The Current Brazilian Crisis
BRAZIL INITIATIVE ROUND TABLE
Speaker
Political Polarization, Legal Uncertainty, and Institutional DistrustDate & time
Location
SPEAKERS
LEONARDO BARBOSA, Staff Attorney at the Chamber of Deputies, Brasilia, and Professor of Law at the Center for Continuing Education and Professional Development, Chamber of Deputies, Brasilia
FABIO DE SA E SILVA, Assistant Professor of International Studies and Wick Cary Professor of Brazilian Studies, University of Oklahoma
CHAIR
VICTORIA LANGLAND, Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Associate Professor of History and Portuguese
A dramatic scenario is unfolding in Brasilia: The Chamber of Deputies is at the brink of deciding whether it will authorize a criminal trial against the sitting president, and tensions are escalating between the Supreme Court, the legislature and the executive branch. Social policies and programs instituted under past governments are being budgetarily undermined and gutted by executive orders. What explains the dynamics of Brazil's current crisis? Our two speakers—one of whom works as a staff attorney in the Chamber of Deputies, and the other of whom is a political scientist — will help us understand Brazil's political polarization and institutional fracture.