Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law

Tag: democratic erosion

  • The Role of a Judge in an Electoral Autocracy

    —Aparna Chandra, Associate Professor of Law and M. K. Nambyar Chair Professor on Constitutional Law, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2024 columnists, see here.] The Autocrats’ Playbook This is the year of elections.

  • Symposium on the Challenges of the Lula Government in Reversing Democratic Erosion in Brazil: Introduction

    —Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília and Conrado Hübner Mendes, University of São Paulo  Bolsonaro is gone, but not bolsonarism. Neither the shadow of Bolsonaro, who left the country before Lula’s inauguration and, without recognizing electoral defeat, has been living in Florida ever since.

  • Brazil’s Most Important Election Ever: What is at Stake and What Might Happen Next?

    —Emílio Peluso Neder Meyer, Federal University of Minas Gerais, and Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília Brazil’s next elections will be held on Sunday, October 2. More than any other political event since the country’s transition to democracy in 1985, these elections are an inflection point for Brazil’s near and long future.

  • Constitutional Authoritarian Populism in Tunisia

     –José Ignacio Hernández G., Catholic University Andrés Bello (Venezuela); Invited professor, Castilla-La Mancha University (Spain); Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School Tunisia is the most recent example of an authoritarian backslide covered by constitutional formalities and boosted by populist rhetoric. Since July 25, 2021, Tunisian President Kais Saied has adopted several authoritarian decisions that were justified as extraordinary constitutional measures to protect the Tunisian people.

  • From the Least Dangerous Branch of Government to the Most Democratically Disruptive Court in the World

    —Miguel Schor, Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Drake University Constitutional Law Center In The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the United States Supreme Court is the least dangerous of the three branches of government as it lacks the power of the President or Congress.

  • American Exceptionalism and the Capitol Riot One Year Later

    —Miguel Schor, Drake University School of Law American exceptionalism is a term of art comparativists employ to write and think about the United States. Two remarkable phenomena underpin the claim of American exceptionalism. First, the United States self-consciously envisioned itself as setting an example to the world when it drafted a new constitution in the late eighteenth century.

  • A “Hybrid Coup” in Brazil? Bolsonaro in Desperation Mode

    —Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development [Editors’ Note: This is one of our biweekly ICONnect columns. For more information on our four columnists for 2021, please see here.] The statement that coups nowadays occur mostly from within the institutional framework, not by an external act of force, has become a pattern in comparative politics and constitutionalism.

  • How the Captain Defeated the Army: Bolsonaro Subordinates the Military in Brazil

    —Ulisses Levy Silvério dos Reis & Rafael Lamera Giesta Cabral, The Federal University of the Semi-Arid Region Jair Bolsonaro’s victory for the Presidency of Republic in 2018 brought numerous challenges to the Brazilian democratic experience. Since the re-democratization in 1985, the military has never been so close to power as it is now.

  • Does President Biden’s Agenda Provide an Antidote to Trumpism?

    —Miguel Schor, Drake University School of Law The assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, demolished the idea of American exceptionalism, the idea that the United States is a democratic model that other nations should emulate. The groundwork for the attack was laid by a campaign of lies waged by the President and his allies that the election was stolen.

  • On Defamation and Intimidation: The Brazilian Attorney General Tries to Silence a Law Professor

    —Octávio Luiz Motta Ferraz, Director of the Transnational Law Institute, King’s College London Brazil is not for beginners, so goes the age old saying. But more than two years of Bolsonaro is quickly making the whole world experts in Brazil’s grotesque antidemocratic habits.