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Political Liberalization and Economic Crisis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
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ON 15 NOVEMBER 1982, BRAZIL HELD GENERAL ELECTIONS. Despite stiff electoral rules, they were the first conducted in a climate of freedom since 1964, when the military overthrew the civilian Goulart government, which had been struck by instability and paralysis. In December, the authorities requested several very large new loans and ‘roll-overs’ from the IMF and the private financial community, in an attempt to assure the continuing service of the country's massive foreign debt. The two events epitomize underlying processes that had been evolving for several years: political liberalization and adjustment to economic crisis.
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1 The term has been used to describe the process of political institutionalization and controlled democratization in Brazil and broadly coincides with the sense given to it by Gellner, Ernest in an article published in Government and Opposition, vol. 11, no. 3, Summer 1976 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, entitled ‘From the Revolution to Liberalization’.
2 I use the term as coined by O’Donnell, Guillermo, as for instance in ‘Reflections on the Patterns of Change in the Bureaucratic‐authoritarian State’, Latin American Research Review, vol. XIII No. 1, 1978, pp. 3–38 Google Scholar. I consider his description of the relationship between the bureaucratic‐authoritarian state and international capital, which he calls one of ‘mutual indispensability’, an important analytical advance over the theories of associated‐dependent development elaborated by Fernando Henrique Cardoso (together with Faletto), as well as over those that Cardoso calls the economic‐determinism of some of the interpretations of Celso Furtado and the political voluntarism of Helio Jaguaribe. See Cardoso, Fernando H. ‘Associated‐Dependent Development: Theoretical and Practical Implications’ in Stepan, Alfred (ed.), Authoritarian Brazil: Origins, Policies and Future, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1973, pp. 142–76Google Scholar. However, it still bears some resemblance to determinism.
3 Gellner had already pointed out that ‘a major problem in this endeavour is of course the backlog of political injustice and of ideological rubbish, wedded to each other, and the resentment against them which, once freed, is very difficult to contain’. op. cit., p. 268.
5 This trend has already been predicted as likely by Juan Linz in the article ‘The Future of an Authoritarian Situation’ in Stepan, op. cit., esp. pp. 244, 252 and 253. The perception that O’Donnell has helped to develop, suggesting that ‘the bureaucratic‐authoritarian regimes are not simple military dictatorships’ and even less totalitarian states, owes much to a whole set of studies by Juan Linz. Cf. Bruneau, Thomas C. ‘Introduction’ in Authoritarian Capitalism: Brazil’s Contemporary Economic and Political Development, edited by Bruneau, and Faucher, Philippe, Boulder, Co., Westview Press, 1981, esp. p. 3 Google Scholar. For a socio‐historical analysis of the origins of Brazilian authoritarianism see Schwartzman, Simon, Bases do Autoritarismo Brasileiro, Rio de Janeiro, Campus, 1982 Google Scholar.
6 As Celso Lafer has pointed out, it is interesting to register that some notions borrowed from international politics such as ‘detente and constitutional safeguards’ (to guarantee a smooth transition) have been utilized in order to overcome the Manicheistic concept drawn from the same source and widely employed during the harshest moments of the authoritarian regime, such as ‘national security’, ideological ‘frontiers’ and the dichotomy ‘friend‐enemy’. Cf. the article ‘As Salvaguardas e a Liberdade: o direito internacional e a reforma política’ in Lafer, Celso, Ensaios sobre a Liberdade, São Paulo, Perspectiva, 1980, pp. 101–02Google Scholar.
7 Gellner, op. cit., p. 270.