Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0050/00504.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 31KB | 485 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00504}
$Pretitle{220}
$Title{Brazil
Chapter 4A.   Government and Politics}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{James D. Rudolf}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{president
military
government
federal
constitution
state
executive
congress
courts
political}
$Date{1982}
$Log{Plaza of the Three Powers*0050401.scf
Figure 8.*0050403.scf
}
Country:     Brazil
Book:        Brazil, A Country Study
Author:      James D. Rudolf
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 4A.   Government and Politics

[See Plaza of the Three Powers: Buildings of Congress in the Plaza of the
Three Powers (Brasilia); architect: Oscar Niemeyer]

     The Brazilian Political System in 1982 was in a crucial stage of a
process of liberalization from military dictatorship to what promised to be,
sometime within the coming decade, a return to liberal democracy directed by
civilians. The political dynamics of this process, known as abertura
(literally, opening), involved the interaction of popular pressure from below
and, from above, the extensive powers of the executive branch of government
and its coercive mechanism, both of which remained in the hands of the armed
forces. Although abertura was protracted, the holding of the scheduled
popular elections of November 1982 was the most important indication to date
that it would proceed on course into the mid-1980s, when a successor would be
chosen to President Joao Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo, who in 1979 had
been chosen as the nation's fifth military president since the coup d'etat of
April 1964.

     Economic factors posed one of the greatest threats to abertura. After
increasing to record levels between 1968 and 1974, Brazil's growth rate
gradually slowed after the shock of 1973-74 oil price hikes and was negative
in 1981, a year that also saw inflation reach over 100 percent and the foreign
debt hit record heights. Analysts agreed that the economy had the strength to
overcome these difficulties. The timing, however-when the population was
being allowed, for the first time in many years, to make its own wage demands
heard-was most inopportune. The specter of popular demands for redress of past
losses had been raised during the late 1970s in widespread labor strikes, but
in the early years of the new decade, the government had skillfully combined
"carrots" and "sticks" to mute wage demands. This issue would become
increasingly vital, however, as abertura proceeded.

     Another long-term threat to abertura (although in the short run it may
have made it easier for Brazil's military leaders to initiate and proceed with
the process) lies in the relatively undeveloped nature of Brazil's political
institutions. As labor unions were weak, so were interest groups representing
business, students, agriculturalists, and other sectors of society that one
might expect to be highly organized in a nation as large as Brazil. Political
parties also lacked an in-depth organizational capacity. Analysts explain
this phenomenon as a product of Brazil's patrimonial heritage: deference to
one's "superior" in his or her immediate environment (be it farm, factory,
neighborhood, or village) runs deep in Brazilian society. In politics this is
translated into political bossism, called coronelismo in traditional rural
Brazilian society, which began a slow death in the 1950s but continued to play
a major, if declining, role in the 1980s. This tradition was reinforced by the
corporatist threads that ran through the regime of President Getulio Vargas in
the 1930s and 1940s as well as the post-1964 military regime. In Brazil's
entire history, liberal democratic institutions, such as interest groups and
political parties, had a chance to develop only during the Second Republic
(1946-64). While this inexperience in popular government may have made it
easier for the nation's military leaders to loosen the reins of power, it also
made the future uncertain due to a lack of strong democratic traditions.

     The people were nearly unanimous in their support of abertura. Its only
apparent opponents were found in a segment of the armed forces known as the
hard-liners, which had been quite powerful in the early 1970s, although its
influence steadily declined thereafter. By the early 1980s the hard-liners,
who wanted military rule to be perpetuated indefinitely, had been removed
from a number of top positions of authority. There was, in other words, a
growing consensus within the armed forces to return to its purely  military,
professional role in society.

     A consensus also existed among Brazilian elites that their nation, having
one of the largest, richest, and most dynamic societies in the Third World,
was destined in time to become a major world power. Brazil's increasingly
far-reaching diplomatic and commercial ties had significantly raised its
stature among the developing nations at the same time that they reduced the
nation's dependence on the northern industrialized nations. The United States
remained Brazil's single most important foreign relation, although by the
early 1980s its significance had been declining for a full decade as Brazil
diversified its foreign contacts. Two especially interesting aspects of
Brazil's foreign policy were the somewhat surprisingly small military
component of its growing power and the widespread public support that Brazil's
new directions in foreign policy had attained. Foreign policy was virtually
absent as an issue in the otherwise bitter 1982 election campaign.

Structure of Government

Constitutional Structure

     Brazilian constitutions, by and large, have served to legitimize existing
political institutions rather than to provide for future continuity. The
1967 Constitution, the nation's sixth, superseded the 1946 constitution, which
had guided Brazil during 18 years of democratic rule during the Second
Republic. Between the 1964 coup d'etat and the promulgation of the 1967
Constitution, four so-called Institutional Acts and a large number of
Complementary Acts were decreed by the military government that modified the
1946 constitution as necessary in order to legitimize the imposition of the
dictatorship. The 1967 Constitution, which was promulgated on January 24 of
that year by the rubber-stamp Congress, was essentially a reconfirmation of
the modifications of the three previous years.

     The 1967 Constitution was frequently and substantially amended during
its first 15 years as Brazil's highest law. By 1982 over half of its original
200 articles had been altered through one of 22 constitutional amendments
promulgated by the military government,and 10 additional articles had been
added. After 1967, a further 15 or more Institutional Acts and many additional
Complementary Acts had been decreed to modify Brazilian constitutional law; by
1982, however, these had all been either abrogated or incorporated into the
constitutional amendments.

     The 1967 Constitution changed the formal name of the country from the
United States of Brazil to the Federative Republic of Brazil (Republica
Federativa do Brasil). In spite of the name change, the provisions of the 1967
Constitution significantly increase the power of the federal (or central)
government with respect to the state governments. This centralization of power
in federal authorities, seated in the national capital in Brasilia, is most
apparent in Articles 10 and 11, which allow the federal president to intervene
in the affairs of state government (to the point of removing the state
governor) for a wide variety of reasons. In spite of this rather severe
limitation, state governments did retain important prerogatives of the past,
including significant powers of taxation. Each state has its own constitution,
although none can contradict the terms of the federal Constitution.

     The Constitution is divided into five major sections. The first,
consisting of 144 articles, details the system of government. The second
section spells out the nation's declaration of civil rights in