Populism, Elitism and Democracy

Reflections from Operação Lava-Jato

Abstract

Recently, it has become commonplace to suggest that “populism” associated to strong political leaders who call for a direct connection with the people as a way of circumventing the authority of other political institutions is a major threat to democracy. Thus, the best way to contain this threat would be to strengthen the role of control institutions (such as the judiciary system and the press) in politics. As seductive as this argument may seem, it presents a simplistic view of the problem. To illustrate this, we have discussed the decline of the Brazilian democracy in recent years, culminating in the rise of Jair Bolsonaro to the Presidency. We argue that, far from being a barrier to authoritarianism, control institutions acted systematically to destabilise democracy, thus paving the way to the victory of Bolsonaro.