The Politics of Brazil’s Covid-19 Response

Some of the most interesting and timely research to emerge about Brazil in the past year has focused on the politics of Covid-19. Scholars have provided quick evaluations of the causes of the lackluster government response, in a series of contributions that seem likely to cohere into a longer-term research agenda with application both to Brazil and to the broader comparative policy literature. 

Professor Marta Arretche, a senior researcher at CEBRAP* and a leading scholar of Brazilian federalism at the University of São Paulo, questions the narrative that political competition across the levels of the federation is undermining the pandemic response. Rather, she argues, competition may be encouraging governors to do everything possible to overcome the biggest current hurdle: distributing vaccines to as many citizens as possible, as quickly as possible. The real problem, Arretche argues, is that President Bolsonaro’s efforts to reinforce his hold on the pandemic “denialist” segment of the electorate has meant that there is no federal leadership on vaccines, and the Health Ministry has fallen down on the job of coordinating a national vaccine strategy. As a consequence, Brazil is unlikely to have anything near the number of vaccines it needs, or to develop an effective national distribution plan as quickly as it is needed.

Professor Amy Erica Smith published an appraisal of President Bolsonaro’s Covid response to the pandemic in the October issue of Journal of Democracy. The passivity with which the Bolsonaro administration has faced the overwhelming economic, political and social impacts of the pandemic is puzzling. But Smith demonstrates that the Bolsonaro strategy is politically calculated to heighten political polarization. At the same time, Smith seems to see a silver lining: contra some authoritarians in the hemisphere, Bolsonaro has “managed perceptions of the coronavirus for what appeared to be electoral ends rather than the goal of asserting control over people.” In other words, democracy may have dodged a bullet, even though the government’s response to the pandemic has been abysmal. Not surprisingly, however, Bolsonaro’s approval has recently been taking a hit. 

On the Dados Blog, Ernesto Calvo and Tiago Ventura pick up on one of the issues raised by Smith: how political polarization, consciously stimulated by Bolsonaro, has shaped feelings about the pandemic. Like Trump, they note, Bolsonaro stoked partisan feelings about how to respond to Covid. Partly in consequence, supporters of the PT are twice as likely to fear the effects of Covid-19 as those who support Bolsonaro. Calvo and Ventura note that partisan differences regarding the virus are significant in Brazil, but much less so in Mexico, and not at all in Argentina. One consequence of this strategic choice to politicize the pandemic response is that Brazil is far atop the South American rankings of Covid infection. 

CLALS Research Fellow Beatriz Rey describes the leadership shown by the Brazilian Congress during the pandemic on the AULA Blog. In the absence of firm leadership from President Bolsonaro, Rey notes that Congress has continued a decade-long pattern of legislating without executive guidance. Nearly half of last year’s legislation was pandemic-related, and the overwhelming majority originated among legislators, rather than the executive branch. Even when the executive branch led the proposal, as in the coronavirus emergency aid program that bolstered the Bolsonaro government’s popularity, the meat of the proposal came via congressional amendment. Rey sees this as a hopeful sign that Congress can become a proactive co-policymaker, alongside the traditionally powerful president. As the depressing analysis described above demonstrates, any help is welcome. 

On a final, silly note, the Symphonic Orchestra of Bahia has remade a funk hit for these pandemic times: “Confia no Butantan e na vacinação.”  

_{* During the fourth quarter, research think-tank CEBRAP held a variety of insightful high-level virtual events with leading experts on the impacts of the pandemic in a variety of fields, including education, politics, environmental policy, social welfare, prisons, and economic policy.}

_{Image: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil}