In Brazilian society, both within Civil Society as within the political elite, a growing consensus has cristalyzed about the need to implement structural social and democratic reforms. Nevertheless, however, it has not been possible yet to translate this reform consensus into stable reform coalitions and tangible reform politics (ch.1). The presented article analyses some reasons for the near-impossibility to design and realize reform politics in the prevailing context of profound economic crisis. It discusses some of the political consequences of the inflationary crisis that systematically interfere with reformative efforts: the centralization of governmental decision making; the resource to technocratic authoritarian policy styles, the personalization of politics; the progressive loss of macroeconomic control and the erosion of presidential authority, giving rise to a crisis of democratic governability (ch.2). The transition from authoritarian rule was managed under the implicit assumption that the institutional structure of state were socially and politically „neutral“. Experience has shown the erroneous simplicity of this belief. Consequently, the democratic reform of the state could constitute one central theme of social democratic reform movements in Latin America (ch.3).
