The Last Check on Presidential Power? Governors and their Limits to Democratic Backsliding in Argentina and Brazil

Ángel Álvarez Díaz, Lucas González & Marcelo Nazareno

Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Universidad Nacional de San Martín & Universidad Católica de Córdoba

Coups and executive self-coups (autogolpes) remain an important threat to democracy, as we recently saw in Bolivia. But evidence suggests they are less relevant today than in the past. In this post, we focus on a more recent and significant threat: democratically elected presidents who, once in office, exercise power undemocratically. Rather than through abrupt changes in the regime via a coup d’état, this erosion of democracy is usually gradual. Scholars refer to it as “backsliding,” which is “the incremental erosion of democratic institutions, rules, and norms that results from the actions of duly elected governments, typically driven by an autocratic leader.”

Elected autocratic presidents have weakened democratic institutions by manipulating the electoral process in their favor, packing the judiciary, or bypassing the legislature. Some of them have also repressed fundamental democratic rights by cracking down on dissent and opposition, or have used security forces and intelligence services to intimidate, repress, attack, and, sometimes, arbitrarily imprison members of the opposition and activists. We pay attention to one of the main features of this trend, present in most cases of democratic backsliding, which is the gradual centralization of power in the hands of the executive.

Two democratically elected political leaders in Latin America, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Javier Milei in Argentina, used similar centralizing strategies once in power. On top of centralizing power, they both tried to weaken institutions of horizontal accountability (the checks and balances by the legislature and the judiciary to hold the executive accountable), attacking the judiciary, conflicting with Congress, and trying to rule by decree without legislative support. They both relied on incendiary rhetoric and threats against political opponents and critics. They cut down fiscal transfers to subnational units and centralized administrative functions, reducing the number of federal officials working in subnational units across the territory. They also used police forces to suppress protests and intimidate political opponents, severely undermining political liberties in both countries.

Bolsonaro pursued legal actions against his political opponents (including former president Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva), initiating investigations and charges that were often seen as politically motivated attempts to silence dissent and prevent the opposition from entering the political competition. After losing the 2022 election, he did not immediately concede and refused to explicitly acknowledge Lula’s victory. Some of his most radical supporters questioned the election outcome, engaged in violent protests, and assaulted the presidential palace, demanding the military to intervene through a coup d’état. These decisions were far from democratic.

The literature on backsliding mostly focuses on national-level politics: most scholars analyze the role of opposition leaders, members of Congress, judges, the media, or members of civil society groups. However, less attention is paid to the role of subnational leaders and politics. Governors are mostly absent from those studies. Furthermore, studies on democratization generally see some institutional features of federalism and subnational politics as causes for illiberal practices, contributing to preserving or reinforcing authoritarianism. Some authors refer to the outcomes of federalism as ‘quasi-feudal’ domination. Others consider the fiscal structure of federal systems, particularly federal transfers, as a rent that contributes to clientelism, patronage, repression, and weak societal accountability. According to many studies, federalism contributes to authoritarianism or subnational authoritarianism, even when this institutional device was initially thought as a limit to centralized power.

We argue exactly the opposite. Federalism, as it was originally designed in the Federalist Papers in the United States, is a series of institutional devices through which certain political actors can protect democracy from authoritarian national executives who want to centralize power and stay in office as long as possible. We contend that these actors do not necessarily seek to protect democracy because of their normative attachment to the regime, but rather because of fiscal and political reasons. Governors will be likely to constrain authoritarian presidents as a survival strategy: as a way to protect their fiscal and political autonomy. We claim that governors can limit the centralization strategies of undemocratic presidents. They can coordinate a united front, create an alternative governing coalition in the legislature, and act as a democratic check to an undemocratic president. This is more likely to happen when opposition governors rule in more subnational units than governors from the governing party, and when those governors control larger and more populated districts.

Bolsonaro implemented part of his far-right reform agenda in the areas of gender, environment, social policy, and public education. He radically changed previous redistributive policies favoring minorities and the poor. He substantially altered the bureaucratic structure of the state. The former policies could partially be reversed during a new term of the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT). The reforms to the latter have been more difficult to undo. Bolsonaro could not substantively modify the electoral regime or the judicial system. Most democratic and federal institutions in Brazil resisted him, just as they resisted Trump in the US. They resisted them and prosecuted them. The Superior Electoral Court barred Bolsonaro from office for abuse of power until 2030. Their most enduring legacy, aside from changes in the bureaucratic structure of the state, may be the persistence of the divisive conflicts they have mobilized, the increasing perceptions of mutual threat between their supporters and political opponents, and the skyrocketing erosion in the formers’ trust and respect in core democratic principles.

Liberal democracy in Brazil “clearly suffered erosion” during the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. He is now banned from elections for eight years, but still influences a large part of the electorate and is still a prominent actor in Brazilian politics. The main political actors have not attenuated divisive conflicts among them or diminished perceptions of mutual threat. Trust among them decreased over time, and Bolsonaro and his supporters have not shown any increase in respect for core democratic principles. Questions remain over whether the institutional and political limits to Bolsonaro will be sustainable in Brazil in the long term.

The current president of Argentina, Javier Milei, has so far implemented a radical downsizing of the state and cuts in public spending, but he had to surrender the most radical aspects of his fiscal, tax, privatizing, economic, and politico-institutional reform agenda to get his main bill approved in Congress. Governors have been until now an important check on presidential power. Some governors have tried to attenuate divisive conflicts with the president and build bridges for dialogue. Most governors, even political opponents, show trust  and respect for core democratic principles. They could not limit the president’s rhetorical violence and some institutional attacks on the public sector, but they could resist some of Milei’s most radical and undemocratic centralizing reforms. The president has so far been unable to marginalize them. They could not form a united front to successfully challenge him in future elections either but have been able to stop the centralizing agenda of the president to consolidate his power.

Governors have been an important check to presidential power both in Argentina and Brazil. They reacted to the presidents’ centralizing attempts to erode their autonomy. They could not limit the presidents’ rhetorical violence and their institutional attacks on the public sector (both Bolsonaro and Milei despise state intervention in the economy and social life). But governors have contributed to limiting centralizing reforms by forming an electoral alternative to Bolsonaro and resisting Milei’s undemocratic bills.

These two undemocratic presidents were and have been so far unable to marginalize governors. These two federations have some of the most powerful governors in the region. Some analysts see that as a threat to policy coordination and a hindrance to the consolidation of democracy. We provide an argument that challenges those claims. In the Argentine case, governors could not form a united front to successfully challenge Milei in elections. If the economy continues plunging and the president begins losing significant support in public opinion, governors will be more likely to form an electoral alliance and replace him in office as they did in Brazil. If those conditions move in the opposite direction, presidents are likely to move forward in their centralizing reforms and impose high costs on democratic institutions. Chávez, for instance, did that in Venezuela. Other democratically elected, undemocratic presidents seem to be part of a similar trend.

This blog originates from the international colloquium Federal coalitions and subnational democracy: India, Argentina, South Africa in Eurac Research (10 September 2024).

Ángel Álvarez Díaz is Professor at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello and Director of the Observatorio de la Democracia, AUSJAL.

Lucas González is a Researcher at CONICET, full professor at Universidad Nacional de San Martín, and professor at Universidad Católica Argentina and Universidad Católica de Córdoba.

Marcelo Nazareno is Professor and Researcher at the Universidad Católica de Córdoba and Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.

Suggested Citation: Ángel Álvarez Díaz, Lucas González and Marcelo Nazareno, ‘The Last Check on Presidential Power? Governors and their Limits on Democratic Backsliding in Argentina and Brazil’ IACL-AIDC Blog (12 November 2024) The Last Check on Presidential Power? Governors and their Limits to Democratic Backsliding in Argentina and Brazil — IACL-IADC Blog