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3 results

  • Why Didn’t Brazilian Democracy Die?

  • Marcus André Melo, Carlos Pereira
  • Journal:
    Latin American Politics and Society , FirstView
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    19 March 2024, pp. 1-27
    • Article
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  • Brazil, for many scholars and pundits, showcased the risk of democratic breakdown with the election of a far-right populist like Jair Bolsonaro. Against pessimistic expectations, however, not only has Brazilian democracy survived but politics has returned to business as usual. What can explain this supposedly unanticipated outcome? This article provides an analytical assessment of this this puzzle and offers an alternative explanation. We argue that both the diagnoses of Brazilian institutions and the predictions made were misguided. We explore the role played by the Supreme Court, party system, media, and congressional politics in restricting Bolsonaro’s illiberal initiatives.

  • 1 - How Democracies Endure

  • from Part I - Why Might Polarization Harm Democracy?
  • Edited by Robert C. Lieberman, Suzanne Mettler, Cornell University, New York, Kenneth M. Roberts, Cornell University, New York
  • Book:
    Democratic Resilience
    Published online:
    20 November 2021
    Print publication:
    25 November 2021, pp 3-34

  • Summary

    Politics in the United States has become more polarized in recent decades as both political elites and everyday citizens have been divided into rival and mutually antagonistic partisan camps. Increasingly, these rival camps question the political legitimacy and democratic commitments of the other side. Such polarization or “teamsmanship” can have a number of important political consequences: it can drive actors further apart, intensify political conflict, impede negotiation and compromise, and block the construction of bipartisan legislative and policymaking coalitions. Since polarization makes it difficult, if not impossible, to find common political ground, it can prevent democratic institutions from making important policy choices and responding to the critical issues of the day. Polarization, in short, can easily lead to democratic gridlock, paralysis, the decay of rights, and, in the extreme, violent conflict, as the Trump administration’s waning weeks so vividly demonstrated.

Democratic Resilience
  • Can the United States Withstand Rising Polarization?
  • Edited by Robert C. Lieberman, Suzanne Mettler, Kenneth M. Roberts
  • Published online:
    20 November 2021
    Print publication:
    25 November 2021
  • Politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized in recent decades. Both political elites and everyday citizens are divided into rival and mutually antagonistic partisan camps, with each camp questioning the political legitimacy and democratic commitments of the other side. Does this polarization pose threats to democracy itself? What can make some democratic institutions resilient in the face of such challenges? Democratic Resilience brings together a distinguished group of specialists to examine how polarization affects the performance of institutional checks and balances as well as the political behavior of voters, civil society actors, and political elites. The volume bridges the conventional divide between institutional and behavioral approaches to the study of American politics and incorporates historical and comparative insights to explain the nature of contemporary challenges to democracy. It also breaks new ground to identify the institutional and societal sources of democratic resilience.