Brazilian Civil Society in Transition Politics

T he case of Brazil, like that of Spain, pointedly contradicts the conventional wisdom about civil society and democratic consolidation. Brazil undertook to democratize with a civil society whose vibrancy and robustness would have made Tocqueville proud. But this particular feature of Brazilian civil society, as suggested in this chapter, has been of questionable relevance to the actual consolidation of democracy. While democracy survives in Brazil—which is more democratic today than at any other time in its history—democratic survival is not consolidation. As noted previously, democratic consolidation supposes a wide range of attitudinal, institutional and procedural requirements that Brazilian democracy simply does not meet, including civilian control of the military, adherence to the rule of law, governmental accountability, widespread respect for civil and human rights and especially mass support for democracy. These are, of course, some of the very tasks that a vibrant and robust civil society is meant to facilitate. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.