Political
To understand the politics of Brazil, a few steps back are needed to look at the history and what has happened in the politics regarding to the economy. Brazil became a federal republic in 1889 and at that time they had a central government, which was mostly controlled by interests of the coffee industry. At that time Brazil was producing about 65% of the world’s coffee.
From 1964 to 1985, Brazil was ruled and controlled by the military. It was a period of turbulences and obstacles for Brazil when they had an Electoral College system set up by the military.
Today Brazil is a country with a democratic government but they did not become a fully democracy until the 1980’s. Since then, there have been different parties in power, for example the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy, the Party of Brazilian Democratic Movement and the Liberal Front Party. The president now is Dilma Rousseff and she belongs to the Workers Party.
The government in Brazil has an intrinsic part of controlling the economy since they have a perceived value and strategy. However, Brazil politics has a filthy and dark backside called corruption.
The corruption has been the central topic in the Brazilian politics since their return to democracy in 1988. The most recent scandal within the corruption is involving bribes, famous politicians and even the sentencing prominent government officials to jail. The Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index score for Brazil in 2012 was 43 - the same score as South Africa placing Brazil at 69th out of 183 countries. Citizens do not really experience corruption at a daily basis, except for dealing with the police, but it is mostly related to campaign financing. The type of corruption is more alike the found in industrial economies with ineffective checks and balances than in the poor countries where corruption is high in the service delivery.
The corruption in Brazil is facing the effects of the developmental outcomes in many areas especially education and health. Studies show that a quarter to one third of local governments has been caught of producing irregularities from their educational and health funds. The corruption does not only break down the system but also costs Brazil a huge amount of money. The cost of corruption is obvious: slowing down the economic growth, impediments for development, weakening of democratic institutions and morals, discredited public services and also widening market for organized crimes. According to Forbes Magazine, the cost of corruption in Brazil could be up to $53 billion just this year alone with intention on year 2013.
With the purpose of preventing the corruption, the government has signed several international agreements against corruption and they also have taken other international commitments. Some conventions Brazil has signed are the UN Convention, the Convention of the Organizing of American States and the Convention of the Organizing for Economic Cooperation and Development.