1. Latin America’s New Turbulence: Crisis and Integrity in Brazil
- Author:
- Marcus Andre Melo
- Publication Date:
- 04-2016
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Democracy
- Institution:
- National Endowment for Democracy
- Abstract:
- For Brazil’s young democracy, this might seem to be the worst of times. The country’s once-booming economy has taken a nosedive along with global commodity prices; a monster public-corruption scandal is engulfing much of the political class and infuriating millions of ordinary Brazilians; and a president who barely won reelection only to abandon her basic fiscal-policy approach now teeters on the brink of impeachment and expulsion from office. Yet these storm clouds have a silver lining. For, grave as they are, they have put on vivid display the strength, independence, and public trust enjoyed by the country’s web of judicial and public-accountability institutions and attested to the free and energetic nature of the media in a country that only three decades ago was held under lockdown by a military dictatorship. Politics and the economy are in a crisis, but looking beneath the turmoil we can glimpse the power of the rule of law and see Brazilian constitutional democracy’s institutional resilience and fortitude.
- Topic:
- Democracy, Economy, State Building, and Dictatorship
- Political Geography:
- Brazil and South America