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In Latin America, and particularly Brazil, inequality and social exclusion continue to plague the quality of democracy despite two decades of transition and consolidation. Still, in Brazil, the Workers’ Party has been remarkably successful over the past decade, explicitly addressing the problem of social exclusion and ‘incomplete citizenship‘. This paper provides an analysis of the case of Porto Alegre covering the four Workers’ Party municipal administrations from 1989 to the present in order to assess the significance of social incorporation and citizenship for the quality of democracy in Brazil. The paper discusses some conceptual notions that are relevant for the question of democracy in Brazil, particularly the role of citizenship and civil society in ‘deepening’ democracy. Then the paper goes into the evolution and dynamics of Porto Alegre's system of ‘participatory budgeting’. The paper's assessment of this experience with respect to its performance, depth and robustness shows that ‘participatory budgeting’ has had positive effects with respect to the provision of public goods services, the quality of governance, and citizens’ participation in what is seen as a new ‘public space’ shared by the local state and grass roots organisations. The paper concludes by relating the case experience to the question of citizenship, civil society and democracy and by reflecting upon its wider implications for the current and future quality of democracy in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political changes related to globalization apparently produce similar effects on old and new democracies. All over the world, comparative research on democratization has showed that political distrust is a common variable affecting the whole of the State and the relationship between citizens and democracy. Nevertheless, political discontent in old democracies has stimulated citizens to adopt new attitudes and modes of political participation, while in newly democratized countries citizens tend to withdraw from politics as a consequence of institutional distrust. In fact, in many new democracies, although adhering to the normative meaning of the democratic regime, distrust of democratic institutions is associated to citizens' negative feeling about political efficacy, low levels of political interest and political participation, and also preference for democratic models which exclude political parties and/or parliaments. This paper evaluates the meanings and consequences of the contemporary phenomenon of political discontent in Brazil and Latin America and discusses its implications for democratic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the boundaries theoretical framework to analyse Brazilian race relations. The author argues that the apparent paradox of race relations in Brazil and in parts of Latin America, i.e. the persistency of racial inequality without blatant racial conflict, can be better understood as the coexistence of strong social boundaries and weak symbolic boundaries between racial categories. Not only does the boundaries literature allow us to understand race relations in Brazil through a different lens, but the Brazilian case can also contribute to further develop this theoretical framework. Differently from most cases discussed by the boundaries literature where strong symbolic boundaries lead to strong social boundaries, in Brazil weak symbolic boundaries have played a key role in the reproduction and transformation of strong social boundaries between blacks and whites. Taking into account the different ways these two types of boundaries interact – social and symbolic – is a key challenge for the comparative literature on race relations. In order to develop the argument the author draws on recent studies about Brazil to discuss two traditional issues in the race relations literature in Latin America and beyond: the measurement of racial discrimination and the consequences of racially mixed identification for debates on racial inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]