A constitutional text is made of a promise, and its non -compliance shakes the confidence placed in democratic institutions and gives rise to the emergence of authoritarian populism.
This is the thesis presented by the Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the National Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), in “Constitutional Promise and Democratic Crisis: Authoritarian Populism and the”.
The book is the result of doctoral research defended in 2022 from the Faculty of Law of (Rio de Janeiro State University), guided by Rodrigo Brandão Pessanha, a professor at the same institution, who signs one of the prefaces of the edition.
The other is in charge of the minister and president of the Supreme Court (STF), also professor at UERJ. The presentation was made by the political scientist, to whom the author also attributes the incentive and guidelines for publication of the thesis in book.
The idea of constitutional promise, mentioned in the title of the work, refers to what legitimates a democratic order. Capeci states that members of a political community make each other the “promise of an increasingly free and equal life.” The impasse, according to the teacher, is that institutions tend to realize less than promised.
“Populism arises, then, when the emancipatory dimension of the constitutional text takes place from the practical dimension. Institutions become more oligarchic and more distanced from popular demands, […] And frustration causes people to gather around empty signifiers, which are generally very vague expressions, such as combating corruption, struggle for freedom, etc., “says the teacher.
Capechi emphasizes the importance of complexifying the concept of populism. According to the teacher, there is a democratizing bias when we “pretend to include more people in the political process and make it more competitive.” On the other hand, the authoritarian dimension of populism manifests itself in the exclusion of certain identities and perpetuation in power.
In the preface, Barroso signals that the work is not shy away from addressing great contradictions of Brazilian society, “as the inability of political elites to promote substantial transformation in the oligarchic structures of the Brazilian state, which maintain much of the population on the fringes of the country’s political and economic life.”
Moreover, the idea of conflict also emerges in the work as an indicative of what the minister calls “democratic vitality,” present in periods such as the 1987 and 1988 Constituent Assembly.
Referring to figures such as, Capeci argues that the process of elaboration of the current constitutional text represents an unprecedented moment for political participation in Brazilian society. He emphasizes, however, an ambiguous character in the balance of this period of intense profusion of interests.
“Just as the 1988 Constitution was able to absorb the demands and wishes of groups that have always been marginalized in Brazilian history, on the other hand, the text incorporated and ended corporate privileges of oligarchic groups. As is said in political science: it was a Christmas tree, and everyone wanted to hang a ornament,” he says.
