The relationship between the threat to democracy, pessimism towards political parties, and the increase in corruption: the Brazilian reality

The current and severe economic crisis registered in the history of Brazil, accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to the slow and constant weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, significantly weaken the growth of democracy; besides resulting in the impossibility of any plausible composition of political forces to govern the country within the framework of the democratic constitution. The neoliberal economic policies, proposed by the current Bolsonaro government, are ineffective and unpopular, and, nevertheless, most political parties are implicated in an endless series of scandals in corruption and fraud, highlighted recently -for example, by Car Wash’s operation. Added to these facts of imbalance, the ongoing partisan polarization, which is based not on terms of right and left, but on religion and conservatism, also signals the weakening of the young Brazilian democracy. To this end, the Bolsonaro government indicates possible action to solve these impasses through authoritarian actions, implying that political disputes will tend to be resolved outside the constitution. Should democracy be dislodged by a military coup, considering that most of the ministers of the current government are military, this could mark the end of a democraticexperience that marked a few republican generations, and which, to the extent of the proportions, achieved significant successes. A new set of democratic forces and institutions are urgently needed in order to confront the forces of obscurantism that havetaken over the Brazilian nation. In this context, the present project aims to analyze: (i) the relationship and implications of the threat to democracy, through the actions of the Bolsonaro government; (ii) the skepticism regarding the amount of fragmentation of political parties investigated for corruption; and (iii) the diversity of political agents who are investigated for corruption and fraud, either in the most varied governmental spheres. Thus, by means of a theoretical-empirical analysis, we intend to identify the main implications of these relations on the autonomy and independence of democratic institutions. The theoretical argument will be illustrated based on the case of Brazil, particularizing the link between the populism of previous rulers and the arrival of a president with authoritarian characteristics. The empirical results, in turn, will be based on the possible relations of corruption with political parties, income inequality, economic growth, fragility of democracy, among other variables.It is expected to discuss, through the results obtained, whether the Brazilian political system is supported by a robust and persistent corruption structure over the years, the effectiveness of the shift to an authoritarian neoliberalism as a way to break with the stagnation of economic growth presented in recent years by leftist governments, and the quality of the democratic pillars that sustain the Brazilian reality.