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In the decade and a half following World War II, processes of democratization took place across the globe in what political scientists frequently refer to as the second wave of democracy. This democratization was defined by a series of debates about the true meaning and correct form of democracy. This article examines the drafting of the 1946 Constitution of Brazil within this context. Specifically, this text reviews the ways competing definitions of democracy fueled the debates at the constitutional convention and informed the creation of political institutions. In contrast to previous scholarship on the drafting of the 1946 Constitution that depicts the proceedings as a competition between reactionary conservative and pro-democracy factions, this article finds that this Constitution constitutes a reconciliation of the competing definitions of democracy that existed among the Brazilian political class at that time. This contradicts the commonly held view that the 1946 regime was a muted democratic experiment. Furthermore, the article highlights some of the ways in which the democratization process in Brazil mirrored transitions elsewhere and how it was unique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing political influence of evangélico Christians in traditionally Catholic Brazil has caught the attention of social and political scientists as well as theologians. Among others, the reasons for two-thirds of the mainly Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal electorate voting for Jair Messias Bolsonaro include a moral agenda concerning human sexuality and the "traditional family," namely the rejection of abortion under any circumstance and same-sex marriage. This conservative agenda is shared in other countries and churches and shows as "traditionalist" (Benjamin Teitelbaum), especially in Brazil, the USA under Trump, and Russia. At the same time, other, more social aspects of Christian diaconia in caring for the integrity of the body are left aside, although they are foreseen in those churches' declarations of faith and ethical catechisms. The 2019–2022 government's blatant failure to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, the appalling rise of hunger, and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest should give rise to what I call an "evangélico sense of shame" as a consequence of the incompatibility of many of the faith convictions of that part of the electorate with Bolsonaro's stances and actions, retrieving shame as an ethical category. To this end, I analyze biblical notions and theological reflections on shame, as well as publications of evangélico churches with a focus on the largest of its churches in Brazil, the Assemblies of God. Thus, I intend to reclaim an integral diaconia for evangélico churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text is a review of the book "El llamado de las Américas" written by Alain Rouquié. The book is an autobiographical journey that offers an intellectual and personal testimony about democracy and authoritarianism in Latin America during the 20th century, with emphasis on Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. Rouquié analyzes his experience as a Latin American political scientist and evaluates the current times from that perspective. The book is organized into two parts and addresses topics such as military power in Argentina and the characterization of Latin America. The author highlights the importance of analyzing the cycles of decline, fall, and resurgence of democratic regimes in the region. He also points out that representative democracy in Latin America has been like the myth of Sisyphus, with constant challenges and setbacks. The author raises questions about the future of representative democracy and warns about current and future threats. Overall, the book offers a retrospective of Latin American history and politics and an autobiographical roadmap of the author. [Extracted from the article]

Does the election of politicians from historically underrepresented groups spur others to enter politics? Some political scientists and policymakers posit that the election of women and people of color to prominent political offices can inspire others to run for office, yet prior research has yielded mixed results. We contribute to the literature on representation by exploring the impact of role models on candidate emergence at the local level, where aspiring politicians typically begin to climb the political ladder. Using data from Brazilian elections and a set of regression discontinuity designs, we find no evidence that the election of a woman or Afro-Brazilian mayor spurs women and Afro-Brazilians to run for city council positions. Our results, which are robust to several alternative specifications, suggest that even if the election of a woman or minority politician inspires others to enter politics, barriers may impede them from running for office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In chapter 2, Cowan shows how state agents turned away from Catholics and toward conservative evangelical Protestants. In Rome, Sigaud, Mayer, and Oliveira worked behind the scenes with figures like Archbishop Marcel Fefebvre to mobilize church fathers against progressive reforms (20-26). In 1960, Sigaud and his longtime allies, Bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer and lay activist Plínio Corrêa de Oliveira, coauthored I Reforma agrária: Questão de consciência i (Agrarian reform: a question of conscience), "an anticommunist battle cry for Catholic renewal and against wealth redistribution" (18). [Extracted from the article]

This article analyses Brazil's 1975 vote in favour of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism and racial discrimination. Historians and political scientists have investigated extensively the causes for this vote. However, all these analyses focus on Brazil's relations with other state actors whilst ignoring the possibility that domestic factors, including Brazilian leaders' attitudes towards Zionism, influenced the decision to support the anti-Zionist resolution. Drawing on archival materials from Brazil and Israel, the article introduces domestic and normative factors into the analysis of this controversial vote. It argues that Brazil's desire to secure oil imports and financial investments from Arab countries, combined with its repudiation of diasporic allegiances, best explain its support for the resolution. Whilst the Brazilian dictatorship's delegitimisation of diasporic loyalties was not the primary reason for the decision, it constituted an important element in the normative framework that enabled it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Politics in Latin America is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Estudos Ibero-Americanos is the property of EDIPUCRS - Editora Universitaria da PUCRS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The following study seeks to understand how the Facebook page of the City Council of Itapevi, Brazil, made political literacy possible through political education, discussions on the political agenda, and mobilization in its communication on the social network. The corpus of the analysis brings together 683 publications made in 2019, a period in which the page showed an increase in audience compared to the previous year (2018). The quantitative research, though with a qualitative look, identified posts that made political knowledge possible to the citizen, as well as interviews to understand the use of the social network by the institution. An appropriate analysis to understand the use of the network by the public body, since the latest survey by DataSenado shows that 74% of Brazilians have or have had a social network - Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, or Twitter. A significant number, especially when compared to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), from 2019, indicates that two-thirds of the country's population (69.8%) have an internet connection. These numbers drive the research of communicologists and political scientists, who seek to understand how this communication network is being part of people's daily lives. Mainly taking into account that the internet, and especially social networks, are becoming a space where different people connect, share content and participate in the political debate a few clicks away. The internet's expansion in Brazil and the number of people connected to networks made different public bodies create profiles on social networks to interact with people. A new channel that aims to establish a rapprochement with this digital audience, ensure transparency in management and encourage the participation of everyone in the decision-making process. As occurred at the City Council of Itapevi (CMI, in Portuguese). However, to guarantee a minimum of success in this digital endeavor, the information available on the networks must be of public interest and its content must be accessible, allowing citizens to understand how public authorities work and to know the process of choosing representatives. A knowledge that can be shared with the citizen through political literacy, as highlighted by Cosson (2016: 51): "these are knowledge related to the functioning of the State, with an emphasis on democratic mechanisms, which involves, on one hand, a knowledge about elections, parties and institutions, and on the other hand, the rights and duties of the citizen". Therefore, the article was divided into four parts, in addition to the final considerations. The first seeks to clarify the difference between public and political communication; the second addresses how Facebook has supported CMI's communication strategy. Furthermore, there is a literature review on political literacy. Finally, the objective of this study: an analysis of the possibility of political literacy through publications made on the CMI profile on Facebook, in 2019, which concludes that the page is a virtual space for debate and public expression in the city, with growth potential for the promotion of citizenship and political knowledge. The study is based on publications in the areas of public communication (Matos, 2000; Marques, 2011; Correia, Ferreira y Santo, 2010), social networks (Recuero, 2010; Ferrari, 2010, Silva, 2017), and political literacy (Cosson, 2020; Biesta, Lawly e Kelly 2009). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text examines the tensions and the dissonances in the relation between religion and public sphere in contemporary Brazil. Based on a Sociology and on an Anthropology of the phenomena of secularization and secularity, the purpose is to demonstrate the "porosity" of the Brazilian public/political system with the religious milieu. By applying a socio-historical perspective, the work attempts to understand how the boundaries between religion and politics were precariously constructed throughout the constitution of our State in Brazil, without ever having been institutionally well-delimited. This vacuum, which generated concessions on the part of the State to major Christian religions, guaranteed public legitimacy to their religious symbols in official state spaces, which are, in principle, neutral and secular. However, the 1988 Constitution represented the influx of modern and secular legislation that legitimized subjects of rights such as women, black people, indigenous peoples, LGBTs, environmentalists, etc. Given that background, this reflection aims at contributing to the interpretation of the complexity involved in the multiple and contradictory presence -- in the public sphere -- of both major Christian religions -- which are based on an agenda of conservative religious values -- and liberal and libertarian projects organized by segments of civil society and public agents, which generate tensions and dissonances. To understand this reality -- as a mosaic of interactions and antagonisms --, we work with the notion of "pluri-confessionality" of Mexican sociologist Roberto Blancarte and also with the notions of secularity of "recognition" and of "integration" of French political scientist Philippe Portier. Hence, we attempt to reach theoretically and empirically a broader and nuanced understanding of our public-political system in the relation with the religious dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argument: The process of institutionalization of Political Science in Brazil was conditioned by the country's position in the geopolitical scenario proper to the Cold War, strongly affected by the influence of the USA and, later on, by the military dictatorship experienced between 1964 and 1985. The first Brazilian professionalized political scientists were, during their youth, anti-Stalinist revolutionary militants. They had been financed by the Ford Foundation (FF) to pursue their PhDs in the USA. In this paper, I argue that the north-American model of ideological war included governmental and non-governmental institutions. Among the latter, the FF played a crucial role because it had a lot of credibility in state bureaucracy and was able to captivate the potential copartners, who would benefit from its grant, even the anti-American ones. The FF was able to do so because it was keeping a distance from the bellicose image of the USA. In this way, because Brazilian youngsters were leftist, the FF was interested in financing their studies. And, because they belonged to the anti-Stalinist left, they were more open than the communists and wouldn't oppose to exchange with the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the debate about education that took place in the early twentieth century in Brazil and provided a productive discussion on the role of education in society. On one side was the Catholic Church that supported religious teaching in public schools and on the other side, educators who were close to Progressive Education and advocated secularism. We point out the main theses that guided this dispute and emphasize the differences between these two groups. We also present a brief history of the separation between the State and the Catholic Church after the proclamation of the Republic and elucidate the rearticulation of this institution by highlighting the contradictions between the Church and the educators in favor of Progressive Education. We understand that the issue of secularism was an important factor in this process and that it contributed to the sharp differences between the Church and the supporters of a secular state. In the field of knowledge, historians, sociologists, political scientists, philosophers and religious studies scholars have been addressing this topic and produced studies, analyses and considerations both in favor and against the introduction of religious education in Brazilian public schools. This article is the result of a bibliographic research that took into account scientific articles, books, dissertations and theses on the proposed topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cadernos Argentina Brasil is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Brazil’s parliamentary coup has managed to topple the elected PT government with remarkable ease, meeting with little resistance at home or abroad despite the blatant violation of constitutional norms and the almost farcically corrupt record of the new incumbents. How has the neo-right been able to transfer its script of juridical-mediatic manipulation of electoral democracy, previously rehearsed on smaller stages such as Honduras and Paraguay, to the regional hegemon? What are the stakes and perspectives for Brazil’s political institutions, and are there any possibilities left for emancipatory movements? Two leading political scientists from Rio de Janeiro chronicle the events so far. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Brazilian provisional measures (MPVs) are still depicted by some Brazilian legal scholars as an authoritarian instrument used by the Executive to impose the political agenda, violating constitutional principles like the separation of powers. In a different manner, assuming a hands-on approach, political scientists have shown that the use of the decree power authority by the Executive branch is not only common in contemporary democracies-both in Parliamentary systems as well as in presidential ones-but also useful to build and to keep governability and democratic stability. Even accepting MPVs really are a strong legislative and political instrument, the main objective of this article is to show there is more here to present: actually, under the legal perspective, little attention is addressed to the institutional environment that surrounds the lawmaking, or to the mutual (re)shaping interaction between decrees' boundaries and procedures and the whole lawmaking process. Assuming that the MPVs' institutional design has changed significantly in the last 25 years, facing at least four quite different periods, it is possible to extract two important legal consequences: first, it is not appropriate to consider decrees as a flat, regular, and unique instrument; second, it is necessary to ponder that MPV's institutional changes have a very important role in the horizontal relationship between Executive and Legislative branches, greatly affecting the whole lawmaking process environment and the legal output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the news and announcements published in the May 1, 1959 issue of "International Social Science Journal." The Fourth World Political Science Congress held in Rome, Italy, in September 1958, was in every way a success, It was attended by more than 300 political scientists from some thirty European, Asian and American countries, most of the best experts in subjects dealt with took part in these discussions, over 70 working papers were submitted. A meeting was convened by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and cultural Organizations to examine the social, moral and cultural implication of the scientific and technological developments that were the occasion for the United Nations sessions.