Political Parties and the Party System

Abstract

Juan Albarracin examines the range of political parties in Brazil. In this article, he discusses the most important and sometimes contradictory findings about Brazilian political parties, the party system itself and its development since 1985. First, he presents a portrait of the fragmentation, polarization, and institutionalization of the party system and then turns to the legal framework and the new developments since 2002. Albarracin questions the assumptions made about the deficient role of political parties in the Brazilian Congress as well as the stabilization of the party system for they were based on analyses that had been solely centered on the defects. He concludes that Brazilian parties have a different purpose and meaning within the political system than they do in Western Europe—but this does not mean that they are automatically deficient. This is clearly demonstrated by the stabilization of the party system and the position of the parties in Congress.