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Brazilian Democracy as a Late Bloomer: Reevaluating the Regime in the Cardoso-Lula Era

This article reviews the state of Brazilian democracy at the close of the Cardoso-Lula era. Brazil has now completed a quarter century of competitive politics, the longest democratic period in the country's history. Although evaluations of the regime's prospects were often pessimistic in the 1985-1993 period, the performance of democracy improved markedly after the Plano Real stabilization plan in the mid-1990s, which was followed by significant policy achievements under presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Party of Brazilian Social Democracy, or PSDB) and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers' Party, or PT). Since 1995, the axis of national politics has turned on the competition between the PSDB and allies versus the PT and allies. Under this emerging bicoalitional architecture, several key policy domains have been objects of consensus between the two camps, which has led to major policy advances; however, certain policy areas remain outside the zone of consensus and pose enduring challenges. Despite the improving quality of democracy, the mass public continues to display a surprisingly high level of indifference to the regime type.