How to make Brazil’s parties more ideologically defined

Whether it be by calling on the Armed Forces to safeguard his power, or claiming he will not accept the results of a popular vote without paper ballots, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s challenges to democracy will make for a tumultuous Brazilian election come 2022. And in this milieu of threats and counter-threats, meaningful policy debates are set to fall by the wayside in Latin America’s biggest country.

Indeed, this has been the norm for Brazil’s political system since its inception in the nineteenth century. Parties rarely make concrete policy commitments — and when they do, they have no qualms about disregarding them to act in contradictory ways. It is for this reason that economist Bernardo Guimarães once classified Brazil’s policy debate as “surreal.”

Political parties with well-defined ideological platforms are fundamental to a strong democracy. The literature points out a series of legislative measures that could foster the so-called “programmatic development” of parties, but, in Brazil, Congress is more concerned about discussing problematic electoral reform.

A need for ‘programmatic’ parties

The programmatic development of political parties is...