Brazilian Political Science Review

39-73

Authors: Klaus Frey

This article analyses the concept of “good governance” as promoted by the international development community, above all by the World Bank, within the predominant neoliberal development approach, emphasising the implications for local governance and management in developing countries. Highlighting the extent to which it is embedded in the neoliberal development approach, the good governance concept is analysed with regard to its peculiar understanding of participation and democracy. The article discusses the subordination of the World Bank’s consensus-oriented approach of good governance to economic imperatives, fading out the centrality of its political dimension. In the context of unequal societies, such an apolitical governance concept only contributes to the strengthening of existing power relations. In its conclusions, the article stresses the need to rethink the good governance approach to development and local politics according to Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic view of democracy, which considers political protest, social mobilization and politicization as essential conditions for social transformation and democratic vitality.

93-116

Authors: Fabiana Luci Oliveira

This study analyses interactions between Law, professionalism and politics. The primary intent is to understand the judicial behaviour of Brazil’s Supreme Court in the development and consolidation of democracy, by analysing how its justices voted in decisions regarding the constitutionality of laws (judicial review) in the 1988-2003 period and investigating factors that influenced the Court’s decisions. These decisions are analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively in search of: a) voting differences corresponding to the career of each member of the Court; b) justices’ attitudes as either Constitution interpreters or reproducers of legal texts; and c) the rapporteur’s profile, as well as the profiles of the justices that voted with him/her. I conclude that although political factors do shape the decision-making process of Brazil’s Supreme Court to some extent, professionalism plays a central role in determining its judicial behaviour.

35-56

Authors: José Hernandéz

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between institutional economics of cooperation and the political economy of trust. Transactions costs, principal-agent theory, market power, increasing-returns theory and value creation, strategic management: competitive forces, resource-based theory, organisationtal knowledge and learning, strategic choice theory and collective efficiency theory are reviewed. Lastly, the political economy of trust is sustained.

77-95

Authors: Pedro Neiva

In analyses of female representation in lower houses, the adoption of quotas, the electoral system and the religious aspect have been identified as the main explanatory variables. In the case of upper houses, I see a relationship between their political strength and women’s presence in them: when they are weak, the presence of female representatives tends to be larger, when they are strong, women’s presence is smaller. Furthermore, the article shows that an analysis based solely on the number of seats held by women is insufficient for one to gather the true dimensions of their participation in politics. Evaluating the role and expressiveness of the institutions in which they are present is also necessary.

127-147

Authors: Mónica Salomón & Javier Sánchez

The recent creation of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), an organization of local authorities of universal scope, is the culmination of the emerging process of a new political actor on the international scene. The article describes and analyses some aspects of the interaction between this global political actor-in-the-making and the United Nations (UN) system. The theoretical questions it adresses is how the new global actor has - even if partially - achieved its objectives, given its limited power resources and the opposition of other (apparently) more powerful actors: the central governments that run the UN system. Drawing on the literature on the foreign activities of subnational governments, as well as on the literature on transational actors and the creation of global norms, the proposed explanation highlights the "mixed actor" (partially sovereignty-bound, partially sovereignty-free) character of subnational governments acting internationally.