Early republic

Main articles: First Brazilian Republic, Estado Novo (Brazil), and Second Brazilian Republic

Proclamation of the Republic, 1893, oil on canvas by Benedito Calixto (1853–1927).

The "early republican government was little more than a military dictatorship, with army dominating affairs both at Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power".^[90] In 1894, following the unfoldings of two severe crises, an economic along with a military one, the republican civilians rose to power.^[91][92][93]
Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent, that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas supported by most of the military, successfully led the Brazilian Revolution of 1930.^[94][95] Vargas was supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed the Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with his own supporters.^[96][97]

In half of the first 100 years of republic in Brazil, the Army exercised power directly or through figures like Getúlio Vargas (center).

In the 1930s, three major attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power occurred. The first was the failed Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, the second was the anti-fascist Brazilian uprising of 1935 led by communists, and the fascist Integralist Movement attempted a coup in May 1938.^{[98][99][100]} The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which the Congress transferred more power to the executive. The 1937 coup d'état resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election, installed Vargas as a dictator, and began the Estado Novo era, noted for government brutality and censorship of the press.^[101]
In foreign policy, the success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries in the early years of the republican period,^[102] was followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations,^[103] after its involvement in World War I.^[104][105] In World War II Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country entered on the allied side,^[106][107] after suffering retaliations undertaken by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, due to the country having severed diplomatic relations with Axis powers in the wake of the Pan-American Conference.^[108]
With the allied victory in 1945 and the end of the Nazi-fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas's position became unsustainable and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with Democracy being "reinstated" by the same army that had discontinued it 15 years before.^[109] Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950.^[110][111]

Contemporary era

Main articles: Brazilian military government and History of Brazil since 1985

Construction of Brasília, the new capital, in 1959

Several brief interim governments succeeded after Vargas's suicide.^[112] Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory posture towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises.^[113] The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably,^[114] but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in 1960.^[115] His successor was Jânio Quadros, who resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office.^[116] His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition^[117] and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military regime.^[118]
The new regime was intended to be transitory^[119] but it gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968.^[120] The oppression was not limited to only those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society,^[121][122] inside and outside the country (through the infamous "Operation Condor").^[123][124] Despite its brutality, like other totalitarian regimes in history, due to an economic boom, known as an "economic miracle", the regime reached its highest level of popularity in the early 1970s.^[125]

Ulysses Guimarães holding the Constitution of 1988 in his hands.

Slowly however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power that had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas,^[126] plus the inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure, made an opening policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals Geisel and Golbery.^[127] With the enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began its slow return to democracy, which would be completed during the 1980s.^[83]
Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency, becoming unpopular during his tenure due to his failure in controlling the economic crisis and hyperinflation inherited from the military regime.^[128] Sarney's unsuccessful government allowed the election in 1989 of the almost unknown Fernando Collor, who was subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992.^[129]
Collor was succeeded by his Vice-President Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso as Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso produced a highly successful Plano Real,^[130] that, after decades of failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally granted stability to the Brazilian economy,^[131][132] leading Cardoso to be elected that year, and again in 1998.^[133]
The peaceful transition of power from Fernando Henrique to his main opposition leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006), was seen as a proof that Brazil had finally succeeded in achieving a long-sought political stability.^[134][135] However, sparked by indignation and frustrations accumulated over decades (against corruption, police brutality, inefficiencies of political establishment and public service), numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil from the middle of first term of Dilma Rousseff (who succeeded Lula in 2010).^[136][137] Enhanced by a political and economic crises with evidences of involvement of politicians from all main political parties in several bribery and tax evasion schemes,^[138][139] with large street protests for and against her,^[140] Rousseff was impeached by the Brazilian Congress in 2016.^[6][141]