![3
Finally, I will sum up my findings and point out how the specific features of Brazilian
federalism contributed to one of the biggest corruption scandals of a federal country,
notoriously famous for letting politicians “get away with murder, sometimes literally”
(Economist, 28.7.2012).
[…]
5. Conclusion
The specific institutional features of the political system in Brazil, particularly the
combination of presidentialism, a three-layered federal approach and differing electoral
systems regarding both chambers of Congress lead to a unique implementation of federalism,
which highly favors state-oriented clientelism and accordingly ideologically flexible parties
and politicans. The PT’s rise to power in 2002 constitutes the first time in Brazilian history
that a highly organized and idelogically motivated party from outside of the political
establishment faced the challenges of coalitional presidentialism. Its attempt to govern
without respecting the informal rules of Brazil’s clientelist politics, namely the granting to
cabinet posts to its allied patronage-oriented parties in order to allow them to satisfy their
clientele’s demands, ultimately backfired and resulted in the mensalão scandal of 2005, which
“nearly caused the (PT) administration to collapse” (BBC, 2012).
This leads to two conclusions regarding federalism in Brazil and to two conclusions regarding
federal studies in general. First of all show the mensalão events and their underlying
motivations that you will not be able to work with Congress in Brazil if you are not willing to
play by the informal rules of coalitional presidentialism, which highly favor patronage. These
rules stem from the unproportional representation of states in the bicameral Congress, which
leads to a preferential treatment of Brazil’s less populated and comparatively underdeveloped
states of the North and North-East. Consequently should a Brazilian government avoid the
influence of federal legislators whenever possible, in order to break those structures. If these
state representatives have to be incorporated, as it is the case with coalition building and the
forming of supermajorities in order to reach constitutional reforms, the informal rules of
coalitional presidentialism have to be respected in order not to be forced to resort to even
more questionable and ultimately illegal means as the mensalão scandal illustrates. The
successful implementation of programs like Bolsa Famíla furthermore seems to indicate that
the Worker’s Party learned its lesson and overcame its initial “naiveté” in approaching](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1fbe459e-95b3-44fb-9773-a38362758528-161102115825/85/Termpaper-sample_Brazilian-Federalism-and-the-Mensalao-Scandal-4-320.jpg)
Termpaper-sample_Brazilian Federalism and the Mensalao Scandal
- 1. Pompeu Fabra University Department of Political and Social Sciences The Impact of Brazilian Federalism on the Mensalão Scandal of 2005 Federalism and Federations Submitted by: Frederic Bleses 01.04.2013 Spring-Term 2013
- 2. 1 Table of Content: 1. Introduction.....................................................................................................2 2. Federalism in Brazil........................................................................................3 2.1 History of Brazilian Federalism..…………………………………….4 2.2 Specific Features: The Gubernatorial Coattails Effect………….. …..5 2. 3 The Federal Impact on Coalition Building…………………………...6 3. The Mensalão Scandal ....................................................................................7 3.1 Overview ............................................................................................... 7 3.2 The Motives behind the Vote Buying Scheme ....................................... 8 3.3 Coalition Building of the Lula Government ........................................... 9 4. Federalism and Mensalão..............................................................................12 4.1 The Benificiaries of Brazilian Federalism ............................................... 12 4.2 The Scandal’s Impact on Brazilian Federalism........................................ 13 4.3 Conclusions regarding the Study of Federalism....................................... 14 5. Conclusion.....................................................................................................16 6. Bibliography..................................................................................................18
- 3. 2 1. Introduction The Brazilian “mensalão scandal” of 2005 constituted “one of the biggest political corruption scandals of the country’s recent history” and posed the main challenge to the otherwise overwhelmingly popular government (Anderson, 2011: 23) of Luiz Ignácio “Lula” da Silva from 2002 to 2010 (BBC, 2012) while seriously damaging the ruling Worker’s Party’s image (Economist, 28.7.2012). The scandal involved illegal monthly side-payments from the executive to several legislators, which represents at least on the first glance a surprising practice for a “publicly popular and constitutionally powerful president” (Pereira, Power, Raile, 2008: 1). The following analysis will investigate the impact of Brazilian federalism on the scandal by making the argument that the specific features of the federal system in Brazil grant state level- interests extraordinary representation in the legislative branch and thus hinder executive coalition building as well as the implementation of presidential policies. These institutional constraints on the executive were even fostered by the specific organizational and ideological characteristics of Lula’s Workers’ Party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), which weakened the president’s ability to go by the usual channels of coalition building via granting cabinet posts to political allies. As a result, the administration was forced to rely on illegal means to gain the necessary legislative support for its policies. In order to support this argument, the paper will first illustrate the independent variable, the federal system of Brazil by giving a brief overview of its history, outlining its specific features and explaining their effects on presidential coalition building in Brazil. After that, the independent variable, the mensalão scandal will be analyzed by presenting the relevant events before investigating the question why the Lula administration resorted to the aforementioned vote-buying scheme. In order to do so, I will analyze the composition of the governing coalition and underline how the fragmented party system of Brazil in combination with the ideologically motivated resistance of the PT to grant its political allies a sufficient amount of cabinet posts and jobs in the public administration urged the party’s strategists to find other ways of awarding political backing, which finally lead to bribing. The following analysis will identify the beneficiaries of the federal order in Brazil regarding this particular case and in general before investigating the impact of the findings on the overall interpretation of Brazilian federalism and infer conclusions regarding the study of federal systems in general.
- 4. 3 Finally, I will sum up my findings and point out how the specific features of Brazilian federalism contributed to one of the biggest corruption scandals of a federal country, notoriously famous for letting politicians “get away with murder, sometimes literally” (Economist, 28.7.2012). […] 5. Conclusion The specific institutional features of the political system in Brazil, particularly the combination of presidentialism, a three-layered federal approach and differing electoral systems regarding both chambers of Congress lead to a unique implementation of federalism, which highly favors state-oriented clientelism and accordingly ideologically flexible parties and politicans. The PT’s rise to power in 2002 constitutes the first time in Brazilian history that a highly organized and idelogically motivated party from outside of the political establishment faced the challenges of coalitional presidentialism. Its attempt to govern without respecting the informal rules of Brazil’s clientelist politics, namely the granting to cabinet posts to its allied patronage-oriented parties in order to allow them to satisfy their clientele’s demands, ultimately backfired and resulted in the mensalão scandal of 2005, which “nearly caused the (PT) administration to collapse” (BBC, 2012). This leads to two conclusions regarding federalism in Brazil and to two conclusions regarding federal studies in general. First of all show the mensalão events and their underlying motivations that you will not be able to work with Congress in Brazil if you are not willing to play by the informal rules of coalitional presidentialism, which highly favor patronage. These rules stem from the unproportional representation of states in the bicameral Congress, which leads to a preferential treatment of Brazil’s less populated and comparatively underdeveloped states of the North and North-East. Consequently should a Brazilian government avoid the influence of federal legislators whenever possible, in order to break those structures. If these state representatives have to be incorporated, as it is the case with coalition building and the forming of supermajorities in order to reach constitutional reforms, the informal rules of coalitional presidentialism have to be respected in order not to be forced to resort to even more questionable and ultimately illegal means as the mensalão scandal illustrates. The successful implementation of programs like Bolsa Famíla furthermore seems to indicate that the Worker’s Party learned its lesson and overcame its initial “naiveté” in approaching
- 5. 4 Brazilian politics by collaborating with municipalities in order to avoid governors and their clientelist practices. This “predatory behavior” (Abrucio and Samuels, 1997) by federal deputies of holding the legislature hostage in order to blackmail monetary transfers for their own constituencies is fostered by the aforementioned unique institutional setting that accompanies Brazilian federalism. These features, from the unusual and oligarchic character of the underlying federal pact (Costa, 2002: 92) to the “gubernatorial coattails effect” (Samuels, 2000a) are in turn influenced by the clientelist culture of Brazilian politics. Because of this, I would argue that we should extend the usual question regarding the existence of a federal culture (Requejo and Wynants, 2001: 292). Having a federal culture may constitute a necessary condition for the successful implementation of a functioning form of federalism, but as the case of Brazil shows is it not a sufficient one. We should thus extend the question from “if” to “how” and take the impact of political culture on federal structures and its rules and procedures into account when studying the constraining or enhancing effects, federalism has on the governability of a given political system. The aforementioned successful tactic of circumventing the influence of state-level deputies by the federal government and the municipalities emphasizes that we should also consider sub-state units when analyzing federal systems in general and especially in the case of Brazil, where apparently the circumvention of state-level influence constitutes the only legal way of avoiding “predatory federalism”.
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