Brazilian Political Science Review

1-39

Authors: Miriam Gomes Saraiva

In recent times the interaction between democracy and foreign policy has begun to be studied and theorized in Brazil. The link between politics and foreign policy is not new, however, the focus of this article is on the shifts that have taken place since the beginning of the democratic regime. Its aim is to identify changes in Brazilian foreign policy based on ideas and political preferences due to alternation of governments; and deconstruct the idea that Brazilian foreign policy is a state policy, limited to superficial changes. Following a discussion of the recent literature about changes in foreign policy, the article maps the changes that occurred between 1990 and 2003 and analyses Brazilian foreign policy behavior towards South America during the Worker’s Party administrations. Based on a comparative perspective, it examines the changes in Brazilian behavior toward the region during the Temer administration. This was the area where foreign policy experienced strongest transformations. Finally, the article briefly points out the changes that occurred in foreign policy towards South America at the beginning of Bolsonaro’s administration. The methodology, especially in relation to the Temer and Bolsonaro administrations, uses press material and interviews with foreign policymakers.

1-35

Authors: Adriano Codato; Rafael Madeira; Maiane Bittencourt

Studies of Latin American political science are centered on analyses of national cases and are based on intellectual narratives about the institutional development and teaching of the discipline. In this article we take a different, more comprehensive and comparative approach. We distinguish and contrast two Latin American political sciences: one native to Latin America and published in journals from five countries in the region, and one foreign and published in journals from five countries outside the region. We use three types of bibliometric measures: 01. reciprocal citations in 23 academic journals indexed in the Scopus database; 02. co-occurrence of terms in titles and abstracts of 5,880 research articles published between 2006 and 2018; and 03. co-citations of authors in the bibliographies of said articles. The network of journals forms a well-defined archipelago with three clusters separated by language (English, Spanish and Portuguese). The community is divided along two main axes: political approaches versus sociological approaches. The study also points out that themes, authors, and methodologies are not significantly different between these two political sciences.

1-37

Authors: Márcia Miranda Soares; José Angelo Machado

This article analyzes the relationship between federative institutions and social policies in the new constitutional order in Argentina and Brazil. It draws on literature and data to describe two characteristics of federalism in both countries and relate this with the equitable advancement of policies such as education, health, and social assistance: jurisdictional centralization, which refers to the capacity of the central government to produce legislation about policy design; and fiscal federalism, concerned with the definition of revenues and social expenditure by the different levels of government. The conclusion is that Argentina and Brazil are example of centralized federalism and that this is not an impeditive to the advance of egalitarian social policies; but there are important differences between them. In Brazil there is greater jurisdictional centralization combined with fiscal federalism that includes centralized and stable rules to compound public revenues and a better definition of social expenditure, which structures more favorable conditions for universal and egalitarian social policies. In Argentina, jurisdictional centralization is lower and is combined with fiscal federalism with ample latitude for bargaining between the federated entities to divide revenue and define expenditure, factors which better accommodate territorially segmented social policies with a lower equalizing potential, as is the case of health.

1-39

Authors: Tulio Chiarini; Fernanda Cimini; Marcia Siqueira Rapini; Leandro Alves Silva

The essay considers the role of big private businesses (BBs) within the Brazilian national system of innovation (NSI). Our question is as follows: How do the innovation practices and political behavior adopted by BBs shape the Brazilian NSI? It is our claim that although BBs play a prominent role in leading innovation nationally, they are not supportive of institution-intensive solutions for strengthening the NSI, and thereby contribute to the creation of a dynamic that we call the ‘low-innovation trap’. The obstacles to escaping this trap are manifold, but here we shall focus on 01. the lack of coordination between actors and instruments within government, 02. the high level of instability in the Science, Technology and Innovation (ST&I) budget, 03. the increasing obstacles faced by BBs wishing to innovate and 04. the lack of correspondence between government proposals and societal demands. Without a strong coalition pushing for it to be upgraded, it is likely that the NSI will remain unfit for purpose.

1-39

Authors: Sören Scholvin; Andres Malamud

Brazil has been labeled an anchor country, a leading area, and a regional power. Yet, even before the crisis triggered by Operation ‘Car Wash’ began, several scholars had called into question Brazil’s driving role in regional integration, stressing political challenges and economic weaknesses that hindered closer relationships among the South American countries. More optimistic research tends to concentrate on initiatives and visions of Brazil’s regional leadership, with lesser focus on obstacles and implementation. We develop the concept of ‘geoeconomic nodality’ to assess Brazi’s impact on South America and shed light on the structural sources of economic fragmentation, namely geographical conditions and their interaction with public policies. A geoeconomic node is the core of economic networks in a geographically delimited system. The flows of the system’s units are focused on the node, enabling it to transfer impulses for development – and reflecting what the concepts on anchor countries, leading areas, and regional powers suggest. Our findings show that long distances, physical barriers, the maritime orientation of core zones of population and economic activity, and the poor state of transcontinental infrastructure reduce Brazil’s geoeconomic nodality. Resource nationalism, volatile public policies, and fluctuating exchange rates contribute to this structural mix, so that the prospects to overcome the obstacles imposed by geography appear dim.

1-20

Authors: Suely Mara Vaz Guimarães de Araújo

This article analyzes the response of Brazil’s National Congress to the Bolsonaro government’s actions in respect of environmental policy, with an emphasis on the role of the active members of the Congressional Environmental Coalition and the civil society organizations that support it. Congress’s three spheres of activity encompass lawmaking, legislative oversight and the budget. The main decision-making processes related to these fields of activity are highlighted and analyzed using a qualitative approach. In general, there is evidence of an appropriate response by environmentalists, the results of which should not be underestimated, but which should have greater reach in view of the gravity of the destruction of environmental protection policy that has taken and continues to take place. The Bolsonaro government has presided over an attempted evisceration of environmental policies by changing non-statutory rules and cutting budgets, but Congress has put the brakes on nationally applicable laws and strengthened Congressional oversight.

1-37

Authors: Matheus Soldi Hardt; Fernando Mouron; Laerte Apolinário Júnior

In recent decades, Brazil has established itself as an important donor to underdeveloped countries. Although the country does not see itself as a traditional donor, its IDC policy, in the context of South-South Cooperation, has increased the country’s international profile as an influential actor in the IDC landscape. However, emerging states, generally classified as middle-income countries, continue to suffer from high levels of poverty, which leads to debate on whether resources used in international aid could not be better used at home. The supply of foreign aid is influenced by public opinion in democratic donor countries; generally speaking, foreign aid is unpopular relative to domestic programs. This article, by means of an experimental design, analyzes Brazilian public support for the country’s IDC policy and engages with the emerging literature on Brazilian public opinion and foreign policy issues. It thus contributes to the discussion about the domestic costs of Brazil becoming an emerging donor. Our findings, based on a national survey of 2276 people, show that most respondents believe the country should reduce or eliminate foreign aid spending. Moreover, support decreases even more when participants are presented with information on how that money could have been used in the domestic realm.

1-36

Authors: José Alexandre da Silva Junior; Leonardo Rodrigues Morais; Ranulfo Paranhos: Albany Ferreira Lima

What are the effects of attempts at reelection on electoral competition? We have tested the assumption that attempts at reelection have a positive and significant effect on electoral competition. We measured electoral competition using two indicators: Imbalance index T (Taagepera) and generalized concentration index (Herfindahl-Hirscham (HH)). We analyzed data on the seven last Brazilian national elections (1990-2014). We employed descriptive (variable measures and times series) and inferential statistics (regression analysis with panel data). Our main findings: 01. the percentage and the concentration of incumbents has a significant and negative effect on the concentration of votes; 02. the interaction between the percentage of incumbents in a given dispute and in a coalition has a significant and positive effect on the concentration of votes.

1-17

Authors: Bruno Bolognesi; Luis Felipe Guedes da Graça; Robert Bonifácio; Wellington Nunes

The first part of the ‘Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics’, entitled ‘The Input Side’, is dedicated, as the title suggests, to a societal approach rather than an institutional one with an emphasis on political phenomena and processes. There is a markedly socio-political bent to the book’s treatment of the themes of its eight chapters: corruption; political participation; gender and race relations; religion and politics; social movements; innovative democratic decision-making processes; representation of interests. The makeup of book’s chapters does not follow what might be considered standard for handbooks, i.e. they do not merely set forth an overview of the specialized literature; they also include critical readings of the work and analyses of extensive current databases. The chapter by Senters, Weitz-Shapiro and Winters (2019) addresses the theme of corruption, a perennial leitmotif of Brazilian politics and one that has assumed greater importance in public debate since 2005 thanks to the Mensalão scandal, itself reinforced by the June 2013 protests and Operation Lava-Jato from 2014. The authors seek to provide an overview of attitudinal patterns related to corruption and explanatory factors for them. To this end, they survey a large sample of opinion polls: 69 of them, covering three decades, from 1985 to 2015. Key findings include: 01. sustained growth – from 2005 onwards – of the perception that corruption is the worst of Brazil’s problems, combined with a diminishing perception of the capacity of successive governments to combat it; 02. the existence of a positive correlation between being male, well-off and/or having been asked to pay bribes and the perception that corruption is Brazil’s biggest problem; and 03. the existence of an association between party sympathy and perception of corruption, in the sense that party sympathy for the Workers’ Party (PT) – during the period in which it was in government – is associated with a reduced perception of corruption being Brazil’s number one problem.

1-8

Authors: Wagner Romão

Is it still possible to think about innovations within the context of our battered democracies? ‘The Two Faces of Institutional Innovation: Promises and Limits of Democratic Participation in Latin America’ is a book that pursues this issue and reflects the maturity of this field of study on the topic of institutional participation and democratic innovations. Following an initial period of enthusiasm for these means of ‘deepening democracy’, the context of this work is one mistrust in traditional political institutions around the world and lack of belief in the democratic institutions themselves. ‘Two Faces…’ proposes a path of analysis to assess how democratic innovations, once viewed as intrinsically positive for improving democracy, can actually reinvigorate more democratic practices of political action and government or, conversely, may even decelerate the processes of democratization of political regimes.