Brazilian Political Science Review

8-35

Authors: Eduardo Marques

Public policies are produced by connections between several actors, within institutional environments and crossing organizational boundaries, but detailed analyses of the environments in which politics occur are relatively rare in Brazil. I believe the concept of governance could help to bridge this gap. However, this concept has different meanings and has been circulated in Latin America with quite confusing and cacophonic meanings. In this analytical essay, I build a definition of governance based both on local debates and the recent international literature, which can be of use to study urban policies in Brazil, going beyond government but specifying the elements under investigation. The article starts by critically discussing the uses of the concept of governance in Latin America and especially in Brazil, highlighting some of the most important problems of the existing analyses, so as to forge an alternate operational definition. I then discuss the most relevant political actors present in Brazilian urban policies and later use these elements to discuss the governance of policies regarding the production of the built environment.

61-89

Authors: André Freire, Kats Kivistik

This study is about mapping and explaining the use of the Left-Right divide across 14 countries from 5 Continents and relies on the richness of the post electoral mass surveys from the Comparative National Election Project: 14 countries and 18 elections spread over 5 continents. The paper shows not only how extensively the LR divide is used in these 14 countries, but also explains variation across both individuals and countries in terms of the factors determining LR recognition and use. Overall, it is shown that, although seen world-wide, the LR divide (both for self-placement and party placement) is more present in long consolidated and middle-aged democracies and countries with freer media systems than in new democracies and societies with less free media systems. In the case of parties LR placement, party size also counts: larger parties are more easily placed. Additionally, we also show that LR recognition is more socially and politically determined in long consolidated and middle-aged democracies and in countries with more freedom of the press than in new democracies and in systems with less free media system. These findings add to the existing knowledge about these topics because previous studies were either country/Continent specific, or, if global in nature, never invested in explaining individual and system variation across 14 from 5 Continents. Besides, these findings mean that in the long term probably the new democracies will converge with the long consolidated or middle-aged ones, but this is an empirical question to be researched in future studies.

118-144

Authors: Ítalo Beltrão Sposito

In this article, I intended to develop an analytical schema to analyze moments of redirection in Brazilian Foreign Policy. The schema encompasses the following logic: sources from national and international contexts may influence the domestic political arena, leading to the opening of a policy window and the rupture of stabilizers, which together may form a scenario prone to reform in terms of foreign guidelines. In this context, the decision makers may opt to promote a foreign policy change (FPC). To apply this model, we chose two administrations that are substantially different as to their international system and their political scope, even though both are considered by the Brazilian foreign policy literature as restructuration periods. By studying these administration’s foreign policies, we tested the utility of this model and accomplished a comparative analysis seeking similarities amongst these chancing processes.

8-36

Authors: Carlos Aurélio Pimenta de Faria & Clarisse Goulart Paradis

The “humanistic” or “solidarity-based” trend in the Brazilian strategy of international insertion, adopted after the rise to power of President Lula and considered innovative, consolidated the objective of prioritizing the South-South axis and can be explained by domestic, regional, and systemic reasons. This strategy was put into practice by increasing the international aid granted by Brazil, by transferring resources and technology and by the emphasis placed on conveying to partner countries some of the domestic social policies and programmes developed successfully by the Brazilian government. The aims of this paper are: (a) to look at how this “humanism” and “solidarity” appeared in the discourse of the Brazilian authorities; (b) to discuss the reasons for them and their logic in the national, regional, and systemic dimensions; and (c) to map the initiatives adopted, the preferred partners and areas, the resources used and the intragovernmental connections necessary for their implementation.

62-87

Authors: Fernando Filgueiras

The reliance on courts for addressing public policy questions and political controversies is a central phenomenon in contemporary democracies. The judicialization of politics is the result of a shift in core issues regarding democratic legitimacy, both in the sphere of institution building as well as political culture. Social justice arose as a central variable in the legitimacy of democracies, becoming vital in establishing support towards democratic political systems. This article explores the relation between perceptions on justice, judicialization of politics and how the agency of judicial institutions impacts dissatisfaction with democracy. Based on a survey carried out in the metropolitan regions of Belo Horizonte, Goiânia, Porto Alegre and Recife, it is argued that the discontent towards political institutions in Brazil does not justify the ongoing judicialization process since the perceptions on inequalities place the Judiciary within the citizens’ critical stance towards institutions. Just like other representative institutions, the Judiciary has not been able to mitigate the perceptions on inequalities and the ineffectiveness of the empire of law, being therefore unable to provide a satisfactory performance in regards to the normative ends of contemporary notions of democratic legitimacy and citizenship.

114-140

Authors: Maria Alejandra Nicolás, Rachel Callai Bragatto, Rafael Cardoso Sampaio

This article focuses on the appropriation of the subject of Internet and Politics by Brazilian Social Sciences. To this end, we analysed 299 papers presented at 11 conferences in the areas of Sociology, Political Science and Social Communication from 2000 to 2011 in Brazil. The methodology was based on content analysis in order to map the main authors, research centres, political and technological objects, theoretical approaches, methods, techniques and coverage areas of the papers presented in each of these conferences. Our findings suggest significant growth in the number of studies presented over the last few years, where 40.5% were based mainly on qualitative research and 56.5% had an emphasis on the civil society strand. Finally, our longitudinal analyses indicate some changes in the field, with a growing number of studies carrying out empirical research, and a tendency to focus on more specific digital tools instead of on the Internet in general.

8-30

Authors: Cristina Buarque de Hollanda

This article is dedicated to recounting the main initiative of Nelson Mandela’s government to manage the social resentment inherited from the segregationist regime. I conducted interviews with South African intellectuals committed to the theme of transitional justice and with key personalities who played a critical role in this process. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is presented as the primary institutional mechanism envisioned for the delicate exercise of redefining social relations inherited from the apartheid regime in South Africa. Its founders declared grandiose political intentions to the detriment of localized more palpable objectives. Thus, there was a marked disparity between the ambitious mandate and the political discourse about the commission, and its actual achievements.

56-73

Authors: Paolo Spada & Feliciano de Sá Guimarães

This paper explores recent advances in experimental methodology to analyze elite behavior. Using an email experiment conducted in the context of the Brazilian 2008 municipal elections, we studied whether candidates target “swing” or “core” voters during campaigns. Candidates from all parties – 1,000 candidates in all – were contacted by randomly generated citizens who identified themselves as either core or swing voters. Additionally, we randomized senders’ past voting behavior and their gender. To identify the baseline answer rate, we employed a placebo treatment with no reference to the elections. Our results show that Brazilian candidates target any sender as long as she identifies herself as a potential voter. Within this general finding, models with city-specific fixed effects indicate that Brazilian politicians tend to target core voters. The paper contributes to the general experimental literature by providing an easily replicable design that can test the behavior of elite interaction with the public. At the same time, the paper extends the literature on core versus swing voters by providing an empirical test that can shed light on the effects of a specific political environment (type of election, voting rule, and party structure), and how it affects the relationship between candidates and voters during elections.

94-117

Authors: Augusto Veloso Leão

The main goal of this article is to provide a good basis to assess the way media frames are embedded in a wider social scenario, and how public and political preferences can be researched through media debate. The methodology adopted allows for an analysis of newspaper articles that can show broader trends of the debate and serve as a thermometer to measure public debate. It can further highlight details and enable in-depth analyses of media discourse. The article explores the interconnectedness of media debate and policy-making process by means of the analysis of articles published in a Brazilian newspaper between 2009 and 2010. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies are employed to identify the frames used in media and to offer insights of their relationship with the political debate. The ongoing political debate has raised attention to the issue of migration, with a great numbers of actors expressing very diverse points of view. A broader public debate has been initiated and some portions of it find voice in different means of communication. The paper argues that changes in the public and in the media debate are a response to changes in the political debate, while at the same time the first two also help to outline the latter.

8-27

Authors: Angelo Segrillo

Liberalism and Marxism are two schools of thought which have left deep imprints in sociological, political and economic theory. They are usually perceived as opposite, rival approaches. In the field of democracy there is a seemingly in - surmountable rift around the question of political versus economic democracy. Liberals emphasize the former, Marxists the latter. Liberals say that economic democracy is too abstract and fuzzy a concept, therefore one should concentrate on the workings of an objective political democracy. Marxists insist that political democracy without economic democracy is insufficient. The article argues that both propositions are valid and not mutually exclu - sive. It proposes the creation of an operational, quantifiable index of economic democracy that can be used alongside the already existing indexes of political democracy. By using these two indexes jointly, political and economic democracy can be objectively evaluated. Thus, the requirements of both camps are met and maybe a more dialogical approach to democracy can be reached in the debate between liberals and Marxists. The joint index is used to evaluate the levels of economic and political democracy in the transition countries of Eastern Europe.

56-87

Authors: Denilson Bandeira Coêlho

What factors determine the diffusion of social policies? This article exam - ines the launching of conditional cash transfer programs by Brazilian munici - palities to explore this problem. The literature of political science asserts that such programs have been widely implemented because they correspond to an al - ternative policy strategy adopted by governments facing opposition to implement universal public policies. So, political competition would be at the root of CCT launching. This article presents an alternative explanation. From 1995 to 2001, local governments created or emulated the Bolsa Escola Program (BEP) in all regions of the country. Such a path continued after the lauching of the national Bolsa Escola by the federal government. Why did some local governments decide to adopt the national BEP and others did not? To answer these questions, the research tests the influence of structural, internal and external variables on the dissemination of CCT programs. Two main hypotheses are tested. The first as - serts that local political competition is positive for policy diffusion. The second hypothesis claims that party alignment between the municipal and federal levels increases the likelihood of municipalities adopting the federal BEP. The research uses Event History Analysis to test statistically the impact of political incentives on policy diffusion among São Paulo State’s municipalities. Two types of policy diffusion are examined: horizontal and vertical. The findings confirm that polit - ical competition influences the horizontal diffusion among municipalities. Unex - pectedly, vertical diffusion does not occur because of party alignment or political competition. Rather, levels of socioeconomic development drive policy emulation.

11-36

Authors: Adam Przeworski

The article argues that economic inequality inevitably generates politicalinequality, which in turn reproduces economic inequality. Basic concepts areintroduced first along with strong caveats concerning the quality of the crossnationaldata on income distributions; historical patterns of income inequalityare summarized next, and with these preliminaries, a distinction is made betweenredistribution of consumption at a particular time and equalization of incomeearning capacities over time. Following this economic considerations, the articlediscussion moves to political factors that may block redistributions.

53-69

Authors: Francisca Guedes

This paper is concerned with two things: finding an objective and easilyquantifiable measure of government efficiency and testing possible determinantsof government quality. As measures of government efficiency, we used ratios ofinfant mortality rate to health expenditures as a percentage of GDP, and ratios ofdrop out and illiteracy rates to education expenditures as a percentage of GDP.We assume that government efficiency in providing health and education servicesdepends on economic, political and cultural factors.

90-112

Authors: Alfredo Alejandro Gugliano & Andréia Orsato

This article seeks to further the debate on the political participation of women in the framework of a democratic political regime. Foremost, it analyzes women’s representation as elected legislators in Brazilian state legislatures. Accordingly, the article draws on the contributions made thus far by some women authors – linked to a theoretical framework that, as the article unfolds, is presented as the feminist theory – as regards the critique of the model of democracy prevailing in Western societies. Next, we present and discuss an array of data on women’s inclusion in the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, encompassing all female state representatives elected since 1951, when the first gaúcha, as those born in the state like to call themselves, woman legislator took office. The findings in this article seek to advance knowledge of the history of women’s political parliamentary participation, given the scarcity of information on the theme in the context of the aforementioned state legislature, as well as pointing out the main features of female participation in the Rio Grande do Sul State Legislature.