"The Edge of Democracy" is a very valuable documentary. Although it does not deviate from the director's left-leaning ideological prejudice, the rebirth, development and crisis of Brazilian democracy are still worthy of current reflection, and it also has the value of further academic research. This film review aims to provide some modern political background and related research theories in Brazil, combining political changes with the development of dependency theory, and enriching the thinking level of this documentary.
The first republic in the history of Brazil was established in 1889 and is known as the Republic of the United States of Brazil. Although the Republic of Brazil politically broke away from the colonial rule of its sovereign power, Portugal, it still has not escaped the colonial influence in its economic structure. Coffee bean cultivation has become the cornerstone of Brazil's primary product export economy, as a steady stream of goods to provide the capitalist industrial power with cheap raw materials. However, in the 1930s, the Great Depression and tsunami destroyed this weak colonization connection, the capital market shrank, the price of coffee beans fell, the backbone of the national economy collapsed, and the glory of the First Republic was at stake. Immediately afterwards, Brazil ushered in the first military coup in modern history. The army overthrew Washington Louis, then president of the United States, and its supporter Getulio Vargas became the president.
Vargas carried out fruitful reforms to the mired Brazilian economy and followed the example of Roosevelt in carrying out a series of active state interventions, mainly focusing on tax cuts and tax cuts in line with the actual agricultural countries, which made the economy based on agricultural export orientation. Pick up. In 1937, according to the new constitution, Vargas, who should have resigned, created a new government, the new state, through an emergency seizure of power. The rule of the new country is quite similar to that of fascism. In internal affairs, the censorship of speech, the cancellation of party elections, the establishment of guards, and the diplomatic enthusiasm with the Axis powers confessed. After World War II, the United States returned to the back garden of Latin America. At the same time, the second wave of democratization swept across the world. The national liberation movement of the world was huge. Vargas’ authoritarian regime was pressured by both domestic and foreign public opinion, and finally had to resign in 1945. , Returning politics to the people.
The economic crisis of the 1930s was a watershed in Brazil's modernization process. Due to the contraction of the European and American markets, Brazil began to move its main markets to the country, thus actively developing its national industry. Relying on US loans and industrial support, coupled with a good environment without the effects of war, Brazil's economy has entered the road of import substitution industrialization. Later, Argentine economist Raul Prebisch put forward the famous "dependency theory", pointing out that the capitalist world economic system is composed of the "center" of the western advanced industrial countries and the "periphery" of the underdeveloped countries. Constantly providing cheap raw materials for blood transfusions to industrial powers and buying high-priced industrial products are unequal exploitation. The changes in technology, markets, and capital have further deteriorated the terms of trade of “peripheral” underdeveloped countries. Therefore, underdeveloped countries should Moving towards import substitution industrialization means establishing a complete production-consumption industrial chain in the country, replacing foreign markets with the domestic market, and blocking the entry of foreign industrial products with towering trade barriers to promote the development of the national economy and complete industrialization. Brazil at this time is at the forefront of the times and has become a model for the development of Latin American countries.
The application of the import substitution model has enabled Brazil's national industry to develop earlier, but structural imbalances have appeared over time. In March 1964, a military coup broke out in Brazil, establishing a military regime with "security and development" as its guiding ideology. As a conservative right-wing government, the military regime is politically attacking leftist revolutionary parties and restricting freedom of speech. At the same time, a strong government's resource input and suppression of social participation allow economic and technical experts to focus on industrial development in a stable and high-level political environment. Soon, the Brazilian economy took off again. However, industries based on elite resources exacerbated the contradiction between the rich and the poor in the country, and the oil crisis in 1973 made Brazil extremely scarce of the energy that it depends on for production, and it was unable to maintain domestic production. In order to maintain economic growth, the military government borrowed heavily to stimulate the economy. In line with the import substitution model, the domestic industrial sector relied on the government to borrow foreign exchange, but was unable to earn foreign exchange. Finally, in the early 1980s, Latin American countries were heavily indebted and the manufacturing industry suffered heavy losses.
At the same time, Dos Santos's "New Attachment Theory" caused widespread concern in Latin American circles. Compared with Prebisch, Dos Santos emphasized that Latin America is fully dependent on the center of Western capitalist powers in terms of industry, politics, and "intellect." The center uses advanced technology and finance to achieve control over Latin America's industry and society. But his "new dependency theory" no longer only has "center" and "periphery", but also socialist countries that are not part of the capitalist world market system. Affected by the wave of the left-wing revolution, Dos Santos believes that the underdeveloped countries that continue to exist in the world market will never escape the fate of being exploited, because some people in the country will become "comradors" in the developed capital markets, instead of capital countries to exploit at home. Through the domestic socialist revolution, overthrowing compradors and establishing proletarian power is the only way out of exploitation.
In 1985, when the military regime stepped down, the right-leaning spectrum of ideology did not turn. The most obvious manifestation was that Lula ran for president three times and failed. The previous Brazilian president who came to power in 2003 was Fernando Cardoso. Cardoso is a representative of dependency theory development theory. Unlike Dos Santos, Cardoso believes in reformism and advocates the development of Brazil’s economy in accordance with the Western neoliberal economic model. Economic autonomy. Before Cardoso came to power, he opposed Lula's leftist political views and formed an alliance with the right-wing Democratic Party to form a center-right coalition, which will become the largest party in Congress in the future. After being elected president, Cardoso reorganized his Social Democratic Party to make it even more right. This is why Lula must form an alliance with the right-hand party to form a majority government after he takes office.
The famous scholar Juan Linz put forward the "five sins of the presidential system", thinking that the presidential election is the "winner-takes-all" under the majority system. Others who are not an absolute majority lose their representatives, and the society splits the interest groups. However, from the historical narrative of Brazil’s return to constitutional government, it can be seen that even if the leftists elect a president to take power, the overall political atmosphere of the society is still rightward, and this stems from the coalition of political parties in Congress-the presidential party is not strong enough to occupy the majority of seats. In order to avoid the emergence of minority government, we must choose alliances with other political parties. In the preface of "On the Death of the Democratic System under the Presidential System", Chaibabu questioned Linz's view that the "winner takes all" presidential system can only represent the interests of the absolute majority and cause social division. In fact, under the presidential system, whether the government moves toward a coalition or a minority government depends on the distance between the presidential party and other parties in the policy space. If the political preferences of the political parties differ greatly, the president will compromise in exchange for policy cooperation, thus forming a coalition government. For this reason, Chaibab believes that the military regime in the 1960s brought about the death of Brazil’s democratic system and is not to blame for the presidential system. Because of the shortcomings of the presidential system), and from historical coincidences (for example, the Cold War environment requires relatively strong military power, which gives the soldiers a good opportunity to seize power); however, what is happening in Brazil today—the failure of the left and the renewal of the right The crisis of the resurgence of growth and authoritarianism-heralds the possibility of the failure or even collapse of democracy in the future. When Chaibab proposed his explanation, he attributed everything to historical coincidence and avoided the construction of theory; but now we have to ask, is it now another historical coincidence?
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