The democratic transition under dispute

Abstract

Throughout the 1980s, Brazilian society came to revive a series of social and cultural movements which contributed to a political shift in the transition of the authoritarian regime to the Rule of Law. The campaigns for an Anistia Ampla, Geral e Irrestrita and Diretas Já! are examples of such political mobilization with popular participation. The following article focuses on the installation of a National Constituent Assembly (ANC) as a project of social negotiation, and the search for consensuses between potentially conflicting memories in the aim of preventing conflicts that would threaten the establishment of democracy. In the period of February 1, 1987 to 5 October, 1988, the building of the National Congress served as a stage for the organizing of a new Constitution. Although this provided a symbol for the new era, it carried – and continues to carry – traces of the previous historical period it aimed to break with. Considering the 30-year anniversary in 2018 of the ANC’s inauguration and the promulgation of the Federal Constitution itself (1988), the subject becomes even more pertinent in light of these significant dates and the socially-constructed memories.