THE BRAZILIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM: EFFICIENCY OR DEEP DYSFUNCTIONALITY?

A. A Strong Presidentialism?

Brazil follows the Latin American tradition of strong presidential systems, and the 1988 Constitution exacerbated such a feature even further. Though the concept

The Brazilian Political System: Efficiency or Deep Dysfunctionality? 93 of strong presidentialism might be �overstretched’,^[520] the 1988 Constitution has indeed expanded the executive powers in comparison to previous democratic constitutions, most notably the 1946 Constitution.^[521] Moreover, the civilian­military dictatorship (1964-85) and the authoritarian 1967/1969 Constitution impacted the new presidential regime, so features that are normally associated with strong presidents are all there, such as the powers to: (a) initiate constitu­tional amendments,^[522] (b) issue legislation (particularly, the so-called Medidas Provisorias,^[523] a sort of provisional decree), (c) partially and totally veto bills,^[524] (d) exclusively propose bills in certain areas (for example, the national budget), and (e) exert a substantial and centralised control over public spending, though recently mitigated by the so-called �mandatory budget’.^[525] Angelina Cheibub Figueiredo and Fernando Limongi, in this regard, contend that �the 1988 Constitution strengthened the institutional fragmentation and the centrifugal forces of the Brazilian political system that was in force in the 1946 Constitution, while radically changing the balance among the powers as set out in the prior democratic Constitution by concentrating power on the Executive’.^[526] It is a typi­cal scenario that could lead to what Roberto Gargarella calls an �“unbalanced” version of the system of checks and balances’,^[527] and hence to a system that has little compliance with the rule of law.

Strong presidential powers, which tend to foster a national agenda, can, however, be a two-way street.

Provisorias and to deliberate on any bill proposed by the executive power);^[529] other control institutions became more robust, such as the audit courts and the Federal Revenue,^[530] and more independent, such as the Judiciary and the Public Ministry,^[531] responsible for �defending the legal order, the democratic regime’ and �social and individual interests’.^[532] By the same token, federalism, even though concentration is still the rule, constrains presidential powers. Finally, the very fragmentation of the political system significantly increases the need to nego­tiate and build coalitions in Congress, which have not always proven feasible (the two presidential impeachments in 1992 and 2016 are evidence of what can happen when things go terribly wrong).

Presidents (along with vice-presidents) are elected for a four-year term if they obtain the absolute majority of the valid votes.^[533] Brazil adopts a second round system between the two most voted candidates in case no one reaches the absolute majority in the first ballot.^[534] Since democracy was reinstated in 1985, all but the 1994 and 1998 presidential elections had a run-off and, with the exception of the 1989 and the 2018 elections, the disputes in the run-off were always between the centre-left Worker’s Party (PT) and the centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), which formed large coalitions amid the highly fragmented party system. In addition, after the Constitutional Amendment n. 16/1997^[535] introduced the possibility of subsequent re-election for presidents, governors, and mayors - an innovation in Brazilian political history -^[536] all presidents who ran for re-election were re-elected: Fernando Henrique Cardozo (1998), Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2006) and Dilma Rousseff (2014).

Until 2014 at least, relatively normal elections took place despite the increas­ing polarisation between PSDB and PT over the years, which was a relevant sign of the growing maturity and institutionalisation of the Brazilian politi­cal system.^[537] Moreover, Brazil, despite vast party fragmentation, had its most consolidated political parties as the major contenders, with little space left for new parties and outsiders^[538] and a relatively stable political competition.^[539]

The Brazilian Political System: Efficiency or Deep Dysfunctionality? 95 It was a comparatively unique scenario. Mainwaring, Power, and Bizzarro, for instance, contended that �this combination of an exceptionally fragmented party system in congress and the consistent dominance of the same two parties over many (six) presidential elections is rare and perhaps unique in the history of presidential democracies’.^[540] Brazil seemed to have then reached a point of no return in its electoral process, in which multiple political parties normally built coalitions with moderate positions both in the Right and the Left. Governance could flow through such channels fairly efficiently, and presidents were able to advance their agenda with high rates of success despite their strong dependence on the discipline of the political coalitions,^[541] whose majorities in Congress tend to be more unstable than if they were originally reached among members of one single party.^[542]

Nevertheless, such a moderate mood among Brazilians clearly started to show signs of disruption in the 2014 elections, when Aecio Neves (PSDB), who lost the presidential election for Dilma Rousseff (PT) by the small margin of 51.64 per cent v 48.36 per cent in the second round, challenged the electoral result by filing a petition in the Superior Electoral Court demanding an audit of the polls.^[543] A distinct paradigm in comparison to previous elections seemed to gain strength at that point in history, and the years ahead would prove that what was once a pretty stable political environment would turn into one of the most radicalised and polarised in Brazilian democracy.

Beneath such a disruption to �coalition presidentialism’, a growing move­ment against the political system, and, more specifically, the Worker’s Party (PT), which had then been in office for over 13 years (2003-16), gained traction. Largely catalysed by the so-called �Operation Car Wash’, a massive corruption probe involving various politicians, CEOs and CFOs of the biggest Brazilian construction companies and Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned oil company,^[548] protesters thronged the streets of several cities in the country demanding a radical shift in national politics.^[549] Those protests, however, also revealed the polarisation in Brazilian society.

President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment was a symptom of the political crisis that had been gaining shape even before her re-election in 2014^[550] and a cause for an even sharper destabilisation of the political system, which reflected immediately on the 2018 elections. Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist, would take advantage of - and exacerbate even further - the political polarisation with the Worker’s Party (PT), and, in contrast to various forecasts,^[551] win the elec­tion against Fernando Haddad (PT) by 55.13 per cent v 44.87 per cent in the second round.

A new way of running elections in the context of a highly polarised society would directly shake the basis of Brazil’s �coalition presidentialism’. In his first

The Brazilian Political System: Efficiency or Deep Dysfunctionality? 97 year in office, President Bolsonaro kept the same strategy of confronting what he called �old politics’ by linking it with graft and clientelism and appointed mostly non-partisan ministers to his cabinet.^[554] Moreover, in a movement that broke the tradition of the military not getting directly involved in politics that had prevailed since the transition to democracy,^[555] he appointed approximately 100 members of the armed forces, both retired and active, to high-ranking posi­tions in his administration, among them seven ministers.^[556] His confrontational behaviour sparked a backlash in Congress and some of his agenda faced difficul­ties in obtaining Congress’ approval.^[557] Once his popularity began to fall and his weakness became more apparent in his second year, Bolsonaro embraced, more than any other president before him, the �old politics’ as a strategy to remain in power and fend off impeachment, so pork-barrel and corruption became a desperate trade-off with Congress to build a political coalition, though a very volatile one.^[558] President Bolsonaro might have been successful in disrupting the electoral process as it used to be, but he was not capable of disrupting the core of the Brazilian political system, fundamentally based on �coalition presiden- tialism’.

There is no way to understand the Brazilian political system, with all its positive and negative features, without acknowledging the implications of a presidential regime whose legal design and longstanding practices made it largely dependent on the president’s capacity for building firm and disciplined coalitions in Congress. President Dilma Rousseff, for example, had the major­ity in the beginning of her government, but along with the political crisis that afflicted her government following �Operation Car Wash’, her popularity plum­meted, the economy stagnated and the discipline of her political coalition fell significantly.^[560] On the other hand, presidents who could keep a well-functioning political coalition, even in circumstances of low popularity,^[561] could advance

their agendas quite successfully.⁷³ There is a strong correlation between building strong and disciplined political coalitions and stable and effective government in Brazil.

Brazilian presidentialism can therefore only be called strong if we add the variable of capacity of setting well-coordinated cooperation with Congress. It is a two-way interaction between presidents and Congress, which can be inter­preted as nothing other than traditional politics (including clientelism and pork-barrel), but it can also mean a form of check on the executive and power­sharing. Depending on how one interprets this relationship, the conclusions on whether �coalition presidentialism’ is fundamentally flawed and detrimental to the rule of law or is, rather, a system that makes potentially strong presidents more accountable and checked by requiring them to negotiate and share power with other branches, are all up for discussion.

B. A Highly Fragmented and Oligarchical Congress

â€?Coalition presidentialism’ already suggests a complex scenario of continuous negotiation, bargains and potential clashes with Congress, but other properties of the Brazilian political framework add even greater difficulties to this equa­tion. When the Brazilian political scientist Sergio Abranches coined the concept â€?coalition presidentialism’ in 1988,⁷⁴ he was aware that Brazil features a singular blend of variables that represent the large heterogeneity, ambiguity and contra­dictions of Brazilian society.⁷⁵ By comparing Brazil with the political systems of several other countries, he asserted that â€?Brazil is the only country which, aside from combining proportionality, multiparty system, and “imperial presidential­ism”,⁷⁶ organises the executive on the basis of broad coalitions’.⁷⁷ His diagnosis would prove correct, as he pointed out that one side effect of such a system, which is largely dependent on both political parties and regional alliances,⁷⁸ is the tendency for coalitional governments â€?with relatively high rates of govern­mental fragmentation’.⁷⁹

The National Congress comprised over 20 political parties after the 2018 elections.⁸⁰ It became the most fragmented ever in Latin American history and

Mostra Datafolha’ (Folha de S. Paulo, 27 December 2018) www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/12/ apos-reprovacao-recorde-temer-encerra-governo-com-rejeicao-em-queda.shtml.

⁷³ See Figueiredo and Limongi (n 37).

⁷⁴ See Abranches (n 53).

⁷⁵ ibid 32.

⁷⁶ ibid 22 (â€?“imperial presidentialism” means a political system that is based on the independence of powers, if not on the executive’s hegemony, and which organises the cabinet as broad coalitions’).

⁷⁷ ibid 21.

⁷⁸ ibid 22.

⁷⁹ ibid 32.

⁸⁰ See Chamber of Deputies, www.camara.leg.br/Internet/Deputado/bancada.asp; Federal Senate, www25.senado.leg.br/web/senadores/em-exercicio/-/e/por-partido;.

The Brazilian Political System: Efficiency or Deep Dysfunctionality? 99 certainly one of the most fragmented worldwide.^[562] The reasons for such a frag­mentation, which have increased over the years, are many and are intimately connected to constitutional design, longstanding political practices and regional heterogeneity and inequality that are reflected upon the country’s federal regime.

Brazil has been a bicameral country at the federal level^[563] since its first Constitution of 1824.^[564] The National Congress is composed of 513 federal deputies^[565] and 81 senators, elected in 27 electoral districts (26 states and the Federal District).^[566] There is no artificial electoral district in Brazil, so the corre­spondence between federal units and electoral districts is perfect at both the state and municipal levels.^[567] As a federal country, senators are expected to represent the federal states in Congress, whereas federal deputies are the repre­sentatives of the people, though, in practice, both houses follow mostly partisan leaderships.^[568] Federalism impacts significantly on the political system, and, although senators are elected through a plurality (first-past-the post) voting system - which favours individualism - it is in the Chamber of Deputies where we can observe the main reasons for such a high level of fragmentation.

States and the Federal District each elect three senators for an eight-year term, alternating one or two senators elected in national elections that take place every four years.^[569] In the Chamber of Deputies, where federal deputies are elected for a four-year term, the premise of popular representation is deliberately distorted based on the minimum of eight and the maximum of 70 federal deputies for each federal unit.^[570] Therefore, a populous state like Sao Paulo, with over 46 million inhabitants,^[571] elects 70 federal deputies. Acre, a northern state of approximately 900,000 inhabitants (Brazil’s third least populated), elects 8 federal deputies.^[572] In Sao Paulo, there is one deputy for approximately 657,000 inhabitants, whereas, in Acre, this proportion is of just 112,500 inhabitants, which means that one vote from Acre corresponds to almost six votes from Sao Paulo. This so-called malapportionment of the Brazilian political system has been interpreted both as justifiable based on the country’s regional inequalities^[573] or, on the contrary, as an obstacle to the development of the beneficiary regions.^[574]

Federal deputies (and also state deputies and town council representatives) are elected according to the proportionality method, according to which seats are first distributed based on the total number of votes the party (or, before 2020, the coalition)^[575] obtained and only then allocated among the members of the party (or coalition) who achieved the largest number of votes.^[576] Therefore, even if a candidate attains alone a larger number of votes, but his or her party does not reach the electoral quota for securing one seat in the Chamber of Deputies, he or she will not be elected. It is worth mentioning, however, that the electoral quota, according to Brazilian law, has a distinct meaning from what is normally understood as electoral threshold, which only since 2018 has Brazil begun to gradually adopt.^[577] The electoral quota is estimated by the division of the total number of valid votes by the total number of seats in Congress. Therefore, the number of seats a party will secure in Congress is calculated by dividing the votes that party obtains by the electoral quota. If that quota is not even reached, the party cannot secure any seat in Congress.^[578] The electoral threshold, on the other hand, is very unconventional, since it does not prevent parties from secur­ing their seats in Congress but, rather, raises some barriers for public funding and media campaigns, among other constraints.^[579]

Along with proportionality, Brazil also adopts open-list in its proportional representation, which means that the party members are ranked in the list based on the number of votes they individually attain in the elections, not on the party’s previously elaborated ranking. An open-list proportional representation also has a bearing on party fragmentation, because it tends to foster individualism over party identification. A symptom of such a behaviour is found, for exam­ple, in how Brazilians identify themselves with the political parties. Unlike most candidate-centric electoral systems,^[580] Brazilians can vote either for the party or the candidate (though the vote will count first for the party and only later for the most voted candidates). Evidence has shown, nevertheless, that about 90 per cent of the electorate vote for individual candidates,^[581] which suggests

The Brazilian Political System: Efficiency or Deep Dysfunctionality? 101 that party identification is not a solid element of the Brazilian political system. In fact, with the exception of the Worker’s Party (PT), which has since the 1980s built up a broad support base, Brazilians have historically had scant identifica­tion or loyalty with any political party.^[582]

In addition to being largely fragmented and malapportioned, the Brazilian National Congress is also known for electing some influential oligarchical groups, whose clientelist behaviour has long impaired the rule of law in the country. The presence of oligarchical elites in national politics is a common feature in Latin America,^[583] and Brazil does not differ from such a pattern.^[584] The political system creates incentives to perpetuate entrenched practices that keep benefits for political groups or newcomers who eventually come to power virtually untouched.^[585] It is a historical component of Brazilian politics, which is deeply rooted in the authoritarian mindset and inequality as we previously discussed.^[586] In a way, Brazil is still plagued by the �privatisation’ of the public sphere - a diagnosis Raymundo Faoro brilliantly portrayed in the late 1950s in his book Os Donos do Poder (The Owners of Power) by referring to the so-called �estamentos’^[587] in Brazilian institutions, a phenomenon, by the way, that has come to the attention of prominent scholars worldwide.^[588]

�Coalition presidentialism’ and a highly fragmented Congress seem to be the perfect context for creating incentives for clientelism, mainly when the oligar­chical structure has a significant bearing on how negotiations and bargains take place for governance. It is a widespread feeling among Brazilians that their political system is rotten, and clientelism has been interpreted as the trade-off for any government to advance its agenda. Empirical evidence has also shown that, despite the growing �popularisation of the political representation’^[589]

and the �gradual process of diversification’^[590] in the legislatures, Brazilian poli­ticians still mostly originate from high social and economic strata,^[591] and the correlation between the presence of traditional families and the adoption of pork-barrel politics is still high.^[592] Newcomers from diverse origins, such as reli­gious groups, security forces and the rural sector as well as bureaucrats and businesspeople have increasingly been elected as congresspeople, instead of those traditionally locally-oriented politicians,^[593] but such changes in the poli­ticians’ backgrounds have not necessarily reflected on a nationally-oriented agenda, and many newcomers have been �gradually “socialized” into veteran’s campaign tactics’.^[594]

Moreover, despite expanding urbanisation and the regional trend in favour of a larger share of female representation in parliament,^[595] Brazil is ranked among the countries with the lowest number of congresswomen in the world (132nd among 193 countries by February 2019, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union^[596]), a phenomenon that Kristin N Wylie directly associates with the weak institutionalisation of the party system in Brazil and may help explain the under-representation of other marginalised social groups.^[597] It is also worth noticing that the open-list proportional electoral system, which privileges indi­vidual success over party identification, and a biased candidate selection by party leaderships, can be largely detrimental to those marginalised groups in politics, especially in a context where inequality at all levels (economic, gender, racial, etc) is high and an authoritarian mindset is still deep-rooted in society.^[598] In such a system, even the adoption of quotas, as Brazil has done since 1997,^[599] may prove much less effective than expected.^[600]

Therefore, the political-economic scenario has indeed changed and Brazil has certainly developed and democratised since the transition to democracy. Nonetheless, the relationship between â€?coalition presidentialism’ and a frag­mented Congress operating through clientelism and pork barrel still plays the cards of Brazilian politics, with detrimental consequences for the rule of law.¹²⁰ That said, it does not necessarily follow that the political system is fully dysfunctional and checks and balances are not working at all. As previously mentioned, the risk of falling into simplifications, generalisations and stereo­types is considerable. Sergio Abranches, for example, acknowledges the various defects of Brazil’s political system, especially the way coalitions are illegiti­mately negotiated and built, but he is emphatic when arguing that the problem is not â€?coalition presidentialism’ itself, which can legitimately succeed, but other causes that are deep-rooted in Brazilian society and whose origins transcend this system.¹²¹ â€?Coalition presidentialism’ and the features of the Brazilian politi­cal system have, for this reason, provided one of the richest discussions among political scientists in Latin America, and it is no wonder that controversies have long persisted. More interestingly, the recent political events have added further complexity to such a debate. The next section seeks to discuss further the difficulties, controversies, and particularities of this system for the rule of law.

C. Clientelism and �Coalition Presidentialism’: A Necessary Correlation?

The political system in Brazil, with this particular configuration, has been a subject of rich debates, and opinions on its quality for Brazilian democracy and the impacts on the rule of law vary significantly among scholars. Divergent prominent voices have argued that Brazil’s political system is either highly dysfunctional with incentives to graft, patronage and a low degree of party institutionalisation, or operates quite efficiently despite its natural flaws. The scenario is currently more confusing because, although the country had gone through years of rather stable governments, the last events were nothing short of critical. They include, for instance, a massive corruption probe reaching several political bigwigs, a presidential impeachment and the election of a far-right president who continuously attacks Brazil’s democracy. Interestingly enough, those disagreements, some expressed prior to the recent political developments,

Interaφδes com as Cotas’ (2007) 50 Dados — Revista de Ciencias Sociais 535; Wylie (n 116); K Wylie and P dos Santos, â€?A Law on Paper Only: Electoral Rules, Parties, and the Persistent Underrepresentation of Women in Brazilian Legislatures’ (2016) 12 Politics & Gender 415; PAGD Santos and K Wylie, â€?The Representation of Women’ in B Ames (ed), Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics (Routledge, 2019) 57-72.

¹²⁰See S Abranches, Presidencialismo de Coalizdo (Kindle edn, Companhia das Letras, 2018) position 53.

¹²¹ ibid position 55.

have nowadays become more necessary. What was once argued during the transi­tion to democracy in the 1990s and early 2000s - and whose findings were later challenged by a sequence of rather stable governments - now regains strength and relevance with those recent events. Brazil has indeed changed and its politi­cal system may have proven less flawed than first depicted. It does not follow, however, that many of its original dysfunctionalities have disappeared and may even explain why the country has moved backwards in democratic credentials and in compliance with the rule of law over the last few years.

The Brazilian political system has attracted the attention of some lead­ing north-American political scientists. Scott Mainwaring’s �Dilemmas of Multiparty Presidential Democracy: The Case of Brazil’ (1992)^[601] and Rethinking the Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil (1999),^[602] as well as Barry Ames’ The Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil (2001),^[603] are certainly amongst the most critical and impactful analyses of the Brazilian political regime, and their findings stress some fascinating conver­gent points. Both explore what lies beneath this system and plays a major role for its malfunctioning, such as its exclusionary behaviour, the control of local political elites and individuals over the national parties^[604] and the still pervasive clientelism and pork-barrel.^[605]

The main word here is �gridlock’. Mainwaring says that �the situation of permanent minority presidentialism easily leads to executive/legislative stale­mate resulting in political immobilism’,^[606] with serious impacts on pursuing a national agenda and high incentives for patronage.^[607] Barry Ames, who explores these features in more detail with an impressive set of analytical tools (espe­cially rational choice) and empirical data, also argues that the Brazilian political system, as designed, is doomed to gridlock because of the �large number of veto players’ that hinder the production of �innovative policies’.^[608] Federalism, on the one hand, and patronage and pork-barrel, which are aggravated by an open list proportional representation system, on the other hand, have all shaped the rela­tionship between presidents and Congress,^[609] and it is no wonder that incentives

The Brazilian Political System: Efficiency or Deep Dysfunctionality? 105 for corruption are also high.^[610] The political system is designed to foster frag­mentation over coordination, weak parties and particularistic behaviours over �significant legislation’ and policies oriented to the common welfare. Both Mainwaring and Ames conclude that there is indeed a problem of governance,^[611] and, in addition to sociological and historical causes, institutional design plays a major role in this respect: �Brazil’s political institutions not only matter a great deal but are at the heart of the nation’s crisis of governability.’^[612]

Interestingly enough, both authors wrote some of their conclusions after a turning point in Brazilian political science which occurred as a result of Angelina Cheibub Figueiredo’s and Fernando Limongi’s impressive and influential paper �Partidos Politicos na Camara dos Deputados 1989-1994’ (�Political Parties in the Chamber of Deputies 1989-1994’).^[613] Unlike the mainstream literature, Figueiredo and Limongi, who examined 221 roll-call votes from 1988 to 1994 in the Chamber of Deputies, argued that �the parties present a considerable average cohesion^[614] in the period as a whole, much higher than the acceptable one and that there is a �pattern of party coalitions that is consistent with the disposition of parties in an ideological continuum’.^[615] Their data showed that party discipline has prevailed over individualism:^[616] among the deputies from the biggest seven parties there is a percentage of discipline that is over 80 per cent. �The plenary is, unquestionably, disciplined’^[617] they concluded. In another paper published in 2001, they expanded their analysis to governance. They claim that �the recent presidential experience in Brazil reveals that Congress is not an insti­tutional veto player to the executive’s agenda’.^[618] On the contrary, the executive has effectively controlled the legislative agenda: �under the 1988 Constitution, the executive emerged as the main de jure and de facto legislator’, because of its �constitutionally guaranteed capacity to control the agenda - the timing and the content - of the legislative works’.^[619] Based on their view, it would be misleading to conclude that there is a crisis of governance in Brazil.

More enthusiastically, Marcus Andre Melo and Carlos Pereira are also two leading political scientists who advocate that the Brazilian political system is functional and accountable. Their book Making Brazil Work: Checking the President in a Multiparty System^[620] contrasts with the mainstream literature^[621] and reveals a much more positive outlook on the Brazilian system than most scholars have ever had. Their argument is that strong presidents and multiple parties can work well together if there is a �set of institutionalized and effective checks... in place in order to constrain the president’s action’.^[622] According to them, strong presidents are needed for a successful coordination of interests with Congress, because presidents with expanded powers own a set of �trad­able coalition goods’^[623] that enable negotiations with Congress.^[624] Both authors acknowledge that such a system creates incentives for pork-barrel^[625] and even graft as a trade-off for approving the presidential agenda, but they also sustain that it also creates �contestability in the political markets’ through strong oppo­sition parties or coalition, which is �key to prevent the political system from degenerating into dysfunctional clientelism and corruption’.^[626]

Moreover - and this is possibly the most innovative part of their analysis - they dedicate various chapters of their book to prove that the network of accountability institutions in Brazil is quite robust and designed for - as the title of their book suggests - �making Brazil work’, such as Congress’ high over­sight capacities over executive actions and its effectiveness in law-making,^[627] the judiciary’s strong autonomy,^[628] the independent and diversified media,^[629] the mechanisms for boosting transparency,^[630] independent regulatory agencies,^[631] etc. The contrast with the mainstream literature could not be more direct as they emphasise the crucial role of constitutional design for such a positive scenario: �the new Constitution of 1988 should, therefore, be viewed as the foundational moment or critical junction that defined the political institutions in Brazil and the powers of the political actors. It provided the institutional fertile terrain for political cooperation to take place’.^[632]

It is symptomatic that the disputes over the main attributes of the Brazilian political system point to such diverse directions, even though they may have more connections than first seen. The studies focusing on the Brazilian politi­cal reality^[633] some years after the transition to democracy are telling of how intricate it is to bring a narrative that could definitely describe and explain such a changing context. Some more critical and pessimistic arguments needed to be calibrated with important developments over the years and what was largely thought to be a very likely outcome proved much more nuanced. Those who ranked among the optimistic had also reviewed their main theses as the country was enduring a radical shift in its political spectrum, lately culminating in the election of President Bolsonaro.

It is not the purpose of this chapter to explore this endless debate much further. Yet, by placing these distinct perspectives side by side and adding the variable of the political developments that have taken place since they were writ­ten, there seems to be a confluence of some consensual points that are relevant to understand why the system has not been in gridlock as portrayed, yet it has borne a high level of dysfunctionality that is also detrimental to governance and the rule of law more broadly. If it has performed better than first expected, it does not follow that the system has reached a high degree of institutionality and that the rule of law has been preserved. There are evident signs that reforms are needed and empirical evidence has shown that, despite the promising signs in some areas (for example, the large network of accountability institutions), the political system has numerous shortcomings (for example, party fragmentation, clientelism, corruption and low representation of minorities).

In any case, it is encouraging to see that Scott Mainwaring was, a few years ago, somehow less critical of Brazil’s political system and said that the country was among the �stable democracies with shortcomings’.^[634] An important reason for that lay in a more positive functioning of its political system and a better degree of institutionalisation of Brazil’s political parties. In a paper written with Anibal Perez-Linan, Mainwaring argued that Brazil has �institutional­ized party systems that enable citizens to choose among sharp programmatic differences - a potent shield against the rise of antisystem outsiders’.^[635] In a more recent chapter, co-written with Timothy J Power and Fernando Bizzarro, he argued that �along with El Salvador and Panama, Brazil is one of the few Latin American countries that have more institutionalized party systems today than a generation ago’.^[636] Yet, criticism is still there. Brazil’s party system has indeed been institutionalised, but in an �uneven and thin’^[637] way. Years of economic stabilisation and socioeconomic advances, new legislation on party discipline and a �high election-to-election stability of significant contenders in both presi­dential and lower chamber elections’^[638] improved the quality of Brazil’s political system, but the high party fragmentation and the still existing volatility in the election of governors were signs for concern.^[639] More importantly, the recent corruption scandals that largely affected the Worker’s Party (PT), Brazil’s most organised party and �in important ways.. a central pillar of the system’,^[640] would perhaps lead to an inflection point in Brazilian politics. Mainwaring, Power, and Bizzarro could not be more assertive as history would be evidence of their prognosis just a few months later.

On the other hand, Barry Ames’ persistent critical view of Brazil’s politi­cal system serves as a cautionary tale. In his introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics, he associated the recent political crises and corruption scandals with governmental gridlock. According to him, they are consequences of a system that promotes pork and patronage as a path for governance, in a trade-off that has made �Brazil’s democracy [seem] a bit less robust than it did just a few years ago’.^[641] The signs of democratic decay are everywhere, such as the reduced support for democracy,^[642] the increased negative partisanship, especially against the Worker’s Party (PT) (the so-called �anti- petismo^,), the rise of an authoritarian strand of the Right, and the growing polarisation and intolerance.^[643]

The 2018 presidential elections were a turning point in that they profoundly harmed the country’s �coalition presidentialism’ as had been operating since the 1990s. Sergio Abranches, for example, argues that the 2018 general elections may have �ended the political cycle that organised the Brazilian coalition presi- dentialism in the last 25 years...’^[644] which �opened a transitional period to a new political cycle and a new conformation of the party system’.^[645] The reasons for such a shift, according to him, reside in the low quality of public policies, the disconnection of the parties with society, and - which Bolsonaro’s political campaign took advantage of - �the general contamination of the political system with corporate-party corruption’.^[646] Though the empirical data have shown an increase in party institutionalisation and a more stable political system,^[647]

The Brazilian Political System: Efficiency or Deep Dysfunctionality? 109 the last events have raised the awareness that such institutionalisation is fragile and can be rapidly reversed. They have also helped strengthen the association of this political system with clientelism and corruption, which may confirm those pessimistic analyses that have long pointed out such a feature as ingrained in the Brazilian political system. In a way, the new cycle that Bolsonaro’s election inaugurated would function as the disclosure of this system’s mostly structural dysfunctionalities.

This is the reason why Bolsonaro’s election deeply affects some discussions of the positive and negative features of Brazil’s �coalition presidentialism’. His election was indeed disruptive to the electoral process,^[648] but his government would rapidly weaken as his confrontational behaviour with such a system began to charge a high price. As a trade-off for keeping his mandate safe from impeachment, he needed to enhance mechanisms of co-optation in Congress by spreading and increasing pork-barrel, clientelism and corruption. In the end, Bolsonaro would be influenced by the most deleterious features of �old poli­tics’ that he previously had so emphatically attacked, suggesting thereby that the political system is not that easy to beat. However, a weak presidency, by losing its capacity of coordinating conflicting interests in Congress, encourages parochial and individualist agendas, which will struggle to obtain benefits in the costly market of fragmented politics. In the end, there remains nothing but bad governance, locally-oriented rather than nationally-oriented policies, in which centripetal and longstanding forces that have successfully operated inside Brazil’s institutions dominate.^[649]

Moreover, a weak president lays the groundwork for Congress to strengthen its grip on the national budget, whose grants are distributed according to prag­matic strategies of political survival and co-optation. What is more, particularly during his government, Congress advanced its control over such a distribution by vigorously adopting the so-called �mandatory budget’,^[650] which imposes the mandatory execution of parliamentary amendments, and other far less transparent avenues for transferring public resources to lawmakers, such as the so-called �secret budget’, whose grants are unequally distributed among lawmak­ers in exchange for supporting the government without disclosing details of such operations.^[651] Some such operations have since been under scrutiny by the

Federal Audit Court (Tribunal de Contas da Unido) and the Supreme Court,^[652] but, until a decision is effectively made against such a practice, lawmakers and the government have largely adopted them as a means of co-optation. Even with such resources, however, gridlock, as some previous analyses point out, has become more frequent, while the government saw many of its legal proposals and Medidas Provisorias^[653] being ultimately struck down in Congress.^[654]

The upshot is that, due to increasing political fragmentation and polarisa­tion, a weak and disruptive presidency and a Congress eager for resources and power, Brazil’s �coalition presidentialism’ is no longer exactly what those previ­ous discussions depicted. The relationship between the executive and parliament has become far less coordinated, so party discipline and the executive domi­nance over legislation^[655] have decreased significantly, while the costs of political bargains have become notably higher. �Coalition presidentialism’ is therefore heading toward a new design and function, which features Congress as a more prominent player. As such, not only has it raised the costs of co-optation, which has negatively impacted governance and a national agenda, but also Congress itself could advance some policies at the national level despite such a disruptive government.^[656] In the case of a would-be autocrat such as Bolsonaro, this may have paradoxically helped protect democracy, while also lowering its quality as it has prompted clientelism, pork-barrel, and corruption.^[657] This may help explain why Brazil’s democracy and rule of law has historically been a glass half full and a glass half empty.^[658]

III.