Repression and Representation in Brazil

During the heyday of authoritarianism and economic growth in Brazil, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the question of elite-mass relations did not arise because the answer to it seemed obvious. The powerful were not representative, elected representatives were not powerful, and the Brazilian public did not count politically anyway. Since then, as the arbitrariness of the regime has eroded, both its supporters and opponents have searched for mechanisms to replace the discredited formula of outright despotism. The search calls into question the nature of elite-mass relations. My purpose is to examine two of the factors that condition this transition, drawing on interviews with elites and ordinary citizens:' the agreement/ disagreement between elites and nonelites on specific issues, and the institutional alternatives through which differences on these issues can be processed. The first bears on representation as a problem of communication, the second on representation as a problem of power. The links between the questions are not straightforward. The assumption that since the mass of the population has no power (as has certainly been the case in Brazil) public opinion and interests are ignored can be misleading. Elites may assess popular demands accurately even as they flout them or otherwise fail to act as bound delegates. This happens in democratic as well as authoritarian systems.3 Conversely, elites may implement policies that correspond to plausible views of the public interest, even if they do not set out to respond to public opinion. Variations on the Bismarckian strategy of anticipatory reform are legion.4 In Brazil, manipulation in this vein goes back at least as far as the 1930s. Let us make the revolution, a politician of the time used to say, before the people do. Studies of representation often focus on the communication rather than the power side of elite-mass linkages. In advanced industrial democracies the