Charismatics presidents elected in Latin America, as well as in other ancient authoritarian regimes, have been using constitutional change mechanisms (amendments or new Constitutions) with the aim of destroying both constitutionalism and democracy. They create new autocratic regimes in order to remain in power and/or weaken the control system. The strategy makes the Constitution appear democratic at a distance and the danger to the rules of democratic play and liberal democracy goes unnoticed by the international community (Schepelle). The proposed presentation works with the hypothesis that the Brazilian presidential design, combined with the conflictive experience of coalition presidentialism, as well as the history of authoritarianism in the country, benefits this kind of maneuver, being the cause of a democratic and institutional crisis, in an hypothesis of a weak president as well as a strong one
Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICON·S Executive Committee has decided to postpone our 2020 Conference to 2021. Our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021, in Wrocław, Poland.
Procedural details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow in the months ahead.
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