Lessons from Global Democratic Resistance Webinar – Democratic Resilience in Brazil: Institutions, Leadership, and Responses to Attempts of Rupture
Lessons from Global Democratic Resistance is a public panel series that brings together frontline activists, civic leaders, institutional actors, and field‑informed scholars to examine how democratic actors have resisted and responded to democratic backsliding across countries.
The series aims to identify practical lessons and comparative insights for those defending democracy today and is organized in collaboration among the Kellogg Institute, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University, the Cornell Center on Global Democracy; Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania; the Democratic Futures Project at the University of Virginia; Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law; and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Zoom link for webinar
Webinar ID: 861 3433 2339
Panel will be in Portuguese and English, with live English interpretation.
The Brazilian case offers an empirically relevant example of containing processes of democratic erosion without institutional breakdown, even in the face of explicit strategies to delegitimize elections and mobilize contestation of electoral results. Unlike other contexts, resistance did not occur through centralized coordination, but through the simultaneous and relatively autonomous action of multiple arenas.
This panel builds directly on this analytical observation to examine how four critical dimensions interacted in practice: the Judiciary, the Armed Forces, the Executive, and civil society. The relevance of this composition lies in enabling the reconstruction of decisions made under uncertainty, at moments when institutional incentives were ambiguous and political costs were high.
The panel starts from the premise of the memo and seeks to go beyond a descriptive narrative, focusing instead on the exploration of causal mechanisms: how institutions shaped choices, how signals across arenas were interpreted, and how the absence of formal coordination nonetheless produced a democratic defense outcome.
By articulating these perspectives, the discussion contributes to the project’s central objective: identifying which elements of the Brazilian case are contingent and which can be generalized to democracies facing similar backsliding dynamics.
Moderator:
Maria Herminia Tavares de Almeida
Researcher at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (Cebrap) and retired full professor of political science at the University of São Paulo, where she directed the Institute of International Relations (2009-2013). She recently published "The Golden Years - Essays on Democracy in Brazil (Ed. Horizontes, Lisbon, 2019)" and with Gian Luca Gardini, "Foreign Policy Responses to The Rise of Brazil - Balancing Power in Emerging States" (Palgrave-McMillan, 2016).
Participants:
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Jose Eduardo Cardozo, Lawyer, professor, and former public official
Cardozo served as Brazil’s Minister of Justice from 2011 to 2016 and as Attorney General of the Union in 2016. He was also a federal deputy for São Paulo and held senior municipal roles in São Paulo, including president of the São Paulo City Council. He holds a law degree and master’s degree in law from PUC-SP.
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Julia Neiva, Cofounder and deputy director of Conectas Direitos Humanos
She coordinates Brazilian civil society alliances and collaborates internationally to defend democracy and combat authoritarianism. She holds a law degree from PUC-SP, an LLM from Columbia, and a PhD in Human Rights from USP. Additionally, she is a member of two research groups at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and serves on the boards of Sherpa, the Bank Information Center, and the Arns Commission.
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Oscar Vilhena, Constitutional law scholar, public intellectual, and founding professor and Dean of FGV São Paulo Law School
During Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, he was a prominent civil-society and academic voice defending Brazil’s democratic institutions, the rule of law, human rights, and constitutional checks and balances. He wrote and spoke extensively about democratic erosion, attacks on the Supreme Court and electoral institutions, and the legal strategies used by the Bolsonaro administration to weaken public policies and institutional safeguards. He also co-edited a major FGV study on “authoritarian populism” and institutional resistance in Brazil from 2018 to 2022. -
Flavia Tavares, Editor-in-chief of Meio and a Brazilian journalist with more than 20 years experience
She has worked at Estadão, Época magazine, where she covered Brasília and later edited politics in São Paulo, and CNN Brasil, where she was editor-in-chief of the website. Her work focuses on politics, democracy, institutional accountability, and human rights. Tavares is known for sharp political analysis and for her clear defense of democratic values, including strong criticism of authoritarian rhetoric and the anti-democratic legacy of Bolsonaro’s movement.
Organized in partnership with the Fundação Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
