Are Brazilian institutions working? Well, it’s complicated

Congressman Daniel Silveira has become a symbol of Jair Bolsonaro's putschist ways. Photo: Zeca Ribeiro/CD

If one day political scientists are to write about the death of Brazilian democracy, their tale will certainly include the Daniel Silveira affair, already explained and analyzed at length by The Brazilian Report. For one, Mr. Silveira represents the sheer brutality of Brazil’s new politics and is a textbook example of Bolsonarista banditry — after all, unlike President Jair Bolsonaro, who only fears being arrested after leaving office, Mr. Silveira managed to get arrested before the government had even completed its term.

The Daniel Silveira case encapsulates how Mr. Bolsonaro is rotting Brazilian democracy, serving as a masterclass of modern-day democratic backsliding and autocratization.

The step-by-step is quite simple: President Bolsonaro or one of his allies find and tackle an issue around which the constitutional boundaries of political action are not well defined. This first move forces the Judiciary to step in and clarify the limits of presidential authority.

Even before a verdict is delivered, Mr. Bolsonaro threatens to stop playing by the Constitution’s rules if his newly claimed authority is curtailed. To avoid turmoil, the courts back down and offer a compromise which leaves Mr. Bolsonaro with less authority than he claimed, but more authority than he started with.

From the beginning, this modus operandi has underpinned the entire Daniel...

Fernando Bizzarro

Ph.D. Student in Political Science at Harvard's Department of Government. His research is focused on the nature, the causes, and the consequences of political institutions, particularly on political parties, regimes, and their impacts on human and economic development.