1 Democratic Consolidation in Brazil

2 In recent decades Brazil has alternated from authoritarianism and attempts at

3 democracy. As one of the world’s largest country’s what lessons does Brazil’s
4 experience with democracy offer?
5 (1) How does Brazil’s economic performance relate to its democratic consolidation?
6 (2) How has Brazilian democracy come to include poorer Brazilians?
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8 Brazil has moved back and forth between authoritarianism and democracy for much

9 of its existence as an independent country. The country was an empire for the period

10 from 1822 to 1889, followed by a Republic from 1889 to 1930. Both of these had

11 some formal democratic institutions including elected legislatures and relatively

12 liberal laws that enfranchised large numbers of people by nineteenth-century

13 standards, but both were in practice dominated by landowning elites (Graham 1990).

14 The twentieth century saw a coup leading to military rule from 1930 to 1945,

15 followed by a democratic republic from 1945 to 1964, which in turn fell to another

16 military coup. Brazil's military regime fell under the category known as bureaucratic-

17 authoritarian from 1964 to the 1980s. A gradual transition to the current democratic

18 republic began in 1982, resulted in a presidential election in 1985, and was codified in

19 the Brazilian Constitution of 1988. 

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21 Brazil's numerous experiences with regime change feature prominently in studies of

22 democratization and democratic breakdown, partly because it is a large and important

23 country in Latin America and partly because the historical evidence can provide

24 support for several different theories of regime change. There is evidence, for

25 example, that individual groups of political actors played a major role in transitions,

26 and that prevailing ideas in the military shaped its willingness to wield authority, but

27 also that the progressive modernization of the economy played a major role in Brazil's
28 political changes (O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead [1986] 1993; Stepan 1971;

29 O'Donnell 1973; Evans 1979). 

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31 The study of democracy in Brazil goes beyond the question of transition from one

32 regime type to another. Perhaps the most important issues today for those studying

33 Brazilian politics are about democratic consolidation. Since 1988, Brazil's democracy

34 has achieved some consolidation, with repeated elections that have seen incumbents

35 voted out of office and the election of Lula da Silva, whose candidacy was at one

36 point unacceptable to the military. The country has protections for civil liberties as

37 well, and a return to outright authoritarian rule seems quite unlikely in the near future.

38 Yet that does not mean Brazil has created effective representation or equal

39 opportunity for all citizens. The rule of law does not extend equally to everyone

40 everywhere in Brazil: Some areas (both remote rural areas and parts of major cities)

41 are almost lawless and ruled by criminals, while corruption considerable in the police

42 and in many political institutions. Of course, looking at this in comparative

43 perspective, it is possible to say that no country perfectly fulfills the ideal of a

44 consolidated democracy. 

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46 One of the most interesting transitions in recent years has been a set of economic and

47 policy changes that have improved the well-being of the lowest-income people in

48 Brazil. One of these changes is the overall growth of the Brazilian economy, which

49 has been stable and solid after decades in which the country was known for its

50 massive crises. In terms of government policies, the most famous is the Bolsa Familia,

51 or Family Allowance. This program, known as a “conditional cash transfer," provides

52 direct income from the government to poor families on the condition that they keep
53 their children in school and keep their vaccinations up to date. The program predates

54 the Lula presidency, but it was dramatically expanded on a nationwide basis under

55 Lula. While economic growth and policies such as Bolsa Familia may seem to be

56 largely an issue of economics, they can also bring political change. First, economic

57 growth and "pro-poor" programs are credited with reducing inequality and poverty in

58 recent years, and there is some evidence that low-income Brazilians with access to

59 some disposable income participated actively in reelecting Lula (Zucco 2008).

60 Second, such social policies suggest government that directly addresses problems

61 facing the poor, which was not always the case under Brazilian democracies that were

62 long considered elite-led. Third, this set of changes brings poorer Brazilians into

63 greater contact with state institutions, such as the education and health systems. This

64 raises the prospect of strengthening relations between the state and society at large,

65 which is one measure of what democratic consolidation is about.