Fragmentation in the brazilian party system

From the central party to real parties

Abstract

The article revisits the work of Lucia Hippolito (1985) on the Brazilian party system from 1945 to 1965 with two objectives: 1) to explore the theoretical relationships with the work of Giovanni Sartori (1982[1976]); 2) identify possible relationships that advance the theoretical discussion on parties and the party system in Brazil today. The direct confrontation between the two authors exposes the limits of the analysis of the Brazilian political system from 1945-1965 in terms of the centrality of the PSD, seen from different angles, such as the expectation of power of the center party around the presidential elections, the longevity of the PSD ahead of the Chamber presidency in the period, the important presence of small parties in the system, coalitions, history, the structural dimension. From this immersion emerges the hypothesis of the relevance of the perception of the current Brazilian party system as a formation with a reasonable number of real parties, a system with a permanent fragmentary matrix, without majority parties in a central position, whose center and stability depends on party coalitions in tune with the full citizenship in the country.