REGIONAL CLEAVAGES AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN BRAZIL
CHAPTER 6
POLITICAL OPENNESS IN PERSPECTIVE
1.
Political development and expanded participation
From 1945 to 1964, Brazil experienced a period of multi-party competition with
progressively expanded popular participation - a period of "political development,"
as the optimistic theories of the early sixties call it. Almost ten years after
that system collapsed, the country's political leadership still debates whether
some kind of open system can be re-established or whether political liberalism
is just an antique, which should be buried once and for all.(1)
Aside from the frustrated electoral experiences of 1930 and
1934, the 1945-64 period was the only time in Brazilian history
during which political participation was really experienced and
tried out. From a long-term historical perspective, it is
possible to consider this period anomalous, because of the wave
of democratization which swept Latin America after the Second
World War, and which lasted between, fifteen and twenty years.
True as this may be, it left the country with a taste of
political freedom and openness which cannot and should not be
easily erased. Conceptually, it brought another important
variable to the analysis of the country's political system, that
is, political participation.
This last chapter reflects on this experience, in an attempt to see whether the
historical framework developed so far can be used for a proper conceptualization
of the structure of the political participation system during this period, and
whether a proper understanding of the political process during the period of political
openness can furnish some cues for an under- standing of what happened afterwards
and what might happen in the future. This combination of normative concern, conceptual
synthesis and subjective evaluation certainly contributes to make this chapter
the most speculative of all.
Representative politics is usually not very satisfying, and it
is especially frustrating in a country which is as unequal and
underdeveloped as Brazil. Its absence, however, can be worse, and
many argue that this is at least the best possible arrangement to
guarantee the values of individual rights and freedom of ideas.
However, when the performance of this function is accompanied by
inequalities, exploitation, waste and irrationality, values of
administrative efficiency and redistribution of wealth tend to
become dominant. Efficient as some non representative systems may
become, the normative goals of individual rights and freedom of
thought cannot be dismissed as simple manifestations of
individualism or idle liberalism. It is true that formal
political rights can mask actual social and economic inequalities
and the suppression of rights. It is also true, as American
experience shows, that political liberalism can lead to
inefficiency, injustice, international bigotry and cold war(2); what is less certain, however,
is that an anti- liberal system can do better.
In the case of Brazil, the quest for political openness is
made particularly difficult by the failure. of its twenty-year
experiment with representative democracy. The previous discussion
concerning the continuous centralization of the country's
political life in terms of "patrimonialism" hides the
fact that there is a visible process of rationalization and
increasing efficiency of the governmental apparatus. This
rationalization tends to reduce the value attributed to formal
procedures and guarantees of personal and political freedom in a
democracy which is too obviously unfair and corrupt. If the price
of this increase in efficiency and rationality is the loss of
individual rights, freedom of organization, freedom of the press
and habeas corpus only the few who personally suffer these
restrictions will tend to oppose them; and among these, only some
would be opposed by conviction. Either way, the case in favor of
political openness and what it implies remains unfortunately too
weak.
The other difficulty with political openness in Brazil is the
lack of a simple, clear alternative political model. The
traditional three-power, multi-party system has been demoralized.
The remnants of the old political system, which subsists today in
ARENA - MDB confrontations in the small rural areas of the
country, do not furnish a basis for the further expansion of the
political arena; on the contrary, they provide for their
opponents a showcase of petty confrontations, small scale
corruption, candidate incompetence and general lack of vote
interest. A simple, direct, no-nonsense and efficient
administration with strong military backing has much more appeal
and is much more easy to understand. In order that an alternative
model be socially and politically viable, it needs to be easily
understood in the first place; only afterwards does it need to be
operationally workable and politically possible.
For these and other reasons, the empirical prediction is that
a viable system of open participation is not to be expected in
Brazil in the near future. This does not mean, of course, that
the problem does not remain, since empirical difficulties do not
eliminate normative concerns. But good social science is always a
combination of empirical awareness and workable solutions, and
there is not much point in trying to pursue a political ideal
which lacks a minimum of historical viability. And this viability
depends, ultimately, on the process which would change a
traditional patrimonialist structure into a highly rational and
efficient administration. It is possible to think, for instance,
that rationality implies freedom of thought and intellectual
experimentation; some objective criteria of competence; areas of
communication, and exchange of ideas. From this minimum, it is
possible to expand to the inclusion of alternative values and
perspectives, and alternative interests; and so on. It is
possible, in short, to speculate on the functional necessity of
including, in an expanding and well operated governmental
apparatus, the elements of political openness. This openness will
necessarily be very different from the traditional
representative, multi-party system; but it may also be more
effective in terms of the progressive incorporation of social
groups into the society's system of decisions and allocation of
values. We can try to redefine the expression "political
development" in terms of this continuous expansion of the
system of decisions and allocation of values, and discuss its
perspectives in broad terms.
The lack of a proper treatment of problems of political
development in an era of generalized political crisis is a
peculiar feature of social science literature in the
underdeveloped world, or at least in Latin America. This fact can
be traced, intellectually speaking, to a more general tendency
towards considering politics as fully implied in its economic and
sociological context, having no existence of its own. It is
curious how two contradictory tendencies led to this same
outcome. The first tendency is pointed out by Prof. Samuel P.
Huntington and comes from the North American lack of experience
with political instability. It leads to the notion that a stable
and successful political system is a natural consequence of
economic development and an increase in social welfare.(3) The other tendency is Marxist in
its origin: it tends to see the political sphere as a simple and
direct consequence of the underlying structures of production.
Politics is thus seen in both cases as having no independent
dynamics and determination. It is seen, from the left, as an
instrument of the class struggles and the consolidation of the
victorious social revolution and, from the right, as a simple
technical operation of power management and control. A conceptual
gap is therefore created between the specialists in economics and
sociology, for whom the political process is a simple result of
economic and social facts, and the specialists in government and
public administration, for whom the political process is purely a
technical problem, unrelated to what happens in the rest of the
society. It is obvious that things are never as simple as that,
but a host of empirical studies concerning the
"political" (meaning social and economic) influences
upon the governmental processes, or the "political"
(meaning governmental) influences upon social and economic life
are not enough to avoid the paradoxes of
"depoliticized" political sociology and theories of
government. This problem is particularly acute when what is at
stake is the political process of a country such as Brazil,
subjected to several social and economic development problems.
2. Political
development: institutionalization and conflicts
Prof. Huntington's conceptualization of political development
in terms of institutionalization is an attempt to define a
dimension of social change, which is specifically political. He
defines institutionalization as the "process through which
organizations and processes acquire value and stability";
levels of institutionalization are said to be functions of levels
of adaptability, complexity, autonomy, and coherence of the
institutions.(4) Accordingly, a
developed political system is the one which is able to adapt
itself to new situations, develop new functions, incorporate new
groups, play a plurality of functions and keep, at the same time,
a basic level of consensus among the political community. It is a
stable but not static system, and it possesses a legitimacy which
transcends the circumstantial conveniences of the citizenry and
plunges its roots into a historical past of stability,
flexibility and legitimacy.
One of the determinants of political instability in
underdeveloped contexts is, thus, this very instability: the
series of breaks in the continuity of political institutions in
these countries does not allow for the crystallization of those
qualities of flexibility, adaptation, complexity, autonomy and
coherence, which only time can accomplish. This conception leads,
necessarily, to a conservative perspective, in its most precise
meaning, namely, the perspective that there are values to
preserve in old structures, and relatively high costs in the
substitution of one structure by a new one.
But time is not the only independent variable, since
institutional decay is also a possibility. A context of rapid
changes, translated into continuous challenges for the political
regime, can lead to the hardening and simplification of the
political structure, which very often interrupts a previous
process of maturation and institutionalization. The total lack of
tensions also seems to lead to institutional stagnation, which
can end up in sclerosis, rigidity and decay. Only a
"reasonable" level of conflicts leads to institutional
development in the sense above.(5)
This "optimal level" of conflicts seems to be far from
the rule in underdeveloped countries, and the known outcome is
the more or less rapid deterioration of political institutions
which, in one way or another, have worked up to the mid sixties.
This is true in Latin America for the constitutional governments
which replaced, for a short period, the populist regimes, and
also seems to hold for the African governments established after
the independence which, in most cases, have been replaced by
military regimes. The general situation in the underdeveloped
world is thus one of the institutional decay, even though this
situation may be a necessary step towards placing power relations
in a situation, which may or may not allow for the continuation
of the development process at a higher level. This consideration
obviously weakens the theory of gradual institutionalization as a
prediction or prescription for political development in
underdeveloped countries, but it does not reduce the relevance of
the concept as an essential political variable. If we make
the theoretical assumption that there is a long-term process of
political development, which is somehow related with the also
long-term processes of social and economic development, it is
obvious that the conceptualization of political development
should include other political variables besides
institutionalization.
3.
Political openness and institutionalization
A political system which is more institutionalized is, in
principle, more able to integrate and legitimize new demands for
participation than more rigid and immature systems. This
legitimization and absorption of demands is what one might call
"openness," and one can re-phrase the above by saying
that, the more institutionalized a political system is, the more
open it is. This is nearly a truism, if we consider
"institutionalization" only in terms of adaptability,
but it is a substantive proposition if we bring together the
other dimensions of the concept. Empirical evidence is abundant:
it ranges from the absorption of the working class parties in
Western Europe to the troubles of performing the same kind of
absorption by the less institutionalized regimes of Argentina. We
should not, however, mistake "openness" for
"democratization."
It was Schattschneider who said that "government by the
people" is a pre democratic concept, in the sense that its
formulation is previous to the existence of contemporary
democratic regimes.(6) The
definition of democracy offered by Schattschneider includes
competition between leaders and organization, on one hand, and
the presentation of political alternatives for the general
public, who thus participate in the decision process, on the
other. A political system which is able to absorb and process
private demands, without allowing them to become political, can
reach high levels of institutionalization without being
democratic. Democracy, in Schattschneider's definition, begins to
appear when the openness becomes political, and political demands
of participation are accepted and legitimated as such.
Participation is political when ii: transcends the level of
specific group issues in two ways. First, the specific issues
become general, and second, specific groups feel they have the
right to influence and decide on questions previously considered
private. A "participationist" political system of the
fascist kind is anti-democratic, not because it seeks the
substitution of territorial by functional representation, but
because it does not allow functional groups to be concerned with
questions of general interest. Territorial representation tends,
in its origins, also to be private, given its dependence on
stratification systems based on land tenure. If time has made it
the highest expression of political representativeness, it is
because of the growing multi-functionality of the territorial
groups.
Two questions follow from the above. The first refers to the
desirability of the two possible types of institutionalization,
the democratic and participationist, or corporatist - fascist. It
is quite likely that something like "participationist"
is what Marx projected for the future society in which
"politics" would cease to exist. The non-existence of
politics means the non-existence of general problems, and a
purely "technical" approach to specific problems of
specific groups and sectors in society. Before the disappearance
of general problems becomes real, however,(7)
the forced suppression of political manifestations can lead to
solutions of a technocratic type, in which technical capacity
veils the fact that the area of bargaining and negotiations is
not allowed to grow beyond the sphere of transactions between the
groups concerned and the governmental sector responsible for its
handling.
Once this is done, through coercion, ideological mobilization,
or some combination of the two, a plurality of problems can
arise. One is the possibility of corrupt practices, due to the
low visibility of technical decisions combined with the technical
unreliability of the decision makers.(8)
Another is the pseudo technification of typically political
areas, such as the assimilation of political with criminal acts,
which are thus handled by a technical body - the police -
and explained and interpreted by specialists of criminology and
social control ("The social problem is a police
problem," used to say a Brazilian President of the
twenties.) A third problem is the "politicization" of
essentially technical areas, in which the control of technical
quality becomes less dependent on the internal consensus of an
institutionalized scientific community and more dependent upon
the political approval of the political regime. In general, the
differences between the technical and the political become
blurred or subject to short-term fluctuations. The advantages of
this type of institutionalization can be many. It can be
predominantly functional, including in some cases the
establishment of a long-range policy of high investments and
deferred gratification (as in the U.S.S.R.), in others, a
long-range policy of social repression and apartheid (as in the
white Republics in Africa), or even a combination of both, if the
costs above are kept within tolerable bounds. The option between
these two forms depends, on the political tradition of the
country on one hand, and on the level and type of demands for
participation, on the other.
When demands for participation tend to be high and politically
oriented, as in Argentina, the institutionalization of a
corporatist system does not seem to be possible. The alternative
rests between the creation of a system of democratic
participation and the continuation of a political system based on
high levels of repression and political rigidity.(9)
Thus, we have the second question, referred to above, namely,
the likelihood and stability of the different types of political
participation. Part of the answer has already been given, namely,
that the alternatives depend on the process of socioeconomic
development and on the demands for participation, in the form of
social mobilization, which follow from it. The second part of the
answer is that the reaction of a given political system to a
given level and type of demands is a function of its
characteristics as a system, one of which is its level of
institutionalization.
4. Socioeconomic development
and political development
What this discussion has suggested is that the relation
between what happens at the socioeconomic level and what happens
at the political level is far from direct, starting with the fact
that there are at least two important mediations between these
two levels. We can speak of four analytical levels of change
which deserve independent scrutiny: the levels of economic
development, of change in the social structure, of the growth of
political participation demands, and finally of political
development. The autonomy of each of these processes does not
mean that they are not empirically related, but simply that none
of them can be completely understood through the others.(10)
Economic development here refers to the quantitative in-
crease of per capita income or some equivalent indicator, in
terms of technological change and the sectoral division of labor.
The concept of social development often appears in the literature
under the name of "modernization," and refers to an
increase in the well-being of the populations, according to the
standards of the modern mass consumption societies: consumption
of industrialized goods, education, increase in life expectancy,
newspaper consumption, means of communication, etc. Social
development is more than a simple change in behavior and
consumption patterns, since it brings with it an increase in the
scope and intensity of communications, a progressive extension of
the scale of social participation from the local to the national
levels, and a change in the values and nature of the
stratification system.(11) This
general process of social development is sometimes called
"mobilization," and has a direct bearing on political
life in terms of an increase in participation.
But just as modernization is not a direct outcome of economic
development, so political participation is not a direct effect of
social modernization and mobilization. The modernization process
very often precedes the process of economic growth, not only
because of the host of phenomena designated in the expression
"demonstration effect," but also because of the
deliberate action of political centers in creating administrative
and political nuclei, which work as poles of urbanization and
modernization, combined very often with the disintegration of the
more traditional rural economies. These urban centers generate,
afterwards:, an industrial system which depends on them for its
growth.
How is the process of social mobilization translated into
demands for participation in public life? It is obvious that
there is no simple answer to this question, which depends on two
types of variables. The first type refers to the nature of the
process of modernization and social mobilization. Lerner
formulated very simple propositions, which suggested that
political participation (measured by election turn-outs) would
increase linearly with the process of urbanization and literacy;
more recent analysis looks for the roots of variations in
participation in the different types of synchronism and
disequilibria found within the process of social and economic
development. This topic is one of the most frequent in social
development literature and it is enough to say here that a
situation, in which economic development anticipates and leads
the modernization process, creates a political climate which is
radically different from those situations in which the process of
modernization precedes and is not followed, except at a distance,
by economic growth.(12) In the
first case, political participation would probably tend to be
more related to specific demands, leading to a progressive
widening of the areas of group autonomy and political
participation, whereas in the second, the conditions would be
much more favorable to the emergence of symbolic forms of
participation.
The second type of variable refers to factors which are more
directly related to the political system, including its level of
institutionalization. The responses of a political system to
demands for participation only partially depend on the process of
economic and social change, which its society undergoes. The
transfer of the Portuguese royal family to Brazil in 1808 gave to
this country a degree of institutionalization, which was unique
in the Latin American context, and which explains much of the
country's territorial integrity and political stability
throughout the nineteenth century.
The proposition I would like to stress here is that the assumption of a causal
chain going from the process of economic development to the structure and changes
in the political system is untenable as a general proposition. Attempts to
explain variations in the political structure as functions of socioeconomic change
tend to consider the political sphere either as a mere outcome ("the political
system is an instrument of the bourgeoisie") or as an obstacle ("the
traditional power elites do not respond to the rising demands of the population...")
to these processes. The final outcome is an extremely simplified perception of
political factors. Sometimes, the alternative would be to take the political system
as a starting point, but the difficulties here are related to the impossibility
of making long-term processes of change follow from the general characteristics
of the political system. It seems that the simultaneous use of both approaches
is necessary, and that there is much to be gained if the changes in the economy
and in the levels of social and political participation are considered as a process
and combined with the analysis of politics as a system.
5. Political participation
It would be useful to organize these ideas in terms of S. Rokkan and S. M. Lipset's
attempt to use Parsons' functional categories in an analysis of European politics.(13) Talcott Parsons, as it is well known, proposes
an analytical division of the social systems in four general functions, which
make the A-G-I-L framework (adaptation, goal achievement, integration,
and pattern maintenance or latency). Also a Parsonian generalization is the proposition
that when social systems tend to increase in size and complexity, the four analytical
functions tend to become four empirically differentiated subsystems: the economic
(for adaptive functions), the political (for the attainment of social goals),
the subsystem of social and political participation (for the integrative functions)
and the educational and family subsystem (for pattern maintenance functions) .
Lipset and Rokkan are concerned, in their study, with the internal structure of
the social and political participation subsystem, in terms of its internal cleavages.
They show how this analysis leads to the study of two main axes of political cleavages:
one connecting the adaptation and integration poles (the cross-local, functional
cleavage) and the other connecting the goal achievement and latency poles (the
center - periphery axis).
Another analytical road, which is being suggested here, is to
think of the four subsystems as the loci of our processes of
social change; the main task in the analysis of political
participation systems will then be to evaluate how much of what
happens in the subsystem of political participation is a function
of the interactions among the other three.
Changes in A can be considered changes in the process
of economic development; changes in G, a process of
transformation and growth of the state structure; changes in L,
transformations in society's values and motivations (which are
usually measured in terms of changes in rates of urbanization and
education, and are analyzed as a process of
"modernization"); and finally, changes in I are
essentially those related to transformations in the structure of
social and political participation.
This essentially means that the structure of political participation is seen as
an intervening variable between the State and the processes of economic development
and modernization; this gives us four types of participation, depending on the
dominant process:
TABLE 15
TYPES OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
|
| Dominant Process (A, G, L) |
Dependent Process (A, G, L) |
Intervening Political Structure (I) |
| I. Economic Growth (A) |
Growth and Differentiation of the State (G) |
Political Representation: Party systems of the European kind |
| II. Growth and Differentiation of the State (G) |
Economic Growth (A) |
Political Co-optation: governmental political parties and one-party systems.
|
| III. Modernization and Secularization of values (L) |
Growth and Differentiation of the State (G) |
Collective movements through autonomous mobilization: charismatic populism
|
| IV. Growth and Differentiation of the State (G) |
Modernization and Secularization of values (L) |
Collective movements through induced mobilization: nationalism and paternalistic
populism |
When, in 1945, the political party system was reinstated, it unavoidably reflected
the picture portrayed so far. What was peculiar in Brazil was that types I and
II of political participation existed simultaneously in different geographical
areas, and the new party system responded to both the geographical and the more
structural elements.(14)
It seems proper to characterize the two political parties
created by Vargas in terms of Co-optation The first of
these parties was called the "Social Democratic Party"
(PSD) . It was formed by the state and local leaders, who had
been on good terms with the dictatorship. The term "coronelismo"
is used in Brazilian political literature to characterize a type
of rural boss, who derives his local strength from his access to
patronage at the governmental level, and his ability to supply
local votes for his party.(15)
The coronel cannot survive without access to the
government, and it is therefore not surprising that the party,
which put these leaders together, became the biggest party in the
country. A similar structure of co-optation was developed in the
urban areas, through the Labor Party (PTB), to which Vargas
affiliated himself. Its instruments of political control were the
Ministry of Labor and the trade unions, politically and
financially dependent on the Labor Ministry(16)
In both political parties, electoral power was derived from
access to governmental positions and decision centers.
Ideological issues were obviously secondary, and the major
interests conveyed by political leaders were those referring to
more positions, facilities and sinecures from the government. It
would be, of course, too simplistic to say that these were the
only goals and purposes of the parties. At the policy making
level, more or less well defined goals of economic development,
administrative efficiency and welfare were present. But these
goals had few, if not contradictory, relations with the
structures created to co-opt and handle their electoral support.
What these two levels of the political system did have in common
was the fact that both used to operate in almost purely
distributive terms(17).
The opposition to this system came from different sources.
There was a liberal opposition to Vargas, which combined urban
middle classes with members of the local rural leadership, who
had lost their access to the centers of decision making in the coronelismo
system.(18) There were members of
the army, who were impatient and intolerant with the price the
government was paying for its maintenance in terms of political
patronage. There were members of the working class who sought
more militancy, greater ideological involvement of the trade
unions, and more pro labor policies from the central government.
There were military, intellectual and working-class groups which
sought to orient the country's policy towards a more nationalist
foreign policy.
It is possible to summarize all this in terms of how the
access to government was obtained or sought. The co-optation
system was either considered adequate, or in need of expansion,
or in need of restrictions. What all the groups had in common,
roughly speaking, was that their political influence was derived
either from the control of governmental agencies, from their
access to the government for a politics of patronage, or from
their demands for more access for given groups and sectors. It
may be disturbing to put mobilization and co-optation together,
since mobilization is usually understood as a process of growing
participation, political concern, and, hence, representation of
interests. But it is certainly important to distinguish a process
of "radicalization from above" from a process of
growing demands for participation. One can assume that no
"mobilization from above" will occur without some
attempts at participation, and, in this sense, there is no
co-optation without representation, that is, when there is
nothing to be cooped; but what matters most, in terms of the
system of political participation, is the relative weight of the
demands for representation and the ability and resources to
co-opt. Brazilian political figures like João Goulart and
Brizola, who used their access to governmental positions and
resources to create a radical political movement in 1963-64, are
good examples of this combination. The ultimate example of this
mixture of mobilization, control from above and the lack of
actual structures of participation and representation is Fascism.
When an economic system is dynamic, organized and structured
social groups get together politically to influence political
decisions that have some bearing on their share of society's
goods, which are not owned patrimonialistically by the government
or its bureaucracy. This kind of politics is what I am calling
the "politics of representation," of which the liberal
regimes of the Western World are the better known examples,
although not the only conceivable arrangements.(19)
Its essential condition is economic and/or organizational
autonomy and self reference; in Brazil, this was developed mostly
in the São Paulo area. Representation politics often took the
form of liberal ideologies, which defined governmental
intervention in politics, economics and welfare as an absolute
evil; or of trade union movements, which had wage issues as a
central concern, and which were based more on autonomous
organization than on access to the Ministry of Labor(20). Finally, it developed as
populist movements, which included elements of personal charisma
corresponding to less structure and autonomy at the grass roots,
but also to less direct control and patronage in the central
government.(21)
The crucial test for the conversion of a set of relatively
well articulated interest groups into a system of interest group
politics lies in the measure in which there is a need for a
generalization of private demands into broad and multi-purpose
political movements. As Schattschneider suggests, this change
from private to generalized demands arises when the bargaining
process demands and allows for the incorporation of progressively
wider sectors of society in the disputes. This perspective can be
important if one asks why the São Paulo area did not provide the
country with the strong representational political bodies, which
its development and relative marginalization suggest. One kind of
answer is that economic interests in the area were able to
satisfy their demands in very specific terms, leading thus to
actual depoliticization. The other answer is that much of São
Paulo's economy was and still is strongly and directly open to
the external market, and that this kind of linkage tends to make
the issues of internal politics less salient. In either case, the
net result was a combination of some interest politics, political
apathy and relative marginality. Only when the stability of this
arrangement was shaken did the level of political concern arise.
It tended to manifest itself in terms of law and order, but,
mostly, in terms of a liberal perspective, which abhorred
politics and government interference in society. And this, of
course, is a combination of goals, which is very difficult to
hold together.
Figure 3 gives a simplified general picture of the Brazilian
party system in the Third Republic.
FIGURE 3 POLITICAL PARTIES IN BRAZIL: CO-OPTATION AND MOBILIZATION 
A good test case of this four-fold classification would be the analysis of the
Brazilian labor movement in the 1945-64 period. As usual, the pattern of organization
and political behavior of the trade union movement in São Paulo was remarkably
different from the rest of the country. In the late forties and early fifties,
some of the most militant and radical sectors of the Brazilian labor movement
were based in São Paulo this was a period when the Brazilian Communist Party was
stronger in São Paulo and in open confrontation with Vargas and with the control
the Labor Party exerted upon the trade union organization in most of the country.
Later, as the Labor, Communist and Nationalist movements tended to get together
within the Labor Party, an array of independent, non-aligned unions started to
emerge in São Paulo against the nationally dominant groups. A split occurred in
the Third National Unions Conference held in São Paulo in 1960 on the attempt
to create a nationally integrated Central Union, and the result was that the bulk
of the Brazilian working class remained basically marginal to the national labor
movement during the crucial years of 1960-63. One consequence of this was the
astonishing disappearance of all traces of a national labor movement in Brazil
after 1964(22). Thus, there are cases to fill
in all four cells in the table combining co-optation vs. representation with radicalism,
in the analysis of Brazil's labor movement; and this perspective helps to understand
the movement's weakness and demise.
6. The changing voting patterns
A first picture of voting patterns in the 1945-64 period is given in Table 17.
The alliance between the two parties created by Vargas, the Partido Social Democrático
(PSD) and the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (Brazilian Labor Party, PTB) won
all the elections except the one in 1960. Only in 1950 was there a split in the
alliance, because of a personal move by Vargas, who had imposed his name for nomination
but had not been accepted by the political leadership of the PSD (the figures
in parentheses for 1950 correspond to the votes given to Cristiano Machado, the
PSD candidate). Vargas's victory in 1950 is an indication not only of his personal
charisma, but also of his direct command of the political. clientele, over and
above the leadership of his major party. His major source of support was, however,
urban and popular. The split within the PSD in Minas Gerais gave 32 percent of
the votes to Cristiano Machado: this reflects the predominantly rural society
and political structure of this state. It was quite clear that the PSD allegiance
to Vargas was due less to ideological preferences than to the need to remain close
to the source of power. When Vargas tried to transfer his personal leadership
to his would-be political heir, João Goulart, the coalition became too threatening
to be accepted by the most conservative sectors of the Social Democratic Party,
which joined the opposition against the increasingly urban, working-class oriented
and radical Labor Party.
TABLE 18
CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS. PARTY VOTES: THREE STATES, 1945-1962: PERCENTAGES
OF VALID VOTES |
| |
PSD |
PTB |
UDN |
PS? |
Others |
Coalitions and alliances |
| Guanabara (city of Rio de Janeiro) |
| 1945 |
17.50% |
26.90% |
23.10% |
2.30% |
30.20% |
|
| 1950 |
14.00% |
39.80% |
17.90% |
7.20% |
21.10% |
. . |
| 1954 |
10.30% |
29.50% |
(32.90)% |
11.10% |
16.20% |
35.00% |
| 1958 |
14.80% |
28.70% |
33.80% |
20.60% |
2.10% |
14.80% |
| 1962 |
13.90% |
49.80% |
30.00% |
. |
6.30% |
63.70% |
| Minas Gerais |
| 1945 |
47.00% |
7.20% |
22.20% |
. . |
23.60% |
|
| 1950 |
38.70% |
12.90% |
29.30% |
3.10% |
16.00% |
|
| 1954 |
44.90% |
12.50% |
25.10% |
4.50% |
13.00% |
|
| 1958 |
43.00% |
12.30% |
19.90% |
3.60% |
12.20% |
|
| 1962 |
42.60% |
(15.40)% |
31.30% |
|
10.70% |
15.40% |
| São Paulo |
| 1945 |
36.00% |
17.90% |
21.50% |
5.50% |
19.10% |
|
| 1950 |
15.30% |
20.90% |
13.10% |
29.20% |
21.50% |
|
| 1954 |
29.40% |
17.20% |
8.70% |
24.50% |
20.20% |
|
| 1958 |
|
10.70% |
9.70% |
(38.50)% |
41.10% |
62.00% |
| 1962 |
|
(15.10)% |
|
(28.20)% |
56.70% |
89.30% |
| Source: Calculated from Brasil, Tribunal Superior Eleitoral,
Dados Estatísticos, vol. 6, 1.964. Figures in parentheses correspond
to votes given to alliances (See the text for additional explanation). |
São Paulo's participation in the alliance was accomplished through the person
of Adhemar de Barros, formerly Vargas's caretaker in the state. In 1950, Barros
felt strong enough to create his own political party, the PSP, and in 1955 and
1960, he was an independent candidate for the presidency, carrying Rio and São
Paulo in 1955, but getting only about 25 percent of the national votes. It is
clear that Barros was always a regional candidate, who did not fit the national
cleavage between PSD-PTB and UDN.
The election of Jânio Quadros in 1960 was São Paulo's first
and only victory. Quadros emerged without the support of any well
organized party structure, and climbed step by step from the
local government in the city of São Paulo to the presidency. His
appeal was personal, his only issues were honesty and severity;
his personal figure was unclean and unkempt, in contradiction
with the broomstick which was his electoral symbol. To pass from
local to national politics, he had to be absorbed by the UDN
ticket, even though he had little in common with this party. He
was able, when in the government, to attract the opposition of
almost everyone, and resigned from office after eight months,
leaving the country in a crisis from which it would not recover.(23)
Quadros' election did not mean that the balance between the
co-optation vs. the representation systems inclined towards the
latter, but rather that it had been superseded by a new cleavage
between the tendencies towards the expansion and those towards
the restriction of the political system. Balloting for vice
president was done separately, and João Goulart, the Vice
Presidential candidate from the PSD-PTB coalition, defeated his
opponent, who was well-identified as a man from the UDN. The
PSD-PTB presidential candidate was a general identified with
leftist, nationalist groups, and the acceptance of his candidacy
by the PSD was an indication of the party's inability to
articulate a winning candidate of its own. General Lott was a
loser on many accounts. His surprisingly high returns in the
state of Minas Gerais is really an indication of the PSD's
difficulty to act independently of official determinations
emanating from the central government.
The erosion of the PSD-PTB hegemony can be better analyzed through Table 17, in
which, data for congressional elections are displayed. The PSD never ceased to
be the biggest party, but its relative size fell progressively as time passed.
Alliance and coalitions of all kinds tended to absorb up to 50 per cent of the
congressional votes. An analysis of these coalitions has not yet been made, but
Table 17 and 18 presents both the data on coalitions and an attempt to classify
them according to the dominant party in the three states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais
and Guanabara. This attempt is, of course, provisional, and should be backed by
a detailed analysis of the political processes in each state - which would be
out of place here. It is enough to note here how the three parties in the co-optation
system disappeared completely from São Paulo in 1962 as independent political
entities.
TABLE 17
CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS, PARTY VOTES AND VOTES FOR COALITIONS (VALID VOTES):
1945-1962. PERCENTAGE FIGURES |
| |
PSD |
PTB |
UDN |
PSP |
Others |
Alliances and coalitions |
| 1945 |
44.00% |
10.50% |
27.40% |
|
22.10% |
. |
| 1950 |
27.00% |
16.40% |
17.00% |
7.30% |
12.10% |
20.20% |
| 1954 |
23.10% |
15.60% |
14.30% |
9.30% |
10.70% |
27.00% |
| 1958 |
19.00% |
15.90% |
14.30% |
2.50% |
11.50% |
35.90% |
| 1962 |
18.30% |
14.20% |
13.20% |
1.00% |
5.00% |
48.30% |
| Source: Calculated from Brazil, Tribunal Superior Eleitoral,
Dados Estatísticos, vol. 6, 1964. |
The disappearance of the big national parties in São Paulo was followed, not by
an increase in political regionalism but, paradoxically, by a progressive nationalization
of state politics. If we look at the congressional alliances in this state, we
notice that, in the 1958 election, the PSP entered into an alliance with the PSD,
even though the former was clearly dominant (it had 411,510 votes for the state
chamber, as opposed to the PSD's 181,700). In 1962, the PSD - PSP alliance came
in second to an alliance of two regional parties (Christian Democrats and MTR),
which also benefited from Jânio Quadros' political inheritance in the state. In
Rio, the Labor Party entered into an alliance with the socialists, and received
the support of the illegal but active Communist party. Only in Minas Gerais did
the party configuration remain remarkably stable, with a coalition between the
small PTB and the even smaller PSP in that state.
TABLE 18
CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS. PARTY VOTES: THREE STATES, 1945-1962: PERCENTAGES
OF VALID VOTES |
| |
PSD |
PTB |
UDN |
PSD |
Others |
Coalitions and alliances |
| Guanabara (city of Rio de Janeiro) |
| 1945 |
17.50% |
26.90% |
23.10% |
2.30% |
30.20% |
|
| 1950 |
14.00% |
39.80% |
17.90% |
7.20% |
21.10% |
. . |
| 1954 |
10.30% |
29.50% |
(32.90)% |
11.10% |
16.20% |
35.00% |
| 1958 |
14.80% |
28.70% |
33.80% |
20.60% |
2.10% |
14.80% |
| 1962 |
13.90% |
49.80% |
30.00% |
. |
6.30% |
63.70% |
| Minas Gerais |
| 1945 |
47.00% |
7.20% |
22.20% |
. . |
23.60% |
|
| 1950 |
38.70% |
12.90% |
29.30% |
3.10% |
16.00% |
|
| 1954 |
44.90% |
12.50% |
25.10% |
4.50% |
13.00% |
|
| 1958 |
43.00% |
12.30% |
19.90% |
3.60% |
12.20% |
|
| 1962 |
42.60% |
(15.40)% |
31.30% |
|
10.70% |
15.40% |
| São Paulo |
| 1945 |
36.00% |
17.90% |
21.50% |
5.50% |
19.10% |
|
| 1950 |
15.30% |
20.90% |
13.10% |
29.20% |
21.50% |
|
| 1954 |
29.40% |
17.20% |
8.70% |
24.50% |
20.20% |
|
| 1958 |
|
10.70% |
9.70% |
(38.50)% |
41.10% |
62.00% |
| 1962 |
|
(15.10)% |
|
(28.20)% |
56.70% |
89.30% |
| Source: Calculated from Brasil, Tribunal Superior Eleitoral,
Dados Estatísticos, vol. 6, 1.964. Figures in parentheses correspond
to votes given to alliances (See the text for additional explanation). |
The 1962 congressional election was characterized, both in Rio and São Paulo,
by the presence of strong candidates who concentrated the votes. Leonel Brizola,
from the PTB-PSB alliance, concentrated 62.8 per cent of the votes of his coalition
while Amaral Netto, from the UDN, got 47.5 per cent of his party's votes. Emílio
Carlos, in São Paulo, got 44 per cent of the votes of his PTN-MTR alliance. In
Minas Gerais, however, the most popular candidate, Sebastião Paes de Almeida of
the PSD received only 80,000 votes (as opposed. to Brizola's 269,000, Amaral Netto's
123,000, and Emílio Carlos' 154,000), comprising only 10.6 per cent of his party's
votes. The concentration of votes in legislative elections was a sign of the ideological
polarizations which were taking place in the urban centers; however, it was characteristically
absent in Minas Gerais.(24) During this period, congressional representation
was proportional to the state's population, but enfranchisement was limited to
the literate. This added strength to states like Minas Gerais, which practically
were not affected by the increase in mobilization politics that characterized
Rio, São Paulo and a few other big urban centers, like Recife and Porto Alegre.
A gap started to develop between the politics leading to executive posts and the
politics leading to congressional elections. The latter process remained stable
and absorbed much of the mobilization effects; the former was much more exposed
to these effects. The PSD-PTB coalition was palatable to the army and to conservative
sectors, while the PSD was in the lead, but when Goulart had to replace Quadros,
the crisis broke. The first solution, characteristically, was to force a parliamentary
system which could empty the powers of the President. This was done in 1961, but
Goulart was strong enough in 1963 to call a national plebiscite which restored
his full constitutional powers. After this, the crisis was irreversible, and led
to his overthrow in 1964.
7. Conclusions
If one wants to generalize from these changing voting
patterns, the following traits seem to be most relevant.
Two lines of cleavage defined the political system in 1945. One was regionally
marked, and corresponded to the co-optation vs. representation systems. The other
existed within each of these systems, and went roughly from left (the PTB) to
right (the UDN) on the co-optation side. In the São Paulo area, the left was represented
in 1945 by the Communist Party (it got almost 20 per cent of the congressional
vote in that state, but only 8.2 per cent of the national vote, and was finally
declared illegal in 1947). The center right never acquired a definite party configuration
in that state.
As time passed and the levels of education, urbanization, and industrialization
increased, the co-optation system started to falter. Participation increased,
and political alienation, as indicated by the proportion of null to valid votes,
also increased;(25) this was particularly acute
in the São Paulo area, in congressional elections. The pattern of political alienation
for presidential elections is less clear(26).
TABLE 19
BRAZIL, TURNOUT FIGURES FOR 1945-1966: ELECTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENCY AND
CHAMBERS OF DEPUTIES |
| Year |
Total population (1,000)a |
Percent of registered voters / population
|
Percent of actual voters / population
|
Actual / registered voters |
Per cent of blank and null votes / votes
|
| Presidential elections |
Chamber of deputies |
| 1945 |
46,590 |
16.2% |
12.8% |
83.1% |
2.3% |
3.2% |
| 1950 |
51,944 |
22.0% |
15.8% |
72.1% |
4.3% |
7.0% |
| 1954 |
59,564 |
25.3% |
16.6% |
6550.0% |
|
6.6% |
| 1955 |
61,469 |
24.8% |
14.8% |
59.7% |
5.2% |
|
| 1958 |
67,184 |
20.5%b |
18.9% |
92.0%b |
|
9.1% |
| 1960 |
70,992 |
21.9% |
19.0% |
81.0% |
7.2% |
|
| 1962 |
75,695 |
24.6% |
19.6% |
79.6% |
|
17.7% |
| 1966 |
85,139 |
26.3% |
20.3% |
77.2% |
|
21.1% |
| 1970 |
94,508 |
30.6% |
23.7% |
77.4% |
|
30.3% |
| a Population figures are from the Brazilian census
for 1950, 1960, and 1970, with interpolations for other years; b
The decrease in registration and increase of the actual registered voters
for this year is due to a renewal of the official enrollment lists. Source:
Brasil, Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, Dados Estatísticos, 8 volumes,
1964-1971. |
TABLE 20
INVALID (BLANK AND NULL) VOTES, PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS (PERCENTAGES) |
| year |
São Paulo |
Guanabara(city of Rio) |
Minas Gerais |
Brazil |
| 1945 |
3.1% |
1.3% |
1.3% |
2.3% |
| 1950 |
4.2% |
4.6% |
4.6% |
4.3% |
| 1955 |
3.5% |
2.5% |
6.6% |
5.2% |
| 1960 |
5.1% |
4.3% |
10.0% |
7.2% |
| Source: Brasil, Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, Dados Estatísticos,
8 volumes, 1964-1971. |
TABLE 21
INVALID (BLANK AND NULL) VOTES, CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS (PERCENTAGES) |
| year |
São Paulo |
Guanabara (city of Rio) |
Minas Gerais |
Brazil |
| 1945 |
3.9% |
1.5% |
1.9% |
3.2% |
| 1950 |
9.3% |
5.4% |
6.6% |
7.0% |
| 1954 |
7.6% |
4.5% |
6.5% |
6.6% |
| 1958 |
13.6% |
6.9% |
9.5% |
9.2% |
| 1962 |
29.8% |
15.6% |
15.1% |
17.7% |
| 1966 |
35.3% |
25.3% |
17.3% |
21.1% |
| 1970 |
34.6% |
24.6% |
39.7% |
30.2% |
| Source: Superior Tribunal Eleitoral, 8 volumes, for 1945-1966;
and Boletim Eleitoral, XXI, 241, August 1971, for 1970. |
São Paulo's entrance as an independent political agent into national politics
was first made in terms of representational politics of a stabilizing or restrictive
character which acquired, however, almost immediately a mobilizational connotation.
An analysis of interest groups, the trade unions, and even the educational system
in the São Paulo area indicate the basis of its representational politics, but
its alienation from national politics meant that these groups never assumed the
shape of articulated political parties The PSP started, from the beginning, using
mobilizational appeals, and used as much political co-optation as was possible
at the state level.
The victory of Jânio Quadros (UDN- São Paulo) and
Goulart (PTB) in the presidential elections of 1960 had two
essential consequences. First, it meant that politics had become
national, and that the political isolation of São Paulo had come
to an end. Second, and perhaps more important, it meant that the
route towards the nationalization of politics was via an increase
in political mobilization and the emergence of clearly
ideological cleavages at the national level. Minas Gerais, which
had had the same political profile as the rest of the country in
presidential and congressional elections up to 1954, lost its
place to Guanabara, which had set the pattern for the 1960
presidential election.
Although the balance of forces was adequate for a
political system based on limited suffrage, co-optation of
political leaders, and electoral isolation of the economic
centers, it could not be maintained when mobilization increased
and politics became national. Political co-optation through
mobilization of the urban centers demanded a kind of mobilization
system, which lacked organizational support, as well as economic,
military and international backing. The alternative was to
restrict the levels of political participation and force the
re-introduction of a restrictive type of co-optation. The new
arrangement, after 1964, would increase the power of the
executive, but channeling, at the same time, political
participation through a two-party system in the legislature. It
is worth noting that this formula was acceptable to the PSD,
which could continue patronage politics at the local level, while
counting on a strong executive to restrict attempts at political
mobilization.
TABLE 22
CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS OF 1966 AND 1970 (PERCENTAGES OF VOTES) |
| |
São Paulo |
Minas Gerais |
Guanabara |
Brazil |
| 1966 |
1970 |
1966 |
1970 |
1966 |
1970 |
1966 |
1970 |
| ARENA (government) |
34.6% |
48.6% |
63.6% |
48.5% |
20.4% |
25.3% |
50.5% |
48.4% |
| MDB (Opposition) |
30.0% |
16.7% |
19.0% |
12.2% |
54.2% |
50.0% |
28.4% |
21.2% |
| blank and null |
35.4% |
34.6% |
17.4% |
39.7% |
25.4% |
24.6% |
21.1% |
30.2% |
| Total |
100% |
100% |
100% |
100% |
100% |
100% |
100% |
100% |
| Source: IBGE, Anuário Estatístico do Brasil, 1966;
and Boletim Eleitoral, XXI, for 1970. |
Regional politics apparently disappeared with the two-party system. However, the
high levels of participation in São Paulo during the 1960 elections faded; the
same thing happened in Guanabara. With the restriction of mobilization, political
alienation increased, and the Congress entered a downhill race which ended in
its complete subordination to the executive.(27) A new kind of co-optation system was installed,
based on a military and technical mandate, and the political system came to a
level of almost complete closure.
If the analysis is correct so far, some conclusions seem to
follow necessarily. It becomes clear that political cleavages in
an underdeveloped country like Brazil cannot be understood in
terms of more or less explicit variable such as
"modern" and "traditional," or rural - urban.
Brazil shares with the rest of Latin America an outstanding lack
of agrarian parties, and this is a strong indication that
political cleavages do not cut along the rural - urban line. The
party which came closest to being a rural party in Brazil was the
PSD, but its strength lay, not in the countryside, but in the
control and exploitation of a huge and complex governmental
structure.
Another conclusion is that the Brazilian internal political
process simply cannot be explained away by its insertion into an
international context of dependency. External factors are
obviously very important in the sense that they place limits on
the alternatives, which are open to the country, but they are not
sufficient to explain the developments that led to the present
political configuration of the country.
We can now return to the opening question: what kind of
political reopening is possible in Brazil? We can certainly say
that co-optation politics with limited participation no longer
seems possible in a non coercive regime. As the State
rationalizes to cope with the pressures of underdevelopment in a
context of demographic explosion and rising aspirations,
piece-meal patronage becomes unsatisfactory and politically
inefficient.(28) What was
formerly a sound political career based on administrative
advocacy becomes political corruption. Brazil is now witnessing
the death of its old "political class."(29)
Much of this process is in the hands of the government and
manifested through direct and indirect sanctions. In addition to
this, the process is hampered by its lack of function in a
context polarized between administrative and economic efficiency
and political mobilization.
The prospects for representation with limited participation
are even dimmer. The 1932 Revolution in São Paulo was probably
the peak of many attempts to establish an autonomous political
force in the country vis-a-vis the co-optation system. After
1945, this kind of politics in São Paulo led more to political
withdrawal than to party structure and organization; when São
Paulo emerged again on the national political scene, it was in
terms of charismatic mobilization and expanded participation. As
the government extends its control over the economic system and
increases its role a., an entrepreneur as well as its
participation in all sectors of the country's life, it is indeed
difficult to admit the possibility of an open political system,
based on traditional representational politics in the foreseeable
future.
The three remaining possibilities are that a political opening
will not occur, or that it will occur with expanded participation
in either the representation or co-optation mode. There is no
reason to assume that the political system cannot remain closed
or highly restricted for a long period, with some oscillations.
Scattered empirical evidence seems to indicate that the urban
middle sectors are willing to accept and support a closed,
military backed regime, if the economic crisis is not
overwhelming, and the demographic explosion does not lead to a
crisis in the countryside. The social costs of this alternative
are, of course, an entirely different matter.
Expanded participation in terms of representation is difficult
to conceive, since it would require fundamental changes in the
present governmental organization. The final possibility is
mobilization with and through the governmental structure, with or
without the present leadership. This alternative has been
intensely discussed in terms of the Peruvian experience, and it
is not beyond the range of possibilities.(30)
The future is, of course, unknown, and each of the possible
alternatives must be ultimately tested by its efficiency in
coping with the tensions of underdevelopment. One of the main
difficulties, which will certainly arise in any attempt at
political openness, will be the almost total lack of a new
civilian leadership. The system of the 1945-64 period did not
leave heirs, just orphans. The major political problem for Brazil
in the years to come will be its ability to establish forms of
autonomous and legitimate representation within a governmental
structure, which seems to become progressively more centralized
and overwhelming. This is not a problem which can be easily
solved - and it is not merely a Brazilian problem either.
Notes
1. In a well publicized press interview on
January 5, 1973, the President of the Brazilian Senate, Filinto
Muller declared that liberal democracy was something of the past
in the whole world, in an effort to legitimize the notion that
the issue of political openness should be dropped as something
irrelevant and old-fashioned. The repercussions of his speech,
however, seem to indicate that the issue was more alive in the
beginning of 1973 than he would probably like to admit. Cf. for
instance Jornal do Brasil (1973).
2. See for instance Theodore Lowi (1969).
3. Samuel P. Huntington (1968), p 7.
4. Samuel P. Huntington (1968), p. 12.
5. The functionality of conflicts as a
function of their level of intensity is something which was left
out of Coser's classic study on Simmel. Cf. Lewis Coser (1956).
6. E. Schattschneider (1960).
7. "Real" here means only that
they are not actually contested, that is, that these demands are
not actually suppressed by physical coercion and/or ideological
bombardment. See the following chapter, footnote 9.
8. There is a tradition in political
sociology which stresses the functional aspects of corruptive
practices in the workings of political systems, as long as these
practices allow for the institutionalization of some
"illegitimate" forms of political participation. This
functionality is usually seen as dysfunctional from a technical
standpoint, and A. O. Cintra notes that "in the debate
between technical and political solutions, the responsibility for
corruption is usually attributed to politics" (Personal
communication). Our discussion shows that the responsibility can
also be placed on the technical side. See, for the functionality
of political corruption, the classic example of R. K. Merton
(1957). I am indebted to Antonio Octávio Cintra for drawing my
attention to this point.
9. Torcuato S. Di Tella links the
complexity of Argentina's society and the plurality of its
centers of power to the well- known difficulties which strong
non-democratic dictatorships have of remaining in power. His
generalization concerning Argentina, which includes Chile and
Uruguay, is not too convincing in that he fails to consider what
a long period of political confrontation can mean to a country in
terms of political decay. What he considers to be
"complexity" and "differentiation" could
probably be better understood in terms of the relative strength
of the representational pattern of political participation in
those countries. With this change, it would probably be easier to
include Brazil which, within the same line of reasoning, is
certainly not less complex and differentiated than those
countries. Cf. Torcuato S. Di Tella (1972).
10. The difficulty of considering these
four levels independently is responsible for many mistakes in the
literature on development. Celso Furtado, for instance, (1966),
makes a sophisticated diagnosis of the economic crisis and its
difficulties at the political level, but has little to say on the
levels of social mobilization and political participation. He
refers to the whole process of social development as a process of
creation of "massas heterogêneas" (heterogeneous
masses), and takes for granted the need for and feasibility of an
"ideology of development" as the only way out. See my
discussion of his book in Schwartzman (1967).
11. Cf. David E. Apter (1971), p. 29 and
others, for a conceptualization of possible changes in systems of
social stratification. Apter's book is the background of much of
the discussion which follows, especially on the relationships
between information, intelligence and coercion.
12. Analyses of leads and lags in the
process of development, suggested by Karl F. Deutsch in his
classic article on social mobilization, have been done
independently by different authors with usually gratifying
results. One of these currents is represented by Rosalind and Ivo
K. Feierabend, who developed an index of "systemic
frustration" by a comparison of indicators of '"want
formation" (education, mass media, urbanization) with that
of "want satisfaction" (economic growth). Another more
structural line of research is followed by University of Zurich
and Fundación Bariloche teams directed by Peter Heintz and
Manuel Mora y Araujo. See Karl W. Deutsch (1966b); Rosalind and
Ivo K. Feierabend (1966); Peter Heintz (1976); Simon Schwartzman
(1972); Manuel Mora y Araujo (1972); Ruben Kaztman (1972); Alaor
Passos (1968).
13. Rokkan and Lipset (1967).
14. For a historical description of the
organization of the Brazilian political parties, cf. P. J.
Peterson (1962).
15. The classic analysis of the
coronelismo system in Brazilian politics is Victor Nunes Leal
(1948). His main contention is that this system is not as much an
expression of the strength of traditional leadership based on
local, familistic and patrimonial ties, as it is of its weakness.
The coronel, as a local boss in a stagnant economy, has little
power, and no access to the government.
16. The best summary of the Brazilian
labor system and its relations with the Ministry of Labor is
given by Phillipe Schmitter (1971), chapter. v and viii.
17. The contrast between distributionist political "arenas",
on one hand, and regulatory and redistributive arenas on the other, is developed
for the United States by Theodore J. Lowi (1964). Although this study was based
on a close scrutiny of decision making processes in the United States, there is
little doubt that this framework could be very useful in a broader political spectrum.
In Brazil's case, it seems clear that this framework could lead to a significant
step further in the study of the repercussions of a system of political patrimonialism
and co-optation at the decision making level.
18. For an analysis and up-dating on the
study of Brazilian local politics, see José Murilo de Carvalho
(1968); Bolivar Lamounier (1969); and especially Antônio
Octávio Cintra (1971).
19. David Apter showed a clear perception
of the limitations of the Western model of political
representation, but I am a little uncertain about his ideas on
the forms of participation which should correspond to his
"hierarchical systems." See David Apter (1968).
20. It is easy to see that the cleavage
in terms of representation vs. co-optation cuts across the class
cleavage. Phillipe Schmitter shows very clearly that
representation politics in Brazil was surprisingly inconspicuous
even in period of open politics, manifesting itself mainly in the
area of São Paulo. Many years earlier, Hélio Jaguaribe (1962).
had already called attention to the cleavage between the
"cartorial" and other autonomous sectors of the
Brazilian social strata.
21. For an analysis of the development of
the Brazilian Labor Party and its urban extraction, cf. Gláucio
A. D. Soares (1972), in particular "As Bases
Socioeconômicas dos Partidos Políticos." This forthcoming
book is certainly the best source for a detailed understanding of
the Brazilian political process in the 1945-64 period.
22. As usual, the details are very complex, although the pattern
remains. See the details of the attempts and failures to create a national Central
Union Organization in Brazil in Schmitter (1971), pp. 190-93. In a note, Schmitter
quotes a "research" performed by the National Conference of Workers
Circles, a Catholic organization, which shows that the newly created Confederação
Nacional dos Trabalhadores was strongest in Pernambuco (71 per cent of the syndicates),
Pará and Piaui (61 per cent), Maranhão (59 per cent), Guanabara (47 per cent)
and Rio de Janeiro (47 per cent). If São Paulo is placed at the bottom, it becomes
clear that the strength of this National Federation of Workers was almost perfectly
and negatively correlated with industrialization.
23. For a keen analysis of Quadro' s
resignation in terms of the developments in the Brazilian party
system, cf. Hélio Jaguaribe (1961).
24. The concentration of legislative
votes on a few candidates was not a new phenomenon of the early
sixties but, in earlier years, it had usually been linked to
strong, personalistic figures from the executive. Thus, Getúlio
Vargas himself got 24.1 per cent of the votes of the city of Rio
de Janeiro for the 1945 congressional election; in 1950, it was
his son, Lutero Vargas, who concentrated 14.5 per cent of the
state's votes (Vargas was then the presidential candidate). In
1954, Carlos Lacerda, a newspaperman who became notorious for his
ferocious attacks on Vargas, got 24.2 per cent of the votes; he
and Vargas' 5 son, Lutero, together obtained 42.5 per cent of the
state's votes. In 1958, Lacerda had again 15.4 per cent of the
state's votes; it is impossible to find the same pattern of
concentration of votes in other states.
25. These figures on turnout must be
considered in the light of the disenfranchisement of the
illiterate (about 50 per cent of the population) and the
population's age structure (about 50 per cent under 18). Since to
register and vote was mandatory, abstention or lack of
registration could create all sorts of difficulties in legal and
bureaucratic procedures. It is expected, therefore, that turnout
grows with increasing urbanization and education, and the rate of
actual to registered voters is little more than a reflection of
the up-dating of the electoral lists. The same is not true,
however, for blank and null votes, which are a clear indication
of political disaffection. The increase from 2.3 per cent to 21.1
per cent of these invalid votes is a first indication of the
political system's progressive failure to correspond to the
constituent's values and aspirations.
26. For an attempt to analyze the
different state patterns of turnout and blank and null votes, cf.
S. Schwartzman (1971).
27. Sérgio Henrique Hudson de Abranches
and Gláucio A. D. Soares (1972); Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos
(1972); and Clóvis Brigadão (1971).
28. The logic of this process was well
characterized by Peter Heintz (1964).
29. The concept of "political
class" belongs to Brazilian political jargon and expresses
well the existence of a system of political leadership, which
does not depend as much on the exercise of representation by
other classes as it does on a special social position, defined by
a relationship of dependency towards the State.
30. It is interesting to note that the
"Peruvian way " used to attract the attention of
Brazilians much more than the political process in Argentina,
which seems, however, much closer to the restoration of
representative democracy than do other military backed
governments in Latin America. It is possible to speculate that
the differences between Peru and Argentina might be traced back
to the historical split, which freed Argentina from the Spanish
colonial administration in Lima (I am indebted to Roberto
Cortés-Conde for calling my attention to the parallel between
São Paulo - Rio and Buenos Aires - Lima).