Political culture in Brazil

Polyarchic advances and weak parties

Abstract

Despite the consensus in Brazil regarding the irreversibility of the representative democratic process, doubts have emerged regarding its quality. A central element that reveals the democratic weakness is the way how political parties function and how they are perceived and evaluated by Brazilian citizens. Studies have shown that these institutions are seen as the least trusted and considered the most corrupt. The main objective of this paper is to examine if the social capital concept could be useful in constructing a normative base of support to political parties in the country. Through the use of survey research, we analize how Brazilians decode politics and try to answer why they are distrustful of politics. The results suggest that social capital could be a concept that could rescue the image of parties.