ABSTRACT
The consolidation of democracy marks a new chapter in Brazil's political history Brazilians generally have enjoyed the fruits of a sustained evolution from authoritarian rule to a more open and competitive political process. Afro-Brazilians have had to confront the question of whether they can effectively utilize the resource of racial or group consciousness in the circumstances of a democratic consolidation. Even though Afro-Brazilians have rallied to racial consciousness as the inspiration for creating social movements, its utility remains limited in the electoral arena, more so than has been the case for Afro-North Americans. Kurt Von Mettenheim has captured the tensions in his description of Brazilian politics as a dichotomous electoral universe that is shaped by the dialectical tendencies of direct democracy and state-sponsored representation. In Von Mettenheim's view Brazil's electoral system allows for, and, in fact, is structured by, voters' expectations of democratic performance on the one hand and patronage-based political parties on the other.
