This study examined how the occupation of strategic positions in the directories and executive boards of Brazilian political parties by women, at the national and state levels, influenced candidacies for federal deputy in the 2018 and 2022 elections, through the lens of feminist institutionalism. The research mapped the composition of these bodies, taking into account members' gender and their roles within the party structure. Statistical methods evaluated the impact of women's presence in leadership positions on resource distribution during proportional election campaigns. The results show that women's occupation of strategic positions has a positive, though very limited, effect on resource allocation. Additionally, parties' ideological positions proved relevant to both the inclusion of women and the distribution of electoral resources.
This article examines the development of popular credit policies in Brazil during the period just before a government that implemented them extensively: Lula's first term in office (2003-2006). Its goal is to challenge interpretations that associate these policies with conservatism, thereby mischaracterizing the PT's political identity from the 2000s onward. The research relies on extensive documentary analysis, secondary data collection, and in-depth interviews with (i) those who implemented and funded popular credit initiatives before Lula's government; (ii) microcredit experts; and (iii) representatives from the banking and financial sectors. We show that popular credit policies were closely associated with PT-led subnational governments in the 1990s, reflecting a set of historical initiatives during a period when the party's ideological identity was clearer, with objectives and methods distinct from those described in the specialized literature.
This study examines the experiences of verbal, labor, and sexual harassment faced by female researchers and university professors in the social sciences within the Chilean scientific and higher education system. The first objective is to describe these dynamics, characterizing them as an environment of gender-based violence. The second is to establish the typologies of these attacks and the mechanisms that enable their manifestation and reproduction, and to identify their impacts on women. Methodologically, the data analyzed come from a 2023 qualitative study that interviewed 50 female social scientists from 12 universities across the north, center, and south of the country. The conclusions indicate that gender violence has a structural role in how institutions and colleagues coexist with female academics: these patterns are not attributable to the personal or individual circumstances of these professionals.
Abstract This study demonstrates that public policies with specific characteristics create opportunities for subsequent initiatives. We call them platform policies. This is relevant because the literature has predominantly focused on how early occupants of policy spaces constrain ensuing policies. Our proposition is based on the empirical analysis of the Programa Dinheiro Direto na Escola (PDDE, or Direct Money for Schools Program), established in Brazil in 1995, aimed at decentralizing the transfer of financial resources directly to schools to promote autonomy and decentralization. Our methodological approach involved comprehensive data collection and analysis on the PDDE and its subsequent policies, focusing on objectives, target populations, implementation arrangements, key actors, and regulations. Since its creation, many policies have been “attached” to the PDDE, leveraging its experience and structure. This was only possible due to three PDDE’s characteristics necessary for platform policies in general: longevity, connection to a means rather than an end, and flexibility and adaptability.
This paper introduces {censobr}, an R package that provides an efficient method for accessing and analyzing Brazilian census data. The package enables in-disk data manipulation, allowing users to handle larger-than-memory datasets seamlessly with familiar {dplyr} syntax. The package integrates with {geobr}, enriching census data with geographic identifiers for easy spatial analysis. It offers a range of functions to download microdata and aggregated data for all of the Brazilian census editions since 1960. It also provides access to essential documentation such as variable dictionaries and interview manuals. Through this approach, {censobr} enhances accessibility to detailed demographic and socioeconomic information, including both individual-level microdata and census tract-level aggregates. Additionally, the package's handling of complex survey designs and support for spatial data visualization facilitates in-depth analysis of the Brazilian population's sociodemographic characteristics and living conditions over several decades. Practical examples included in the paper demonstrate its applications in areas such as demographic analysis and household-level research. {censobr} represents a significant advancement in making Brazilian census data accessible and efficient for academic and policy-related research. Future updates will expand its functionality and data coverage, contributing further to the package's ease of use and analytical capabilities.
The article begins with a critique of the contributions of the sociological approach, which conceives Bolsonarism as a product of new conservative subjectivities or even as a social movement. Based on the analysis of the results of a national qualitative survey with staunch and repentant Bolsonaristas, we explore various aspects of their adherence to issues such as corruption, public security, family, gender, and traditional values, as well as the formation of their political preferences and information consumption habits. We argue that it is necessary to go beyond the observation of Bolsonaristas' substantive adherence to values and look at how they obtain information. The main hypothesis is that the strongest link in Bolsonarism is its communication sphere, which allows supporters easy access to alternative versions of facts and narratives. We conclude by reflecting on the limitations of sociological theories in understanding Bolsonarism and highlighting methodological shortcomings in qualitative research in this field.
The paper analyzes documentation relating to the establishment and normalization of diplomatic relations between the governments of Brazil and the People's Republic of China in 1974 and 1975. In theoretical-methodological and empirical terms, the study draws its inspiration from the global history of the Cold War. We examined both documents saved in the National Archive and in the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and demographic sources, in addition to specialized bibliography. It is argued that Sino-Brazilian relations could reach an important level and dynamism due to the pragmatism, professionalism, and mutual understanding of their authorities, even though, at the time of the events, both countries were governed by authoritarian regimes with different political and ideological orientation. Therefore, the governments of Brasilia and Beijing were able to build a strong relationship on the South-South axis, or more precisely a Southwest (Brazil)-Southeast (China) connection, which was very significant, also for the studies of the Latin America's Cold War.
The aim of this article is to examine the trajectory and thinking of the young Claude Lefort. This is a period in the author's life that has been little studied in its own right, often being regarded as a mere prelude to his subsequent career, beginning in the 1970s, when he became one of the leading figures in the anti-totalitarian movement that reorganized the French intellectual scene. Unlike such analyses, this article argues that, while there are some continuities between the young Marxist/autonomist intellectual of the 1940s and 1950s and the theorist of democracy of the following decades, they do not cancel out the inflections, if not ruptures, that occurred along the way. To this end, the text addresses both the changes in the intellectual scene and French political life at the time and the specific point of view from which Lefort confronted the new conditions that presented themselves.
Historically, studies on the military in Brazil have focused on the theme of political intervention by the Armed Forces. Based on a review of the political science bibliography on the subject, this paper examines the interpretations that have seen the military institution as an organization similar to political parties, using the concepts of military party and uniformed party. The justification for focusing on this conceptual framework is that, among the many possible keys to interpreting the phenomenon of militarism, it was the notions of party that gained the most consistency in this sub-area, to the point of persisting as an analytical key for distinct periods such as the Military Dictatorship (1964-1985) and the Bolsonaro government (2019-2022). Finally, we point out, even though e only in a suggestive manner, some questions regarding the association of categories of civil politics with the military, proposing to add to the analyses of the military and/or uniformed party possible interpretative keys based on notions native to the Armed Forces and the military world.
This paper reconstructs the history of the expansion of judicial protagonism in the Brazilian public sphere from dictatorship to democracy, focusing on the magistrates' own actions in judicial reforms (1965-1988). Employing historical methodology, together with models of behavior that consider the Judiciary's labor market, it categorizes three types of protagonism in contention within the Judiciary-bureaucratic, summit, and grassroots-and traces the journey of each stream. This journey led to an accommodation with the military regime (1965-1977), a break with the dictatorship (1977-1979), and the development of an independent constituent project (1979-1988). It concludes by demonstrating the magistrates' actions in favor of expanding the Judiciary's protagonism and the persistent, latent internal conflicts that constitute this Power.
This article examines the conflicts surrounding the classification and declassification of the prosecutorial profession by analyzing the positions taken by members of the Public Prosecutor's Office. The analysis draws on the explanatory power of conditions. It focuses on the disputes over the legitimate representation of Santa of institutionalization and the homogenization of socially structured classificatory practices, as well as the tendency toward the reproduction of members' representations of the prosecutor's office and the uses of law are rooted in dispositions that reflect and reinforce the hierarchical structure of the social world.
This paper presents a conceptual discussion of the categories of precarious work and informality and the need to differentiate them in economies with a high penetration of informal work, such as Brazil. In order to do that, there's a review of both international and national literature, recovering their origins, developments and criticisms, and establishing both their commonalities and differences. Its premise is that Brazil, like other countries, is also undergoing a process of job precarization. Since this is a process that modifies the characteristics of informality and is still ongoing, it follows that we must take the category of precarious work into account in order to understand the reality of the labor world in the country. For this reason, and in order to guide future empirical research, the paper proposes a synthesis of the economic space in Brazil, in an effort to integrate the category of precarious work into the available data.
This article aims to examine the Mont Pelerin Society, the first organization dedicated to the dissemination and implementation of neoliberal capitalism, with a focus on its intellectuals and their role in Latin America, particularly in the Chilean government of Augusto Pinochet. To this end, we focus on primary documents collected in situ in the archives of the Hoover Institution and the digital repository of the Adolfo Ibanez University. Finally, we highlight how certain organic intellectuals sought to promote and implement the neoliberal prescription through a series of well-organized, financed, and planned strategies that were successful during the authoritarian regime in Chile.
How does one explain the processes of intellectual creativity in peripheral contexts? This paper outlines an answer to this question by exploring the concept of "peripheral effects", which describes the different dimensions that intellectual creativity may assume in scenarios shaped by strong structural asymmetries in the production of scientific knowledge. It follows three theoretical steps to achieve this goal: a) a discussion of the concept of "periphery" according to recent debates in the field of the geopolitics of knowledge; b) an empirical illustration of three different dimensions of peripheral effects, drawing on the subfield of the history of sociology; and c) a demonstration of how creative practices can become routinized by employing the concept of collective subjectivities.
Thispaper develops the concept of climatization for policy studies. Climatization is the "process through which an issue, actor or institution is framed as related to anthropogenic climate change" (Aykut, Maertens, 2021: 502). We study climatization in the case of the coal plants phase out in Chile, which formally began in 2018, and where actors from the private and public sectors, and civil society, participate at different levels (global, national and subnational). Throughout the process, every actor has expressed concerns about reducing carbon emissions. However, a detailed examination, based on open sources (press, social networks) and interviews, reveals the diversity in the appropriation of the climate problem, which results in the invisible nature of local environmental problems. The results of the study contribute to the global research agenda on "decarbonization consensus" (Bringel, Svampa, 2023: 51) and to the study of environmental policy and particularly energy transitions in Latin America and fossil fuels phase out.
This article examines the potential connection of Father Jos & eacute; Maria Ibiapina (1806-1883) to the ultramontane orientations prevalent in the Catholic reform movement that occurred in Brazil during a significant portion of the 19th century. In this sense, it questions interpretations forged by intellectuals linked to Liberation Theology, for whom the missionary's work corresponded to a popular religious tradition that had been defeated by what they called the process of "Romanization." To question the hypothesis that Ibiapina was a kind of precursor of the "preferential option for the poor," I draw on primary and secondary sources to reveal affinities between his work and Roman determinations. This analysis is thus in dialogue with recent perspectives that discuss the scope and limits of implementing the ultramontane reform program in Brazil.
This paper analyzes the development of the contention repertoire in opposing protests regarding abortion rights in Argentina between 2005 and 2018, from the emergence of the Campaign for Legal Abortion to the first legislative debate on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Bill. Using the Protest Event Analysis (PEA) method, we identified four general types of collective action and 33 specific ones. We found: a) significant tactical differences between the opposing sides, with direct actions predominating in pro-abortion protests and actions through institutional channels prevailing among their adversaries; b) strong reciprocal influence on agendas, especially in the dispute over non-punishable abortion; c) tactical innovation in pro-abortion protests (collective apostasy); and d) disparities between online and in-person dynamics. This research highlights the importance of the specific political opportunities/ limitations of each country, including party institutionalization and the role of the Catholic Church, and suggests the inclusion of online actions in PEA-based studies.
This article argues that, in the context of Brazil's Independence, there existed a republican discourse that remains underexplored in the scholarly literature. To this end, the journals Reverbero Constitucional Fluminense (1821-1822) and Correio do Rio de Janeiro (1822-1823) were investigated. The methodological approach of the Cambridge School of linguistic contextualism was adopted, addressing both public debate and the reception of ideas. Two main lines of analysis are developed: 1) the appeal of authority in the reception of renowned republican thinkers and ideas, through both direct and indirect references compared with primary sources; 2) the concepts of citizenship and virtue associated with republicanism-such as the ideal of the citizen-soldier defending the nation, and individual selflessness in service of the public good. The article concludes that the concept of republican liberalism better captures the ideological orientation of these journalsthan radical liberalism or just republicanism, expressions recognized by specialized literature.
Abstract This paper traces the theoretical development in the political theory of Ernesto Laclau. The guiding thread of our analysis in his Post-Marxist writings is his process of correcting what we will identify as two essentialist remnants present in “Hegemony and Socialist Strategy”. These remnants, concentrated on his considerations about advanced industrial societies and the democratic revolution, are undone in the shift towards populism. This results in an increased argumentative coherence and the abandonment of the belief in advanced industrial societies as the privileged space for the construction of radical democracies. The conclusions are mobilized to resolve a theoretical deadlock that exists between the author’s concepts and their operationalization for research purposes in the current academic debate on populism.
Abstract This article stems from a study that aimed to identify if gender influences participation in Erasmus+ International Mobility in Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Portugal. Methodologically, quantitative data on VET attendance and Erasmus+ mobility participation for 2014-2020 were analysed, corresponding to the first period of the Erasmus+ Programme covering VET. Additionally, two directors, two mobility managers, and four teachers from two vocational schools were interviewed. Findings reveal an underrepresentation of women in VET and participation in mobility that stems from the ‘genderisation’ patterns of VET’s subject areas. However, in contrast to the choice of a VET course, Erasmus+ mobility in VET seems to attract women more than men, as in this case, the figures of female participation are higher. In conclusion, although gender does not seem to determine participation in mobility, it emerges as an influencing factor, shaping it through previous processes, namely choosing VET and the course options.
