This pandemic is causing businesses to fail, and it is leading to surging economic inequality in Brazil. Brazil is struggling, and it is time for the world to realize it.
A Struggling Brazil: Dealing with COVID-19
Brazil is a country that has been struggling even before the pandemic. Since the pandemic hit, Brazil has been faced with poor leadership and a declining economy, which all leads to their democracy to be threatened. This pandemic heightened all of the issues of Brazil. Their president even managed to be tested positive for COVID-19 twice! “I did the test yesterday, and at night the result came back that I am still positive for coronavirus”. Brazil’s government has failed to deal with the lingering problems from the pandemic, and the economic inequality and economic downfall will continue to threaten Brazil’s democracy. COVID-19 has been catastrophic to the world, altering all of our lives one way or the other. Simultaneously it is exposing poor and great leadership throughout the nations that have been affected. And it forced people to reevaluate the history and current state of their country. The pandemic has also put stress on democracy nationally, both strong and weak regimes. COVID-19 showed us what is to come and has made an impact that will last throughout generations.
Issues with Brazil
Brazil has a tremendous amount of issues they have been dealing with over recent years. When it comes to issues, Brazil has been dealing with a lack of freedom of expressing, children’s rights, disability rights, labor rights, economic inequality, and foreign policy, along with many other issues. With COVID-19, not enough of these issues have been brought to attention or resolved.
President Bolsonaro delivering a speech at Planalto Palace in Brasilia on Jan. 7, 2019. Evaristo Sa—AFP/Getty Images. TIME (https://time.com/5546409/brazil-president-carnival-viral-tweets/).
Brazil’s Economic Inequality
Seymour Lipset, who was a sociologist and a political theorist, studied the importance of economic development for democratic consolidation. He also came up with the modernization theory. His main idea about modernization theory is that economic growth and development are essential to maintain a democracy. Seymour Martin Lipset: stated, “The general income level of a nation will also affect its receptivity to democratic political tolerance norms”… “ The poorer the country, the greater the emphasis which is placed on nepotism, i.e., support of kin and friends. The weakness of the universalistic norms reduces the opportunity to develop efficient bureaucracy, a condition for a modern democratic state.” Even before coronavirus, Brazil’s economy has been going down a whirlpool. At the current rate that Brazil’s economic inequality is decreasing, it would take 75 years to catch up to the UK’s level of inequality and 60 years to Spain’s level of inequality. This vast difference between democracies should be a warning and is dangerous to Brazil’s democracy. With the corruption of the president and the economic inequality, Brazil can manage to fall out of its democratic state. Larry Diamond stated, “The countries with populations over one million are about twice as likely as small states to have an electoral authoritarian regime and half again as likely to have a closed authoritarian regime.” Brazil has 207 million people in the country, and with the growing economic decline and inequality and with political corruption, Brazil is in trouble of making a regime change.
Impact of COVID-19 on Businesses in Brazil
In “Brazil’s Post-Pandemic Economy”, an economist, Elena Landau stated, “There is a group of companies, with revenues between R$ 10 and 15 million, which is lost to the government. They will not survive”. In an economy, during COVID-19 it is very unlikely that these businesses can recover. This is alarming because around 5.8 million SMEs are behind their dues. It is also alarming because this is a direct effect of COVID-19. These types of companies cannot keep up on their dues and 94 percent of companies that are behind on their dues were SMEs. If these businesses can’t stay afloat millions will lose their jobs in a market where there aren’t jobs available. The government is trying to keep companies afloat by considering giving cash to small companies which would help them delay the process of them paying their loans. There is going to be a lot of uncertainty as businesses continue to fail. The reading I can relate to this crisis too is “Latin America” by Andrea Oelsner and Mervyn Bain. The reading talks about economic factors when it comes to a democratic regime. The reading states, “Yet the neoliberal economics has also resulted in a number of problems for democracy as amongst other things unequal distribution of wealth has increased within the region”. The neoliberal model is relative to the spread of democracy but with the debt crisis, it can be a model that debilitates the Democratic Regimes.
Democracy in Danger
With a massive population like Brazil’s, it is essential for the leader to take responsibility and to be able to adapt and to help the citizens. But as Ariel C. Armony and Hector E. Schamis state in ‘Babel in Democratization Studies”, In most typical of these imbalances, executive branches strive for greater autonomy and the centralization of political authority, seeking to circumvent congressional and judicial oversight… All democracies, in this sense, have the potential of risk of heightened concentration of executive power”. President Bolsonaro showed Brazil what kind of leadership he is about during COVID-19, and it may lead Brazil to a place outside of democracy.
Justin Leonard is a senior at SUNY Geneseo majoring in Political Science and minoring in History, graduating in 2021.
Bibliography
Brazilian Report, The. “Brazil’s Post-Pandemic Economy,” June 5, 2020. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/brazils-post-pandemic-economy
Oelsner, Andrea, and Mervyn Bain. “Latin America .” Essay. In Democratization, n.d.
Schamis, Ariel C. Armony and Hector E. 2005. “Babel in Democratization Studies.” Journal of Democracy 113-128.
Diamond, Larry. 2002. “Thinking About Hybrid Regimes.” Project Muse 21-35.
Bain, Andrea Oelsner and Mervyn. n.d. Latin America
“Brazil: Extreme Inequality in Numbers.” Oxfam International, October 20, 2019. https://www.oxfam.org/en/brazil-extreme-inequality-numbers.
McFall, Caitlin. “Brazil’s President Bolsonaro Gets New Positive Coronavirus Test Result.” Fox News. FOX News Network, July 16, 2020. https://www.foxnews.com/world/brazils-bolsonaro-gets-new-positive-coronavirus-test-result.
“World Report 2019: Rights Trends in Brazil.” Human Rights Watch, January 17, 2019. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/brazil.
McGeever, Jamie. “Brazil 2020 Economic Outlook Darkens after Lowest GDP Growth in Three Years.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, March 4, 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-economy-idUSKBN20R1TE.
Brazil Institute. “Healthcare Inequality and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil.” Wilson Center. Accessed August 1, 2020. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/healthcare-inequality-and-covid-19-pandemic-brazil.
Norris. 2009. “What drives democracy .” In Driving Democracy, by Norris, 1-29.