The Conceptual Dimensions of Brazilian Democracy

Abstract

This panel mainly deals with the key concepts underlying the Brazilian democracy since the last fifty years. Its central proposal is to analyze the political processes that can be said to typify the Brazilian democracy, without losing sight of its military government´s legacy of which spanned over two decades of grisly authoritarian acts (1964-85). The major puzzle to which answer is sought in the various papers is: To what extent do the underlying political processes of Brazilian democracy cohere with the relevant liberal democratic theoretical assumptions? It is being assumed basically in the various papers that despite the apparent changes from authoritarian to democratic institutions, the past still lingers-on in the present Brazilian political processes. This influentially path dependence trajectory as accounted for in the various papers can be distinguished under different though inter-related analytical levels that portray the consistency of the Brazilian political processes with liberal democratic theory. These are: the constructive accounts of the 1964 military takeover of the State rendered by the Brazilian media, paving way to the most ruthless military intervention in the Brazilian polity; the role being played by the elite in delimiting democratic institutions such as the presidency, the supreme court and the legislature; the extent democracy is being consolidated not only based on time but more pertinently on institutionalization; the nexus between institutional stability and processes of impeachment; and the quality traits democracy is assuming in the country. The respective papers thereby contest the idea that Brazilian democracy is significantly following the liberal democratic assumptions of equal participation under socially representative institutions that are well responsible and responsive to the people. As one of the leading global economies with the biggest and most diverse population in Latin America, the importance of Brazilian politics to the rest of the world cannot be ignored. The panel´s relevance therefore stems from the unique contribution that the various papers will altogether make to the fuller understanding of the historic and dynamic processes of Brazilian democracy. The expectation is that the various papers after an insightful analysis of the various process characteristics of the Brazilian democracy reveal the coherence of the later with the relevant liberal democratic propositions.

Title	Details
The quality of democracy in Brazil: the inter-institutional accountability dimension	View Paper Details
Balance of Powers and the Proximity between Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: The Brazilian Impeachment Case (1988-2016)	View Paper Details