Observations on the Brazilian presidency, democracy and governance

RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999 53

Kurt E. von MettenheimProfessor at EAESP/FGV.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE

BRAZILIAN PRESIDENCY,

DEMOCRACY, AND

GOVERNANCE

RESUMOEste artigo apresenta os primeiros resultados de uma pesquisa sobre a administração da Presidência brasileira eproblemas de governança democrática no Brasil. São criticados viéses eurocêntricos nas análises de presidencialismo,democracia, governança e representação, e são propostas novas análises comparativas de experiências políticas nasAméricas. Esta análise da Presidência brasileira revela novos padrões de representação determinados pelo Executivo eum novo estilo de governança aberta e pluralista no recente período de pós-transição.

ABSTRACTThis article presents the first results of research on the organization and administration of the Brazilian presidency andproblems of democratic governance in Brazil. Biases of Euro-centrism in current views of presidentialism, democracy,governance, and representation are criticized and new comparative analysis of political experiences in the Americascalled for. Initial analysis of the Brazilian presidency reveals a unique combination of executive-led electoralrepresentation and muddling through governance since the transition from military rule.

PALAVRAS-CHAVEPolítica, governança, Presidência, democracia.

KEY WORDSPolitics, governance, presidency, democracy.

RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas • Jul./Set. 1999São Paulo, v. 39 • n. 3 • p. 53-65

Administração Pública

54 RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999

Administração Pública

©1999, RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas / EAESP / FGV, São Paulo, Brasil.

INTRODUCTION

The collapse of the Soviet Union culminated aremarkable series of transitions from military,authoritarian, and Stalinist rule. The sheer number ofnew nation-states and the daunting complexity of thepost-transition and post-Cold War world suggest thatour fin-de-siecle will be remembered as a remarkableperiod of political change. While a rich diversity ofscholarship on democratic transitions and theirlegacies exists , 1 this paper argues that politicalscientists need to more carefully consider newdevelopments in the global south and east, and thatthe Brazilian experience is uniquely suited to providenew concepts and theories about democracy andgovernance. New work is needed because existingtheories and concepts about presidentialism (Linz &Valenzuela, 1994; Mettenheim, 1997), democracy,2

governance,3 and economic policy4 tend tounderestimate the importance of new patterns ofchange in Brazil and other post-transition contexts.Unfortunately, biases of Euro-centrism and liberal-reformism too often lead social scientists to expectpost-transition politics to repeat European or NorthAmerican experiences.

The first meeting of the Associação Brasileira deCiência Política is a notable forum to present severalobservations about the presidency, governance, andeconomic policy.5 My attempt here is to combine apositive account of party-electoral politics in Brazilwith a pluralist conception of muddling through policymaking. The central argument about presidentialgovernance can be stated as follows: It is politics, noteconomics, that explains the successful reduction ofinflation in post-transition Brazil. It is the open,inclusive, negotiated, and incremental character ofpolicy making that explains the ability of the Franco(1992-1994) and Cardoso (1994-present)administrations to reduce high inflation while, at thesame time, increasing the real wages of poorBrazilians.6 Given the tendency to view democracyand effective economic policy in zero-sum terms, andwage austerity as necessary to reduce inflation, thisis a remarkable achievement. And although credit isdue to theories of inertial inflation7 for clarifying thenew causes and contexts of prolonged high inflation,the successful reduction of inflation in Brazildepended on a more open, pluralistic style of muddlingthrough governance to implement policy. Indeed,muddling through has defined policy successes andstatecraft during and after transit ions fromauthoritarian rule throughout Latin America. AsMettenheim and Malloy (1998) note:

Whatever novelties have emerged from within these (Latin American)countries in terms of regime form and practice has taken shape outof the accumulated weight of skillful statecraft which finds its wayfrom one problematic situation to the next. Grand solutions based ontheoretical design, strategies derived from formal instrumentalrationalities, and broad constitutional engineering have fallen farshort of this creative statecraft of muddling through.

This paper attempts to combine the electoral realismof competitive democratic theory with a liberal-pluralistconception of governance to emphasize the novelpatterns of political change that have emerged in post-transition Brazil.

Most observers misunderstand Brazilian politicsbecause of Euro-centric and liberal-reformist biases.Although further analysis will be required, note thefollowing examples from scholarship in three subfieldsof political science. First, despite considerable debateabout institutional design in post-transition settings,critics of presidentialism have left us without a positivetheory of political change within these systems.Scholars such as Juan Linz, Fred Riggs, Alfred Stepan,and Arturo Valenzuela (indeed, including FernandoHenrique Cardoso) have attempted to draw direct causallinks between presidentialism and problems ofungovernability, instability, and democratic breakdown(Linz & Valenzuela, 1994).8 Presidential institutionsmay indeed retain a greater burden of proof becausethey are fewer in number and can easily be confusedwith directly elected authoritarian executives. Butrecent advocates of parliamentarism misrepresent theAmerican experience and its liberal-democratictradition of separating and diffusing power, fail toprovide a positive account of political developmentwithin presidential institutions, and tend tooverestimate the impact of political reform(Mettenheim, 1997). Presidential government in post-transition Brazil produced, not the gridlock,polarization, corruption, and demagogic populism thatcritics expected, but new patterns of political changethrough direct popular appeals, alliances with patronagemachines, and movements for political reform. Andcontrary to the notion that only parliaments tend toremove executives, Brazil’s first directly electedpresident after the transition from military rule wasimpeached on charges of corruption in late 1992.

To better understand these developments in Brazil,scholars would do well to consider an earlier generationof scholars who broke away from similar biases ofliberal-reformism and Euro-centrism to understandpolitical history in the United States. Indeed, socialscience classics from Max Weber to Carl Friedrich sawthe conflict in presidential systems between direct

Observations on the Brazilian presidency, democracy and governance

RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999 55

plebiscitarian appeals and representative governmentas central to understanding political development in theUnited States (Friedrich, 1967). Subsequent scholarshipby V. O. Key, W. D. Burnham, William N. Chambers,Theodore Lowi, and others argues that rapid changeoccurred in the United Statesduring the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries largelybecause of critical electionsand party realignments drivenby direct presidential elections(ameliorated by the electoralcollege).9 By replacingliberal-reformist and Euro-centric theories about theUnited States, these empirical analyses providedfundamentally new conceptions of Americandemocracy. A central argument of this paper is thatpolitical scientists need to perform a similar conceptualleap to understand the presidency, democracy, andgovernance in Brazil.

The biases of liberal-reformism and Euro-centrismalso prevail among scholars of political parties andparty systems.10 Understanding political parties inBrazil requires shifting away from models based onthe rigid parties and parliamentary systems of mid-century Europe. The alternative “American” trajectoryof party development has also been widely noted sincethe social science classics. The American experiencewas driven largely by the power of American presidentsto nominate party professionals to administrative postsand thereby create alliances with patronage systems ofSenators.11 Consequently, scholars of American partiesemphasize the direct popular appeals of presidentialelections rather than the rationality of party programs,argue that patronage machines may be rapidlytransformed into mass parties through nominations andalliances, and focus their research on the electoralpractices of party professionals rather than idealorganizational characteristics or concepts of partydiscipline or fidelity.12 In sum, scholars who criticizepolitical parties in Brazil today for exacerbatingpatronage, corruption, and legislative indiscipline (likeadvocates of the responsible party system model in theUnited States four decades ago) fail to recognizealternative trajectories of change outside a liberal-reformist model based largely on the Westminsterexperience.13

Finally, the subfield of electoral behavior alsorequires open-ended empirical research to surpasssimilar problems of Euro-centrism and liberal-reformism. Analysis of Brazilian public opinionsuggests that perceptions and preferences among

Brazilian voters are indeed more direct, unmediated,and volatile than their European and North Americancounterparts. But difference does not implydysfunctionality. Traditional measures of voter choicefail to describe the conceptual content and political

context of Brazilian voters because they are designedto tap European ideologies or American notions ofgroup-interest.14 Questionnaires and concepts based onnational experiences in the North Atlantic simply failto describe how Brazilians think about politics and vote.My recent research suggests that national electoralcontests and feedback mechanisms of power (alsoemphasized in recent mass belief studies) informedBrazilian public opinion more than ideologies fromEurope or notions of group interest from the UnitedStates.15 The greater transparency, immediacy, andvolatility of Brazilian public opinion appear to be bothcause and consequence of the different trajectory ofchange in Brazil.

In sum, both core conceptions of democracy andscholarship in the subfields of electoral behavior, partysystems, and institutional design often succumb to“illusions about consolidation” based too exclusivelyon a liberal-reformist account of North Atlanticexperiences (O’Donnell, 1996, p. 38-9). GuillermoO’Donnell suggests that concepts of consolidation andinstitutionalization may mislead empirical research bydefining post-transition cases negatively;16 by usingidealized yardsticks extracted from Europeanexperiences;17 and labeling national experiences thatdo not take expected paths as “stunted, frozen,protractedly unconsolidated, and the like” (O’Donnell,1996, p. 38). This paper attempts to rise to O’Donnell’schallenge – that scholars capture new patterns of post-transition change and provide positive comparativereferences for “a non-teleological and indeed, non-ethnocentric, positive analysis of the main traits of thesepolyarchies” (O’Donnell, 1996, p. 46).

A particular concern about the legacies of transitionshould also be noted. As early as 1987, James Malloy(1987) warned that recent transitions in Latin Americamight simply graft more or less competitive electionsonto the centralized executives left by military or

Understanding political parties in Brazilrequires shifting away from models basedon the rigid parties and parliamentarysystems of mid-century Europe.

56 RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999

Administração Pública

authoritarian rulers. O’Donnell (1996, p. 44) argues thatthis excessive power of post-transition executivescombines with rampant particularism to create a newkind of delegative democracy:

The combination of institutionalized elections, particularism as adominant political institution, and a big gap between the formalrules and the way most political institutions actually work makesfor a strong affinity with delegative, not representative, notionsof political authority. By this I mean a caesaristic, plebiscitarianexecutive that once elected sees itself as empowered to govern thecountry as it deems fit.

The implications are considerable. The absence ofcontrol mechanisms or checks and balances onexecutives who claim to act for some unitary generalwill or national interest suggests that a new form ofdelegative democracy threatens to predominate in post-transition contexts. And because delegative democracyfail to provide opportunities for access, feedback, andpolitical negotiation with executives after elections,these new executive-centric patterns render theories ofdemocratic consolidation premature and misleading.

This concern about centralizing power in theexecutive also resonates with classic accounts ofBrazilian politics. Indeed, a glance through Brazilianhistory suggests that new political institutions wereoften grafted onto its hierarchical society withunexpected results. Observers of the Brazilian Empire(1822-1899) argue that rural patriarchs simplyreorganized their clientele into voting blocks afterDom Pedro I founded free-male suffrage in 1824.18

Writers of Brazil’s first republican constitution in1891 attempted to decentralize Imperial power byadopting federal institutions from the United States.However, governors (entitled Presidentes) rapidlyasserted their dominance and created single state-parties.19 After Getulio Vargas’ Estado Novo (1937-1945) centralized government and organized workingclass and popular sectors into corporatist institutions,the period of competitive politics which followed(1945-1964) once again reflected the grafting ofcompetitive elections onto centralized policy makingstyles. Souza argues that the irresponsible leadershipthat led to democratic breakdown in 1964 can betraced to this lack of access by party politicians tokey policy decisions. Because core issues of economicpolicy remained under the control of presidents andtheir policy teams, legislators and party politicianswere reduced to populist promise and the traffic ofpatronage (Souza, 1976). The transition from militaryto civilian rule (1974-1985) lasted so terribly long inlarge part because more or less competitive elections

for legislative offices were grafted onto militarycontrol of executive offices. 20 While this paperrecognizes the executive-centric legacies of Brazilianhistory, the argument is that new, more open,pluralistic, and muddling through policy styles haveemerged since the transition from military rule.

The separate discussion of executive-led electoralrepresentation and muddling through governance thatfollows reflects universal concerns about liberal-democracy. For the liberal tradition conceives ofrepresentation in two recurrent and quite differentmoments: first the selection of representatives throughcompetitive elections and second a more vaguelyshaped process whereby representatives transact withsocial interests to produce public policy. Duringelections, representation is conceived of ingeographical terms as the articulation of individualpreferences. After elections, questions of representationshift to functional images of pluralism, of a mobilizedcivil society, of organized interests that attempt toimpact state bureaucratic politics and the need for atransparent, muddling through style of policyimplementation.

EXECUTIVE-LED REPRESENTATION

The power of direct appeals to voters by executiveshas been the most important phenomena of electoralrepresentation in post-transition Brazil. Indeed,presidents have won office across Latin America bybypassing traditional partisan attachments andappealing directly to voters. In Argentina, bothPresidents Alfonsin and Menem won by cross-cuttingthe traditional Peronista/Anti-Peronista cleavage whichhad dominated politics since the 1940s.21 In Mexico,after the monolithic PRI (Partido RevolucionárioInstitutional) was shaken by electoral challenges on theleft and right in the 1988 and 1994 presidentialelections, Presidents Salinas and Zedillo convincedpolitical elites to pursue new vote-getting strategiesthrough a National Program of Solidarity(PRONASOL) that appealed directly to voters(Kaufman,1996; Camp, 1996). In perhaps the mosttroubling example, Alberto Fujimori came from outsidetraditional party organizations to unexpectedly win thePeruvian presidency in November 1991, only to closeCongress and impose a state of emergence in February1992 (Conaghan, 1996; Carrion, 1998).The recentelection of Hugo Chavez to the Venezuelan presidency(former leader of attempted military coups) is anothercompelling example that direct appeals can bypasstraditionally well organized parties.

Further consideration of these direct appeals by

Observations on the Brazilian presidency, democracy and governance

RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999 57

executives is also needed because existing conceptionsof electoral representation from Western Europe andNorth America are seriously impaired.22 Classic ideassuch as mandate, authorization, accountability, andvirtual representation fail to adequately describe howrepresentation works in mass democracies(Pitkin,1968).Theories of geographical anddemographic representation are insufficient becausepublic perceptions now cross-cut traditional cleavages ofclass and region.23 Politicalparties no longer retain thenear monopoly on governancetypical of competitive partysystems for much of the post-war period (Sartori, 1976).And popular identificationswith parties no longer provide the strong links they oncedid because both direct appeals during elections andthe traffic of interests afterward bypass these partisanattachments. Finally, studies of public opinion in NorthAmerica and Europe now emphasize the importanceof top-down appeals, the reality of feedbackmechanisms that make those in power popular, and theexistence of other reciprocal patterns among voters. Allof these developments are at odds with formal liberalviews of electoral representation as the unilateralarticulation of preferences from the bottom up.

Scholars of advanced democratic electorates tend toexplain top-down influences by referring to eliteleadership, to irrational psychological processes amongvoters, or to the manipulation of public opinion throughtechniques of marketing, public relations, and polling.Competitive theories of democracy are accurately labeledelite theories because scholars believe that elites mustform public opinion and influence voter alignment.24

Landmark contributions from Adorno (1950), Lane(1962), and Noelle-Neumann (1984) suggest that theexcessive influence of elites and other top-down realitiesin public opinion are caused by irrationalities amongvoters, whether low ego-strength, repression,displacement, or other underlying psychologicalmechanisms. Recent critical accounts of public opinionargue that party elites in centralized campaignorganizations increasingly manipulate voters throughimproved technologies of political marketing.25 Whilethese perspectives are certainly insightful and relevant inthe Brazilian case, emphasis on elite leadership, masspsychology, and technologies of manipulation fails to fullydevelop the implications of immediate and personalisticconceptions of politics among Brazilian voters, and thereality of direct popular appeals and patronage machinesin Brazilian party-electoral politics.

As noted above, most measures of politicalsophistication in electoral behavior studies fail todescribe changes among Brazilian voters because theyare designed to tap European ideologies or Americannotions of group-interest. According to existing (andwidely debated) levels of conceptualization scales, thecognitive content of Brazilian survey respondents canonly be described by placing responses in residual

categories such as “nature of the times” or “no content”.However, if one unpacks the immediate andpersonalistic conceptions of politics which predominateamong Brazilian voters from within these residualcategories, recent empirical research reveals afundamentally new causal sequence in Brazil: Voterchoice is organized by perceptions of executiveperformance and positions on the national issues of theday, and grounded in conceptions of substantive justicerather than determined by long-term factors such aspolitical socialization, class identity, or partyidentification.26 New concepts about electoralrepresentation and democracy are needed to describethe implications of this sequence. And the problemcannot be disregarded as Brazilian exceptionalism.Complex reciprocal effects, top-down appeals, andfeedback mechanisms of power are also emphasized inrecent empirical studies of electoral behavior.27

The concept of executive-led representationattempts to capture the reality that perceptions andpreferences among Brazilian voters are direct,unmediated, complex, changing, populist, andpersonalistic, but nonetheless linked to matterstraditionally associated with democracy such as directpopular appeals and conceptions of substantive justice.Indeed, the Brazilian experience may be of considerablerelevance elsewhere, given the inability of socialscientists to fully describe politics after the dealignmentof modern, class based cleavages. In Brazil, short-termperceptions of voters directly judge parties, nationalissues, and executive performance, without themoderating influence of civic culture, long-termpolitical socialization, deep class identities, traditionalpolitical ideologies, or party identification.

This argument about electoral behavior also impliesa different view of party-electoral politics in Brazil.

The greater transparency, immediacy, andvolatility of Brazilian public opinion appearto be both cause and consequence of thedifferent trajectory of change in Brazil.

58 RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999

Administração Pública

Contrary to widespread assertions that Brazilian partiesremain underdeveloped, this paper argues that theexecutive-centric presidential and federal system ofBrazil facilitated the direct nomination of partyprofessionals to executive posts and administrativeoffices during the transition period and therebyproduced a rapid and sweeping organization of massparties. As argued above, this experience is not withoutprecedence. The American experience (especiallybefore progressive-era legislation weakened parties) isa more adequate reference because it directs attentionaway from the organizational structures of parties andtoward their electoral practices. W. D. Burnham (1970,p. 10) argues that: “... it is of importance to note thatthe term (party system) relates primarily to what mightbe called voting systems or electoral-politics systemsrather than to organizational structures.”

From the acute observations of Max Weber andJames Bryce to more recent “new politicalhistorians,”28 central aspects of Americanexceptionalism have been defined in terms of itssequence of party systems; the precocious emergenceof mass parties, the predominance of pragmatism,patronage, and a spoils system over ideology, the impactof a presidential instead of parliamentary system, andthe importance of federalism in a new and largecountry.29

Three aspects of American party developmentprovide a fundamentally new perspective on party-electoral politics in Brazil: (1) the importance of directpopular appeals and populism in presidential systems;(2) the capacity of presidents and other executives todirectly nominate partisans to administrative posts, and;(3) the autonomy of local and regional patronagemachines under federalism. Can this trajectory ofchange be called democratization? Positive andnegative views of party politics deeply divide recentdebates about populism, patronage, and mass inclusionin nineteenth century America. Given this polarization,a return to Max Weber ’s classic description ofAmerican party development as passivedemocratization is attractive because it distinguishesthe analytic task of identifying new emergentcharacteristics in politics from the equally importantbut distinct consideration of their normativeimplications.30 Indeed, these mechanisms of partydevelopment (lamented by many in the United States)are even more melancholic in Brazil. Both theplebiscitary appeals of presidential elections and thereorganization of patronage systems into mass partiesappeared extremely late in Brazilian history.Furthermore, political parties, public opinion, andpatterns of governance recently emerged from under

military rule in the context of an extremely state-centricsociety with one of the worst disparities of income inthe world. These differences suggest that recognizingnew patterns of change must be followed by realisticprograms for political reform.

In terms of generating new political leadership,this shift in comparative perspective casts recentdevelopments in a new light. Indeed, the 1994presidential campaign brought to the fore two of themost important new independent leaders of oppositionto military rule in Brazil. After first confronting themilitary regime by leading metalworker strikes in SãoPaulo’s industrial suburbs in the late 1970s, LuizInácio da Silva (Lula) founded and helped lead theWorker’s Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) intothe principal force on the left in Brazilian politicsduring the 1980s and 1990s.31 Fernando HenriqueCardoso’s trajectory is no less innovative. Aninternationally recognized academic, Cardoso firststepped from sociology to the Senate in 1982 andbecame a central figure negotiating transition frommilitary rule (1985) and writing the 1988 Constitution.After machine politicians led by Orestes Quércia (SãoPaulo Governor 1986-1990) asserted control over thenational directorship of the PMDB in 1988 (inexpectation of dominating the 1989 presidential race),Cardoso split to found the Party of Brazilian SocialDemocracy (PSDB) along with other PMDB center-left dissidents. In comparative and historicalperspective, the emergence of a reform president andan independent-left Worker’s Party as loyal oppositionas the two central political forces in Brazil aftertransition from military rule are notable developments.The consecration of Lula and Cardoso in the 1994election suggests that the traditional mechanisms ofparty-electoral politics in Brazil may provide thesetting for the emergence of new leaders and theimplementation of economic and political reforms.

In 1994, the traditional mechanisms of party-electoral politics in Brazil – direct popular appealsand alliances with patronage machines – accuratelydescribe Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s ability to winthe presidency in first-round voting on November 15.Both the electoral alliance and governing coalitionbetween Cardoso’s PSDB (Partido da SocialDemocracia Brasileira) and the conservative PFL(Partido da Frente Liberal) have received significantcriticism from partisans, journalists, and Brazilianintellectuals. Even Cardoso’s 1994 campaign managerfeared that because of the traditional conservativecharacter of the PFL, core supporters from southeasturban areas would shift to the Worker’s Party if thecampaign had gone into a second round.32 However,

Observations on the Brazilian presidency, democracy and governance

RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999 59

these concerns in June 1994 soon gave way due to thesuccessful reduction of inflation, the immensepopularity of the newly stabilized currency (Real), andthe significant redistribution of wealth secured bygovernment policies.

The lack of political resolution before 1994 arosein great part because the 1989 presidential contest washeld outside the historical norm and in isolation fromlegislative and gubernatorial elections. The centralprinciple behind Assis Brasil’s formula for electoralrepresentation is to counter the plebiscitarian tendenciesof direct executive elections by combining separateelection of legislators through quite liberal rules ofproportional representation.33

Fernando Collor de Mello (arelatively unknown governor fromthe small northeast state of Alagoas)was thereby able to dominate thefirst six months of the campaignthrough television appearances anddenunciations of bureaucratic abuse.After Collor reached over 45 percentin preference polls by June, herefused to participate in the live television debates ofthe first round (accurately reflecting the damagingprospects of sustained attacks from adversaries). Collorwon over 28 percent in first round voting, with Inácioda Silva (Lula), the candidate for Partido dosTrabalhadores (Worker’s Party, PT) entering the runoffelection with 16 percent. While Lula dominated the firsttelevision debate of the second round and surged inthe polls to tie Collor only ten days before theDecember 15 vote, the Worker’s Party candidate failedto dominate the second debate as he did the first andwas unable to counter the damaging effect of negativeadvertising in the final days of the campaign. Collorconvinced voters that a victory of Luiz Inácio da Silvaand the PT would destabilize society and turn Brazilaway from a liberalizing world by mounting a series ofpersonal and political attacks seven days before thefinal election. On December 15, Collor received35,089,998 votes (42.7 percent), defeating Lula with31,076,364 votes (37.8 percent).

The sheer velocity and range of fluctuations amongvoter’s intentions during recent presidential campaignssuggest the more volatile, plebiscitarian, executive-centric character of electoral representation in Brazil.During the 1989 contest, Fernando Collor de Mello’sratings in the polls rose rapidly to 45 percent, then fellto 28 percent in the first round. In 1994, Worker’s Partycandidate Luiz Inácio da Silva fell from a high pointof 42 percent in polls taken on 1 May to 22 percent ina poll on 30 September, accurately reflecting his final

share of the vote. Fernando Henrique Cardoso’strajectory in opinion polls from 16 percent of voterspreferences on 3 May to 48 percent on 30 Septemberis even greater. During the 1998 contest, FernandoHenrique Cardoso started at 41 percent of voters’preferences in late April, dropped to 33 percent in lateMay, and increased steadily thereafter until receiving55 percent of votes in the first round on October 3.This velocity and range of change among votersintentions in Brazil is considerably greater than theglacial shifts of between 3 to 5 percent whichtraditionally occur during national electoral campaignsin Europe.34

In sum, electoral representation in Brazil is moredirect, unmediated, fluid, and both tied to politicalpersonali t ies and underlying conceptions ofsubstantive justice. While the populist traditionendowed Brazilian state-society relations with thisgreater transparency and immediacy, thesecharacteristics are not simply a consequence of thenations past. Recent universal trends toward directpopular appeals by executives and media-orientedelectioneering means that voters now tend to judgecandidates, issues, economic performance, andpolitical parties directly, without the moderatinginfluences so important in the past such as politicalideologies, notions of group interest, or other long-term identifications with party or class.35 The liberaland democratic tradition needs to consider morecarefully the implications of direct popular appealsfor conceptions of electoral representation.

PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNANCE ASMUDDLING THROUGH POLICY MAKING

New concepts are also needed to describe newpatters of presidential governance in Brazil. After aninitial period of caretaker government under PresidentJose Sarney from 1985-1989, and a period ofplebiscitarian adventurism with President FernandoCollor de Mello from 1990-1992, the Franco (1992-1994) and Cardoso (1994-present) administrations havepursued new patterns of open economic policy making.

The power of direct appeals to voters byexecutives has been the most importantphenomena of electoral representationin post-transition Brazil.

60 RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999

Administração Pública

After a decade of high inflation, foreign debt, andnegative per-capita growth, the success of gradual,inclusive, and transparent approaches to policy makingsuggests that open, pluralistic governance and effectiveeconomic policy are compatible.36 Moreover, thefailure of seven economic packages from 1985-1994to reduce inflation, adjust the economy, and providesustainable growth suggests that centralized policymaking by technocratic teams of economists inexecutive offices failed to secure the political

conditions for policy implementation. All seveneconomic packages were designed in secret andannounced unexpectedly to shock inflationaryexpectations, freeze prices and wages, and haltspeculative market forces in financial and currencyexchange markets. Although plans and their economicconsequences differed, a common and critical weaknesswas their lack of support among politicians, thebusiness community, labor, and (after the 1986 PlanoCruzado under José Sarney) an increasing popularcynicism about dramatic economic initiatives.

For example, the Collor administration (1990-1992)revealed both the power of presidents to initiate policyand the need to negotiate with political and socialactors. At inauguration in March 1990, Brazil facednear hyperinflation and its first decade of negative per-capita growth since 1945. Nine months later, fewdoubted the ability of Brazilian presidents to initiateand implement policy. President Collor reassertedexecutive authority and shocked investors on 16 March1990 (the day after inauguration) with a comprehensiveplan to reduce inflation, lower the federal deficit,liberalize trade, and modernize the economy. Anddespite his party’s controlling only five percent of theFederal Chamber upon inauguration, President Collorconfiscated an estimated 80 percent of Brazil’s liquidfinancial assets by decree. His administration quicklyachieved short-term economic policy goals, producinggovernment surpluses, lower interest rates, longer termsfor government paper, and a stable exchange rate.Furthermore, the new administration received strongsupport throughout 1990 from the media and public

(confiscated savings were returned), faced virtually nocongressional or social opposition, and overrodegovernors who were more concerned about successionin their states than organizing national opposition atthe end of their term. But President Collor’s policyachievements were only temporary. A central cause ofreturning inflation was the inability of President Collorto secure a national agreement on wage and priceguidelines with business and labor in September 1990.37

In sum, while the economics were right, the politicswere wrong. The failure ofPresident Collor’s bold policyinitiatives arose from hisinability to maintainintermediary links betweenstate and society throughnegotiations with politicalparties, and interestorganizations of business,labor, and other groups.

President Collor ’simpeachment in late 1992 suggests that directpresidential appeals must be linked to not only viablepolicies of economic adjustment, but also sustainednegotiations with the diverse representatives of politicaland civil society. On 29 September 1992 the BrazilianChamber of Deputies voted 441 to 38 to suspendPresident Fernando Collor de Mello from office andinitiate a formal trial in the Senate, 76 of 81 of whomsubsequently voted on December 29-30 forimpeachment.38 This unprecedented removal of aBrazilian president began in May 1992 when Collor’sbrother accused the president of extensive involvementin corruption, use of campaign funds for private ends,and participation in the influence peddling organizedby his 1989 campaign finance manager. Theimpeachment of Collor also neutralized campaigns forthe adoption of parliamentary government in theplebiscite held on 21 April 1993. Instead, 55.4 percentof voters chose to maintain the presidential form ofgovernment, while 66.0 percent chose to maintain aRepublic.39

Soon after the referendum in which Brazilianschose to retain presidential institutions, ForeignMinister Fernando Henrique Cardoso was called onby then President Itamar Franco (Collor’s Vice-President) to accept the Ministério da Fazenda, on 21May 1993, a post he retained until assuming campaignduties full-time in May 1994. Far from proposingdramatic initiatives or unveiling economic packages,Cardoso sought to assure business leaders and thepublic that their lives and investments would no longerbe submitted to a sequence of government plans which

Scholars of advanced democratic electoratestend to explain top-down influences byreferring to elite leadership, to irrationalpsychological processes among voters, publicrelations, and polling.

Observations on the Brazilian presidency, democracy and governance

RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999 61

tend to radically alter prices, incomes, savings,currency exchange rates, and investment returns.Indeed, by 1993 Brazilians appear to have tired ofdramatic initiatives. Since transition to civilian rulein 1985, seven major policy packages and innumerableintermediate adjustments were unexpectedly imposedby the federal government.

Instead, Cardoso adopted a gradualist approachfocusing on fiscal reform, monetary restraint, and theneed for more transparent public view of the economicpolicy process. Repeated ministerial appearances in themedia assured Brazilians that inflation was high butstable, that the government was not going to freezewages and prices or confiscate savings, that draconianadjustment policies would be averted. Indeed, theachievements of Cardoso as economic minister oftenappeared piecemeal, even minor if compared to thedramatic sequence of economic packages preceding histenure. For example, fiscal reform was first secured bynegotiating legislative support for a 15 percentreduction of constitutionally mandated transfers fromthe federal government to states and municipalities inlate February 1994. Cardoso subsequently sought tounify the profusion of financial instruments used as defacto currencies because they index against inflation.The Unidade Real de Valor (Real Value Unit, URV)was designed to become a single measure of inflationthat could be readjusted daily by the government.

Focusing the attention of investors and the publicon a single government index permitted Cardoso andhis economic team to gradually ratchet downinflationary expectations by setting and subsequentlymeeting realistic fiscal and monetary performancetargets. By May 9, Cardoso was able to accompany theannouncement that a new currency would be launchedon July 1 (made by his successor at the Ministry ofFazenda). This demonstrated once again theeffectiveness of publicizing policy measures well aheadof time rather than attempting to shock inflation out ofthe economy by unexpectedly unveiling secreteconomic packages. The stabilization of the newcurrency, the Real, quickly began to symbolize thesuccess of this gradualist approach in reducing inflationand projected Cardoso into the presidential race.

The popular appeal of Cardoso’s tenure as Ministerwas based on the significant redistribution of wealthto poor Brazilians which the Real Plan produced. Notonly did inflation fall, but also real wages increased anestimated 20 percent during the first six months afterthe plan (June-December 1994). Furthermore, the realincome of poor Brazilians increased an estimated 50percent during this period because of the end ofinflationary losses to salaries and government effortsto secure the prices of subsistence goods.40

Indeed, at an international conference on povertyin Amsterdam, Cardoso’s Minister of Education Renato

MONTHLY INFLATION RATE (%)

Comparison with previous stabilization plans

Figure 1 – Monthly inflation rate

62 RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999

Administração Pública

de Souza claimed that over 15 billion USD had beentransferred from the financial sector to poor Brazilianssince the Real Plan reduced inflation. Thisredistributive impact of economic policy reflects thedirect, transparent, and plebiscitarian character ofpoli t ics in Brazil ; economic policy generateswidespread public support when it has substantiveimpact. Given the sustained pessimism throughoutNorth America and Europe about the necessity ofincurring high social costs during economicadjustment since the end of Keynesian consensus, thereduction of inflation while positively redistributingwealth is a notable development worthy of greaterattention abroad.

Understanding how the Franco and Cardosoadministrations reduced inflation without imposingsevere measures of fiscal and monetary austerityrequires recognition of the specific context and causesof inflation in Brazil. Recent economic theories ofinertial inflation, largely based on the persistent highinflation in major Latin American countries during the1980s, are correct to the extent that they emphasizethe indexation of prices, wages, and financialinstruments as causes of high and relatively stableinflation.41 Since the mid-1980s in Brazil, business,finance, and virtually all asset-holders had shiftedassets to savings and investments indexed againstinflation. In other words, de facto currencies pervaded

the Brazilian economy in the 1980s. Consequently,inflation no longer affected business, finance, and asset-holders in ways expected by traditional economictheory. Indeed, the persistent reduction of real wagesin the face of high inflation throughout the 1980s andearly 1990s was functional for the market economy inthe short-term because it transferred wealth away fromwage and salary earners and toward asset holders.While theories of inertial inflation correctly identifiedcauses, their new policies failed to keep inflation downbecause of an exclusive policy making style and thelack of political negotiations to buttress broad plans offiscal and monetary reform.

In sum, after five years of policy drift, failedpackages, and record inflation under the caretakerpresidency of José Sarney from 1985-1990 and the falseheroics of Fernando Collor de Mello from 1990-1992,the virtues of muddling through permitted FernandoHenrique Cardoso not only to set the stage for reducinginflation without orthodox austerity, but also set post-transition politics on a new footing. And while theconsiderable popularity of the Cardoso presidency hasbeen built on the redistribution of wealth to the poorduring the Real Plan, only time will tell if these one-time gains achieved during disinflation can beconverted into more permanent principles andinstitutions of democracy. Time and further researchare needed. But the character of both governance and

BASIC CONSUMER BASKET

AND THE MINIMUM WAGE

Figure 2 – Basic consumer basket and the minimum wage

Observations on the Brazilian presidency, democracy and governance

RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999 63

state-led representation in post-transition Brazil differsignificantly from existing theories in comparativepolitics and economics. Contrary to those seeking broadconstitutional reform or economic policy-packages(whether neo-liberal or heterodox), and contrary tozero-sum conceptions that set democratization againstsound economic policy, recent successes have beenbased on muddling through. New concepts of statecraft,leadership, political creativity, and governance arerequired to capture this open, negotiated, and muddlingthrough character of politicsand economic policy.

CONCLUSION

The opportunity toconstruct cross-nationaltheories about democracy hasnever been greater. But tomeet this opportunity, scholarsmust avert elevating idealized images of the northwestEuropean experience to measure political change inother regions. Instead, political scientists must conductempirical research and develop new concepts thatcommunicate new developments in the wide variety ofpost-transition contexts. Empirical analysis of Brazil hasplayed a critical part in past conceptual breakthroughswith terms such as bureaucratic authoritarianism,dependent development, civil society empowerment, andtransitions from authoritarian rule. The first meeting ofthe ABCP is a propitious moment to challenge politicalscientists to create new empirically grounded conceptsand theories that capture new patterns of democracy andeconomic policy in Brazil.

The open and pluralist conception of governanceat the center of this paper implies that the bestpolicies and practices emerge not from the bureausof policy planning in Washington, Brasília, or statecapi ta ls , but f rom the day-to-day work ofprofessional politicians, mobilized citizens, andactive civil-society organizations. An open, pluralistconcept ion of governance that emphasizesnegotiation rather than planning, and the opentransaction of social and political interests duringpol icy implementat ion are needed to counterwidespread assumptions about the zero-sum relationbetween democrat izat ion and effect ive policymaking. Unfortunately, democracy is seen aspresenting significant risks to sound economicpolicy, from conceptions of governability crisis inthe 1970s (Crozier et al., 1975), through recent doubtsabout the ability of elected governments in LatinAmerica to impose sufficiently tough measures of

monetary and fiscal reform (Williamson, 1990). Tothe contrary, the gradual, inclusive, and transparentapproach to policy making in post-transition Brazilsuggests that open, pluralistic governance canproduce effective economic policy.

Conceptual innovation is urgently needed to avertthe Euro-centrism and liberal-reformism that often biasanalysis.42 Recent calls for the adoption ofparliamentary government or the reform of party andelectoral politics echo earlier initiatives of political

scientists in their insistence on improving governmentby concentrating decision-making in the executive.From progressive-era reformers that sought to recastAmerican politics in the first decade of this century,through the 1950 Supplement to the American PoliticalScience Review that called for a more responsible partysystem, reformers have, paradoxically, sought tocentralize governance and exclude the input of popularsectors. Indeed, the consequence of liberal reforms isoften to centralize power and distance government fromrepresentative and/or electoral institutions.Furthermore, while the object of liberal-reformismchanges, the underlying presuppositions about politicsappear to remain the same. Direct popular appeals areinferior to rational debate among elites. Representativegovernment is superior to direct democracy. Thegrievances of individual citizens are often disregardedas excessive particularism and patronage. Andinstitutions of government must function as theirorganograms describe. Liberal-reformism first definesgood government, representation, democracy, orcongressional behavior in idealized terms, then seeksto remake reality in this image. This may be a bluntdescription of working methods, but the differencebetween this tendency and the positivist tradition ofsocial science could not be greater. Concepts, theories,and hypotheses must constantly be tested throughempirical analysis; yet liberal-reformers often seek toremake politics in the light of their theories rather thanrevise their theories in the light of actual events.

A final conclusion that follows from these concernsis that generalizations about politics need to be basedon a wider sample of national and regional

Electoral representation in Brazil is moredirect, unmediated, fluid, and both tied topolitical personalities and underlyingconceptions of substantive justice.

64 RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999

Administração Pública

ADORNO, Theodore et al. The authoritarian personality.New York: Harper & Row, 1950.

BURNHAM, Walter D. Critical elections and themainsprings of American politics. New York: Norton,1970. p. 10.

CAMP, Roderic (Ed.). Polling for democracy: public opinionand political liberalization in Mexico. Wilmington, DL: SRBooks, 1996.

CARRION, Julio. Partisan decline and Presidentialpopularity: the politics and economics of representation inPeru, 1980-1993. In: METTENHEIM, Kurt von, MALLOY,James (Eds.). Deepening democracy in Latin America.Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998.

COLLIER, David, LEVITSKY, Steven. Democracy withadjectives: conceptual innovation in comparative research.World Politics, v. 49, n. 3, p. 430-451, Apr. 1997.

CONAGHAN, Catherine. Public life in the times of AlbertoFujimori. Washington, D.C.: Latin American ProgramPapers, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,1996.

REFERENCES

CROZIER, Michael et al. The crisis of democracy. New York:New York University Press, 1975.

FRIEDRICH, Carl. The impact of the American Constitutionabroad. Boston: Boston University Press, 1967.

KAUFMAN, Robert. Regionalism, regime transformation,and PRONASOL: the politics of the national solidarity programin four Mexican states. New York: Columbia University Institutefor Latin American and Iberian Studies Working Papers, 1996.

LANE, Robert. Political ideology. New York: Free Press, 1962.

LINZ, Juan, VALENZUELA, Arturo (Eds.). The failure ofPresidential democracy in Latin America. Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1994.

MALLOY, James. Conclusion. In: MALLOY, James, SELIGSON,Mitchell (Eds). Authoritarians and democrats in LatinAmerica. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987.p. 235-258.

METTENHEIM, Kurt von (Ed.). Presidential institutions anddemocratic politics: comparing regional and nationalcontexts. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

METTENHEIM, Kurt von, MALLOY, James (Eds.). Deepeningdemocracy in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University ofPittsburgh Press, 1998.

NOELLE-NEUMANN, Elizabeth. The spiral of silence.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

O’DONNELL, Guillermo. Illusions about consolidation.Journal of Democracy, v. 7, n. 2, p. 34-51, 1996.

PITKIN, Hanna. The concept of representation. Berkeley,University of California Press, 1968.

SARTORI, Giovanni. Parties and party systems. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1976.

SOUZA, Maria C. C. de. Estado e partidos políticos noBrasil: 1930-1964. São Paulo: Alfa Ômega, 1976.

WILLIAMSON, John. Latin American adjustment:how much has happened? Washington, D.C. Institutefor International Economics, 1990.

NOTES

Paper presented to the I Encontro da Associação Brasileirade Ciência Política, 17-20 December 1998, Rio de Janeiro.

1. For a recent cross-regional analysis, see: LINZ, Juan,STEPAN, Alfred. Problems of democratic transition andconsolidation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,1996.

2. Note Guillermo O’Donnell’s call for positive concepts andtheories based on empirical analysis of post-transitionexperiences in the global south and east. See: O’Donnell(1996).

3. Since the Trilateral Commission report in the mid-1970s,social scientists tend to set democratization and governancein zero-sum terms. See: Crozier et al. (1975).

4. Note the scepticism about democracy and economicpolicy in: Williamson (1990) and DORNBUSCH, Rudiger,EDWARDS, Sebastian. The macroeconomics of populismin Latin America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,1991.

5. On conceptual innovation in comparative politicalanalysis, see: Collier & Levitsky (1997). On the need forcomparative political analysts to construct an empiricallygrounded, positive theory of democracy in the post-ColdWar and post-transition world, see: O’Donnell (1996).

6. On democracy and governance, see: CONAGHAN, Catherine,MALLOY, James. Unsettling statecraft: democracy and neo-liberalism in the Central Andes. Pittsburgh: University ofPittsburgh Press, 1994; MARCH, James G., OLSEN, John P.Democratic governance. New York: Free Press, 1995 andDOMINGUEZ, Jorge I., LOWENTHAL, Abraham (Eds.).Constructing democratic governance: Latin America andthe Caribbean in the 1990s. Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1996.

7. On inertial inflation, see: BRESSER PEREIRA, Luiz C.,NAKAMO, Yoshiaki. The Theory of Inertial Inflation: Thefoundation of economic reform in Brazil and Argentina.Boulder: L. Rienner, 1987.

8. See also: LIJPHART, Arend. Parliamentary versusPresidential Government. New York: Oxford University Press,1992 and STEPAN, Alfred, SKATCH, Cindy. Constitutionalframeworks and democratic consolidation: parliamentarismversus presidentialism. World Politics, v. 46, n. 1, p. 1-22,Oct. 1993.

9. On critical elections and realignments in American politics,see: KEY, V. O. A theory of critical elections. Journal of Politics,v. 17, p.3-18, 1950 and CHAMBERS, William N., BURNHAM,W. D. The American party systems. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1967.

10. Sartori (1976) remains the classic comparative analysisof the emergence, consolidation, and functioning of politicalparty systems.

11. Max Weber notes: “That the plebiscitary ‘machine’ hasdeveloped so early in America is due to the fact that there,and there alone, the executive — this is what mattered —the chief office of patronage, was a president elected byplebiscite.” (GERTH, Hans, MILLS, C. W. (Eds.). Politics asa vocation. In: WEBER, Max. Essays in Sociology. New York:Oxford University Press, 1946. p. 108). What were theconsequences? Weber is also unequivocal: “...the Germansperfected the rational, functional, and specializedbureaucratic organization of all forms of domination fromfactory to army and public administration. For the time beingthe Germans have been outdone only in the techniques ofparty organization, especially by the Americans.” (Gerth &Mills, 1946). See also: OSTROGORSKI, M. I. Democracy

and the organization of political parties in the United

States and Great Britain. Garden City: Doubleday, 1964abridged and BRYCE, James. The American

Commonwealth. New York: Macmillan, 1907.

experiences.43 Unless political scientists carefully sortout similarities and differences across nation and region,theories and concepts risk will continue to elevate theEuropean or American experience to the status of auniversal paradigm. The political and social sciencesneed to develop empirically grounded concepts thatcommunicate the variety of new experiences that arecurrently redefining the risks and opportunitiesassociated with governance through popular inclusion(Collier & Levitsky, 1997). In this regard, Brazilianpolitical scientists are uniquely situated. For the core

issues of post-transition politics will emerge not amongthe nations at the core of the capitalist system, but frompolitical innovation at the periphery. And no country hasthe unique combination of cultural, economic, andpolitical creativity at the periphery first described byMário de Andrade as antropofágica. I therefore concludeby hoping that the participants of the first meeting ofthe Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política may createa rich variety of concepts and theories about Braziliandemocracy that avert the errors of Euro-centrism andthe excesses of liberal-reformism. �

Observations on the Brazilian presidency, democracy and governance

RAE • v. 39 • n. 3 • Jul./Set. 1999 65

12. Walter D. Burnham argues not only that V. O. Key’spathbreaking concept of critical elections provides a broadtheory of political change in American history, but also thatthe wave of populism and party mobilization in the latenineteenth century (reversed by progressive-era legislation)was a lost opportunity for party building and popular inclusion(BURNHAM, Walter D. The current crisis in Americanpolitics. New York, Oxford University Press, 1982.).

13. Liberal-reformism has pervaded American politicalthought from Woodrow Wilson and progressive-erareformers, through calls for a more responsible two partysystem in the 1950s. And despite considerable evidenceto the contrary, critics of presidentialism in post-transitioncontexts continue to cite divided government as a vice.See: WILSON, Woodrow. Congressional government: astudy in American politics. New York: Houghton Mifflin,1900, TOWARD a more responsible two party system.American Political Science Review, v. 44, 1950.Supplement and Linz & Valenzuela (1994).

14. Scales of political conceptualizations are typologies ofhow individuals think about politics. Since Campbell(CAMPBELL, Angus et al. The American voter. New York,Wiley, 1960) and Converse’s ground-breaking work citedbelow, the accepted level of conceptualization scalecontained four categories: ideologues, near ideologues,group interest, nature of the times, and a residual categoryof no content (CONVERSE, Phillip. The nature of beliefsystems in mass publics. In: APTER, David (Ed.). Ideologyand consent. New York: Free Press, 1964. p. 206-256).

15. See: PAGE, Benjamin, SHAPIRO, Robert. The rationalpublic. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992 andPOPKIN, Samuel. The reasoning voter: communication andpersuasion in presidential campaigns. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1991.

16. Negative definitions, argues O’Donnell (1996, p. 39):“shift attention away from building typologies of polyarchieson the basis of the specific, positively described traits ofeach type.”

17. O’Donnell (1996, p. 38) notes: “these studies (ofdemocratic institutions) presuppose, as their comparativeyardstick, a generic and somewhat idealized view of theold polyarchies. The meaning of such a yardstick perplexesme: often it is unclear whether it is something like anaverage of characteristics observed within the set of oldpolyarchies, or an ideal type..., or a generalization.., or anormative statement of preferred traits.”

18. On party-electoral politics during the Empire, see:GRAHAM, Richard. Patronage and politics in nineteenthcentury Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990;BEIGUELMAN, Paula. A formação política do Brasil. SãoPaulo, Pioneiro, 1973 and VIANNA, Oliveira. As instituiçõespolíticas brasileiras. Rio de Janeiro: Nacional, 1954.

19. On the adoption of federalism during the Old Republic(1889-1930), see: SOUZA, Maria C. C. de. O processo político-partidário na Primeira República. In: MOTTA, Carlos G. (Ed.).Brasil em perspectiva. São Paulo: Difel, 1984. p. 162-226and LOVE, Joseph. São Paulo in the Brazilian Federation,1889-1937. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980.

20. Juan Linz insightfully describes the coexistence ofdirectly elected governors and military federal governmentfrom 1982-1985 as a situation of diarchy or dual power(LINZ, Juan. The transition from an authoritarian regimeto democracy in Spain: some thoughts for Brazilians. YaleUniversity, 1983 (memo). Rather than a means for selectingnew civilian political elites, during Brazil’s “Long Road ofLiberalization” elections served as mechanisms, first formilitary elites to liberalize their rule, then for negotiationsbetween military leaders and opposition groups. See:SKIDMORE, Thomas. The politics if military rule in Brazil,1964-1985. New York: Oxford, 1988.

21. On party-electoral politics in post-transition Argentina,see: CATTERBERG, Edgardo. Argentina confronts politics:political culture and public opinion in the Argentine transitionto democracy. Boulder: Lynn Rienner Publishers, 1991 andGIBSON, Edward L. Class and conservative parties:Argentina in comparative perspective, Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1996.

22. Since the dealignment of class and party cleavages in the1960s, scholars of European public opinion have struggled todevelop new concepts and theories. See: RUSSELL, Dalton etal. Electoral change in the advanced industrial democracies:realignment or dealignment? Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1983 and INGLEHART, Ronald. Culture shift in advancedindustrial society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.

23. On change and transparency in public opinion, see:INGLEHART, Ronald. Aggregate stability and individual level fluxin mass belief systems: the level of analysis paradox. AmericanPolitical Science Review, v. 79, p. 97-116, 1985.

24. On Deutch’s rather bucolic model of elite influence as aseries of cascading pools and other theories of elite influenceaccording to competitive theories of democracy, see: SARTORI,Giovanni. The theory of democracy revisited. Chatham, NJ:Chatham House, 1987 and DEUTSCH, Karl. The analysis ofinternational relations. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1968.p. 101-110.

25. For example: MARGOLIS, Michael, MAUSER, Gary.Manipulating public opinion: essays on public opinion as adependent variable. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1989 andGINSBERG, Benjamin. The captive public: how mass opinionpromotes state power. New York: Basic Papers, 1986.

26. The traditional model of public opinion and voter choice inadvanced democracies relies on the following causal sequence:Long-term factors such as political socialization, class-basedidentities, and party identification mediate (moderate) short-termshifts in public opinion caused by perceptions of economicperformance, candidate personality, and new political issues. See:CAMPBELL, Angus et al. The American voter. New York, Wiley,1960. On the continued influence of this traditional model in currentresearch, see: ASHER, Herbert. Voting behavior research in the1980s: an examination of some old and new problem areas. In:FINIFTER, Ada (Ed.). Political science: the state of the discipline.Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1983.

27. See: KINDER, Donald. Diversity and complexity in Americanpublic opinion. In: FINIFTER, Ada (Ed.). Political science: thestate of discipline. Washington, DC: American Political ScienceAssociation, 1983. A critical contribution toward capturingcausal complexity is: PAGE, Benjamin and JONES, Calvin.Reciprocal effects of policy preferences, party loyalties, andthe vote. American Political Science Review, v. 73, p. 1071-1089, 1979.

28. For a review of the “new political history,” see: KLEPPNER,Paul. Beyond the “new political history”: a review essay.Historical Methods Newsletter, v. 6, p. 17-26, Dec. 1972.Central contributions include: BURNHAM, Walter D. Thecurrent crisis in American politics. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1982; CONVERSE, Phillip E. Change in theAmerican universe. In: CAMPBELL, Angus, PHILLIP E. (Eds.).The human meaning of social change. New York: RussellSage Foundation, 1973. KLEPPNER, Paul. The cross ofculture: a social analysis of Midwestern politics, 1850-1900.New York: Free Press, 1970. JENSEN, Richard. The winningof the Midwest: social and political conflict, 1888-1896.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.

29. On differences between European and American politicaldevelopment, see: HUNTINGTON, Samuel. Political order inchanging societies. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.Ch. 2.

30. Weber discusses the passive element in the organization ofAmerican politics in: GERTH, Hans, MILLS, C. W. (Eds.). Politicsas a vocation. In: WEBER, Max. Essays in Sociology. New York:Oxford University Press, 1946. p. 113 and WEBER,Max.Parliament and Government in a Reconstructed Germany.In: WEBER, Max. Economy and society. Berkeley:University ofCalifornia Press,1978. p.1398-1402.

31. On the Worker’s Party, see: KECK, Margaret. The Workers’Party and democratization in Brazil. New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1992.

32. According to Brazilian electoral legislation, executivecontests require a second round unless a candidate wins over50 percent plus one of valid votes (not including blank/nullballots), or unless the votes received by a candidate exceed thesum of votes for all other candidates.

33. Since 1932, the Brazilian electoral code has used thismechanism first proposed by Assis Brasil in 1897(Democracia representativa. Rio de Janeiro: ImprensaNacional, 1931).

34. On electoral stability and change in Europe, see:BARTOLINI, S., MAIR, Peter. Identity, competition andelectoral availability. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1990.

35. Caveats are in order. First, far from a single patternthroughout Latin America, differences matter. Educatedpublics in Argentina and Chile may be closer to Europeanvoters. See: VALENZUELA, J. Samuel, SCULLY, Timothy.Electoral choices and the party system in Chile: continuitiesand changes at the recovery of democracy. ComparativePolitics, v. 29, n.4, July 1997. More established party systemssuch as Colombia and Venezuela may retain have producedstrong party identification among voters. See: BALOYRA,Enrique. Deepening democracy with dominant parties andpresidentialism: the Venezuelan regime in a period ofturbulence. In: Mettenheim & Malloy (1998) and HARTLYN,Jonathan. The politics of coalition rule in Colombia.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. And electoralpolitics in Central America appears to depend less on mediaimages and other patterns typical of mass society(DOMINGUEZ, Jorge I., LINDENBERG, Marc. Democratictransitions in Central America. Gainesville, FL: UniversityPress of Florida, 1997. Nonetheless, direct popular appealsthrough the media appear to increasingly influence voters inthe region. See: SKIDMORE, Thomas (Ed.). Television,politics, and the transition to democracy in Latin America.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

36. On post-transition economic policy and democracy, see:NELSON, Joan (Ed.). Intricate links: democratic politicsand market reform in Latin America and Eastern Europe.New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994 and HAGGARD,Stephan, KAUFMAN, Robert R. The political economy ofdemocratic transitions. Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1995.

37. While social pacts were critical for imposing economicadjustment in Mexico and Argentina, Brazil lacks thecorporatist organizations or political parties capable ofenforcing pacts. Collor’s appeals for a national understandingwith labor and business also failed because of poor politicaltiming; the government sought to organize a pact as inflationincreased and the recession deepened. On pacts, see:O’DONNELL, Guillermo, SCHMITTER, Philippe, WHITEHEAD,Laurence (Eds.). Transitions from authoritarian rule:Southern Europe and Latin America. Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1986 and HIGLEY, Jon, GUNTHER,Richard (Eds.). Elites and democratic consolidation in LatinAmerica and Southern Europe. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1992.

38. On the impeachment process, see: WEYLAND, Kurt. Therise and fall of President Collor and its impact on Braziliandemocracy. Journal of Interamerican Studies and WorldAffairs, v. 35, n. 1, p. 1-37, 1993.

39. On the plebiscite to choose form of government, see:LAMOUNIER, Bolivar. Brazil: Towards Parliamentarism? In:Linz & Valenzuela (1994).

40. Estimates from the Fundação Instituto de PesquisasEconômicas da Universidade de São Paulo andDepartamento Intersindical de Estatística e EstudosSocioeconômicos (Dieese) reported in Folha de S. Paulo,Mar. 26, 1995, Section 2, p. 5.

41. On inertial inflation, see: BRESSER PEREIRA, Luiz C.,NAKAMO, Yoshiaki. The Theory of Inertial Inflation: thefoundation of economic reform in Brazil and Argentina.Boulder: L. Rienner, 1987.

42. On liberal assumptions, see: PACKENHAM, Robert A.Liberal America and the Third World: political developmentideas in foreign aid and social science. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1973.

43. On the implications of national and regional contextsfor comparative political analysis, see: Mettenheim (1997).