis-
tribution of power and wealth were encouraged by
liberation theology, which, exhorting the faithful to
embrace the poor as implied in the Gospels, gained
widespread adherence in Brazil and other parts of
Latin America in the 1970s. Even today, church groups
continue to play an active role in helping to organize
social movements in defense of the material as well as
moral interests of their poor parishioners.
Perhaps the most important initiative of the popu-
lar church and the one with a direct bearing on the
transformation of political culture in Brazil was the
promotion of ecclesial base communities (CEBs)—
small, relatively homogeneous, grassroots groups of
ten to forty people who gather regularly to read the
Bible and reflect on their daily lives in light of the
Gospel. Brazil's bishops actively promoted the creation
of CEBs in the spirit of the Vatican II reforms, which
sought to energize the church by making participation
less ritualistic and more meaningful for the faithful, and
as a response to the shortage of priests. The CEBs
handed the study of the Bible directly to the people,
who had previously relied on priests to interpret the
message of the Gospel for them, thereby transforming
the attitudes of their members toward hierarchy and
authority, within and outside the church. CEB members
also gained from their participation in these local
church groups the personal confidence and leadership
skills that were necessary to broaden their participation
in community affairs, neighborhood and women's
movements, and eventually politics. Today, there are
more than 100,000 of these grassroots communities
across Brazil, and in one national survey, 40 percent of
women and 31 percent of men reported belonging to
one.11
The message carried by CEBs has recently changed,
and the scope of their activities has narrowed. Since the
mid-1980s, papal leadership has restrained liberation
theologians, appointed several conservative bishops,
and reduced the influence of progressive bishops in the
National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB).
Competition from other religions has also refo-
cused church leadership on evangelization and spiritu-
ality. The Catholic Church has long shared the fealty of
many Brazilians with such religions of the African
Diaspora. Today, its religious hegemony is especially
challenged by Pentecostal Protestantism, which has
made inroads among those in the Brazilian population
who are usually poorer, less literate, and seeking faith
healing and personal redemption. Brazil's Catholics
have converted to Protestant sects on a massive scale.
Whereas 90 percent of the population was at least nom-
inally Catholic in 1950, only 74 percent of Brazilians
self-identified as Roman Catholic in the 2000 Census.
Traditional and Pentecostal Evangelicals constituted
15 percent of the population; 2 percent reported practic-
ing spiritism, Umbanda, and Candomble; and 7 percent
declared themselves to have no religion.

Has participation in religious organizations
changed Brazil's political culture? In Brazil as else-
where, people who participate in church groups also
tend to join voluntary associations and participate
more actively in politics. Though there is a large
Protestant electoral and legislative presence, there is no
appreciable difference in political participation rates,
outlooks, and voting patterns among Catholics and
Protestants. Catholic members of CEBs, however, are
more likely to support the Workers' Party than are
Catholics associated with conservative movements
within the church, such as the Catholic Charismatic
Renewal.12
Gender Relations As a Latin American country,
Brazil has not been immune from the cultural influ-
ences of machismo—which familiarly refers to an
aggressive and virile form of masculinity—and
marianismo, the cult of the Virgin Mary and the femi-
nine counterpart of machismo, which views Latin
American women as morally superior to men and the
force that holds together the family and brings up the
children.
Across Latin America, these traditional images and
self-images of women contributed to their political con-
servatism. This factor, in turn, was exploited by parties
of the right in the period of competitive party politics
and later by the region's militaries to justify their inter-
ventions and policies. In Brazil, women voted in larger
numbers for candidates of the right than did men. In
1964, they mobilized against "communism," "subver-
sion," and the leftist government of Joao Goulart in
favor of the "family," "God," and "freedom."
Under military rule, the traditional image and
orientations toward politics of women began to
change. For the middle and upper classes, political
opportunity followed educational and occupational
opportunities. The number of girls graduating from
secondary school soared from 9 percent in 1950 to 25
percent in 1970 and nearly half in 1980, and just in the
six-year period from 1969 to 1975, the number of
women attending Brazilian universities increased five-
fold (while the number of men doubled). By 1980,
more women than men were enrolled in Brazil's uni-
versities, and the number of women earning master's
and doctoral degrees exploded.
Authoritarianism, coincidentally, also exercised an
important economic impact on poor women. With the
drop in the value of the minimum wage and the lack of
Frances Hagopian 517
adequate social services and urban infrastructure, these
women found it increasingly more difficult to perform
their ascribed feminine roles of securing the welfare of
their families and communities. As wives and mothers,
they assumed the lead in their communities' struggles
for health care and sanitation, and even against the
rising cost of living.
With the political liberalization of the mid-1970s,
women's movements were formed. The regime at first
viewed women's movements as apolitical and allowed
them greater political space than traditional labor
movements. Eventually during the 1970s and 1980s
as many as 400 feminist organizations were formed,
turning the Brazilian women's movement into one of
Latin America's most powerful. Women's movements
injected into the national political debate several
issues that had previously been considered private:
reproductive rights, violence against women, and
daycare.
Several recent policy developments signal a
change in the attitudes of Brazilians about gender and
politics. Political parties adopted many concerns of
the women's movement in their party programs, and
the Constitution substituted the concept of pater
familiae—which attributes greater authority to the
man as the head of a married couple—with the con-
cept of equal and shared authority. To combat violence
against women, city governments created police
precincts staffed entirely by female police officers to
process complaints of rape and domestic violence. In
1991, the law absolving men of the murder of their
wives when in the "legitimate defense of their honor"
was abrogated. Under pressure from feminists, more
than a dozen public hospitals in Brazil introduced
legal abortion services (for victims of rape). In 2001,
the Brazilian Congress approved a new civil code
granting men and women equality in marriage and
rendering children equal in rights and obligations
regardless of the circumstances of their birth. Debate
has begun on extending the conditions under which
legal abortions may be performed.
Underlying these changes are shifts in attitudes
among both women and men. The combination of
exposure to secondary and higher education, work-
place experience, and political activity visibly and
measurably altered the political attitudes of women.
Women who worked outside the home and who were
well educated were much more likely to express an
interest in politics, want to vote, watch an electoral
518 Politics in Brazil
campaign, and identify with a political party (particu-
larly one on the left of the political spectrum).13
A gender gap nonetheless remains. In 2006, 64
percent of men but only 58 percent of women voted for
Lula in the second round presidential election.
Nonetheless, Brazilians hold favorable attitudes toward
women holding office. In 2001, a majority of Brazilians
believed that women in senior government posts are
more honest, responsible, trustworthy, and competent
than men.14 As we shall see later in this chapter, more
women have been recruited into politics and high elec-
tive office in recent years than ever before.
Race and Racial Politics Until recently, few Brazilians
acknowledged that Brazil had a "race problem." For
decades, they believed the official myth that compared
with the United States, beset by bigotry and race-
related violence, Brazil had a "racial democracy."
Drawing from Gilberto Freyre's classic 1933 thesis that
Portuguese masters viewed their African slaves more
favorably, and treated them less harshly, than in North
America,15 the myth claimed that widespread misce-
genation had blurred the boundaries of racial iden-
tification and prevented the development of conflict
based on a polarized racial consciousness. Brazilians
believed that the absence of state-sponsored segre-
gation and the social recognition of intermediate racial
categories made their postemancipation society more
racially and culturally accommodating than other
multiracial societies. Following from this analysis, they
also believed that disadvantage was based on class,
not race.
The myth notwithstanding, racial prejudice in
Brazil is pervasive and not as subtle as many Brazilians
believe. Although the white middle class believes in
equal opportunities for mulattoes and blacks, they
accept most stereotypes of blacks and mulattoes
(including sexual promiscuity and an aversion to thrift,
work, and trustworthiness) and would not marry a
black or mulatto. A group of United Nations experts
concluded after an October 2005 mission to Brazil that
"racial discrimination is deeply rooted in Brazil and
has influenced the structure of the entire society for the
last five centuries," and that "traveling in Brazil is like
moving simultaneously between two different planets,
from that of the lively colored and mixed races of the
streets to that of the almost all-white corridors of polit-
ical, social, economic and media power."16
Cultural movements of black Brazilians date back
to the 1940s, but racial prejudice, disadvantage, and
outright repression during the military regime sparked
the formation of new black movements during the
political opening. The Unified Black Movement
Against Racial Discrimination—the Movimento Negro
Unificado—formed in 1978 to call attention to racism
and the poor quality of life of Brazil's nonwhite popula-
tion. Although it initially lacked the political success of
other movements, in part due to the disparate nature of
the black movement and even police repression, it did
raise a new racial consciousness among Brazil's black
population. A quarter century after its formation, it has
campaigned for affirmative action quotas and for an
end to extrajudicial police killings of black youth (see
Box 15.1).
How Democratic Are Brazilians?
Have the expansion of civil society, the presence of
new subcultures, and other factors added up to any
palpable changes in the national political culture of
Brazil? In particular, is there any evidence that Brazil is
developing a more democratic political culture (also
see Chapter 3)?
On the one hand, Brazilians are less tolerant of
authoritarianism than ever before. Whereas in the
early 1970s the Brazilian population was generally
accepting of the military's participation in politics, by
the late 1980s Brazilians expressed a clear preference
for democracy over dictatorship.
On the other hand, if mass attitudes shifted in
favor of democracy, Brazilians did not share a single
vision of what kind of democracy they supported. In
the early 1980s, better-educated, middle-class
Brazilians (who held democracy in higher esteem than
those with only a primary school education) favored
restoring civilian democratic institutions but were less
likely to believe that people were capable of voting
wisely or to support enfranchising illiterates. Con-
versely, less well-educated, working-class Brazilians
desired universal suffrage without necessarily being
committed to civilian governmental institutions.17
This picture essentially has not changed. Even today,
the poor support democracy conditionally, and value it
more for its substantive promise than its procedures.
Tellingly, in one recent poll, when asked, "What is
the principal meaning of democracy?" 26 percent of

Brazil's Controversial Racial Quotas
At the World Conference on Racism in South Africa in
September 2001, Brazil's government report recom-
mended the adoption of quotas to expand the access of
black students to public universities. Soon thereafter,
the state governments of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia
announced they would reserve 40 percent of the places
in their state universities for Afro-Brazilians (a lower
quota of 20 percent was set in Minas Gerais). In early
2003, the Foreign Ministry (Itamaraty) launched an
affirmative action program that provides scholarship
support for up to twenty black candidates to help them
study for the public service entrance exam. Legislation
has been introduced to extend the quotas to the federal
university system, and a debate has begun on estab-
lishing quotas for professors.
While the facts of racial disadvantage are no
longer in dispute in Brazil, the desirability of a quota
system is controversial. Quotas are popular among the
poor, regardless of race, but not among the well-off.
Sources: Mala Htun, "From 'Racial Democracy' to Affirmative Action: Changing State Policy on Race in Brazil," Latin American Research Review, 39,
no. 1 (2004): 60-89; and FolhaOnline, 23 July 2006.
Brazilians surveyed cited "freedom" and 15 percent
cited "elections" (compared with the Latin American
averages of 38 and 26 percent, respectively), but 37 per-
cent answered "an economy that assures one an honor-
able wage," well above the Latin American mean of 21
percent (see Figure 15.5).
If Brazilians are more committed to democracy
today, they distrust politicians, political parties, and
democratic institutions more than in the recent past.
Immediately after the 1989 election, 39 percent of
respondents expressed confidence in Congress and 41
percent in the office of the president. In 2000, only 19
percent still trusted Congress, and only 25 percent
trusted the president.18 In 2005, public confidence had
slid even farther; a mere 10 percent retained trust in
political parties and 8 percent in politicians (down
from 15 and 12 percent, respectively, in 1999).19Less
than half of Brazilians believed that without Congress,
there could be no democracy.
Do Brazilians distrust democratic institutions
today more than other Latin Americans? The short
Frances Hagopian 519
BOX 15.1
Overall, 65 percent of Brazilians in a nationwide poll in
mid-2006 favored racial quotas in university admis-
sions. However, those earning less than two times the
minimum wage were 1.8 times as likely to support
racial quotas as those earning more than ten times the
minimum.
Supporters of quotas argue that blacks and mulat-
tos, who make up almost half of the population, are the
poorest, least well educated, and most severely disad-
vantaged in Brazilian society, and that only a strong
affirmative action program will lift them from poverty.
Opponents charge that quotas exacerbate prejudice,
lead to reverse discrimination, insult blacks by presum-
ing they cannot compete on their own merits, and fail to
address the causes of black exclusion. Critics of quotas
also question how easy it would be to identify just who is
black in Brazil. Activists counter that if self-identification
does not work, when in doubt, "call a policeman, who
always knows."
answer is yes. In 2005,62 percent of all Latin Americans
but only 56 percent of Brazilians expressed the view
that they would not support a military government
under any circumstances. Moreover, only 37 percent of
Brazilians expressed support for the democratic regime
(well below the Latin American average of 53 percent),
and only 22 percent of Brazilians were satisfied with
how democracy works (compared with 31 percent
across the region).
Brazilians were also less aware of their civic rights
and responsibilities than most Latin Americans; in
2005, only a quarter reported that they knew at least
something about the country's Constitution. Finally,
Brazilians also did not trust each other: only about 3
percent agreed that "you can trust most people." In
their level of interpersonal trust, which many political
scientists consider to be essential to democracy,
Brazilians scored the lowest of any Latin American
nation.
Such responses may lead one to believe that
Brazil's democratic political culture is weak. Yet, in
 20 Politics in Brazil

Key:
Q. In general, would you say that you are very satisfied,
Satisfaction with somewhat satisfied, not very satisfied, or not satisfied
democracy at all with the functioning of democracy in Brazil? Here
Support tor democracy Q. "very satisfied" and "somewhat satisfied."
Q. Democracy is preferable to any other form of gov-
Q.
ernment. In some circumstances, an authoritarian
How democratic is the Q.
government can be preferable to a democratic one. For
country? (1-10 scale) Q.
Q. people like me, it doesn't matter whether the regime is
Voter democratic or nondemocratic. Percent agreeing that
Democracy as system to turnout "democracy is preferable to any other form of
become developed Q. government." On a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is "not
Efficacy democratic" and 10 is "totally democratic," where
Under no circumstances | of vote would you put Brazil? (Mean response.) Are you very
would support a military P- much in agreement, in agreement, in disagreement, or
government very much in disagreement with the following
View that without parties statement: "Democracy is the only system under which
there can be no Brazil can become developed." Here "very much in
democracy agreement and "in agreement."
View that without Would you support a military government as a
Congress there can be replacement for the democratic government, if things
no democracy became very difficult, or would you not support a
military government under any circumstance? Here
Principal meaning of "under no circumstance would I support a military
democracy—economy government." There are people who say that without
that assures honorable
parties there can be no democracy, while other people
wage
say that democracy can function without parties. Which
phrase comes closer to your view? There are people
Principal meaning of
democracy—elections who say that without a national Congress there can be
no democracy, while other people say that democracy
can function without a national Congress. Which
Principal meaning of phrase comes closer to your view?
democracy—freedoms
People often have different points of view on what are
the most important characteristics of democracy.
Choose only one characteristic, that to you, is the most
essential feature of a democracy: regular, free, and fair
elections; an economy that assures a just wage;
freedom of expression to be openly critical; a judicial
system that treats everyone equally; respect for
minorities; government of the majority; members of a
parliament that represent their voters; a competitive
party system; don't know, no response.

FIGURE15.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Percent
■ Latin-American average
■ Brazil

Support for Democracy, 2005 *

Source: Informe Latinobarometro 2005 (available at www.latinobarometro.org).

other ways, Brazilians behave in more democratic ways Latin America. Three in ten speak of politics, a quarter
than their lukewarm responses to these questions try to convince others of their political positions, and
might imply. They turn out to vote at higher rates and Brazilians join civic organizations in larger numbers
believe their vote matters more than on average across than in other emerging democracies.
 Frances Hagopian 521

Moreover, in a salutary trend for strengthening
the fabric of Brazilian democracy, Brazilian tolerance
for corruption may have run out even before the 2005
scandal. Contrary to the longstanding belief that
Brazilians view favorably politicians or a party that
"robs, but gets things done," in 2002, 65 percent of
respondents to the National Election Study disagreed
with the assertion "it doesn't matter if a politician
robs, as long as he gets done things that the population
needs" (see Figure 15.6). As if to anticipate the PT's
campaign finance scandal, moreover, 85 percent dis-
agreed that a politician that delivers good government
should be able to divert public money to finance his
electoral campaign.
In sum, there is little doubt that political culture
in Brazil has changed in the past quarter century.
Brazilians generally have grown more skeptical of
hierarchy, less tolerant of corruption, and more sup-
portive of democracy in practice, if not always in sur-
veys. But this transformation is incomplete. Alongside
the religious, feminist, and racial groups of civil soci-
ety that have contributed to the democratization of
civil society, other citizens who have not participated
in these groups have been socialized in more tradi-
tional ways.

Percent disagreeing that

a politician that delivers
good government should be
able to divert public money
to finance his electoral
campaign.
very honest politicians harm
the functioning of the
government.
it doesn't matter if a
politician robs, as along as
he gets done things that the
population needs.
it's better for a politician to
do many works, even if he
robs a little, than for a
politician to do few works
and not rob at all.
a politician that does a lot
and robs a little deserves
the vote of the population.
an honest politician cannot
be successful in politics.
all politicians rob.
0 poor participants in a more progressive direction, the
.5
1
0 20 30 40 50 60
70 80 90 Percent
Public Attitudes Toward
Politicians and Corrupt)
Source: Brazilian National Election Study, 2002.
SOCIALIZATION AND
MASS COMMUNICATION
Political Learning
In most countries, there is a consensus that a good deal
of political learning takes place in such key social insti-
tutions as schools, the family, churches, and commu-
nity groups. In Brazil, traditionally, the first two of
these institutions were generally only weak agents of
political socialization. In contrast with countries with
higher levels of educational attainment, Brazilian
schools were poorly staffed and attended, and until
recently, much of the population did not stay in school
past the third grade. In a context of extremely weak
partisanship, moreover, families did not generally
transmit political loyalties.
Religious, neighborhood, and workplace associa-
tions have served as more significant sources of poli-
tical socialization, especially in recent decades. The
diversity of Brazil's religious denominations, beliefs,
and experiences had produced multiple paths of
political socialization. Whereas the intense discus-
sions about party platforms and policies that concern
the poor in the Roman Catholic grassroots ecclesial
communities and "faith and politics" groups have
profoundly shaped the political worldviews of their
Charismatic Catholic Renewal and various
Pentecostal Protestant sects have, to a lesser degree,
socialized their members in more traditionally con-
servative ways. Political discussion within social net-
FIGURE IS.6 works and
neighborhood
contexts has also helped to form political opinions,
especially during election campaigns.20
522 Politics in Brazil
Mass Media
Political scientists generally believe that in modern
society institutions such as the mass media have taken
the place of political parties and other traditional
institutions in shaping the formation of the political
culture, political attitudes, and even voting propensi-
ties. They particularly believe this is true in countries
like Brazil where parties do not have deep roots in the
electorate. Given low levels of educational attainment,
it is not surprising that 95 percent of the population
says it watches television regularly and levels of news-
paper readership are comparatively low. Brazil's daily
newspaper circulation rate is forty-six per 1,000
inhabitants, compared with sixty in India, ninety-four
in Mexico, and 105 in Russia (see Table 7.4 in Chapter
7). By contrast, the prevalence of televisions (369 per
1,000) is far greater than in India and Mexico.
Analysts claim that television has influenced the
political attitudes of Brazilians in at least three ways.
First, it brings politics into Brazilian homes via the
hordrio gratuito, free television time set aside during
election campaigns for the political parties to advertise
their candidates and messages.
Second, individual candidates and parties receive
coverage during television news and any televised
debates. Free television time for candidates, televised
debates, and television news shape voters' perceptions
to a degree surpassed only by conversations with fam-
ily and friends.21
Third, telenovelas (prime-time soap operas) pro-
ject themes that subtly influence the ways in which
people view politicians and institutions.
In a context in which the media holds such influ-
ence, it is noteworthy that the ownership of television
and radio stations in Brazil is extremely concentrated.
Brazil's powerful Globo network, one of the largest
networks in the world, commands the lion's share of
the national audience, though its nearest rival, the STB
(Brazilian Television System), has been gaining ground
in recent years. Most observers believe that the media,
and particularly the Globo network, played a strong
role in promoting the successful presidential candida-
cies of Fernando Collor de Mello in 1989 and
Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 1994. Locally, the
Ministry of Communications notoriously1 awarded
licenses for television and radio stations in return for
political support. Politicians still use media empires in
their home states to influence their coverage on local
television and radio news and in major newspapers
they own or control. In some states, more than half of
the local congressional delegation owns a television
station, a ratio station, or both.
POLITICAL RECRUITMENT AND
POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
Politics at the Elite Level
Elite Recruitment Traditionally, Brazilian politics
was elite-dominated. Within the elite, recruitment
took place within a small circle of political families.
Typically, leading politicians were from landed fami-
lies, schooled in law, served several terms of elective
office as local councillor, state deputy, and eventually
federal deputy, and built up their power base by join-
ing the state cabinet or becoming president of the state
Legislative Assembly.
During the military regime, the structure of
opportunity improved for the middle and upper-
middle classes. Technical credentials and competence
became a more broadly applied criteria for advance-
ment, especially in the national cabinet, federal and
state bureaucracies, and public-sector companies. The
"technocrats" were by and large educated in engineer-
ing and economics in a few select universities.
With the political liberalization of the late authori-
tarian period and especially since the return to democ-
racy, political recruitment patterns changed again.
Technocratic expertise was still prized in the economic
ministries, but politicians played a larger role in the polit-
ical and social service ministries. Politics is now more
open to representatives from diverse educational and
class backgrounds, as evidenced by Lula's election (see
Box 15.2). Five percent of the deputies elected in 2002
were educators; 7 percent were entrepreneurs in indus-
try, commerce, or finance; 8 percent were economists,
engineers, or agronomists; and 10 percent were physi-
cians or other medical professionals, but only 1 percent
were blue-collar workers (see Table 15.1). Nearly 20 per-
cent identified a political post—such as senator, deputy,
or local councillor—as their principal occupation, and
the "traditional" backgrounds of law and agriculture
both declined to 2 percent. Although it is no longer nec-
essary to belong to or be allied with an elite family to run
for elective office, in some parts of Brazil and on some
party labels, family connections can still be most helpful.

From Metalworker to Chief Executive: President Lula
Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, a metalworker, was born in
rural Pernambuco and migrated to Sao Paulo as a child
with his family. Formally, he graduated only from primary
school (though he earned a high school equivalency
degree and enrolled in a technical training school). At
age 14, he went to work in a screw factory. He ran for his
first union post in 1968, and by 1975 had become pres-
ident of the Metalworkers' Union of Sao Bernardo and
Diadema. This post catapulted him to national and inter-
national prominence in the late 1970s. He cofounded
the Workers' Party and served as its standard-bearer in
every presidential election since its inception. In the
2002 presidential elections, he won a resounding vic-
tory with 52.8 million votes, 61.3 percent of the more
Backgrounds of Brazili TABLE 15.1
Deputies, 2003-2007 (pe
Occupational Experience Percentage
Politics (Senator, Deputy, Councillor)
Lawyer/Judge
Physician/Dentist
Technical (Engineer, Agronomist,
Economist)
Industrialist, Merchant, Entrepreneur
Professor/Teacher
White Collar (Manager, Accountant)
Rural Property Owner
Journalist, Broadcaster
Government Employee
Military/Police
Blue Collar
Religious ' 2.0
Student
Retired
Other //
Source: Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE) (available at http://www.tse
.gov.br).
In running for reelection, incumbent deputies in
Brazil have more of an advantage than in many Latin
American countries but far less so than in the United
States. The turnover rates—that is, the percentage of
Frances Hagopian 523
BOX 15.2
than 86 million valid votes cast. The U.S. Ambassador to
Brazil at the time, Donna Hrinak, characterized Lula's
rise from such humble origins to the Brazilian presi-
dency as emblematic of the "American success story."
Lula has been a steadfast voice for economic
nationalism and social justice. In the 2002 election, he
donned a suit and tie, trimmed (but did not shave) his
beard, and moved his party and his electoral platform
closer toward the political center. He moderated his
tone on Brazil's international commitments, including its
agreements with the International Monetary Fund, its
foreign debt obligations, and its stance on a hemi-
spheric trade zone and economic liberalization, but not
on hunger, health, and social justice.
deputies who did not occupy a seat in the previous
Congress—was 47 in 2002.22 Only about a quarter
serve more than two consecutive terms. About a quar-
ter of the deputies elected in 1990 had been cabinet
29.0 secretaries in their respective states.23 Deputies are
nonetheless fairly adept at retaining their seats if they
15.0 choose to run again. In 1995, 70 percent of the mem-
10.0 bers of Congress sought reelection; of these, 62 per-
8.0 cent won back their seats.24 The level and type of
political experience of members of Congress also vary
7.0
considerably along with their party label, reflecting
5.0
their party's proximity to power.
3.0
How open is entry to the exclusive club of the
2.0
Brazilian Congress? Women have gained many more
2.0
seats than in earlier decades, when one or two at most
2.0
were elected to the Congress, but progress has
1.0
nonetheless been slow. In 1994, a breakthrough year,
1.0
thirty-two women were elected as federal deputies and
eighty-two as state deputies. Also, Roseana Sarney of
.5
Maranhao, the daughter of former president Jose
.5
Sarney, became the first woman to be elected a state
12.0
governor in Brazil. That same year, five women were
elected to the Senate. One of them, Marina Silva, a
36-year-old who was illiterate and had worked as a
maid at age 16, had gone on to earn a university degree
in history and organize against the destruction of rub-
ber trees in the Amazon. Another, Benedita Da Silva,
the daughter of a laundrywoman, eventually became
governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro.
524 Politics in Brazil
Since then, however, although there have been
flashes of success in the recruitment of women to high
office, overall progress in female representation in the
corridors of political power has been slow. In 2002,
Rita Camata, a deputy of the Party of the Brazilian
Democratic Movement (PMDB) from the state of
Espirito Santo, was chosen to be Jose Serra's vice presi-
dential running mate, and in 2006, three women were
elected state governors. Yet, only four women gained
Senate seats in 2006 (joining seven other incumbents
for a total of 14 percent), and forty-five won election
to the Chamber of Deputies (representing 9 percent of
the total). In all, of the 2,498 women running for
federal and statewide offices in 2006, only 175, or 7
percent of the total, were elected. The presence of
Brazilian women in elective office is also low com-
pared with several other Latin American countries
that have adopted effective quota laws and other affir-
mative action measures. Brazil quotas have set targets,
but they have resulted in only minimal gains in
women's representation.
Women are also underrepresented in top
Executive Branch decisionmaking posts, the judicial
system, and the diplomatic corps. In 2000, Brazil was
one of only three Latin American countries to have no
female ministers in the Cabinet. During his entire
presidency, Cardoso (1994-2002) appointed only two
women to serve in Cabinet positions (one for a very
short time). Although Lula appointed three women as
ministers of government, and one federal secretary
(Women's Rights), that still amounted to only about
11 percent of the Cabinet. Women hold up to one-
quarter of the Cabinet posts in El Salvador, Honduras,
Panama, and Venezuela, and nearly half of the
Colombian and Chilean Cabinets. In 2000, a woman
was appointed to the Supreme Court for the first time
in Brazilian history, despite the fact that 29 percent of
candidates who pass public examinations to become
judges are women. In 2000, there were six women at
the top rank of the diplomatic corps, and eighteen at
the second-highest rank.25
Consistent with the characterization of the United
Nations' Special Rapporteur on Racial Disadvantage
of the "almost all-white corridors of political power,"
only nine deputies (2 percent of the Congress) self-
identified as black in 2003.26To deliberately open the
process of elite political recruitment, Lula named four
Afro-Brazilians to his Cabinet, appointed the country's
first Afro-Brazilian Supreme Court justice, and pledged
that Afro-Brazilians should make up at least one-third
of the federal government within five years. The
Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice have intro-
duced quotas for black employees.
Elite Orientations The Brazilian elite is generally not
divided along economic, religious, or ethnic lines. It is
more "moderate" than its counterparts elsewhere in
Latin America. The business community supported
the military coup of 1964 in an unstable economy. In
the 1970s, facing a regime that concentrated
decisionmaking and restricted freedom, many
business leaders preferred a return to democracy. In
the 1990s, most military and business leaders, public
administrators, and members of the press identified
themselves as "centrist" in their ideological
orientation. They gave the democratic regime from
1985 to 1990 higher marks for establishing a viable
political structure for the country, and they down-
graded military governments for failing to raise the
international prestige of the country, promote educa-
tional development, and reduce regional and social
inequalities.27
Elites are predictably far less preoccupied with
unemployment, health care, and drugs than respon-
dents earning the minimum salary. They are, however,
the most concerned about education and income con-
centration. In 2002, those with a college education
were more than twice as worried about education and
four and a half times more concerned about income
concentration as the average Brazilian. Those earning
more than ten times the minimum salary were more
than three times more likely than the national average
to rank income inequality as one of the three most
important problems facing the country.28
Politics at the Mass Level
Citizen Politics During the latter part of the military
regime, Brazilians began to associate in the realm of
civil society as they never had before. The combination
of the easing of repression and the increased freedom
of information, together with the continued
authoritarian nature of decisionmaking and the lack of
genuine representation from formal political insti-
tutions and political parties, helped these new social
movements flourish. Prominent among these were the
hundreds of women's movements and at least 100,000
grassroots church groups discussed earlier.

In addition, thousands of neighborhood associations
emerged in the 1970s as the most explicitly political of
all social movements in the waning years of the mili-
tary dictatorship.
Neighborhood associations had existed in the
past. In the 1950s, a handful of nonpartisan middle-
class associations in Rio de Janeiro monitored policy,
but were disengaged from larger ideological concerns,
and had little concern for participation and for
working out democratic norms at the local level.
These associations essentially disbanded in the early
1960s, although associations in poorer urban shanty-
towns survived even the most repressive period of
military rule.
The approximately 8,000 associations that blos-
somed in the late 1970s, by contrast, demanded state
regulation of real estate firms in their neighborhoods,
state goods and services, and selective state noninter-
vention. Their demands were generally satisfied.29 In
just the southern city of Porto Alegre, 540 neighbor-
hood associations and fifty-one housing cooperatives
emerged within a decade.30
In the early 1990s, only about one-third of
Brazilians did not belong to a voluntary association;
one-fifth belonged to three or more. Many of these
associations were not formally political (most common
were grassroots religious groups, athletic clubs, labor
unions, and neighborhood associations). In 2002, 19
percent of respondents to the National Election Study
reported belonging to a labor union and 13 percent to
professional associations, rates that were much higher
than in other countries in Latin America. Membership
had declined in neighborhood associations, but still
ran high in religious organizations.
Citizens have also organized movements around
various identities, single issues, and political and social
rights, most notably those to protect indigenous peo-
ples, the environment, and human rights, and to gain
land for the landless. To advance their goals, these
movements have employed a variety of strategies,
including participating in government, enlisting inter-
national allies, and engaging in direct action.
Indian organizations in Brazil are but one exam-
ple of citizen groups to emerge around the globe in
the late twentieth century on the basis of identity—
that is, organized around who people are rather than
what they produce. After military development pro-
jects threatened the extinction of several of Brazil's
indigenous tribes, these tribes organized nearly fifty
Frances Hagopian 525
citizen groups in the 1980s; most were in the North,
with twenty-three of them in the state of Amazonas.31
Their efforts won constitutional protections for Indian
lands and the collective rights of Indian nations, an
impressive accomplishment given the small number of
Indians in Brazil and their fragmentation into differ-
ent tribes.
Citizens' groups to protect the environment have
also been effective at enlisting international allies.
Local and regional environmental organizations
which date back to the 1970s mobilized in the late
1980s to influence the new Constitution and the 1992
global summit on the environment held in Rio de
Janeiro. Brazil's environmental movement has scored
important achievements in the areas of controlling
pesticides, nuclear waste and production, and the
emission of chlorofluorocarbons. Somewhat paradox-
ically, environmental organizations have been slower
to appear, less active, and less visible in the Amazon
region than in the rest of Brazil. Rather, the ball on
environmental issues of the Amazon region has been
carried by indigenous groups and rubber tappers.
Using tactics of direct confrontation, they have effec-
tively influenced international lenders, such as the
World Bank, to establish environmental protection as
a condition for aid.32
The tactics of direct confrontation are perhaps
best illustrated by the Movement of Landless Rural
Workers (MST), one of the most vibrant social move-
ments in Latin America today. One of the most effec-
tive strategies used by MST members has been the
seizure of government-owned or unproductive private
land (the organization's slogan is "Agrarian reform—
by law or by disorder"). Because participating families
become the beneficiaries of land if the occupations are
successful, the incentives to join these actions among
the landless are high. In 1998, there were 608 such
occupations. After a brief period around the 2002 elec-
tion when it decelerated land occupations as a sign of
good faith in the new Lula government (which had
promised to step up land distribution), the MST
resumed these tactics to protest slower than anti-
cipated progress toward land reform. In 2004, the
MST staged 496 occupations involving nearly 80,000
families.33
The MST has also pressured the formal political
system, including the courts (where it seeks legal title
to land), and pursued a strategy of staging disruptive
and sometimes spectacular protests. Its members
526 Politics in Brazil
A group of 2,800 landless
peasant families celebrate
a May 1996 decree expro-
priating an estate along the
banks of the Sao Francisco
River, in the state of
Sergipe. The families had
pitched and maintained for
several months a precari-
ous settlement at the
entrance of the estate.
Sebastiao Salgado/Contact
Press Images
have occupied federal and state government buildings
and roads in as many as twenty states; these actions
have surpassed the number of land occupations every
year. The MST has also staged highly visible
demonstrations, beginning with a march on Brasilia in
1997 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the
April 1996 massacre by state police in the state of
Para of nineteen landless peasants occupying a road.
In another daring action, the MST invaded President
Cardoso's farm in 2002. In 2004, nationwide
demonstrations involved more than half a million
people.
Brazilians are generally sympathetic to the occu-
pation of land as a legitimate tactic to combat hunger
and misery when it is carried out without violence. Of
late, although they blame the government (more than
landowners and the MST) for rural violence and favor
moving agrarian reform to the purview of the federal
government, they generally believe that land invasions
have a negative impact on agrarian reform negotia-
tions and weaken democracy.34
Today, perhaps the most important avenues of citi-
zen political participation are through nongovernmen-
tal organizations (NGOs). A worldwide phenomenon,
NGOs are private groups, normally well funded and
institutionalized, that often assume public functions.
They may help implement health care, investigate ways
to privatize national pension systems, press for civil
rights for Afro-Brazilians, and monitor government
compliance with environmental accords. Brazil's nearly
5,500 NGOs receive $400 million annually from inter-
national sources; most enjoy some kind of partnership
with government agencies. Brazilian NGOs
reportedly influence or control $1.2 billion in funds
administered by the Ministry of the Environment, the
Ministry of Social Security and Welfare, and interna-
tional banks.35
Mass Political Participation The sheer numbers of
Brazilians participating in politics today is staggering,
especially compared with earlier in the twentieth
century when less than 5 percent of adults voted in pres-
idential elections. In 1960, only 19 million people voted
for president. In 1989, after the enfranchisement of illit-
erates in 1985 and the award of the franchise to 16-year-
olds in 1988, an electorate of 82 million elected
Fernando Collor de Mello president. In 2006, the
Brazilian electorate numbered 126 million people.
Ordinary Brazilian citizens participate in elec-
tions at fairly robust rates. In 2006, turnout was 82
percent. This rate is high when compared with that in
the United States, where less than half the electorate
routinely votes. Although voting in Brazil is
compulsory, and though there are potential penalties

for noncompliance, these are rarely enforced, and par-
ticipation rates are still higher than in other countries
with compulsory voting.
One way that scholars gauge disinterest in elec-
tions is by monitoring the so-called blank (without the
name of a candidate or party) and null (spoiled) bal-
lots. In 1990, 31.5 percent of those who voted cast
blank or null ballots, a rate comparable to that regis-
tered in 1970 during the most repressive phase of the
military dictatorship. Voter interest has since recov-
ered. In 2006, in the first round of presidential ballot-
ing only 2.7 percent of ballots cast were blank and 5.7
percent were spoiled.
Since the 1990s, one of the most important forms
of citizen political involvement is through
participatory budgeting. Launched by the local PT
administration, participatory budgeting began as an
experiment in local government in 1989 in Porto
Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. It has since
been copied in over 140 cities and six states in Brazil
and in several cities worldwide.
Participatory budgeting is a process in which
hundreds of thousands of citizens meet in a series of
open, public assemblies before the legislative budget
cycle begins in order to establish spending priorities.
Elected delegates negotiate the budget with state
bureaucrats and monitor the previous year's spending
and continuing investment priorities. The idea is to
allocate public resources to districts taking into
account population size, the status of specific public
services, and local priorities as defined by citizens
directly, not by the political criteria of a notoriously
clientelistic political system.
The results are very promising. In Porto Alegre,
the percentage of the public budget available for invest-
ment rose almost immediately from 2 percent in 1989
to 20 percent in 1994. Municipal services, such as run-
ning water and sewerage, were also quickly extended to
98 percent of all city residences. Participatory budget-
ing earned high marks from international agencies for
enhancing the transparency of the budgeting process
and for creating institutions of good governance.
Students of democracy have also praised it for encour-
aging popular participation (particularly among the
poor), strengthening civil society, and ultimately,
enhancing democracy in Brazil.
In short, there has been a proliferation of citi-
zens' groups concerned with issues ranging from
Frances Hagopian 527
environmental protection to protecting indigenous
rights and human rights more broadly. Nongovern-
mental organizations, moreover, serve as important
watchdogs of public policy and thereby increase the
transparency of government. Whether or not they
have contributed to a broader pattern of more exten-
sive, informed, and widespread political participation
that may complement or even supplement political
parties and long-established interest groups, however,
is a far more complicated question.
INTEREST GROUPS
Traditionally, political interests in Brazil have been
organized and represented differently from those in
liberal democracies, where plural and voluntary
groups serve as the basic unit of interest group activity.
In Brazil, interest groups came under state control
during the Vargas era in a system known as corpo-
ratism.36Under corporatist law, modeled after the
labor codes of fascist Italy, interest groups were
defined in economic terms, recognized and funded by
the state, and granted a representational monopoly in
their area of competence. But in return, the state could
remove their leaders and prohibit strikes.
For labor unions, cooperation with state authori-
ties initially gained them recognition and benefits for
their members that they had been unable to secure
independently in confrontation with owners. The
Consolidated Labor Code of 1943 created labor courts,
established procedures for resolving disputes between
capital and labor, and charged unions with providing
social services and legal representation for members.
But labor soon discovered that the military regime
could use those same structures to remove and
replace the elected leaders of union organizations and
shackle their organizations. Many labor leaders were
jailed; many more were sacked by their employers.
Strikes were brutally repressed for a decade.
During the period of military rule, changes within
Brazil's unions began to break down these corporatist
structures. In the 1970s, a new generation of union
leaders who came from the shop floor shunned the
strategies of cultivating good working relationships
with state officials that older union leaders had
depended on for their power and to secure benefits for
their members. Instead, these new leaders adopted a
528 Politics in Brazil
more combative stance toward the state, and with the
support of their own rank and file, toward their
employers as well. The most famous of these leaders
was Lula (see again Box 15.2). As the head of the Sao
Bernardo metalworkers union, he led a half million
workers in six states and the Federal District on strike
in 1978 for higher wages. And again in 1979, he led
more than 3 million workers all over Brazil. The "new"
unions were willing to forgo state financing and pro-
tection in exchange for the right to bargain collectively
with their employers.
Business associations were also formally orga-
nized into state federations of industry and commerce.
Unlike labor, during the dictatorship private-sector
elites enjoyed informal access to the president, Cabinet
heads in the economic ministries, and the heads of
state-owned industries and banks. When entrepreneurs
found their access was closed, the business community
became convinced that a reduction in state authority
was necessary, just as labor became convinced it
needed to stand on its own two feet when the state
abandoned it.
The creation of new independent interest groups
and the transformation of old ones from instruments
of authoritarian social control to pressure groups in a
democratic society are as important as any change in
Brazilian politics of the last quarter century. Alongside
labor unions and business and agrarian associations,
single-issue interest groups have become effective
lobbies for environmental and consumer protection.
Labor Unions
With the transition to democracy, labor lobbied to
have its interests represented in the Constitution, with
great success. Article 8 grants freedom of union associ-
ation. Public employees won the right to form unions,
and workers were guaranteed the right to strike.
Lifting the lid on union formation led to a prolifera-
tion of union organizations, in no sector more rapidly
than among agricultural workers. Membership in rural
unions rose from 2.9 million members in 1974 to 7.8
million in 1990. In all, trade union membership has
increased by over tenfold since 1960. Professional
white-collar workers had unionized at an even faster
rate: only 40,491 were union members in 1960, but
549,680 were in 1992, a thirteenfold increase. 37
•7
The IBGE's (Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics) 2005 household survey estimated that a
record high 18.3 percent of the labor force was now
unionized, up from 16.2 percent a decade earlier.38
With the right to strike officially sanctioned, the
pattern of labor militancy evident at the close of the
authoritarian regime continued. General strikes were
staged by labor in 1986, 1987, and 1989. Since then,
corporatism has continued to erode in the Brazilian
labor movement. The Constitution maintained the
obligatory union tax, which critics charge ties the
unions to the state. In practice, however, unions rely on
it less and on voluntary member dues more, although
the proportion of voluntary dues to the state-collected
union tax is much higher in the urban sector than in
the rural. Since the mid-1980s, labor unions have
attempted to press the interests of their members
through central organizations, or peak unions, which
have eclipsed their corporatist predecessors. These cen-
tral organizations advocate union independence from
state authorities and direct collective bargaining with
employers, either at the firm level or with employers'
associations. The most important of these by far is the
Central 0nica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), formed in
1983. It endorses a militant form of the "new union-
ism," as well as combative strategies, such as strikes and
the occupation of factories. The CUT draws much of
its strength from the metalworkers unions (which
include the autoworkers) and white-collar and public-
sector workers; geographically, it draws from the indus-
trial heartland of the Southeast.
In the past fifteen years, unions, and especially
those representing service-sector workers, have grown
more powerful than ever. Unions are estimated to have
a combined budget of $1.2 billion. The largest union
in the country, the Union of Metallurgical Workers of
the state of Sao Paulo, has an annual budget of $80
million and net assets of $45 million. The Union of
Bank Workers of the state of Sao Paulo has a radio
station and one of the five largest newspapers in Sao
Paulo. The labor lobby, the Departamento
Intersindical de Assessoria Parlamentar (DIAP), is
one of the most powerful lobbies in Brasilia. Even
more a sign of the changing times, the unions had a
"block" of thirty-five deputies in Congress in the late
1990s, which was larger than the delegations of eleven
political parties. Middle-class labor unions, especially

those in the public sector, occupy a central place in the
battles over state reform.
Business Associations
Since 1985, business leaders have engaged in several
types of interest group activity—most notably election
campaigns, lobbying, and collective bargaining—that
they had abandoned during two decades of military
rule. Like labor, industrialists attempted to influence
the outcome of the 1986 congressional elections. With
a reported war chest of $600 million, they succeeded in
electing 211 members, short of their goal of 300 but a
significant delegation nonetheless.
What is curious given the size of the delegation
that can be claimed to have represented them and the
smaller number of workers' representatives is that
business generally failed to have many of its concerns
addressed in the Constitution. The 1988 Constitution
severely restricted foreign investment and granted
generous labor rights and privileges (although the
restrictions on foreign investment were lifted in 1995).
It also provided a 120-day paid maternity leave, a
paternity leave, paid holidays, and the bonus known as
the thirteenth-month salary. Most observers, includ-
ing those who might applaud strengthening the rights
of workers and working-class families, agree that the
Constitution imposed financial burdens on employers
and the state that Brazil could not afford.
Why Brazil's business organizations weakly repre-
sented business interests, especially relative to labor,
may be due to the fact that business was slower to
reform its constraining corporatist structures. In one
rare case in which the business lobby was successful—
stopping the proposed job security provisions in the
Constitution—the ball was carried by the National
Front for Free Enterprise. The FNLI was formed out-
side the official corporatist system. In later years, the
business community did not enter the debate on fiscal
decentralization, although it did attempt to back the
efforts at fiscal reform, to little avail.39
Since the late 1980s, business has created new orga-
nizations and has begun to turn its corporatist associa-
tions, including some 1,565 urban employers' unions,
into interest groups to better promote and protect the
economic interests of the private sector. Business associ-
ations have also shifted tactics, turning their lobbying
Frances Hagopian 529
efforts from the Executive to the Legislative branch. The
powerful National Confederation of Commerce (CNI),
for instance, formed an advisory group for legislative
affairs that circulates information about the legislative
agenda in business outlets.40 Another business lobby
group, the Informal Business Forum (UBE), comprises
sixty business federations and 200 private firms and has
on its executive council the presidents of the CNI, the
National Confederation of Agriculture, the National
Confederation of Transportation, and the National
Federation of Banking.41 A third group, the Institute for
Studies of Industrial Development (IEDI), brings
together the thirty largest and most powerful members
of the business community.
Business has also tried to transform its most pow-
erful federations that represent specific sectors of the
economy to become more effective pressure groups for
favorable tax, trade, and pension policies. These include
the Brazilian Association for Infrastructure and Basic
Industry (ABDIB), the National Organization of the
Petroleum Industry (ONIP), and the giant Federation
of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo (FIESP), which
represents 100,000 firms employing 2 million workers.42
Despite these initiatives, Brazil's business lobbies
have not been entirely effective in defending members'
interests in such areas as reducing corporate tax levels.
Brazilian economic elites also seek political alliances.
They do not predominantly rely on one or two politi-
cal parties of the right to defend their interests, as they
might in other countries. Rather, they diversify their
political alliances and almost always support individ-
ual candidates and politicians.43
Agrarian Elites
Traditionally, associations of landowners were the
most powerful in Brazil. Rural societies all over the
country remain independent of the state. Agricultural
elites also have a network of sectoral federations—
such as the Federation of Sugar Industries—that are
integrated into the official system of interest represen-
tation. The representatives of these associations have
gradually been added to the boards of state agencies
charged with overseeing public policy, such as the
Institute for Sugar and Alcohol, which helped to
design Brazil's ambitious program to substitute cane-
derived alcohol for imported petroleum.
530 Politics in Brazil
During the debates in the Constituent Assembly
over land reform, agrarian elites mobilized in the
National Confederation of Agriculture and a new
independent, radical right-wing group, the Ruralist
Democratic Union (UDR), to lobby Congress. To
defeat a government proposal to push ahead with
agrarian reform, large landowners organized public
demonstrations. They mounted an antireform cam-
paign in the press; attempted to influence members of
the major political parties, the president, and the mili-
tary; and committed much violence in the countryside.
They defeated an amendment to the Constitution that
would have enacted a national program of agrarian
reform, and instead, the issue was thrown back to the
states. In most state legislatures, where the power of
agrarian elites was even stronger, the matter appeared
to have died a quiet death, at least until the Landless
Movement forced it back onto the political agenda in
the mid-1990s and the banner of agrarian reform was
taken up by the "Agrarian Delegation" (Bancada
Agraria) in Congress.
Since then, landowners have been effectively rep-
resented in Congress by the "Rural Delegation"
(Bancada Ruralista); with nearly 90 members, it was
the third largest caucus in Congress. Caucus members
were effective in securing for large landowners the
favorable rescheduling of agricultural credits from
public banks in the late 1990s. In recent years, they
have ushered legislation through Congress that has
slowed the review of occupied property (a prerequisite
to expropriation), speeded compensation for ex-
propriated lands, made more stringent the size and
productivity thresholds for expropriation, and classi-
fied land occupation as a "heinous crime and act of
terrorism."44
The Consumer Lobby
A relatively new Brazilian lobby is concerned with
consumer rights. A web of civic organizations in vari-
ous states have worked for consumer rights by raising
public awareness of consumer issues, conducting
research, monitoring legislative activity, and lobbying
regulatory agencies, government ministries, Congress,
the president's office, and the Public Prosecution. They
have also taken judicial action.
The most prominent of these organizations is the
Brazilian Institute for the Defense of the Consumer.
IDEC has been active in a number of areas, including
public services and utilities. Since 1999, it has sought
to strengthen consumer participation in the process of
privatizing electric energy, telephones, and sanitation
services. It has been particularly active in monitoring
rate hikes in the energy sector. Its most notable success
has come in the area of genetically modified food.
Brazil became the first country in the world to pro-
hibit the planting and marketing of genetically modi-
fied foods. This decision was most significant in the
case of the soybean crop (as Brazil is the world's
second largest producer of soy behind the United
States), and both the United States and Argentina (its
nearest competitor) permit the planting of genetically
modified soy.
The Military
Paradoxically, the military is the most powerful but
one of the least effective interest groups in Brazil
today. Upon exiting from government, it retained
more prerogatives—and conceded less civilian author-
ity to supervise its expenditures, arms procurements,
and control over its internal affairs—than most other
militaries in the world. It also succeeded in keeping,
without debate, Article 142 of the Brazilian Con-
stitution. Article 142 authorizes the armed forces to
"guarantee the constitutional powers and, by initiative
of any of these, law and order," which the military
interprets as authorizing it to depose elected govern-
ments when law and order are threatened.
For at least a decade, many politicians and ordinary
citizens still feared the potential of a military coup, and
one was even rumored to have been a possibility in 1992
during the impeachment scandal of President Collor de
Mello. During the 1994 presidential campaign, the left-
ist Workers' Party promised the military the prerogative
to develop nuclear power as a means of softening its
expected resistance to a PT-led government.
Despite its past capacity to frighten civilians, the
military appears to be less and less capable of defend-
ing its interests. In the early 1990s, armed with a
powerful mandate as Brazil's first elected president in
nearly three decades and backed by emboldened
legislators, Fernando Collor de Mello significantly
trimmed military spending from its 1990 level (20.5
percent of the budget) to just over 14 percent.45 Three
years later, Brazil spent a smaller percentage of its

gross national product on its military—1.7 percent in
1995—than the United States, China, and France (5.3,
5.0, and 3.4 percent, respectively), as well as other
Latin American countries such as Chile (2.7 percent).
Salaries fell, equipment aged, and morale sagged.
Many officers moonlight to get by.
The capacity of the military to influence national
policy on claims of national security also appears to
have waned. For decades, military organization, train-
ing, and ideology were shaped by the Cold War and
the perceived need to fight subversion within its own
borders. With redemocratization, the military tried to
reorient its mission toward external defense,
particularly of Brazil's northern borders and the
Amazon's natural resources. Fearing the "international-
ization of the Amazon," it built military airstrips, gar-
risons, and outposts, as well as roads and conducted
agricultural and colonization projects along a vast
stretch of the Amazon region as part of a project
known as Calha Norte. For a while, the military also
resisted national and international pressure to reserve a
continuous and uninterrupted stretch of land along the
Venezuelan border for the Yanomami Indians. It also
resisted external assistance that required foreign moni-
toring of Brazilian compliance in such schemes as
"debt-for-nature" swaps (in which international envi-
ronmental groups would buy a portion of a country's
debt in world financial markets, and then forgive this
debt in exchange for a commitment to set aside match-
ing funds for a particular environmental project).
Eventually the Brazilian government reserved 94 mil-
lion hectares for the Yanomami, left virtually unfunded
the Calha Norte project, and reversed Brazil's opposi-
tion to debt-for-nature swaps.46
A further sign of the erosion of military influence
occurred in 1998 when a Special Commission on the
Political Killed and Disappeared identified 280 individ-
uals who had been killed or disappeared under the mil-
itary regime. It indemnified family members in 265 of
these cases. The decision to compensate the victims'
families was anathema to many active duty officers, but
it was nonetheless accepted by the military leadership.
In 1999, Fernando Henrique Cardoso abolished the
three separate service ministries and named a civilian
to head a new ministry of defense. One of the first acts
of Lula's government, arguing that the money could be
better used to relieve hunger, was to suspend a $760
million purchase of a dozen new jet fighter planes for
Frances Hagopian 531
its air force. Showing how far Brazil has traveled from
the days of military tutelage over the political system,
Air Force Commander General Luiz Carlos Bueno
publicly accepted the decisions, remarking, 'We are
working with the government, not against it."47
Conclusion
The proliferation of citizens' groups and the strength-
ening of interest groups and their growing autonomy
from the state may be just what are necessary in Brazil
to diminish arbitrary state authority and the underly-
ing foundations of authoritarianism. But the advance
of civil society has carried a tradeoff and a danger. The
tradeoff is that the gains of participatory democracy
have been achieved at the price of a decline of
representative democracy. The danger is that citizen
groups, NGOs, and organized interest groups may
have outstripped the capacity of Brazil's political insti-
tutions to process their demands, or they may at least
cast that impression. If the increase in participatory
democracy is to be welcomed for the partnership
between government and civil society that it brings,
Brazil's former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso
nonetheless admonished in a 1996 speech at Stanford
University, "direct participation is no substitute for
representation." And when society advances more
rapidly, in political terms, than the state does, Cardoso
continued, "disorganized pressures from society on
the state can create the impression of a government
adrift."48 In the sections that follow, we examine the
institutions of representative democracy.
POLITICAL PARTIES AND ELECTIONS
Traditionally, political parties in Brazil have been
ephemeral, lacking in cohesion and discipline, and the
party system has been highly fragmented. Until
recently, traditional local bosses and the practice of
clientelism dominated most parties, and few had
ideologies or even programs of government. Poli-
ticians changed parties frequently and with impunity,
eroding accountability. Not surprisingly, the parties
did not lay deep roots in the electorate, and voters
often cast ballots for different parties from one elec-
tion to the next.
Many politicians and analysts claim weak parties
are at the core of many governance problems in Brazil
 Politics in Brazil
Angry protestors carry effigies of President Lula and his
top advisers in the PT. The effigies are dressed in prison
garb, not so subtly hinting that they deserved to be jailed
for acts of government and party corruption.
I Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty Images
today. But others contend that in the 1990s, the party
system stabilized, party discipline rose, and parties
across the political spectrum developed distinctive ide-
ological orientations and positions on a range of policy
issues.49 The one party that everyone agreed was truly
different, the Workers' Party, fell victim in 2005 to a
corruption scandal that rocked the party and shook
public faith in the entire political system.
Historic Strains of Clientelism and Personalism
Brazil's parties were traditionally elite-dominated and
formed around personalities, not particular issues. In
the early twentieth century when elites in other Latin
American countries were organizing competition
within their own ranks, elites in each Brazilian state
had their own republican party and intrastate monop-
olies on power. State oligarchies were supported by
powerful local bosses, usually the largest landowners,
who had their own militias, controlled local judicial
officials, and shepherded their followers to the polls
on the back of farm trucks and told them for which
candidate to vote. In exchange for delivering votes to
the state elite, the local boss secured for his municipal-
ity roads, employment, and other resources, and for
himself, the power that came from the exclusive right
to appoint all powerful posts in his jurisdiction. This
system of traditional clientelism was known as
coronelismo (for the coroneis, or colonels, whose fore-
bears once held the rank of local commander in the
National Guard).
The postwar party system divided along pro- and
anti-Vargas lines. Vargas supporters formed the elite
Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the mass-based
Brazilian Labor Party (PTB). Vargas's opponents joined
the National Democratic Union (UDN). The PTB
espoused a vague platform of nationalism and pop-
ulism, but generally, parties lacked guiding ideologies.
Party organizations represented loose agglomerations
of patronage networks headed by state and local politi-
cians. Local political bosses used the control of public
appointments and urban-based political machines to
hold onto power when people moved from the coun-
tryside to the cities. The growth of the electorate, as
well as the expansion of the state into new areas of reg-
ulation and distribution, made clientelism even more
pervasive than it had been before 1930.
In 1965, the military transformed the fragmented,
multiparty system it inherited into a two-party system.
Most UDN and PSD politicians joined the pro-
government ARENA; most PTB representatives joined
the opposition MDB. The two-party system worked for
a while. But once voters began to identify more closely
with the opposition beginning with the 1974 election,
the military stepped up spending for agricultural credit,
low-income housing, and basic sanitation programs,
and trusted their delivery to traditional politicians.50 In
1979, the regime eased the restrictions on the formation
of political parties in order to split the advancing MDB.
ARENA leaders formed the Democratic Social Party
(PDS), and MDB leaders formed the Party of the
Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB). Other
smaller parties were formed by competing currents
within the opposition. After the transition to democ-
racy, Brazil's communist parties were legalized and
many more parties were formed.
Brazil's Contemporary Party System
The party system today is broadly representative of a
wider range of ideological positions than perhaps ever
before. Parties of the left, which won only 9 percent of
the legislative seats in 1986, elected 31 percent of
Congress in 2006. Members of the centrist and rightist
parties won 42 and 27 percent of the seats, respectively
(see Figure 15.7).
Until 2006, Brazil's party system was highly frag-
mented. No minimum percentage of the vote, or
threshold, was required to gain seats in the legislature.
Thus in 2002, for example, there were twenty-nine
registered political parties, of which seventeen were rep-
resented in Congress, but only eight (the PT, PMDB,
PFL, PSDB, PP, PTB, PL, and PSB) had won at least 5
percent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
 Frances Hagopian 533

This picture changed with the elections of 2006, the
first in which the "barrier clause," passed as part of the
1995 party law, took effect.51 Under the terms of the bar-
rier clause, parties must receive 5 percent of the valid
vote nationwide and a minimum of 2 percent of the vote
in at least nine states in order to elect leaders who partic-
ipate in the internal governing bodies of the legislature,
name members of congressional committees, and enjoy
free television time during election campaigns. Only
seven parties surpassed the barrier, prompting several
declining and minor parties to merge. Also in 2006, a
new law made it more difficult for parties to fashion ad
hoc electoral alliances in local and state races.
The Left
The most important leftist party is the Workers' Party
(PT). For two decades, the PT was perceived as a
genuine labor party and a genuinely different party
on the Brazilian political landscape. Its representa-
tives voted the party line, did not switch to other par-
ties, and did not promise to be brokers of clientelistic
benefits. The party's congressional delegation was
composed largely of intellectuals and workers. Lula's
victory in the 2002 presidential election helped to
elect three governors and ninety-one deputies and
fourteen senators, making the PT the largest party in
Congress.
Although a significant proportion of PT members
consider themselves to be radicals (up to 30 percent),
the party has moved beyond its initial base in the
industrial unions of Sao Paulo, the landless rural work-
ers' movement, and Catholic activists, toward the polit-
ical center. Nonetheless, not all members were happy
with the turn of events. Some members of Congress,

2003-2007 2007-2010
PMDB (107)
MD (27) PSDB (78)
PT(105). PCdoB, PV, PR (29)
PSC,
PSOL (32) PDT
PRTB(10)
(29) PT (93) PSB PFL (83) PTB
(30) (27) PP (43)
PTC, PRB (5)
PMDB(93) , PTB (29)
/Small parties (18)
PSDB (82)
PFL (103)
PDT (26)
PV(5), PPS(16), PCdoB(12)

Left Left
PCdoB Communist Party of Brazil PSB PT PDT Brazilian Socialist Party
PPS PSB Popular Socialist Party Other Left: Workers' Party
PT PDT Brazilian Socialist Party Democratic Labor Party
PV Workers' Party Democratic PCdoB (Communist Party of Brazil,), PV
Center Labor Party Green Party Center (Green Party), and PSOL (Socialism and
Liberty Party)
PMDB MD
PSDB Party of Brazilian Democratic Movement PMDB
Party of Brazilian Social Democracy PSDB Democratic Mobilization
PR Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement
Other Center: Party of Brazilian Social Democracy
/
Party of the Republic
Right Right PSC (Social Christian Party),
PL PFL PTB PFL PRTB (Brazilian Labor Renewal Party)
PPB Small Liberal Party ;/. PTB
Parties: Party of the Liberal Front PP Party of the Liberal Front
Brazilian Labor Party Other Right: Brazilian Labor Party
Brazilian Progressive Party Progressive Party
PRONA (Party for the Reconstruction of National PTC (Christian Labor Party) and PRB
Order); PSD (Social Democratic Party); PST (Social (Brazilian Republican Party)
Labor Party); PMN (Party of National Mobilization);
PSC (Social Christian Party); PSL (Social Liberal
Party); PSDC (Social Christian Democratic Party)

Party Representation in the Brazilian Congress, 2007-2010 FIGURE 15.7

534 Politics in Brazil

like Senator Heloisa Helena, spoke out against government PT delegation to eighty-one. Even after defections and
policies and were expelled for their rebellion. Others corruption scandals, the PT won eighty-three seats in the
resigned their party membership, especially after the cash- Chamber of Deputies and held ten in the Senate in 2006, as
for-votes scandal came to light, reducing the well as five state governorships (see Table 15.2).

TABLE 15.2
Election Results, 2006

Chamber of Deputies (seats) Governors' State Assemblies

Senate (seats)3 Congress Races (seats)
% % #bCumulative % # # %
Parties _________
PMDB 89 17.3 14.8 18 107 18 164 15.8
Party of the Brazilian
Democratic
Movement
PT 83 16.2 7.4 10 93 3 126 12.2
Workers' Party
PFL 65 12.7 22.2 18 83 4 119 11.5
Party of the
Liberal Front 48
65 12.7 18.5 13 78 61 152 14.7
PSDB
Party of Brazilian
Social Democracy
42 8.2 3.7 13 43 68 53 5.1
PP
Progressive Party
27 5.3 3.7 30 73 60 5.8
PSB
Brazilian Socialist
Party 24 4.7 3.7 66 6.4
PDT 29 78
Democratic Labor
Party 26 5.0 3.7
PR 29 83 0 58 5.6
Party of the Republic 26 5.0 3.7 81 7.8
MD 27 2
Democratic
23 4.3 11.1 50 4.8
Mobilization
31 27 9194 0
PTB
Brazilian Labor Party 13 2.5 3.7 12 1.2
15 0
PCdoB
0 0 96
Communist Party
13 2.5 34 3.3
of Brazil
1 13 9 98 0
PV
Green Party 9 1.8 27 2.6
0
PSC
Christian Social Party 8 100 33 3.2
3.7 0
Minor parties 0 11 100
513
27 1,035 100
Total 100
a
One-third of the Senate, or 27 seats, were up for election in 2006.
b
Total congressional delegation, comprising all senators, including those not up for election in 2006, plus all deputies elected.
c
PSOL (Socialism and Liberty Party); PTC (Christian Labor Party); PRB (Brazilian Republican Party); PRTB (Brazilian Labor Renewal Party)
Source: Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (available at www.tse.gov.br).

In 2005, Helena and other defectors formed the
Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL). The PSOL favors a
sharp change in course, including slashing interest rates.
It won only three seats in the lower house. Other parties
of the left include the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB),
which won thirty seats in Congress and three governor-
ships in 2006, and the Democratic Labor Party (PDT),
which won twenty-nine seats in the Chamber and
Senate and the governorships of two states.
The Center
In the center of the political spectrum lies the PMDB
(Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement). A
quintessential catch-all, centrist party, the PMDB is
the largest party in Brazil with eighty-nine deputies,
eighteen senators, and seven governors. The Party of
Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) broke off from
the PMDB in 1988. Formed by several respected
leaders of the PMDB, including Cardoso, the party
began as a center-left party. When the party was in
government, however, it advanced an agenda of mar-
ket reforms and moved to the right. In 1998, its best
election, the PSDB elected the second largest congres-
sional delegation, the largest number of state gover-
nors, and the president. Today, it is the fourth largest
party in Congress, and six states are led by PSDB gov-
ernors. Two new centrist blocs were formed in the
aftermath of the 2006 election from parties that failed
to surpass the barrier. On the center-left, the
Democratic Mobilization (MD) wedded the leftist
Popular Socialist Party (PPS) to the smaller centrist
Party of National Mobilization (PMN) and the
Humanistic Solidarity Party (PHS). On the center-
right, the new Party of the Republic (PR) resulted
from the merger of three parties: the Liberal Party
(PL), once a probusiness party that later allied with the
PT government and suffered from the corruption
scandal that engulfed the government, the rightist
Party for the Reconstruction of National Order
(PRONA), and the newer, smaller Labor Party of
Brazil (PTdoB).
The Right
The largest party on the right of the Brazilian political
spectrum is the Party of the Liberal Front (PFL). It was
formed in 1985 by defectors from the PDS—former
supporters of the military regime. In 2006, it elected
Frances Hagopian 535 -1
only one state governor, but it had the third largest dele-
gation in Congress with eighty-three members.
The second significant conservative party is the
Progressive Party (PP), a probusiness, proeconomic
reform party also with roots in the PDS. The PTB,
which was re-formed in the wake of the 1979 party
reform law, has seen its vote totals slide steadily over
the years to 4 percent in legislative elections. It
absorbed two minor parties after the 2006 election.
Several very small parties on the right remain, includ-
ing some ultraconservative ones.
Parties of the right have opposed agrarian reform
and the liberalization of abortion laws. Whereas
combined parties of the left increased their share of
the vote from 20 percent in 1995 to 31 percent in
2006, parties of the right have seen their share
decrease in the same period from nearly 45 percent to
27 percent.
Social Cleavages and Voting
For several years, the most important social cleavage in Brazil
was territorial. Brazil had two electorates: one resided in the
large, metropolitan areas of the Southeast and South and was
more aware of the issues and more likely to vote for candidates
on the basis of party program. The other was in the smaller,
poorei^, • less industrialized, predominantly rural
countia/of/*""^^ the interior, especially in the Northeast and
Cepiejf- J&f West, and voted according to
J
personalisticl'arkl "~ patronage criteria. The poor and the
poorly educated -residents of remote areas of Brazil generally
vote)3 '*^.w'.' for candidates of the right. Those who had
higher lev^^^^^i^.* els of education and income favored the
center-left PSDB and especially the leftist PT, as did younger
voters.
This cleavage was evident in the 2002 presidential
election, when the most significant divide was county
size and type. Residents of large metropolitan areas,
capital cities, and the Southeast heavily preferred
Lula. Inhabitants of smaller counties, counties of the
interior, and counties in the Northeast voted for the
candidate of the PSDB. Lula split evenly the support
of the lowest and highest income brackets with his
opponent.
In 2006, the territorial cleavage faded and the
income/education divide became more salient. Lula
drew votes equally from the urban periphery and the
interior counties. Reversing the earlier trends, voters in
 m^^^f y
™^S^

536 Politics in Brazil

TABLE 15.
Social Bases of Voting in Brazil, 2006*
(blank/null/none,
Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva (PT) Gerardo Alckr chers don't know)
Gender 11 10

Male 54 44
Female 44 26 14 15
Age
15 9
16-24 47 28
25-34 50 26 15 12
35-44 51 23 11 14
45-59 47 25 12 15
More than 60 50 25 11 14
Education
9 14
Elementary 55 22
Secondary 45 28 15 12
College 32 31 24 13
Region
14 13
North/Center West 50 23
Northeast 65 13 9 13
Southeast 43 30 15 13
South 37 34 13 13
County Type
17 12
Capital 46 25
Periphery 51 22 15 13
Interior 50 26 11 12
Household Income (in
minimum salaries) 10 14
Up to 2 55 21
2-5 45 29 15 11
5-10 40 31 19 9
More than 10 36 35 16 13
Brazilian Average 49 25 12 13

•Voting intentions for first round presidential election revealed in nationwide sample of 6,279 adults.
Source: DataFoIha, PO 3351, 22 August 2006 (downloaded from http://datafolha.folha.uol.com.br/).

the Northeast favored the PT standard-bearer by a The Electoral System

five-to-one margin (see Table 15.3). Moreover, as Lula
lost middle-class votes over revelations of corruption,
he cemented his support among those with only a pri-
mary school education as well as among those earning
less than two times the minimum salary. As one
Brazilian scholar put it, "Increasing support for Lula
among the popular sectors is not the result of pop-
ulism or irrationality, but because the poorare better
off than they were before he took office."52
Brazil employs three different electoral systems. The
president, state governors, and mayors of cities with at
least 200,000 voters are elected by majority vote. In the
event that no candidate captures 50 percent of the
vote in a first round, a runoff election is held between
the top two vote-getters. In 1989 and 2002, a runoff
election was held for president; in 1994 and 1998,
presidents were elected on the first ballot. In 2006,

seventeen governors were elected in the first round;
in ten states a second-round runoff election was
required. Senators and mayors of cities with less than
200,000 voters are elected by a second system called
"first past the post"—that is, they need only win a plu-
rality of the vote to gain office and no runoff election
takes place.
Federal and state deputies and local councillors
are elected by yet a third system, open-list propor-
tional representation with multimember districts.
More than one representative is elected per district,
which in federal and state races is the state itself.
Seventy deputies are elected to represent the state of
Sao Paulo in the federal Congress, for example, and
they draw votes from all over the state. Voters choose
one candidate from any one of several party lists. Each
party's list may contain up to one and a half times the
number of candidates as the number of seats to be
filled. The system works similarly for council elections,
except that the municipality is the district, and each
party may nominate up to three times the number of
candidates as there are seats to be filled.
In a proportional representation system, the
number of seats in a legislature or local council
awarded to each party is based on the proportion of
the total vote that the candidates for each party
receive. In most electoral systems in which seats are
awarded according to proportional representation, the
list is "closed." Party leaders determine the order of the
names on the party ballot. They can ensure the elec-
tion of deputies needed as Cabinet ministers or some
other capacity as well as protect loyal deputies by plac-
ing them high on the party list. They can just as easily
punish deputies who might have been unfaithful in a
key vote in Congress by placing that deputy so low on
the party list that reelection is improbable. In Brazil's
open-list proportional representation system, by con-
trast, voters determine which candidates on the party
list will represent the party in the legislature.
Critics contend that electoral systems like the
Brazilian system—which give more weight to popular
voting than to the party organization in determining
who is elected—undermine political parties and
encourage individualistic behavior among politi-
cians.53 Running in huge, statewide districts, deputies
have greater incentive to campaign against members of
their own party than they do against their opponents
in other parties. The system rewards pork-barrel
Frances Hagopian 5371
politics and undermines adherence to a party platform.
Politicians enjoy broad autonomy from their party
leaders in state and national legislatures. Weak party
discipline, in turn, cripples the ability of governments
to pass necessary legislation. Crucial policy reforms
sometimes pass only after wavering representatives are
guaranteed substantial pork from state coffers for their
constituents.
Electoral rules have obviously contributed to the
fragmentation of Brazil's party system. This factor
adds to the comparative lack of party cohesion in the
legislature, and the lack of institutionalization of par-
ties in the electorate. Yet the PT, the PSDB, and other
parties are reasonably disciplined and programmati-
cally oriented, and they have secured prominent places
in Brazil's party system. Moreover, there are more
changes on the horizon, which raise the question of
whether or not Brazil's parties should still be consid-
ered weak.
Are Brazil's Parties Still Weak?
Brazil's political parties have traditionally been
regarded as weak because they are unable to count on
the loyalty of either their representatives in the
legislature or the voters. Is this still the case? More
specifically, do party legislative delegations lack cohe-
sion and discipline? Is Brazil's party system still frag-
mented? Do parties lack roots in the electorate?
Parties in Congress Brazilian parties traditionally
exhibited comparatively low levels of party cohesion,
or the propensity of representatives to adopt similar
positions on key legislative votes. And party discipline
(that is, the ability of party leaders to direct their repre-
sentatives how to vote in the legislature) was also weak.
According to conventional wisdom, representatives of
most parties in the legislature break party ranks to vote
to serve the interests of their states, a particular interest
group, or even their own careers. This is problematic,
because setting aside party programs in favor of secur-
ing patronage resources for their states and districts
reinforces personalism, clientelism, and regionalism,
and weakens party identities and accountability. In the
extreme, the representatives switch parties.
In fact, Brazil's parties are less disciplined than
their counterparts elsewhere in Latin America.
538 Politics in Brazil
Nonetheless, party discipline in the legislature is
stronger than sometimes claimed. From 1989 to 1999,
party leaders won 94 percent of congressional votes on
which they issued recommendations.54
Brazilian politicians also change parties fre-
quently, not because of philosophical differences with
their party, but to advance their personal electoral
prospects by joining the party group they perceive will
win the next election. In the 1980s and 1990s,
hundreds of members of Congress switched parties at
least once: 260 deputies elected in 1990 (52 percent of
the Chamber) defected from the party on whose label
they stood for election, as did 167 (27 percent) of
those elected in 1995.55
Yet, shallow party loyalty is an affliction of many
but not all of Brazil's parties. Parties of the left evoke
strong loyalty among their elite members, and their
congressional delegations are more likely to remain
faithful to their parties and their parties' positions than
their counterparts on the right. In a survey conducted
of the Brazilian Congress in 1988, more than 70
percent of deputies from conservative parties reported
that when there is a conflict between the needs of
their states and the positions of their parties, they
would favor the interests of their state. 56 In contrast,
75 percent of representatives of the left parties would
put their party's interests first.
Recently, some of these general trends may have
been reversed. First, the rate of party switching has
slowed modestly. As of 2002, approximately ninety-
two of 513 deputies elected to the Chamber of
Deputies in 1998 switched parties.57 Survey evidence
also suggests that members of Congress value their
party's label more today than a decade ago. The per-
centage of deputies who would place the interests of
their state ahead of their party fell from 56 to 45 per-
cent between 1988 and 2000.58 Also, in 1990, 82 per-
cent of members believed they were elected mostly or
almost exclusively due to their personal effort (as
opposed to because of their party label or a combina-
tion of their party label and individual effort), but
more recently, only 56 percent did. Perhaps following
from this perception, deputies today are more willing
to concede greater authority to party congressional
leaders. In 1988, two-thirds of all respondents
believed that a member of Congress who changed
party affiliation should not lose her seat,59 but in
2000, 63 percent believed she should lose her man-
date for switching. And whereas in 1990, 27 percent of
Congress favored moving to a closed-list proportional
representation system—a reform that would clearly
strengthen party leaders by handing them control of
the ballot—in 2000, 37 percent favored such a
change.60 Finally, recent surveys suggest that the
members of the congressional delegations of many
Brazilian parties, especially the PT and the PSDB, have
developed cohesive preferences on a series of major
economic policy issues.
Parties in the Electorate Brazilian parties are also
considered weak because they lack deep roots in the
electorate. In 2002, only 35.2 percent of voters identi-
fied with a party, a level that is typical of emerging
democracies but low when compared with industrial
democracies (in which nearly half of voters identify
with a party). Not surprisingly, the PT has the strongest
partisans; two-thirds of Brazilians who identify with
any party do so with the PT. Another 10 percent iden-
tify with the PMDB and PSDB.61
Citizens, moreover, do not really actively participate
in Brazil's traditional parties. Party "members," usually
about twenty per municipality, are actually members of
local governing bodies called directorates whose only say
in state- and national-level party decisions is to elect del-
egates to nominating conventions. Ordinary citizens
may be "affiliates" of local parties, a status that carries no
rights or responsibilities. Only about 7 percent reported
in the 2005 Latinobarometro survey that they work for
their party.
Because survey respondents are sometimes reluc-
tant to express support for a particular party, political
scientists also consider how deeply or superficially voters
are attached to party labels by the stability of party vote
shares. By the measure of electoral volatility—the
turnover of votes from one party to its competitors from
one election to the next—Brazilian parties have grown
stronger in the electorate. In the 1980s, Brazil had one of
the most volatile party systems in Latin America, but
rates fell in the 1990s. In federal legislative elections,
electoral volatility declined from 45 percent in 1990
to 16 percent in 1998. In 2002, it remained around 15
percent despite the presidential swing vote to the PT
candidate. Brazil's ratio of electoral volatility now

matches the levels of some of the most institutionalized
party systems in Latin America, including Mexico (15
percent) and Argentina (13 percent).62
Moreover, the relationship between parties and
voters may be changing. Today, Brazilian politicians
and political parties still practice clientelism, but it is
getting harder to do. Though politicians still control
many public-sector jobs and distribute public works
projects and social services to reward politically loyal
districts and individuals, state patronage jobs are
scarcer thanks to the Camata law. This law reduces
pork-barrel projects by limiting budget amendments
that individual members of Congress can sponsor.
Vote-buying has been legally proscribed and practically
rendered less useful by conditional cash transfer pro-
grams. Public tolerance for clientelism and vote-buying
is also diminishing. In 2002, a majority of Brazilians
believed people should not sell their vote, even for food
for a hungry family or medicine for a sick child. Parties
in the future will have to compete not merely on pro-
gram, but also on performance.
THE POLICYMAKING PROCESS
Policy in Brazil is generally framed and implemented
through either the legislative process or the Executive
Branch—including the Cabinet and bureaucracy.
Although the legislature has gained in stature and
strength since the military constitution was discarded
in 1988, the Executive in practice still dominates the
policymaking process.
The Legislative Process
"Ordinary" and "complementary" laws may be initi-
ated by any member of the Chamber of Deputies or
Senate, by the president, by ministers of the Supreme
Court, by the attorney general, or by citizens. Popular
initiative requires 1 percent of the national electorate,
representing no less than 03 of a percent of the elec-
tors in at least five states, to launch the legislative
process. Debate on proposed legislation initiated out-
side of Congress begins in the Chamber of Deputies.
The first law to be passed in this fashion was the
1999 bill, initiated by Catholic activists, to make vote-
buying a crime punishable by loss of mandate.
Frances Hagopian 539
A bill sponsored by a member of Congress can be
introduced in either chamber (Figure 15.8). If it is
introduced in the Chamber of Deputies, it is first
examined by the mesa directiva ("the board"), or the
lower house leadership (the president, two vice presi-
dents, and four secretaries). Where possible, chamber
leaders are awarded positions on the mesa to reflect the
strength of their parties in Congress. The president,
for instance, normally comes from the largest party.
A second important leadership body is the College of
Leaders. It consists of the president of the Chamber
of Deputies, the majority and minority leaders, leaders
of parties who (beginning in 2007) have at least 6 per-
cent of the seats in the Chamber, and leaders of legisla-
tive "blocks." In practice, it organizes the legislative
agenda on behalf of the mesa. In Brazil, committee
chairs do not enjoy the degree of autonomy from the
congressional leadership in setting their agendas as
committee chairs do in the U.S. Congress.
Once a bill passes the leadership of the Chamber,
it is directed to the appropriate legislative committees
for review. There are fourteen permanent technical
committees in the Chamber of Deputies, six in the
Senate, and a joint Senate-Chamber budget commit-
tee. All proposed legislation is first reviewed by the
judiciary committee for its constitutionality. If it
passes this test, it is then sent to the specific technical
committee or committees with jurisdiction in its area.
An economic bill, for instance, would be reviewed by
the economy committee and the finance committee.
If three committees approve a bill, it is sent
directly to the Senate for consideration. If approved
by two committees, or if it fails to secure the approval
of a committee, it goes to the floor of the Chamber.
Once approved in the Chamber, it must similarly be
reviewed by the Senate judiciary and economic
affairs committees. If approved by the full Senate, it
is sent to the president, who may either sign it into
law or veto it in whole or in part. An absolute
majority of both houses is required to override a veto.
A bill that originates in the Senate must also pass the
Chamber of Deputies. Two of the most important
types of Executive-initiated bills—appropriations and
emergency measures—are taken up by the legislature
in joint session (see again Figure 15.8). Constitutional
reform bills must be
 I. CONGRESS IN SEPARATE SESSION

CHAMBER OF Law
DEPUTIES
Approved - J - • [[Sanctioned
Rejected Approved roved
Amended 1 T 3

Archived PRESIDENCY
Executive Rejected

SENA
Legislature Approved Archived Vetoed

Judiciary —>) Rejected

Citizenry
s Congress (Chamber
+ Senate)
T
Archived; T
Archived totally Upheld Overridden
or partially

II. CONGRESS IN JOINT SESSION

EXECUTIVE
Provisional Measure ' !_Sa_r^'°rad_|-»[JfsLaw
-CT
Modified Appr^ed
Provisional
Measure
Congress (Chamber PRESIDENCY
+ Senate) Approved \
Appropriations
Bill Vetoed
Rejected
T
Congress (Chamber
Archived + Senate)

I
Archivf Upheld Overridden

The Legislative Process in Brazil FIGURE 15.8

Source: Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo and Fernando Limongi, "Congresso Nacional: organizacao, processo It .0, e producao legal," Cadernos de Pesquisa, CEBRAP
(October 1996), 6.
MB

passed by supermajorities—three-fifths of both cham-
bers of Congress—on two separate occasions within
the same legislature.
In practice, most laws originate from the
Executive Branch, especially those in the economic
and administrative areas. From 1989 to 1994, four-
fifths of all legislative output in Brazil was initiated
by the president. Only 14 percent of successful bills
were initiated within Congress itself (these pertained
mostly to social issues) and 7 percent by the judiciary.
In fact, the president's legislative powers are
expansive.
Presidential Legislative Powers
The Brazilian president dominates the legislative
process through various prerogatives and measures.
One of the most important is the exclusive right the
Constitution gives to the Executive Branch to set the
legislative process in motion in several important
areas. Only the president can initiate legislation fixing
or modifying the size of the armed forces, creating
public posts and reorganizing the Cabinet, or setting
pay levels for public employees. Most crucially, the
Executive has the exclusive right to initiate appropria-
tions measures. Nearly nine in ten of the laws that the
president submits to Congress are passed in the same
year, in contrast to fewer than two in ten of those initi-
ated by Congress.63
The Brazilian president also can enact
provisional measures, which take effect immediately
upon issue. The provisional measures are a carryover
from the infamous "decree laws" of the military
period, which the framers of the 1988 Constitution
intended to be exercised in exceptional and temporary
circumstances. If Congress did not approve provi-
sional measures within thirty days, they would fail to
become law. In practice, Brazilian presidents made
frequent recourse to these emergency measures, and
they circumvented the requirement for congressional
consent by reissuing decrees that failed to win
approval. In a little more than a decade, four presi-
dents had issued sixty decrees and reissued 5,491, a
monthly mean of 78.4.
Seeking to restrain presidential power and reclaim
its agenda-setting power, Congress amended the
Constitution in 2001 to restrict presidents to a single
reissue of a lapsed decree. The reform backfired.
Frances Hagopian 541
Cardoso in his second term and Lula in his first stepped
up the rate at which they issued provisional measures.
(In his first three years in office, Lula issued decrees
at a rate 50 percent higher than the average of his
predecessors from 1998-2001.) Moreover, presidents
were more, not less, successful at dominating the leg-
islative agenda. With the restriction on the Executive's
authority to reissue a decree, Congress agreed to
move to the top of its agenda any measure on which it
had not acted within forty-five days of issue. Finally,
after the reform, 79 percent of provisional measures
became law (compared with 43 percent before the
reform).64
In addition to those areas in which the president
has exclusive authority, he may also significantly alter
the legislative agenda by requesting that Congress act
on proposed legislation "urgently." During the life of a
Congress, the president may designate more than a
hundred pieces of legislation as urgent. Finally, the
president enjoys veto power, which is a powerful
instrument of Executive authority. The president has
recourse to veto congressional legislation in whole (a
full veto) or in part (a partial veto), and only rarely
has Congress overridden a presidential veto.
The Cabinet and Bureaucracy
The third essential rung of the policymaking process is
the bureaucracy. By the close of military rule, the
Brazilian bureaucracy and the weight of bureaucratic
regulation had grown so large that Brazil's last
military president, loao Figueiredo, established a
"Debureaucratization" Ministry to reduce it.
In making Cabinet appointments, presidents bal-
ance their needs for technical competence with those
for partisan and regional political support in
Congress. With the exception of the Foreign Ministry,
the state-owned oil company Petrobras and a handful
of economic agencies, appointments to much of the
Brazilian bureaucracy have been controlled by politi-
cians of the party in power seeking to maximize their
power through patronage.
The military explicitly disdained the politicized
nature of decisionmaking and especially what it per-
ceived to be a lack of resolve in carrying through
tough but correct programs. It proceeded to
"depoliticize" policy, to hand over important deci-
sions to neutral, technically qualified persons who, it
42 Politics in Brazil

elieved, would not be subject

olitical pressures that made p(
fader the military-technocrati<
ecisions were taken out of the
livilian "technocrats" achieve(

Brazil's progress toward liberalizing its economy
was slower than in neighboring Chile, Peru, and
Argentina. In the early 1990s trade protection was
dismantled and a handful of state-owned steel compa-
nies were sold. But otherwise, reform efforts stalled.
Scholars contended that much needed economic reform
was slowed by the problem of too many "veto players,"
that is, the individual and collective actors (such as
members of the Executive branch, congressional leaders,
governors, and political party leaders) that have to agree
to a change.
The pace of reform quickened with the Cardoso
administration. In 1995, Cardoso won support in
Congress for constitutional amendments to eliminate
state monopolies in the gas, telecommunications, and
petroleum industries, and to end constitutionally
based discrimination against foreign investment.
These legislative victories, in turn, provided the foun-
dation for the privatization program. In 1997-1998,
the government auctioned shares of the giant public
mining company (the CVRD), sold a series of public
power utilities, attracted private investment to mod-
ernize Brazil's ports, and opened the lucrative telecom-
munications companies to private investors.
Other reforms of the state sector deemed crucial
for the successful consolidation of the stabilization
program were slower to pass in Congress. Two key
reforms for reducing the state's financial obligations—
administrative reform and pension reform—required
constitutional reform. Streamlining a public adminis-
tration bloated by patronage in the preceding decade
was made difficult because civil-sector workers enjoyed
constitutional protection from dismissal on any
grounds other than demonstrated instances of graft or
corruption. And the social security system was strained
by the ratio of workers to retirees (2 to 1), and espe-
cially by the timing of retirement determined by years
of service rather than age (public-sector workers, in
effect, could retire by age 50). Administrative reform
and a revision of the social security system for private-
sector workers were eventually passed, but only after
grave financial crises had debilitated the currency and
much time and political capital had been spent. Even
with these reforms, state pension obligations created an
annual deficit equivalent to 5 percent of GDP.65
One of the most significant long-term policy suc-
cesses of the Cardoso government was in reforming the
financial relationship between the subnational (state
and county) and central governments. Free-spending
Frances Hagopian 543
state and local governments not only spent what the
Constitution awarded them but also in the late 1980s
and the 1990s mounted staggering debts; total state
government debt in 1999 exceeded $90 billion. Much
of this spending was directed to political patronage. In
the late 1980s, the salaries and wages of public employ-
ees in several states of the Northeast accounted for over
100 percent of government revenues.66 After dragging
their feet on state reform and pressing the central gov-
ernment to roll over state government debt for years,
state governors and legislative delegations finally
agreed to privatize state banks, limit state payrolls, and
repay the federal government.
In contrast to these successful reforms, little gov-
ernment initiative and even less progress was made
toward deregulating financial and labor markets,
which are generally regarded as fettered. Pension
reform for public-sector workers, as well as fiscal
reform, was left to Lula. In 2003, the government
pressed ahead with a pension reform bill that raised
the retirement age for civil servants and realigned ben-
efits based on workers' ages and length of contribu-
tions, with caps for highest earners. Previously, the sys-
tem had awarded public-sector workers benefits equal
to their last (and highest) salary.
The Brazilian state has as much extractive capacity
as any Latin American state, and perhaps of any devel-
oping country. Today, Brazil's gross tax burden (tax
revenue as a percentage of GDP) stands at 37 percent.
The largest single source of public revenue comes from
employer and worker contributions to social security
(these amounted to 19.7 percent of the total in 2003
(see Figure 15.9). Taxes on income, by contrast, gener-
ate a small percentage of government revenues: the
personal income tax represents 5 percent of public rev-
enue, and corporate income and profit taxes together
account for only another 10 percent. Taxes on assets,
such as the property (building and land) tax levied by
municipal governments and an excise tax on automo-
bile ownership, amounted to another 7.2 percent. The
largest category of taxes is indirect taxes, assessed on
the production and circulation of goods and services.
The most important of these taxes is the Tax on the
Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS), which is
collected by the state governments and accounted for
16.8 percent of public revenues in 2003. A series of
other taxes on goods and services, some targeted to sta-
bilize social security or education spending, represent
another 18.7 percent of public revenues.
544 Politics in Brazil

the problem. As if to reinforce

this point, in his January 2003
Treasur
y inaugural address as Finance
Current and Minister, Antdnio Palocci
Surplus
Capital
(3.2%) decried, "We spend a lot . . .
Transfers
(3.3%) although we spend even more
as time goes by, we do not ben-
efit that share of the popula-
tion that really needs public
aid ______________ [TJoday
we face the same
degree of income distribution
inequality that we had in 1970."
Indeed, Brazil spends as much,
or more, as a proportion of its
wealth on social welfare as
Miscellaneous many other countries in the
(3.8%)
world. In 2002-2003, 12 per-
Personal cent of all government spend-
Income Tax ing was devoted to education
(4.9%)
(more than in Britain, France,
Germany, and Japan; see Table
Sources of Public Revenue, 2003
FIGURE 15.9 7.4 in Chapter 7) and health
Source: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE) care expenditures accounted
(available at www.ibge.gov.br). Finanzas Publicas do Brasil 2002-2003" for just under 8 percent of GDP
(see Table 7.3 in Chapter 7).
For years, much social policy was badly
Governments in the past decade have been unable designed and inefficiently administered. The federal
to enact a fiscal reform that would change the tax government spent over $5 billion a year on public
structure. The ICMS is considered particularly prob- universities—the best in the country—which charge no
lematic because each of Brazil's twenty-six states and tuition.67 While such a policy made free education
the Federal District can set separate rates for various theoretically accessible to all, in practice it diverted
goods and services, and compete with one another to funds from basic education for the poorer segments of
attract industry by offering tax incentives. Today, there society. In effect, this policy subsidized the higher
are fifty-five rates. Reformers have set their sights on education of children of the upper-middle and even
passing a single federal law that might set as few as five upper classes, who can afford to pay. The effectiveness
rates across Brazil. Similarly, they wish to unify all of Brazilian social policy also suffered from
taxes on consumption into a single value-added tax bureaucratic appointments and resource allocations
(VAT). This is considered important in order to being made on the basis of political clientelism rather
eliminate distortions in the tax structure and compar- than merit. Clientelism was cited as the "single most
atively high payroll taxes that contribute significantly effective impediment to redistribu-tive reform in
to raising the international price of Brazil's goods. health care."68
In the past decade, Brazil has made significant
i progress in social policy. Literacy rates have
Social Welfare Outputs
increased, the infant mortality rate has decreased, and
The record of successive Brazilian governments in the indigence rates are falling (see Table 15.4). This
area of social policy was disappointing for many years. success can be attributed at least in part to admin-
Comparative data suggest that spending alone was not istrative decentralization and more efficiently tar-
geted funding. It also can be seen as the result of the
 Frances Hagopian 545

TABLE 15.4
The Rising Performance of Brazilian Governmen
Cardoso Lula
Sarney-Collor-Franco
1988-1994 1995-2002 2003-2006
Economy 2.33 2.50
Growth3 1.43
Inflation13 1365.60 9.25 7.50
Real Minimum Wagec -26% +42% +44%
.60 .59 .57
Income Inequality—Gini coefficient01
Welfare 84.00 89.00
82.00
Percentage Minimally Literatee
Average Years of School* 5.30 6.70
Infant Mortality Rates
45.10 30.10 26.60
Percent Indigent11
20.00 14.00 11.00
Liberty'
2.10 2.60 2.00
Political Freedom
3.10 3.60 2.70
Civil Liberties
a
Average annual percent change in gross domestic product; Lula government through 2005.
b
Annual average increase in extended consumer price index; Lula government through 2005.
c
Percent change over period; Lula administration through September 2006.
d
Latest year available for each administration: 1993, 2002, and 2005.
e
Figures are for the population age 15 and older, 1990, 2000, and 2005.
'Figures are for 1995 and 2005.
9 Figures are for 1991, 2000, and 2004.
h
Latest year available for each administration: 1993, 2002, and 2005.
'As rated by Freedom House, averaged for years 1988-1994, 1995-2002, and 2003-2006 (1 - most free, 7 - not free).
Sources: Instituto de Pesquisa Economica Aplicada (IPEA) (downloaded from www.ipeadata.gov.br); Instituto Brasileira de Geografia e Estatistica
(IBGE), "Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios, Si'ntese de indicadores sociais 2005" (available at www.ibge.gov.br); Freedom House, FH
Country Ratings (available at www.freedomhouse.org).

priority accorded to social policy by three successive
governments.
The Cardoso government's most notable welfare
gains were scored in education. It reorganized and
decentralized the delivery of crucial social services. It
also stepped up agrarian reform efforts. More than
600,000 landless peasant families were settled on
homesteads during Cardoso's two terms, three times
as many as in the preceding thirty years. But it left
much to be done.
Lula placed early priority on eradicating hunger
for the 15 percent of Brazil's population that goes hun-
gry, in a social program known as "Zero Hunger." The
symbolism of the program's launch by Brazil's first
president to have experienced hunger firsthand as a
child was enormous, but insufficient to make the pro-
gram a success.
Learning from its early missteps, the Lula govern-
ment consolidated several conditional cash transfer
(CCT) and other social welfare programs into a single
program known as Bolsa Familia. Bolsa Familia, the
Lula administration's flagship social program, comprises
four previously existing programs, including the
Cardoso era Bolsa Escola and the Lula administration's
failed Zero Hunger. Lula created the new Ministry of
Social Development to oversee the program, which
today reaches a quarter of the Brazilian population and
is the world's largest CCT program (see Box 15.3). These
programmatic reforms have produced tangible results in
key areas of social policy.
Education The Cardoso government inherited a dis-
mal educational system. Government spending on
education had declined as a percentage of total
546 Politics in Brazil
Out of Poverty? Bolsa Familia
Social policy analysts have decried that many expen-
sive social insurance programs in poor countries,
including Brazil, disproportionately benefit the middle
class. Brazil has innovated a new approach to poverty,
known generically as conditional cash transfers. These
CCTs target the poor with cash payments to meet spe-
cific policy objectives.
How does it work? Parents, ideally mothers (who
are more apt than fathers to use the money for their chil-
dren) are given 95 reais ($52) for a family of five or more.
In return, they must ensure that their children see a doc-
tor regularly, receive their vaccinations, and stay in
school. For very poor families, cash provides emergency
Sources: Economist, 15 September 2005; Kathy Lindert, "Brazil: Bolsa Familia Program-Scaling-up Cash Transfers for the Poor," Managing for
Development Results, Principles in Action: Sourcebook on Emerging Good Practices (March 2006), 67-74 (www.mdar.org/sourcebook.html).
expenditure from 1988 to 1993. The average number
of years spent in school in Brazil was only 3.8. Sixty-
five percent of children did not complete primary
school (in northeastern Brazil, the dropout rate was
over 70 percent), and of those who did, only 3 percent
were able to do so in the normal eight years. Most
failed and were forced to repeat several grades; it
took students on average 11.2 years to complete
primary school. Only 1 percent of the Brazilian popu-
lation reached university, the same percentage as in
the 1960s.69
The Cardoso administration increased spending
on education—to 5.2 percent of gross domestic
product in 1998—but most significantly, it redistrib-
uted educational resources to favor primary education
and sought to reduce regional inequalities in funding.
The new Basic Federal Law on Education Finance
(FUNDEF) specifically earmarked a percentage of fed-
eral funds for primary education, set a national mini-
mum to be spent per student in grades one through
eight, and required the federal government to make up
the shortfall in states too poor to meet the minimum.
Between 1998 and 2000, annual spending per pupil
grew by 48.5 percent nationwide, but by 117.5 and 90
percent, respectively, in the poorer Northeast and
BOX 15.3
assistance and allows them to forgo the earnings they
would have received from their children's employment. In
terms of economic development, the program makes
long-term investments in human capital, which ideally
will help to break the cycle of poverty.
The program appears to be working: almost four-
fifths of children from beneficiary families are now attend-
ing classes. And the cost is modest. Bolsa Familia costs
the federal government a mere .36 percent of gross
domestic product (GDP). Even extending the program to
11.2 million families (44 million people)—the govern-
ment's short-term goal—would represent only .5 percent
of GDP and 2.5 percent of total government spending.
North.70 The law also encouraged a substantial
increase in teachers' salaries.
The efforts of the Cardoso government to
improve teacher training and graduation rates met
with considerable success. Between 1991 and 1999,
school enrollment among 7- to 14-year-olds (for
whom school attendance is mandatory) rose from 86
to 97 percent, and from 1994 to 2001, the number of
students in primary school rose from 31.1 to 35.3
million, a 13.5 percent increase, but the most dramatic
increase came in secondary school enrollments, which
rose from 4.4 to 8.4 million, an increase of 90 percent.
From 1991 to 2000, the proportion of adults who had
not completed three years of schooling had dropped
from 41 to 31 percent.
Health The delivery of public health also constitutes
a major challenge. The 1988 Constitution mandated a
single, unified health system, replacing the previous
system in which only formal sector workers had health
care coverage. Although every citizen has been entitled
to medical treatment in public or contracted private
facilities since 1988, in practice, access to the health
care system is uneven and policy outputs in this area
have been disappointing.

In recent years, an administrative decentralization
of health care to local governments and increased
federal spending have raised the quality of health care
in Brazil. Access to primary health care improved sig-
nificantly when Jose Serra, who became Health
Minister in 1998, managed to triple federal transfers to
the states and municipalities for this purpose. After
2001, a constitutional amendment obliged all levels of
government to increase their earmarks for spending
on health care.71
These modest changes have improved policy out-
puts in the health sector. Life expectancy at birth has
risen from 67 years in 1991 to 72 years in 2004. While
Brazil's infant mortality rate (the number of deaths of
babies of less than one year of age per 1,000 live
births) is still higher than China's, Mexico's, and
Russia's (30, 23, and 16 percent, respectively), it
dropped from 48 in 1990 to 33 in 2003 (though its
child mortality rate—the number of deaths per 1,000
children under age 5—remains one of the highest in
the world at 50) (see again Table 7.3). Moreover, the
percentage of the population that lacked access to safe
water and sanitation also diminished markedly from
1990, when these rates were 17 and 30 percent, respec-
tively, to 2002, when they fell to 11 and 25 percent (see
again Table 7.2). Another notable success of the
Frances Hagopian 547
A Brazilian classroom.
More children are in
school today than ever
before, thanks to a pro-
gram that pays families a
monthly stipend to keep
their children in school.
The federal government
has also created a foun-
dation to fund primary
education.
John Maier, Jr.AThe Image
Works
Brazilian government, for which it has gained inter-
national acclaim, is its policy to combat the spread of
AIDS (see Box 15.4).
Racial Equality Signaling a new priority, Lula created
the Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial
Equality (SEPPIR) in 2003 to advance the cause of
racial equality in Brazil. SEPPIR has not produced
many tangible policy results, in no small part because it
is, as one Afro-Brazilian leader put it, "a minister with-
out a ministry, and a secretariat without a budget," but
symbolically, Brazil has taken a step forward.
The centerpiece of the government's program,
initiated during the Cardoso administration, is to pro-
mote racial quotas in the higher education system as
well as in several branches of government. The use of
quotas to promote racial equality has been controver-
sial (see again Box 15.1). With public opinion gener-
ally behind the use of quotas, a statute of racial equality
is winding its way through the Brazilian Congress.
Even if it passes, however, it has not always been easy
to fill the quotas set aside for Afro-Brazilians. In the
state of Parana, for example, although 20 percent of
places at the Federal University were reserved for Afro
descendents, only 8 percent of the class entering in
2006 consisted of black students.
548 Politics in Brazil
Fighting AIDS: A Brazilian Success Stoi
Brazil has one of the most effective programs to com-
bat the spread of AIDS in the world. In the 1990s, the
cost of treating patients, the numbers dying from the
disease, and the incidence of new cases all fell dra-
matically. In 2002, there were 630,000 confirmed
cases of AIDS, half the 1.2 million that the World Bank
projected it would have in 2000. Brazil's program
stands on two pillars: reducing the cost of treating
patients infected with the HIV virus, and expanding
prevention programs.
In 2001, the Brazilian government announced that
it would produce locally generic versions of the anti-
retroviral medications to treat HIV patients if the inter-
national pharmaceutical companies holding the patents
on these drugs did not lower their prices. It argued that
in cases of "abusive prices," patent law should not
supersede fundamental human rights. The United
States filed a complaint against Brazil with the World
Trade Organization, but withdrew it when Brazil was
supported by the United Nation's Human Rights
Commission and the World Health Organization. Brazil
Crime, the Law, and Civil Liberties
Economic deprivation and the lack of an effective gov-
ernment policy to deal with Brazil's "social problem"
have fueled an increase in crime, which itself has been
driven by the surge in drug use. Drugs and crime are
cited as among the most important problems facing
Brazil by 41 and 35 percent of the population, respec-
tively; only unemployment and health are considered
more pressing. Drug lords rule in many neighbor-
hoods, perhaps nowhere as dramatically as in Rio de
Janeiro, where there are estimated to be 10,000 heavily
armed combatants, leading President Itamar Franco in
1994 to call in the army to restore order in the city.
Police say that most violent crime—perhaps as much
as 70 to 80 percent—in the country is related, directly
or indirectly, to the illegal drug trade. An estimated
200,000 Brazilians are employed in the narcotics busi-
ness, with at least 5,000 heavily armed gang members
working for different drug-trafficking groups in Rio
de Janeiro alone. In 2001, Brazil suffered from an
BOX 15.4
had won the "patent war," and now manufactures its
own generic drugs at a much lower cost.
The Brazilian government also has an impressive
campaign to treat infected patients and prevent new
cases. It distributes free medicine to 120,000 patients,
which has reduced the incidence of related diseases,
such as tuberculosis. The Health Ministry also encour-
ages the use of condoms to check the spread of new
cases. The government distributed close to 200 million
condoms free of charge in 2002. It intends to open a
state-run condom factory, and to distribute a billion free
condoms in 2007. The government steps up its condom
distribution at Carnival time when sexual activity rises
sharply. The Catholic Church in Brazil is caught
between fighting to defend church teaching on artificial
contraception and to defend life. When the president of
Brazil's National Conference of Catholic Bishops was
asked in February 2005 about the church's position on
the free condom distribution during Carnival, he said
only, 'The church does not want to arm wrestle with the
government."
unprecedented wave of kidnappings, which authori-
ties say was largely the work of organized crime
groups. The murder rate has doubled since the mid-
1980s; in 2000, it reached twenty-eight per 100,000. In
the five-year period from 1995 to 2000, homicides in
Sao Paulo increased by over 40 percent, to 3,249.
Across Brazil, 37,000 people are murdered each year.
According to the United Nations, Brazil has the
highest rate of homicides caused by firearms for any
country not at war—more than 70 percent.72 The
wealthy have responded by resorting to private secu-
rity. In 2001, there were 1.4 million private security
guards in the country, more than twice the number of
police. The poor often take the law into their own
hands, with hundreds of reported lynchings and mob
executions.
The failure of the Brazilian government to reduce
crime is part of a broader failure since the transition
to democracy to guarantee civil liberties and enforce
the rule of law. Violence against peasants, rural work-
ers, and their advocates is widespread and goes virtually

unpunished. According to the Pastoral Land Com-
mission of the Catholic Church, as of 1992, only
twenty-nine cases of 1,730 such killings from 1964
through 1992 had been brought to trial, and only
eighteen had resulted in convictions. This is hardly
surprising given that many areas of intense rural
conflicts have no judge or public prosecutor, and they
are particularly rare in the northern and northeastern
states.73 The federal police (which investigate crimes
involving corruption, contraband, and human rights
violations) has fewer than 5,000 agents, most of
whom are in Brasilia. Clientelism has also
undermined the efficient functioning of the law
enforcement agencies. In the North and Northeast of
Brazil, most police commissioners are political
appointees of the state governors, and in practice, the
requirement that they hold a law degree is often
circumvented.74
Even more glaring is the state's failure to control
the violence of its own military and police forces.
Police officers themselves join death squads that mur-
der street children and frequently torture common
criminals. From December 1995 to August 1996, 300
police officers were indicted for torture, but none were
actually punished. The state civilian police (who are
responsible for conducting investigations) justify their
routine use of illegal methods of investigation and see
the rule of law as an obstacle to social control. The
state military police (who are in charge of patrolling
and preventing crime) have been reported to commit
blatant human rights violations, including summary
executions of suspects. In July 1993, the Rio military
police opened fire on seventy homeless children and
youths sleeping near the Candelaria church in down-
town Rio de Janeiro, killing eight. In the state of Sao
Paulo members of the military police murdered 1,450
people in 1992; in 1997, the number declined—there
were 435 such deaths.75 Military and police repression
of prisoners is notorious in Brazil. The prison system,
with 200,000 incarcerated (nearly half in Sao Paulo), is
overwhelmed. In October 1992, the military police of
Sao Paulo massacred 111 inmates in the Carandiru
prison. In 2001, fifteen prisoners were killed in Sao
Paulo's biggest-ever prison uprising, several appar-
ently the victims of summary executions by police
who were called in to restore order. In the same year,
twenty-seven police officers were accused of being
involved in kidnapping rings in Rio de Janeiro.
Frances Hagopian 549
Brazilian police are systematically underpaid (at the
lower ranks, officers earn only the minimum wage)
and lack training.
The Cardoso government tried to address this
huge public policy challenge. Cardoso created a
ministerial rank secretariat charged with defending
human rights, launched a national plan of action for
human rights, upgraded the crime of torture from a
misdemeanor to a serious crime punishable by up to
sixteen years in prison, and proposed making all rights
violations federal crimes, thus moving their
investigation from the jurisdiction of state civil and
military police forces. Nonetheless, by the end of his
term, only one high-security federal jail had been built
and a 1999 gun control bill sent to Congress got
nowhere.
Lula created the National Coordination for the
Protection of Human Rights Defenders, made up of
government officials and civil society repre-
sentatives, in 2003. In 2004, it put into place a tele-
phone hotline service that people can use to report
rights abuses. Yet, there is clearly much to be done
before violence is curbed and justice established in
Brazil.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Brazil has long had a professional foreign service, but
not until the Cardoso government did it begin to
assume a position of respect on the world stage as a
major player in international and regional affairs.
Brazil has aimed to cooperate with other countries on
nuclear nonproliferation, environmental protection
(especially implementing the Rio and Kyoto
protocols), advancing human and women's rights, and
reducing drug trafficking. Under Lula's first
government, the explicit aims of Brazil's foreign pol-
icy were to reduce the gap between rich and poor
nations, promote equality among peoples, and de-
mocratize the international system. Lula himself
became a voice on the world stage for developing
nations.
Yet, the fears of some observers that under Lula
Brazil might lurch dangerously to the political left
turned out to be unfounded. Lula's rise in the polls in
2002 caused grave concern over whether or not Brazil
would honor its international financial obligations,
 Politics in Brazil
though throughout the campaign, Lula sought to calm
investors by committing himself to honoring Brazil's
external obligations. In December 2005, Lula kept his
word, as Brazil paid off its $15.5 billion loan
(contracted in 2002) two years ahead of schedule.
Moreover, Lula has not joined forces with such Latin
American leaders as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, who
routinely condemn the United States in international
forums, and in fact, its relations with Bolivia suffered
in 2006 when the Morales government threatened
Brazilian investments in Bolivian natural gas. Brazil
has steered its own course in hemispheric affairs.
Trade is one of the most important issues for
Brazil's international relations, and Brazil is especially
keen to open markets for its exports. Brazil is a mem-
ber of the South American regional trading bloc,
Mercosur, the Common Market of the South
(Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay; Chile and Bolivia
are associate members). Mercosur, which came into
being in 1991, eliminated tariffs on 95 percent of the
goods traded among its member countries, created a
market of 220 million people with a GDP of $1.3 tril-
lion, and in its first six years expanded regional trade
by more than 400 percent. The 1997 Asian crisis, the
January 1999 devaluation of the real, and the 2001
Argentine crisis slowed the momentum of
intraregional trade; nonetheless, about 11 percent of
Brazil's exports (by value) are still traded within the
Mercosur region.
Brazil vs. the U.S.: The Case of Cotton Subsidies
Agricultural subsidies and farm supports paid by rich
countries amount to $300 billion a year. The United
States and the European Union defend the subsidies,
arguing that they do not violate international trade rules
and do no harm to global markets. Brazil and other
developing countries contend that the subsidy pro-
grams increase production, destroy markets for their
exports, and undermine the livelihood of their farmers.
World Bank economists agree that 144 million people
could be lifted out of poverty if rich countries reduced or
eliminated these subsidies and supports.
Source: "W.T.O.Rules Against U.S. on Cotton Subsidies," New York Times, 27 April 2004.
Meanwhile, Brazil has deliberately dragged its feet
in multilateral negotiations to create the Free Trade
Area of the Americas (FTAA), which began a decade
ago with the goal of concluding an agreement by
2005. The United States, Mexico, and Chile all favor
hastening the FTAA; Venezuela and Bolivia oppose
any further integration with the United States; Brazil
contends that it will make concessions on intellectual
property rights, financial regulation, and market
access, and sign the agreement only when the United
States provides fair access to its market for Brazil's
farmers. At issue are billions of dollars of agricultural
subsidies that the United States pays its farmers.
Brazil's approach has been to work for global trade
reform through the World Trade Organization (WTO)
and the Doha round before establishing the FTAA. In
fact, Brazil has joined forces with many smaller
African nations in a movement to end the rich world's
agricultural subsidies (the European Union, too, pays
out billions of dollars worth of price supports to its
farmers). In 2004, Brazil took the United States to
World Trade Court and won a ruling (see Box 15.5).
Commensurate with its status as one of the world's
largest countries in terms of territory, population, and
economic activity, Brazil aspires to occupy a seat on
the United Nations Security Council. It is a member of
the so-called G-4, a group that includes Germany,
Japan, and India. These nations want to enlarge the
UN Security Council to "reflect the 21st century's new
balance of forces." In 2005, they proposed adding six
BOX 15.5
In 2004 Brazil won a preliminary ruling at the
World Trade Organization that subsidies worth $3 bil-
lion paid by the U.S. government to American cotton
farmers each year, as well as $1.7 billion in subsidies to
American agribusiness and manufacturers to buy
American cotton, violated international trade rules.
Brazil estimated that without the subsidies, U.S. cotton
production would fall 29 percent and U.S. cotton
exports would drop 41 percent, which would lead to a
rise in international cotton prices of 12.6 percent. The
WTO agreed.

new seats that would be nonveto-wielding permanent seats,
to be allotted to these four and two states from Africa. The
proposal, though endorsed by Britain and France, has
faltered due to divisions within the African Union, Chinese
opposition to Japan's ascension, and U.S. opposition to any
enlargement of the Council at this time.
PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE
While Brazilians have long been ambivalent about their
democracy, and have become ever more distrustful of
political parties and institutions, the Brazilian people have
not given up on their country's leaders, economy, and future
prospects. In 2005, 67 percent of Brazilians believed their
children would live better than they had lived (well above
the Latin American average of 54 percent).76 Despite a
grave political scandal in his party, Brazilians last October
handed Lula a reelection victory.
A good deal of this optimism undoubtedly has fol-
lowed from better government performance, especially in
those areas that correspond to the greatest human need. As
the head of a government of the modern left, Lula met
several challenges: soothing the fears of foreign investors
and creditors, producing a fiscal surplus, gaining control of
the public debt, and turning in positive growth rates. The
recovery of the nation's fiscal health and prosperity,
moreover, enabled the recovery of living standards and
social development. But Brazilians learned in 2005 and
2006 that some of those gains had come at a high political
cost.
barrier clause Basic College of Leaders
Federal Law on corqnelismo corporatism
Education Finance Democratic Labor Party
(FUNDEF) Bolsa (PDT) Departamento
Familia Brazilian Labor Intersindical
Party de Assessoria
(PTB) Brazilian Parlamentar (DIAP)
Socialist Party direct action of
(PSB) Central unconstitutionality
Unica dos (ADIN)
Trabalhadores (CUT)
Frances Hagopian 551
After a string of presidents who lacked the support of
either the public or Congress, and several corruption
scandals involving public officials, the two-term Cardoso
presidency provided Brazil with much needed political
stability. That stability, perhaps real, perhaps illusory, was
shattered by the illegal campaign finance, cash-for-votes,
and "bloodsucker" scandals that exposed PT mayors and
members of Congress, once believed to be uniquely honest,
to be just as corrupt as those against whom they had railed
while in opposition. No fewer than seventy-two members
of Congress running for reelection in 2006 were under
investigation by federal authorities, the Public Prosecution,
and Congress' own Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry.
Only time will tell whether or not the damage wrought by
this scandal will offset the enhanced prestige and
effectiveness of Brazil's parties marked by increased
cohesion, discipline, and ideological range.
Can Brazilians retain their optimism, buoyed up four
years ago by Lula's election and his promises to eradicate
hunger, redress inequality, and forge a decent society, amid
one of the worst corruption scandals in the nation's history?
Can Lula govern in a second term? Can he get bills through
an opposition-controlled Congress but now without the
benefit of kickbacks and side payments? Lula's apparent
options are to reach out to forge a broad governing coalition
(something he did not do in his first administration) or scale
back the ambition of his government. In the days after his
reelection, he promised to do the former. Brazil's prospects
for the future depend on his ability to govern broadly.
ecclesial base liberation theology
communities (CEBs) Mensalao (the big
Federation of Industries monthly)
of the State of Sao MERCOSUR mesa
Paulo (FIESP) Fiscal directiva Ministerio
Responsibility Law Free Publico (Public
Trade Area of the Prosecution)
Americas (FTAA) Movement of Landless
hordrio gratuito Institute Rural Workers (MST)
for the Defense of Movimento Negro
the Consumer (IDEC) Unificado
552 Politics in Brazil
National Conference of participatory budgeting Party
Brazilian Bishops of the Brazilian
(CNBB) Democratic Movement
open-list proportional (PMDB) Party of
representation Brazilian Social
Parliamentary Democracy (PSDB) Party
Commissions of
of the Liberal Front
Inquiry (CPIs)
(PFL)
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Burdick, John. Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic
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Pressures From Below? Social Movements in the New
Brazilian Democracy," in Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy J.
Power, eds., Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions, and
Processes (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press,
2000), 179.
36. This is different from the neocorporatism system described in
Chapter 4 that presumes a democratic relationship between
government and interest groups.
37. Timothy J. Power and J. Timmons Roberts, "A New Brazil?
The Changing Sociodemographic Context of Brazilian
Democracy," in Kingstone and Power, Democratic Brazil, 254.
38. Institute Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE),
Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios, Sintese de
Indicadores 2005 (www.ibge.gov.br).
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40. Eli Diniz, "Empresariado, Estado y Politicas Publicas en
Brasil: Nuevas Tendencias en el Umbral del Nuevo Milenio,"
in Vicente Palermo, ed., Politica Brasilena Contempordnea: De
Collar A Lula en Ahos de Transformacion (Buenos Aires:
Instituto Di Tella/Siglo XXI, 2003), 462-63.
41. Leigh Payne, Brazilian Industrialists and Democratic Change
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 114.
42. Peter R. Kingstone, Crafting Coalitions for Reform: Business
Preferences, Political Institutions, and Neoliberal Reform in
Brazil (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1999), 111-48.
43. Scott Mainwaring, Rachel Meneguello, and Timothy J. Power,
"Conservative Parties, Democracy, and Economic Reform in
Contemporary Brazil," in Kevin J. Middlebrook, ed.,
Conservative Parties, the Right, and Democracy in Latin America
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 216-17.
44. Rodriguez, "Mobilization," 23-26.
45. Wendy Hunter, Eroding Military Influence in Brazil: Politicians
Against Soldiers (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1997), 112-13.
46. Hunter, Eroding Military Influence, 123-24, 129-32.
47. New York Times, 4 January 2002, A3.
48. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, "In Praise of the Art of Politics,"
Journal of Democracy 7, no. 3 (July 1996): 12, 14-15.
49. Among the former are Scott Mainwaring, Rethinking Party
Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999); and Barry Ames,
The Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2001). Those who argue that parties have grown
stronger include Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo and Fernando
Limongi, Executivo e Legislative na nova ordem constitucional
(Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV, 1999); and Celso Ricardo Roma,
"Atores, Preferencias e Instituicao na Camara dos Deputados"
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Sao Paulo, 2004).
50. Barry Ames, Political Survival: Politicians and Public Policy in
Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1987), 204-06.
51. The law allowed for a transitional period of two full electoral
cycles before the clause would take effect, presumably allow-
ing time for parties to adjust.
52. Maria Herminia Tavares de Almeida, quoted in the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, Brazilian Institute
Special Report No. 2 (Washington, DC, September 2006), 3.
53. Scott Mainwaring, "Politicians, Parties, and Electoral Systems:
Brazil in Comparative Perspective," Comparative Politics 24,
no. 1 (October 1991): 24.
54. Figueiredo and Limongi, Executivo e Legislative, 112.
55. Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems, 143-45; and Carlos
Ranulfo Felix de Melo, "Partidos e Migracao na Camara dos
Deputados," Dados 43, no. 2 (2000); 207-239.
56. Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems, 160.
57. Calculated from biographical data of individual deputies
available at the website of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies
(www.camara.gov.br).
58. The earlier data are reported in Mainwaring, Rethinking Party
Systems (page 160), and the recent data are from author's
surveys.
59. Mainwaring, "Politicians, Parties, and Electoral Systems," 33,36.
60. Survey data for 1990 are from Timothy J. Power, The Political
Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2000), 126-32. Recent survey data are
from author's surveys.
61. David Samuels, "Sources of Mass Partisanship in Brazil," Latin
American Politics and Society 48, no. 3 (Summer 2006), 5, 7.
62. Kenneth M. Roberts and Erik Wibbels, "Party Systems and
Electoral Volatility in Latin America: A Test of Economic,
Institutional, and Structural Explanations," American Political
Science Review 93, no. 3 (1999): 577.
63. Figueiredo and Limongi, Executivo e Legislativo, 105.
64. Carlos Pereira, Timothy J. Power, and Lucio Renno, "From
Logrolling to Logjam: Agenda Power, Presidential Decrees,
and the Unintended Consequences of Reform in the Brazilian
Congress" (Working Paper No. CBS 71-06, Centre for Brazilian
Studies, University of Oxford, 2006).
65. "Can Lula Finish the Job?" Economist, 5 October 2002,25.
66. Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems, 205.
67. Power and Roberts, "A New Brazil," 252.
68. Kurt Weyland, Democracy Without Equity: Failures of Reform in
Brazil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), 182.
Frances Hagopian 555
69. Exame, September 1997,10.
70. Sonia M. Draibe, "Federal Leverage in a Decentralized System: Education Reform in Brazil," in Robert R. Kaufman and Joan M.
Nelson, eds., Crucial Needs, Weak Incentives: Social Sector Reform, Democratization, and Globalization in Latin America (Washington,
DC/Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 395-402.
71. Marta Arretche, "Toward a Unified and More Equitable System: Health Reform in Brazil," in Kaufman and Nelson, eds., Crucial
Needs, Weak Incentives, 178-79.
72. Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2000-2001 (available at www.freedomhouse.org).
73. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, "Popular Responses to State-Sponsored Violence," in Chalmers, ed. et al., The New Politics of Inequality in Latin
America, 271-72.
74. Pinheiro, "Popular Responses to State-Sponsored Violence," 272.
75. Anthony W. Pereira, "An Ugly Democracy? State Violence and the Rule of Law in Postauthoritarian Brazil," in Kingstone and Power,
Democratic Brazil, 234.
Informe Lafinobarometro 2005 (available at www.latino barometro.org