COVID-19 e as reações ao federalismo bolsonarista

Abstract

As in many parts of the world, COVID-19 has caused changes in the relations between federated entities in Brazil. However, here, such transformations have not made the State more capable of responding to the demands of confronting the pandemic. Under the theme of the public policies against COVID-19, the present study analyzes the Brazilian federative dynamics between mid-2020 and mid-2021, in the aim of describing the configuration of political forces that opposed the federative model of response to the pandemic adopted by the federal government. Based on a qualitative approach, the study was carried out through process-tracing with the historical-narrative analysis of a wide range of official documents and news on the subject. As a result, the research identified the deepening of the Bolsonaro’s project of federalism; the initiative of subnational entities to fill the lack of national coordination, including high degrees of cooperation among themselves and state protagonism; and the search by the Legislative and Judiciary powers to organize the framework within which the federative relations could take place, given the uncontrolled advance of the disease.