Miscellaneous
Meanwhile, Brazil's health minister and many state governors have bypassed him and implemented their own social distancing and self-isolation measures. Speaker: Trix van Mierlo Authors: Trix van Mierlo, Ana Tereza Fernandes Date of the recording: 2020-04-02 Trix van Mierlo is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck. Her research focuses on social movement mobilisation and protest in subnational authoritarian enclaves in consolidating democracies. She was doing academic fieldwork in Brazil right before many states went into lockdown because of the pandemic. Ana Tereza Fernandes is a pre-doc researcher at the Department of Political Science since January 2020. She is graduated in Public Administration and Law, holds a Post-Graduation (lato sensu) in Public Law and finished her Masters in Political Science in 2018, all in renowned Brazilian academic institutes. She also worked as a specialist in public policy and governmental management in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, for the past ten years. Her research interests focus on federalism and particularly its potential influences on political behavior. Van Mierlo explains: "Bolsonaro is trying to create a political narrative where he, since the beginning, had been a protector of stability and employment." Since Bolsonaro has been attacking the congress and the judicial branch before the spread of the coronavirus, and has now moved on to the state governors, he is currently isolated. "In other words, the scenario that Bolsonaro will lose the support of his electorate and that this will seriously damage him is not unthinkable. There is even some talk about moving for impeachment now the president is cornered", says van Mierlo. Cover: Marcos Corrêa/PR, Palácio do Planalto from Brasilia, Brasil, via Wikimedia Commons, license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en.