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DILEMMAS OF MULTIPARTY PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRACY: THE CASE OF BRAZIL

Focusing on the case of Brazil, this paper argues that the combination of presidentialism and a multiparty system has created difficult problems in the two (mostly) democratic periods of that country’s history, 1946-64 and 1985-present. The situation of permanent minority presidentialism easily leads to executive/legislative stalemate resulting in political immobilism. Because of the rigid electoral timetable of the presidential system, there are no institutionalized means of dealing with this situation of presidents who lack stable congressional support. The extremely malleable character of Brazilian parties has exacerbated this problem. When presidents are popular, politicians of all stripes and colors support them, but when they lose favor, they often have difficulty winning support even in their own parties. Defections in hard times make it difficult for presidents to pursue coherent measures that could substantially redirect policy. Presidents have responded by trying to bypass parties and congress so that their most important programs will not be endangered by immobilism, congressional inaction, and the patronage designs of party politicians. Realizing that their base of support in any particular party is never entirely secure, they try to form broad multiparty coalitions through the distribution of patronage. Several presidents attempted to mobilize the masses as a means of offsetting their lack of institutional support, but doing so further weakened political institutions. Even with this panoply of measures, chief executives have had difficulties managing as minority presidents in a fragmented party system dominated by malleable parties. Although the empirical evidence is drawn from the Brazilian case, the paper argues that the combination of presidentialism and fragmented multipartism is generally problematic.