Legislative Representation and Governability in Brazil

Abstract

Democracy is, ideally, an equality fostering tool in face of different demands present in any given society and that currently is put in practice by a representative democratic model. Nevertheless, several modern thinkers are pointing to an unmeasured scale of interests within the representation spheres, in which the most powerful society’s sectors overcome the less influential social and economical groups, turning democratic representation into an uneven scheme. By having this in mind, this reflection is aimed to make an analysis of the Brazilian democratic representation model, specifically in relation to its majoritarian government composition, that, in this country, is part of a unique legislative model named as “Coalition Presidentialism”. At the composition idealized by the Brazilian National Constitution, the federal parliamentary ministers have the responsibility for the formulation of laws as well as monitoring the executive power in consonance with the will of the society’s sectors that has got them elected by the voting system. The conflict is established though, when the actual governmental practices leave aside the constitutional principle of a plural representation in consequence of economic and power interests that act independently from the diverse interests and needs of other groups belonging to the Brazilian society. It can be argued that the establishment of governmental practices better aligned to the concept of global justice, in the Brazilian case, can be achieved by a better quality democracy, through adequate governance mechanisms and plural representation practices that are capable of attending the distinct demands of diverse society layers. Thus, this article is aimed to present how the Brazilian democratic representation works, exploring its conflicts and deployments and mainly its divergences in relation to the democratic morality that presupposes the existence of gradated ways to the reaching of higher social and political equality levels, closer to the general global justice ideas.