29/04 Free Talk: Making Brazil Work: Checking the president in a multiparty system

10 Apr, 2014

TALKAi??| 5.30pm – 7.30pm) |Ai??Making Brazil Work: Checking the president in a multiparty system | @ King’s Brazil Institute (Ai??Council Room, 2nd Floor King’s Building, Strand Campus, Ai??WC2R 2LS) |Ai??This event is FREE to attend and there is no need to book

Description

ProfessorAi??Marcus AndrAi?? Melo,Ai??Federal University of Pernambuco

Common wisdom has it that when presidential political systems coincide with multiparty systems the result is gridlock; parties squabble and presidents are not able to stitch together the majorities they need to move forward with the business of governing. Yet, recent experiences in Latin America suggest otherwise. In roughly the last decade, multiparty presidentialism has emerged as a model form of presidential democracy. Using Brazil as a case study and situating Brazil within a broad comparative context, Marcus AndrAi?? Melo and Carlos Pereira, in their recent bookAi??Making Brazil Work: Checking the President in a Multiparty System, offer the first conceptually rigorous analysis of the of the political and institutional underpinnings of Brazil’s recent rise as the world’s sixth largest economy. Considering key institutional features at federal and sub-national levels, the authors argue that Brazil’s success stems from the combination of a constitutionally strong president and a robust system of checks and balances that emerges from healthy political competition and power alternation.

Reviews

“Marcus AndrAi?? Melo and Carlos Pereira provide a blueprint for researching the sources of institutional stability in multiparty presidential regimes. With theoretical breath and empirical care, they debunk old prejudices in regard to the functioning of the Brazilian democracy and prove that multiparty presidential regimes can produce sound, stable, and predictable economic policy outcomes. As they conclusively prove, multiparty coalitions that difficult policy implementation can also be a source of policy stability and consensual change rather than a trigger of gridlock and executive discretion. A brilliant reassessment of the political institutions that have made of Brazil a democratic economic power.” – Ernesto Calvo, Associate Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, USA

“This book is of interest to more than just Brazilian scholars or Latin Americanists. Brazil is a country with 26 states plus one federal district that experienced a severe financial crisis in the late 1990s. In its broader consideration of how the country’s political system functions, the authors explain how such a complicated set of interests and institutions can work together, and even work well. As the European Union struggles with how to deal with often-similar governance issues with 28 Member States after its own financial crisis, there are plenty of lessons this book provides from the Brazilian experience. The chapter on budgetary and auditing institutions, which provides a fantastic analysis of sub-national level agencies and offers a parallel to debates about fiscal councils in the European context, is particularly good.” – Mark Hallerberg, Professor and Director of the Fiscal Governance Centre, Hertie School of Governance, Germany

Ai??