Search

The aim of this paper is to empirically evaluate the electoral competition in the Brazilian election for Congress. The evaluation focused on the regional dimension of electoral competition, what is sustained by concepts such as informal electoral districts (AMES, 2001; 2003) or political hamlets (HUNTER AND POWER, 2007; ZUCCO, 2008). This paper considers electoral results from 1994 to 2010 and uses the imbalance index (TAAGEPERA, 1979) in a timing frame perspective as basic criteria because the Effective Number of Parties does not capture the decentralization of electoral competition. Results suggests that the personal and regional political control is not the rule of political competition in Brazil; the informal district theory lacks of empirical support and, the politicians that are successful in avoiding competition do not always get elected and vary in their power over electorate through time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is about perceptions of Brazilian society concerning the cash transfer program Bolsa Família of Brazilian government obtained in a national survey. It indicated that population recognizes the program and understands that it is being used in an appropriated way, even though considering problems in its execution. Important differences occurred in the opinion of those who knew beneficiaries comparing with those who didn't. The first group manifested positive opinion and criticized less then the second. The paper concludes that the program acquired legitimacy in the Brazilian society, considering the knowledge of this policy and supporting its existence. It argues for the importance of searching and considering the public opinion as a fundamental element of public policy assessing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the possible impacts of the privatization process implemented by the Brazilian former President, Fernando Henrique, over the attitudes and opinions held by Brazilian electorate regarding the presence of the state in the economy. Te paper uses a post-electoral survey from 2002 -- The ESEB (Brazilian Electoral Study) data-base -- supported by CAPES Foundation. The inquiry carried out in the paper centers on different patterns found in the answers given by the respondents when asked which sector -- either government or private one -- should be in charge of providing different products and services. The study found out an impressive degree of coherence in the answers given by the respondents, which were used to propose a scale for different attitudes regarding the privatization process. Furthermore, it was possible to establish significant correlation between this attitude and the electoral campaign and the declared vote of the respondent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to show the existence of different worlds of welfare in Brazil. We suggest that as the existence of distinct worlds of welfare across Brazilian states as a fundamental change in welfare after the 1988 Constitution. The conclusion is the discrepancy between the worlds of welfare found between states allows us to say that in Brazil there are distinct categories of citizens, with differentiated access to basic services. We also show that states have different legacies and therefore different trajectories in the three decades analyzed, but there is a trend towards convergence in welfare. This heterogeneity is reflected in distinct patterns of social welfare. For this, the methodology used was basically a descriptive analysis based in time series and cluster analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main themes in democratic theory is the process through which citizens control the activity of its representatives. In this paper we analyze the Brazilian political system in general terms and the 1998 and 2006 election in particular in order to argue that the processes of vertical accountability in the electoral gaps empower citizens in the sense of punishing and rewarding their representatives in the electoral moment. The importance of this work is guaranteed by the political context experienced by the country in the last couple of years before the 2006 election. A significant number of politicians had been involved in corruption scandals that resounded in the Brazilian society in a very negative way. Despite of the costs of information, limited time to be concerned with politics, and the huge social inequality allied to poverty, we show that voters have been able to punish those that had been involved in scandals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate the patterns of electoral volatility, at the individual level, in the 2010 Brazilian presidential elections. We explain variation in vote intention before the first round between candidates José Serra, Marina Silva, and Dilma Rousseff. A special emphasis is given to the effects of perceptions of corruption and abortion, two hot campaign issues, to explain the final result of the first round. The analysis is based on the first Brazilian Electoral Panel Study (BEPS), which has three waves of interviews with the same nationally representative sample, allowing for measures of how voters changed their minds during the electoral campaign. Results indicate that perceptions about corruption, primed by the eruption of corruption scandals, more than the debate on abortion, stimulated a loss of votes for Dilma Rousseff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the impact of political sophistication on citizens' political preferences. After defining the concept and measurement of political sophistication, panel survey data from Caxias do Sul and Juiz de Fora in 2002 are used to assess its main determinants in the Brazilian context. Next, the article tests four hypotheses derived from existing scholarship about the effects of political sophistication on individual preferences and information processing. The four hypotheses tested are: 1) more politically sophisticated citizens are more ideologically constrained in their political attitudes then less sophisticated individuals; 2) more sophisticated citizens present more stable attitudes over time than less sophisticated individuals; 3) more sophisticated citizens acquire more political information over time than less sophisticated individuals, and; 4) more sophisticated citizens tend to express opinions more frequently than less sophisticated individuals. The analyses in the paper provide strong support for all four hypotheses. Finally, the article discusses some implications of the results for the study of public opinion and elections in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of our research on Internet using by candidates for councilor in Curitiba, Florianópolis and Porto Alegre. From the examination of virtual campaign of candidates who used websites among about 1.400 applicants for the positions for its offices in these capitals, we evaluate the use of these politicians have made the Internet in municipal elections in October 2008. Our basic hypothesis is that the web pages of candidates for elected office, especially the council, served mainly to disseminate traditional political practices, strengthening personalistic and clientelistic ties with the electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present the results of an electoral research conducted in the University of São Paulo by the Center of Studies in International Negotiation (CAENI) and the Junior Institute of Social Research (IJPS) during the 2010 Brazilian presidential elections runoff. In this work we discuss the sampling process and its implications on a universe of higher scholarization. We show that the prospective behavior is easier to isolate in situations like these, in comparison with classical surveys over the total Brazilian population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analises the determinants of vote for Dilma Rousseff in the first and second rounds of the 2010 Brazilian presidential elections, based on various political, economic and social indicators. The study tests the traditional hypotheses about vote choice in Brazil, such as sociotropic economic voting, party identification, government evaluation, perceptions of corruption and religion. Our contribution comes from the adition of a new explanation for vote choice: perceptions of social mobility. Therefore, the present study captures a political effect of the upward social mobility of sectors of the Brazilian population, the so called "new middle class". The article uses data from the CSES Brazilian Electoral Study (ESEB). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to show that the Workers' Party (PT) continues to be strongly attached to civil society organizations and capable of attracting members after a series of programmatic and ideological changes in the last 15 years. Through the evaluation of membership and organizational data and also the analysis of surveys conducted among PT's delegates between 1997 and 2007, we show that the party still has strong connections to civil society organizations and increased significantly its number of members during Lula's government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the incorporation of the deliberations of the national conferences into the policy agenda of the Brazilian federal government and suggests aspects that affect the capacity of these public spaces to influence this process. The hypothesis is that the degree of incorporation of each conference, i.e., its inclusive capacity, varies according to the nature of the public policy debated, given that each policy has its own purpose, involves a distinct type of civil society and is formulated by different public institutions. To test this proposition, the article compares the national conferences of aquaculture and fishery, of women and of racial policy. The results corroborate the assumption that conferences of distinct public policies have different inclusive capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses potential linkages between political participation and the distribution of public goods and services at the local level. It considers a relation between greater participation and a better performance on the offer of public goods by governments by analyzing variables associated to managerial aspects. The study was conduced in eight Brazilian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine how political conversations take place on the online forum offered as part of the Digital Participatory Budget (OPD) in a Brazilian city, Belo Horizonte. The authors propose an analytical model based on deliberative theories in order to investigate the discussions over this participatory program. The main sample consists of the messages posted by the users (n=357) on the commentaries section. The results show that reciprocity and reflexivity among interlocutors are rare; however, the respect among the interlocutors and the justification levels in several arguments were high during the discussion. The authors conclude that, even in a situation in which there is no empowerment offered by of the digital tools, the internet can effectively provide environments to enhance a qualified discursive exchange. In spite of low levels of deliberativeness, the case study shows that there are important gains concerning social learning among the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes Collor's government crisis and the political tactics of the Workers' Party (PT) at the conjuncture of Collor's government crisis. We consider that the Workers' Party didn't escape of the dominant trend of the pro-impeachment movement, adhering to the campaign for the ethics in politics and attacking president Collor from a moralist point of view, which relegated the critics and denouncement of the class character of the neoliberal politics to the second plan. The Party was limited to join the accusations about the recessionary trend of Collor's government, which meant a tactic inscribed in the fight against the effects of the neoliberal politics but not against its nature. This political behavior can be considered as an indicator of the process of passive acceptation of the neoliberal proposals from the PT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars have written on money and elections, especially on how expenditures can explain the performance of the candidate. Our paper aims at describing some features of finance campaign for the Brazilian National Congress in 2002 and 2006, based on the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) data. We tried to capture: a) donations and expenditures variation of incumbents and challengers; b) regional variations, given the socioeconomic cleavages of the electoral district, that may affect donations and expenditures; c) cameral variations, given the incongruent character of the Brazilian bicameralism; d) party variations, that is, if there are candidates that cost "more" or "less", depending on party affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a comparative study of social, political, economical, and health situation aged population of Brazil, Spain, and United States. A discussion was made about changing process age structure base don literature of the three countries. Data analysis confirmed improvements in ag people life conditions, and changing on social insertion and political and moral attitudes. Data indicat also that there are no similarities or differences among the countries which can be attributed to econom conditions, nor to cultural traditions. The duality expresses a transition in this segment, traditiona viewed in a negative way and, nowadays, also considered as economic and familiar support. T perspectives are that the aged people positive social role will be emphasized by naturalization of agi and by establishing de analytic references on aging itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate one of the main roles of political parties in a representative democracy: to organize and to control the production of representation. In order to do that, two internal party processes will be examined: the setting and maintaining of the party's organizational structure and the candidate selection for the Camara dos Deputados in the state of Sao Paulo for the PFL, PP, PMDB, PSDB and PT parties. The analysis is based on the idea that the more control political parties have over these two processes, the more vital are their party organizations in the representative dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the reelection issue and other variables related to it, such as desistance of running, running again and parliamentary renewal. Initially, the conceptual and methodological aspects of this line of inquiry. Later, it is centered in the case of the Chamber of Councilmen of Pelotas (RS), in the elections of 1982 up to 2004, with the objective of identifying patterns and trends that remain or that are modified along the time, as well as carrying through a comprehensive analysis of the political and institutional meanings of these phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the work done by media in the making of social representations upon the growing of genetically-modified (GM) crops and food in Rio Grande do Sul, showing its role in the increase of political polarization on this issue in the state. In order to demonstrate this, two events in the towns of Cachoeirinha and Não-Me-Toque are considered. The type of coverage given by the media to these events is apprehended to enable the observation of the local media role in the building of social representations concerning GM organisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]