Abstract
Neither the building of social capital nor especially the consolidation of democracy in Brazil is likely to depend on the further enrichment of the country’s civil society. Instead, these tasks hinge upon the emergence of a well-functioning political system whose performance and institutional capacities meet the aspirations of the citizenry. This point is implicitly or explicitly accepted by the expansive literature spawned by the creation of Brazil’s New Republic in 1985. If there is one dominant theme in this literature it is the failure of formal political institutions—from the presidency to the congress to the party system—to provide much of a reason for Brazilians to care about democracy and its institutions.1
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Notes
See, e.g., the outstanding collection of essays in Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy Power, eds., Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions and Processes (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).
Thomas Skidmore, The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964–1985 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 175.
Craig L. Arceneaux, Bounded Missions: Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone and Brazil, (University Park, Penn.: Penn State Press, 2001), p. 171.
Thomas Skidmore, “Brazil’s Slow Road to Democratization, 1974–1985,” in Alfred Stepan, ed., Democratizing Brazil (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 15.
Scott Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 90.
Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 168.
Maria Helena Moreira Alves, “Trade Unions in Brazil: The Search for Autonomy,” in Edward C. Epstein, ed., Labor Autonomy and the State in Latin America (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 61.
Scott Mainwaring, Rachel Meneguello and Timothy J. Power, “Conservative Parties, Democracy and Economic Reform in Brazil,” in Kevin Middlebrook, ed., Conservative Parties, the Right, and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), p. 177.
Thomas Bruneau, “Brazil’s Political Transition,” in John Higley and Richard Gunther, eds., Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 266.
Wendy Hunter, “Civil-Military Relations in Argentina, Brazil and Chile,” in Felipe Agüero and Jeffrey Stark, eds., Fault Lines of Democracy in Latin America (Miami: University of Miami North South-Center Press, 1998), p. 303.
See, e.g., Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). More recent accounts of military politics in Brazil have challenged Stepan’s analysis by contending that over time civilian governments have effectively eroded military prerogatives.
See, e.g., Wendy Hunter, Eroding Military Influence in Brazil: Politicians Against Soldiers (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
Felipe Agüero, “Democratic Consolidation and the Military in Southern Europe and South America,” in Richard Gunther et al., eds., The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 134.
Frances Hagopian, “Democracy by Undemocratic Means? Elites, Politics and Regime Transition in Brazil,” Comparative Political Studies 23 (July 1990), p. 156.
On the political economy of democratization in Brazil see Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 341–342.
On the Collor de Mello administration see, in particular, Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, Os tempos de Collor: Adventuras da modernidade e desvesturas da ortodoxia (São Paulo: Nobel, 1991).
Frances Hagopian, “The Compromised Consolidation: The Political Class in the Brazilian Transition,” in Scott Mainwaringet al., eds., Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992).
See Richard Graham, Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth Century Brazil (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990).
Human Rights Watch, World Report 1997 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996), p. 82.
See, e.g., John Burdick, “Rethinking the Study of Social Movements: The Case of Christian Base Communities in Urban Brazil,” in Arturo Escobar and Sonia A, Alvarez, eds., The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy and Democracy (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992).
See Ben Ross Schneider, Politics within the State: Elite Bureaucrats and Industrial Policy in Brazil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991).
Teresa Caldeira, City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 15.
See, especially, John Humphrey, Capitalist Control and Workers’ Struggle in the Brazilian Auto Industry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982).
See David Collier, ed., The New Authoritarianism in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).
Paul Singer, “Democracy and Inflation in Brazil,” in William L. Canak, ed., Lost Promises: Debt, Austerity and Development in Latin America (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), p. 43.
Robert Kaufman, “Stabilization and Adjustment in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico,” in Joan Nelson, eds., Economic Crisis and Policy Choice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 78.
Scott Mainwaring, “Brazilian Party Under-development in Comparative Perspective,” Political Science Quarterly 107 (No. 4 1992–1993), p. 681.
Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully, eds., Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in LatinAmerica (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995).
Alessandro Pizzorno, “Interests and Parties in Pluralism,” in Susanne Berger, ed., Organizing Interests in Western Europe: Pluralism, Corporatism and the Transformation of Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
On the PT see Margaret Keck, The Workers’Party and Democratization in Brazil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992);
Isabel Ribeiro de Oliveira, Trabalho e politica (Petropolis: Vozes, 1988);
Moacir Gadotti and Octaviano Pereira, Pra que PT origem, projeto e consolidaçao do partido dos trabalhadores (São Paulo: Cortez, 1989);
and Raquel Meneguello, PT A formaçao de um partido (Rio de Janeiro: Paze terra, 1989).
Rebecca Abers, “From Clientelism to Cooperation: Local Government, Participatory Policy and Civic Organizing in Porto Alegre, Brazil,” Politics and Society 26 (December 1998), p. 511.
Marta Lagos, “Latin America’s Smiling Mask,” Journal of Democracy 8 (July 1997), p. 125.
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© 2003 Omar G. Encarnación
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Encarnación, O.G. (2003). Political Institutions and Democratization in Brazil. In: The Myth of Civil Society. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981646_6
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