Brazilian Political Science Review

10-39

Authors: Carlos R. S. Milani & Ruthy Nadia Laniado

Globalization is not merely a competition for market shares and well-timed economic growth initiatives; neither is it just a matter of trade opportunities and liberalization. It has also evolved into a social and political struggle for imposing cultural values and individual preferences. Based on this broader context, this paper adopts the following assumption: transnational networks of social movements are the expression of a new social subject and have shifted their scale of political intervention since the 1990s in order to make their fight for social justice a politically pertinent action. Global social justice has become the motto of transnational social movements in world politics, where political decisions no longer rely exclusively on nation-states. In pursuance of developing this assumption, this paper approaches the discussion in two general parts: firstly, it presents a theoretical and methodological approach for analysing transnational social movements; secondly, it looks into the World Social Forum as one of their key political expressions.Globalization is not merely a competition for market shares and well-timed economic growth initiatives; neither is it just a matter of trade opportunities and liberalization. It has also evolved into a social and political struggle for imposing cultural values and individual preferences. Based on this broader context, this paperadopts the following assumption: transnational networks of social movements are the expression of a new social subject and have shifted their scale of political intervention since the 1990s in order to make their fight for social justice a politically pertinent action. Global social justice has become the motto of transnational social movements in world politics, where political decisions no longer rely exclusively on nation-states. In pursuance of developing this assumption, this paper approaches the discussion in two general parts: firstly, it presents a theoretical and methodological approach for analysing transnational social movements; secondly, it looks into the World Social Forum as one of their key political expressions.

74-107

Authors: Simone Bohn

The Senate remains as an almost uncharted territory for women. And not only in re-democratized countries like Brazil, but also in advanced democracies such as the USA. To date, 33 American and 28 Brazilian women have served in their Senates. Why are these numbers so reduced? This article discusses the key obstacles that women face and, through OLS and probit analyses, examines the degree of competitiveness and rate of success of all candidacies. We show that, even though women are thought to be weak contestants, they can be as competitive as men when they have a record of elected public positions. The reduced availability of the latter, however, indicates that they are still far from increasing their presence in the Senate.

137-181

Authors: Marco Antonio Vieira

This article discusses the emergence in the late 1990s of an innovative conceptualization of security that proclaims the global HIV/AIDS epidemic a threat to international peace and stability. The study provides a framework for understanding the securitization of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as an international norm defined and promoted mainly by multilateral bodies, powerful states in the North and transnational HIV/AIDS advocacy networks. The HIV/AIDS securitization norm (HASN) is an attempt of the present analysis to synthesize under a single analytical concept the myriad of ideas and international prescriptions about HIV/AIDS interventions. The article identifies the actors who developed the main strategic prescriptions of the HASN and the transnational mechanisms that promoted the diffusion of its concepts throughout the state system.