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This year, Brazilian democracy celebrates its 20th anniversary. Meanwhile, the country faces its most severe political crisis in years. What better way to say farewell to teenage years than with an overwhelming personality crisis? That is exactly what Brazilian democracy is going through now. As an insecure ex-teen, caught short-handed after doing something really, really stupid, Brazilian democracy attempts to affirm its maturity amidst insecurities and hesitations.

Certainly, tracing parallels between personality traits and political regimes is quite tricky. We do not want render ourselves to archaic ideas of national character. Instead, regimes are formed by a plethora of institutions, ideas and interests. Variation in behaviors, creeds and expectations is the soul of democracy. Still, the analogy between regimes and personality traits is useful because it allows us to highlight two aspects of the current crisis that have not been sufficiently stressed.

First, Brazilian democracy has engaged in an extreme form of exposing its shortcomings. Humility to face ones shortcoming is a central step aspect of maturity. The fact that there is a debate about what the roots of the political crisis are and how to avoid similar somber scenarios in the future is a sign of consciousness, of maturity. In fact, even in its infancy, during the Collor impeachment and the 1993 budgetary scandal in Congress, Brazilian democracy emerged stronger, with institutional improvements in budget allocation. Still, changes made then still left margins for opportunistic behavior. There doesn’t seem to be doubt in anyone’s mind that the great culprit for the current crisis is the opacity of campaign expenditure accounting. The problem is not one of how expensive campaigns are; there is actually great variation in the values spent by elected politicians. The problem is lack of transparency and accountability; a problem so common in the history of Latin America and, probably, the most pressing challenge that the democracies of the region face.

A second indication of maturity is to improve upon one’s shortcomings. That is, it is not enough to recognize the problem; something must be done to avoid it happening again. Incurring in the same mistake over and over is a sign of immaturity and lack of restraint. Penitence is not enough. Reform is, therefore, called for. The big question is what should be the extent of the reform. Should they be restrict or broad? Are structural changes in the electoral, party and governing systems necessary or do nuanced changes in some aspects of the regime suffice? There simply is no obvious answer. There is always the possibility for unexpected consequences and perverse effects when institutional engineering is called for. Maybe, maturity calls for patience and a longtime commitment to improvement instead of dramatic conversions in moments of despair. The pace of reform in Brazil, slow for some, may be a sign of maturity.

Brazilian democracy has given signs that it is not shy of exposing its wounds and scars. It also seems to be willing to learn with its mistake without rushing into drastic changes that it may regret in the future. As a young adult, Brazilian democracy learns the hard way. However, it doesn’t seem to be perishing, instead it gets stronger.