Political Life

Government. The Federal Constitution of Brazil provides for three independent governing branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Although the constitution has undergone several revisions in the last century, the most recent in 1988, it has always retained this division of governmental powers.

Voting in Brazil today is universal and compulsory for all literate citizens from eighteen to seventy years of age and optional for those who cannot read and write.

Leadership and Political Officials. Brazil's return to free elections in the mid-1980s after two decades of military dictatorship has not resulted in greater social and legal equity, and unequal treatment of rich and poor is ongoing. Government officials and well-to-do individuals who have committed crimes still are more likely to escape the long arm of the law than are those of lesser social status. In part, this is because Brazil is a country in which laws and regulations are passed, yet a significant proportion of them are ignored. Still, today there is growing intolerance of political corruption and a host of official inquiries are evidence that Brazilians are starting to reject impunity and demand accountability of their public officials.

One concept is key to understanding Brazilian political culture: jeitos, ways of cutting through obstacles—such as rules and red tape—to achieve a desired end. Jeitos are partly a response to Brazil's notorious bureaucratic thicket which makes getting a government document—be it a driver's license, passport, or marriage license—a cumbersome process. Those who can afford to hire despachantes (dispatchers), professional facilitators who know how to "do jeitos", to get things done. Others do jeitos on their own; perhaps a small "gratuity" to a low-paid government clerk will produce the desired document.

A personalistic system of patron-client relationships is another key to the nation's political culture. One becomes a government bureaucrat or politician and rises through the ranks by developing influential connections and getting help from personal networks. Ambitious individuals cultivate powerful patrons who promote and protect them, and their own career trajectories typically rise and fall with those of their patrons.

Social Problems and Control. Given the nation's stark economic inequalities, social control in Brazil has long been problematic, even more so at the end of the twentieth century than in the past. High rates of crime, particularly in large urban areas, are a frequent topic of conversation; kidnappings, assaults, and murder receive wide media coverage. The murder rate in greater São Paulo, for example, is some five times that of the New York metropolitan area. Killings by police are common particularly in poorer urban areas. Fearful for their security, corporate executives travel around in armored cars; elite neighborhoods are fortified as private, guarded condominiums surrounded by high walls. Also within this urban landscape of have and have-nots live tens of thousands of street children, eking out a bare existence, ever on their guard against being rousted, or worse, by the police.

Military Activity. The role of the military in Brazilian life declined significantly following the military dictatorship that lasted from 1964 to 1985. By 2000 the three forces of the military, the army, navy, and air force, had been subsumed under a new civilian defense ministry and were forced to give up their separate cabinet-level posts. Despite considerable grumbling about this reorganization, particularly among the nationalist wing of the Air Force, no evidence exists that the Brazilian armed forces have either the ability or the desire to regain their lost power through a military coup.