A long-lasting crisis

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the idea that we are currently facing a situation of institutional unrest and political crisis strongly concentrated on political subjectivity, that is, on players, ideas and projects of society. It attempts to discuss the recent crisis in Brazil's Senate as an expression of this situation, but also as a reflection of a wider framework, which affects modern Parliaments in general and could be seen as resultant from a siege laid by government decisionism and social pressures to the Legislative branch, depriving it from its axis and capacity to act. Echoing the dominant features of the present time, political systems and, by inference, Parliaments are rendered less able to interact in a virtuous way with culture and social structures that derive from the new terms of globalized life, that is, with plural, fragmented, reflexive, quick and explosive societies.