—Frances Hagopian coloca como origem da atual crise de representação a divergência entre a expansão de accountability horizontal e a falha dos partidos em capturar a demanda emergente por representação política:
"Why are voters ready to see the ouster of a president
to whom they gave a second term just two years ago? Why, given
Brazil’s great strides in building a more inclusive democracy buttressed
by stronger institutions of horizontal accountability—which have been
key to exposing the Petrobras scandal—are we witnessing such political
turmoil? What underlies the current crisis?
The answer is that stronger horizontal accountability institutions and
an expanded citizenship have paradoxically eroded the bonds of vertical
accountability. Brazil’s recent achievements in empowering accountability
institutions and enforcement agencies and broadening sociopolitical inclusion
have generated demands for political representation that the existing
party system has not been able to meet. The work of judicial institutions
now throws corruption (hardly a new phenomenon) into starker relief. At
the same time, the stabilization of the economy and the expansion of access
to social services and income support have made citizens less reliant
on patronage and more demanding of local and national governments."
—Mainwaring, Power e Bizzarro apontam que o relativo sucesso econômico do Brasil até poucos anos atrás ajudou a institucionalizar o sistema de partidos, algo que está em risco com a crise corrente e os dois principais partidos programáticos do país catando os cacos do que já foram por aí. O reverso da institucionalização é o personalismo da política no Peru ou o caos da Venezuela.
Alguma esperança? De novo, Hagopian:
"The protests of recent years in Brazil are a sobering reminder that
democracies need representative institutions to reach citizens, to express
their aspirations, and to translate their preferences into effective governing
solutions. But the protests also offer a ray of hope: Even in hard
times, and with popular anger at the political class threatening to boil
over, Brazilians find their democracy worth taking part in, and respect
the institutions that safeguard it."
E, no mesmo tom, a (grande) coluna desta semana do Michael Reid na The Economist:
"... in Brazil, with its strong parliamentary tradition, no president can govern against Congress. When Ms Rousseff brandishes her 54m votes in the presidential election of 2014 as a defence, she forgets that they were for Mr Temer too, and that the senators have an equally valid democratic mandate. Brazil has thus offered a tutorial in constitutional theory to the likes of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s dictatorial president. The legacy of a divisive impeachment is not all bad."
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