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Virtual Exhibit Hall
First as Farce and Then as Tragedy? Elite-Directed Brazilian Impeachments in National and International Perspectives
Fri, May 24, 5:45 to 7:15pm, TBAAbstract
Executive impeachment, a process originating in intra-parliamentary struggles in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries, has evolved from severe criminal trials for “high treason” to a political mechanism to secure legislative control over presidents. The 2016 impeachment in Brazil of President Dilma Rousseff contrasts sharply in its institutional and political implications with prior modern presidential impeachments. There are, however, also strong commonalities, especially in the reporting of major Brazilian newspapers, with the 1992 impeachment of President Fernando Collor de Mello, including the reactive collaboration of economic elites, apparent broad-based elite consultation prior to the initiation of the legislative process, and the open hostility of senior Brazilian military officers vis-à-vis the president just prior to both impeachment processes.
This paper will briefly examine the media and academic accounts of the original legislative motives and institution of impeachment in the formative US iteration, its justificatory objectives as outlined in the US Federalist Papers, and their possible rationalization in the case of Dilma Rousseff. The contrast of the Rousseff impeachment and conviction with the modern impeachments of a US president (without conviction), and of Fernando Collor de Mello (Brazil) and Carlos Andres Perez (Venezuela), both convicted and removed from office, are of special interest.
The political motives behind Rousseff's impeachment, in what has been described as "Golpe 16,” may relate indirectly to a range of factors, including a national economic recession, and her alienation of the military establishment through the introduction of a National Truth Commission. This paper will explore those factors.