Search

Institutionalists have both argued that institutions are endogenous, yet also analyzed Brazil?s electoral institutions, including open-list PR, as exogenous variables that inhibit national party unity to the point of precluding national party reputations. In an analysis of the two most recent periods of democracy in Brazil (1945-64, 1989-present), the paper demonstrates that in the current period, party leaders are now acting to mitigate the incentives of open-list PR by distributing valuable perks based on the degree to which rank and file vote with the party leadership. Electoral institutions are constant across the two periods, yet party leaders are now acting to promote party reputations, while they failed to do so in the earlier period. The paper resolves this paradox by developing a general theory of electoral competition based on two dimensions: whether voters choose direct (clientelistic) or indirect (programmatic/personal) exchanges with politicians, and whether electoral institutions are party or candidate-centered. The theory yields a four-fold typology of electoral incentives with distinct and observable implications for internal party delegation and behavior. The theory endogenizes electoral institutions to a more general theory of electoral competition, and provides an electorally-based explanation for why politicians chose unmitigated open-list PR in the earlier period, but now opt to modify its anti-party incentives in the current period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that anti-discrimination litigation in Brazil can be used to further the goal of judicial reform. The main argument made is that, contrary to the views of the law’s critics, the uneven success with anti-discrimination should be attributed to flaws within the institution of the judiciary rather than in perceived weaknesses of the law itself. These flaws are the object of a broad movement for judicial reform to which anti-discrimination litigation can lend its weight. The paper concludes by suggesting that judicial reform requires the awareness of ordinary citizens in civil society about the need for reform, which citizens acquire through anti-discrimination litigation. A brief sketch of the evolution of anti-discrimination jurisprudence is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on recent theoretical writings on transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) I will argue illegal networks [INs] that bring together drug traffickers, police, politicians, and civic leaders help to support and maintain criminal activity in Rio by bringing together functionally unique actors who can reciprocally help each other break the law, resist arrest, and build the group trust and localized legitimacy necessary to carry out long term criminal operations. Through a close examination of criminal networks in three favelas in Rio de Janeiro I will add detail to the macro-level studies of TCOs in international relations that will help to explain particular aspects of network functions and the challenge they pose to democratic governance. This paper will support three contentions. First, INs show the importance of moving past a static state-society model of politics. In the context of powerful network organizations that cross state-society boundaries, understandings of social movements and of institutional politics change in important ways. Why, for example, would a senior police officer, long on the take, help to implement policies that would arrest criminals who pay him off? Second, evidence in this paper will show that ongoing criminal activity depends on high levels of trust and legitimacy in certain constrained geographic areas. Counter to much conventional wisdom, this paper will show that criminals depend of social capital, defined as norms of trust and reciprocity, to build up the local legitimacy necessary to prevent arrest and detection. As Alejandro Portes and his collaborators have observed in other contexts, social capital is occasionally used to promote anti-democratic and violent ends. Finally, from a policy perspective, this paper suggests that ongoing problems of violence and crime in the developing world stem from a deep complicity between civic actors, state officials, and criminals and cannot be resolved through simple administrative reform or by only building social capital. The flexibility of these networks and the ability of criminals to work with civic actors enables network members to undermine efforts at repression and local capacity building. By operating in flexible institutions traffickers prevent police from gaining effective intelligence about their activities and they ideally position themselves to corrupt and coopt members of the police and civil society. The structure of networks allows traffickers to incorporate new groups into their criminal operations thereby enabling them to buy off better paid and better armed police or coopt the leaders of new social programs supported by the state. The result is that the more the government invests in repressing trafficking the more powerful traffickers become. Any solution to these problems must focus on the unique structure of localized criminal networks and the needs of particular places where they operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing theories of change in campaign strategies predict cross-national convergence in terms of candidates' linkages to voters and the degree of policy focus and cleavage priming in their appeals. However, the prevailing national patterns of electioneering in Chile, Brazil, and Peru have actually diverged from one another since their transitions from authoritarian rule. This paper develops a theory of success contagion that can explain the evolution of presidential campaign strategy in these countries as well as other third-wave democracies. I argue that the first politician to combine a victorious campaign with a successful term as president establishes a model of electioneering that candidates across the ideological spectrum are likely to adopt in the future. Such contagion can occur through imitation as well as the consolidation of norms among campaign professionals. Strategic convergence is less probable in cases of repeatedly poor governing performance, such as Peru. Instead, candidates are likely to choose strategies through an inward-oriented process of reacting against previous errors. This paper draws upon content analysis of television advertising, interviews with campaign staff, and case studies of specific elections in Chile, Brazil, and Peru. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do state government bureaucracies in Brazil exhibit different institutional designs? Why do some states delegate policy-making powers to independent institutions and create rigid institutional rules and procedures for policy making (some of which are enshrined in the state?s constitutions and in legislation which requires qualified majorities for change), while others have kept policymaking informal, flexible, and, as a consequence, less formalized? What are the possible connections between electoral vulnerability of state political elites, institutional design and constitutional choice at the state level? We argue that the main motivation behind this institutional change was the need of the current governments to tie the hands of the next state government administration. In this paper we model the process of institutional choice for the new IRAs, focusing on the role played by electoral competition, vulnerability and uncertainty. Our goal is to explain the political determinants of constitutional choice. We claimed that autonomy enjoyed by IRAs could be interpreted as an intertemporal safeguard for the preferences of an enacting coalition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The movement towards decentralized systems of government in developing countries has affected the manner in which rural public services are provided. Local governments, interest groups and citizens have a far more prominent role in decision making. This paper explores the question of whether an integrated approach toward local level policy decisions is likely to lead to a more equitable distribution of agriculture and environment related public services. We examine the issue of equity by looking at both the spatial distribution of services, as well as the ability of local users to access these services. We argue that the institutional design of the local governance system influences access to public services that citizens require for sustainable production. We compare empirical data from Brazil and Uganda; countries which have taken different approaches regarding incorporating local actors in policy design and implementation. Brazil has applied a comprehensive strategy to achieve the equitable distribution of public services. Municipal rural development councils provide a pluralistic forum for interest group and citizen participation in decision making. The goal of this stakeholder oriented setting is a transparent process of equitably allocating public resources. Though having the same objective, Uganda had taken an alternative approach. Non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations function in a semi-autonomous manner with little intervention or coordination from the central or local government. This is motivated partially by a market oriented approach to stimulating public service provision. This study highlights the role of the local institutional setting in facilitating equity in agriculture and environment public service provision. We provide insights into appropriate institutional designs for crafting equitable and accessible public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions can central governments control or reverse processes of decentralization? Why do some central governments actually push for certain decentralizing moves, when it would seem this concedes power to subnational governments? In this paper I explore developments in intergovernmental relations in Brazil and South Africa since 1994. I conclude that processes of decentralization over the last decade have not always enhanced, but have sometimes actually reduced the autonomy of subnational governments. In both cases, central governments have increasingly worked through bureaucratic channels to earmark the money that flows to the states (estados) and provinces. Central governments in both countries have also recently placed restrictions on the ability of states and provinces to borrow money. The comparison shows that similar changes in intergovernmental relations can occur across countries with different histories and institutions. In limiting or reducing subnational autonomy, strong presidential leverage within governing coalitions was crucial; this leverage can be wielded either in the legislative arena, or within the executive. At the same time, variations across the cases point to an additional causal factor affecting the outcomes in these countries: economic crisis. The Brazilian president’s successful reckoning with a generalized economic crisis gave him leverage that South Africa’s president did not have, and this enabled the more dynamic set of (re)centralizing changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effectiveness of the legal system in protecting citizens from arbitrary killing from the state. It presents data on the number of state killings in Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, and on the judicial response to these killings. The analysis includes a discussion of inequality before the law, and calculates the effect of belonging to a certain disfavored social group on the effectiveness of the rights of members of that group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early comparativists argued that the level of economic development determined whether voters chose to link themselves to politicians directly based on the exchange of goods for votes (clientelism) or indirectly based on an evaluation of national programs. More recently, comparativists concerned with electoral accountability have favored institutional analysis which examines the degree to which formal rules encourage voters to emphasize national or local concerns in making their voting choice. Empirical findings suggest that neither of these approaches fully captures the key features defining the relationship between voters and their elected representatives. The paper synthesizes the two approaches in order to present a more general theory of democratic accountability. I reformulate early comparativists’ models of how economic development affects voters’ choices for direct (clientelist) or indirect (programmatic) goods based on the fact that voters face a collective action problem in delegating to politicians to provide programmatic goods. This reformulation of the impact of macro variables on voter choice is then integrated with institutional theory to provide a synthesis of both macro and micro variables shaping electoral accountability. The theory yields a four-fold typology based on whether voters choose direct/indirect and national/local, with distinct and observable implications for party behavior. The theory is tested by examining party behavior in Brazil in two periods of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the new left in Taiwan and South Korea and the renewed left in Brazil and Chile. I contend that the left can no longer best understood in terms of antiquated sociological or economic categories. The new left in East Asia and Latin America is a political project and its politics are embedded in the processes of democratic transition. My argument is simple: (i) Democratization, a variable process of change, leads to different patterns of new left organization. (ii) Meanwhile, the introduction of democracy, a form of governance with universally shared features (irrespective of how the transition to democracy took place), promotes the moderation of the new left across all four cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Brazilian stabilization policy since 1985 to illustrate the uses of a cultural approach in understanding economic policy change. In the process, it reflects more broadly on the recent re-convergence on culture in the political science discipline, on how cultural explanations relate to other theories of social choice and change, and on what may be the most promising avenues of further research. The argument in brief is that broad cultural explanations are rarely useful, but when culture is combined with interest and institutional explanations in very focused settings, it enhances explanatory power immensely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Brazil it is the executive that has constitutional exclusive rights to initiate the annual budget. Although the congressional legislators have the right to amend the bill that is introduced by the president, they can only do so if those amendments are compatible with the multi-year budget plan elaborated by the executive as well as with the law on budgetary guidelines. Moreover, Congress may not authorize expenditures that exceed the budgetary revenue. This paper argues that those rules not only restrict congressional action, but also enable the president to preserve at low costs its coalition inside Congress. When the executive is sending the annual budgetary law to Congress, it can either underestimate or overestimate the total revenue for that particular year. Legislators face a condition of asymmetric information since they don't know to what extent the executive's information is accurate. If the president decides to underestimate the total revenue, he/she is clearly signaling to legislators a strong expenditure constraint, which is compatible with an environment of fiscal crises. However, even in such an environment, the Brazilian executive has systematically preferred to overestimate the annual total revenue (especially the amount dedicated to investment, but not those related to operational costs), which has signaled that the expenditure constraint is lower and, as a consequence, legislators would have more space and flexibility for amending the budget. Why has the executive systematically overestimated the budget? Usually individual legislator's amendments to the annual budget are oriented to benefit municipalities where they received the most votes in the previous election. Although legislators have the right to propose individual amendments to the annual budget, it is the executive, who is entitled to determine which amendment will really be appropriated, as the appropriation is contingent on the availability of resources in the national treasury. We show evidence that the Brazilian President rewards those legislators who most vote for his interests by executing their individual amendments to the annual budget and, at the same time, punishes those who vote less by not executing their individual amendments. In addition, it is also demonstrated elsewhere that, ceteris paribus, the greater the amount of individual legislator amendments appropriated by the president, the higher will be the probability of legislator's re-election (Pereira 2002; Pereira and Rennó, 2002). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the institutional evolution of the health care system that led to the universalization of coverage and municipalization in the provision of basic health care in Brazil. I argue that a process of state-society transformation in the context of the authoritarian state facilitated the infiltration of the state bureaucracy by reformist groups of society. These activists reoriented the authoritarian health policies toward new goals. In analyzing this case of institutional change, the article advances a gradualist approach to institutional evolution and alerts scholars against the prioritization of critical junctures or locked-in effects in explanations of institutional change or stasis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the contours of an ongoing research project on the politics of banking-sector opening in Mexico, Brazil, and Indonesia. The project tries to understand why these three countries opened their domestic banking sectors to foreign participation in the 1990s and early 2000s after decades of financial protectionism, and why their governments countries exercised different degrees of control over the opening process. I find that international pressure by itself did not generate significant opening; only when external pressure converged with banking shocks, and sometimes also with domestically-driven ideational change, did significant opening follow. I also find that although the shocks forced major de jure opening in all three countries, in practice, policymakers gradually reasserted control over the opening process and were able to harness foreign capital to advance domestic political priorities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the distribution of pay and changing trends of inequality in Argentina and Brazil, illuminating the specific winners and losers, by region and by economic activity (sector). In both countries we find that inequality rose in the neoliberal period, but that it declined following the severe crises of neoliberal policy, in 1993 in Brazil and in late 2001 in Argentina. This period of post-neoliberalism is characterized in both countries by a decline in the economic weight of the financial sector and a recovery of the position of the civil service. In both countries, the rise in inequality leading to the crisis produced an increase in the relative position of the major metropolitan centers; this positional advantage also declined modestly in the post-crisis recovery period. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early years of the gay and lesbian movement in Brazil in the late 1970s and early 1980s, activists have engaged with political parties in their struggle for the rights of sexual minorities. Less clear, however, is the way in which support for, and opposition to, gays, lesbians and travestis (GLTs) is distributed across parties. This paper examines the relationship between the GLT movement and political parties in Brazil and analyzes this pattern of support and opposition. I argue that political parties are relevant to an explanation of the pattern of support for the rights of GLTs, but only to a certain extent. While this support comes primarily from leftist parties, it can also be identified among some centrist and right-wing parties. Other factors typical of Brazilian (and Latin American) political culture, such as personalism, clientelism and idiosyncratic traits, seem to have greater explanatory power. While these factors tend to be associated with authoritarian aspects of Latin American political culture, this context does allow for some advancement to occur with respect to the recognition and inclusion of sexual minorities. These victories, however, are less predictable, sustainable and accountable than they might be in an environment where an entrenched democratic culture and strong democratic institutions are the norm. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the participatory effectiveness of the Brazilian landless movement. Dynamics of the impact of the social movement on public policy; Impetus for agrarian reform in the country; Background of the passage of agrarian law.

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso?s administration presided over three critical junctures in the development of Common Market of the South (Mercosul): the attempted military coup in Paraguay (1996), the devaluation of the Brazilian real (1999), and the Argentine economic crisis (2002). We argue that the Cardoso government?s responses to these events were critical to the development of Mercosul because of Brazil?s unique position as the largest country in the bloc. Many theories of free trade and regional integration state that successful economic integration requires a regionally preponderant power that acts as a core provider of collective goods for member-states. We test this argument by examining the Cardoso government?s policies during the three critical junctures. Evidence shows that regional integration declined when Argentina incurred costs during the Brazilian currency crisis, but improved when Brazil provided aid during the Argentine economic crisis and aided in defeating the attempted coup in Paraguay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What accounts for the successful responses of some emerging market countries to the challenges posed by integration into the global economy? And why do other countries fail to adjust to exogenous shocks, such as sudden shifts in their terms of trade or the willingness of foreigners to invest? Taking three recent currency crises in Argentina (in late 2001) and Brazil (early 1999, mid 2002) as illustrations, this essay proposes a diagnostic toolkit for thinking about the politics of adjustment to external economic shocks. We compare analytical frameworks that highlight 1) the strategic importance of the emerging market country to members of the G-7, 2) the difficult political sociology of certain economic policy shifts, and 3) the decision-making characteristics of the set of national political institutions. Differences in national decision-making patterns accounts most convincingly for Argentina?s more costly and prolonged adjustment to its recent forced devaluation and currency float, as compared to Brazil?s less painful policy shifts. However, one of the other frameworks proposed might be more useful for analyzing a different country?s response to some other exogenous shock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists have paid little attention to the politics of epidemics. This article begins to fill this gap by taking up the question of why some states have responded to the HIV/AIDS epidemic more aggressively than others, conceptualizing AIDS responses as a form of state-building. We attempt to answer the general question by comparing two countries, Brazil and South Africa, in which we might have expected similar state responses but in which we in fact observe substantially different policy trajectories. Our method of structured comparison tests for covariance between policy outcomes and political causes, and it identifies intermediate and logically plausible steps between cause and effect. We present evidence that Brazil?s response was more aggressive than South Africa?s with respect to bureaucratic development, and was much more aggressive with respect to both the prevention of HIV and the treatment of persons with HIV and/or AIDS. We argue that two factors explain the divergent responses: institutions established more space for policy entrepreneurship in Brazil, and the scope of the national political community, especially as it facilitated a racial interpretation of the virus, hindered the state response more in South Africa. We examine and reject several rival hypotheses that might explain the largely divergent response in the two countries: the nature and timing of the democratic transition, who was infected and when, the relative strength of civil society, the quality of leadership, general state capacity, and international linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the institutional arrangements of judicial independence in Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina. Definition and theory of judicial independence; Difference between independence and autonomy; Requirement for independence; Concepts of judicial independence.

Relatively little is known about why developmental ‘synergies? thrive in some regions and sectors and not in others. How are some subnational actors in the developing world able to transcend self-interest and overcome problems of collective action where incentives for cooperation are relatively weak? Focusing on the critical case of Brazil, I argue that variations in the design and efficacy of subnational industrial policies can be linked to the evolution of distinct subnational regimes which reflect historically uneven patterns of development, social mobilization, political party development, and class conflict within Brazil. Analyzing cases across these subnational regimes, I contrast contemporary industrial strategies pursued at the state level in the Southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul and the Northeastern state of Bahia. The analysis suggests that the formidable barriers to achieving synergistic strategies of industrial competitivity are particularly pronounced in the Northern macro-regions of Brazil where programmatic parties have relatively little influence and social mobilization is relatively low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why hasn?t abortion been liberalized in Latin America? The first part of this article analyzes the experiences of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in an attempt to answer this question, focusing on the rise of the reproductive rights movement, activism of the Vatican and anti-abortion movements, and the peculiar sociology of abortion in the region. The next part explores how differences in the position of the president on abortion and the availability of congressional allies for the reproductive rights movement affected the political climate surrounding abortion in the three countries in the 1990s and early 2000s. In Brazil, the most liberal country, a ?legal abortion? movement has emerged to encourage public health services to perform abortions on women who have been raped. In Argentina, there is almost no discussion about liberalizing abortion, but conservative attempts to ban abortion under all circumstances have failed. Chile, where abortion is illegal under all circumstances, is completely closed to discussions about liberalizing abortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes problems of democratic consolidation and police violence [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deliberation and protest have usually been understood as two mutually exclusive ways of practicing democracy. It has been argued that protests, due to their adversarial nature, and orientation towards conflict, rather than consensus, would hinder, rather than enhance, the prospects for deliberation. The recent cycle of protests, including the Arab Spring, Indignados and Occupy Wall Street, has however shown that contentious politics do not necessarily stand in opposition to the idea and practice of deliberative democracy. On the contrary, these protests feature important deliberative qualities. In this article, we seek to identify the deliberative dimension of the recent wave of demonstrations. We do so through a close analysis of the theoretical approaches that underpin deliberation and protests (i.e. deliberative democracy and agonism) and by drawing on the 2013 protests in Brazil and Turkey. We show that deliberative democracy is not antithetical to conflicts and agonism generated by protests. In fact, protests constitute an integral part of public deliberation, especially when the latter is understood in systemic terms, in terms of a broad public conversation that occurs in multiple sites of communication. We substantiate this claim by drawing on the 2013 protests in Brazil and Turkey. We argue that the deliberative dimension of these protests is manifested in: (i) the way they were organized; (ii) how they were carried out, especially in terms of the type of collective action they generated; and (iii) their public consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains persistent political corruption in many young democracies? Focusing on the effects of corruption on individual-level attitudes, we present two hypotheses for why citizens might be willing to cast ballots for corrupt politicians. On the one hand, voters may simply lack information about corruption. On the other hand, voters may knowingly overlook corruption when politicians otherwise perform well in office, delivering public goods to their constituents. We test these hypotheses using an embedded experiment in a nationwide survey in Brazil. The survey finds that the vast majority of voters express a willingness punish corrupt politicians, regardless of politician performance. High income voters form a partial exception to this overall rejection of corruption; they react less negatively to information about corruption and more strongly to information about competence than the general population. Our findings imply that specific, credible, and accessible information will lead most voters to punish corrupt politicians at the polls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do resource transfers from the central government to sub-national governments affect local and national electoral contests? While scholars tend to assume the answer is "Yes", there is surprisingly little empirical testing of this assumption, particularly with modern statistical methods. Because politics almost always matters for the allocation of public resources, an endogeneity problem plagues most studies of this topic. The key innovation of this project is to use a quasi-experimental approach to provide evidence of the effectiveness of resource transfers in buying votes. The source of variation in transfers stems from thresholds in a population-based revenue-sharing mechanism between the federal and local governments in Brazil. These thresholds create discontinuities in federal per capita transfers to local governments from 1982 until 1988 (cumulatively equal to approximately 20% of annual local GDP), which we exploit to estimate effects on local electoral outcomes using a regression-discontinuity (RD) design. While we expected additional resources to increase the local incumbent party's re-election probability in 1988 mayoral elections, regardless of party affiliation, we find no evidence of this. When we divide our sample, however, into municipalities governed by left-wing and right-wing parties in 1982, we find that the transfers bolstered the probabilities of left-wing incumbents, not right-wing ones. Given that the 1988 elections were the first truly democratic local elections in Brazil after two decades of military rule, it may be difficult to infer from these findings to other elections. The findings, however, have interesting implications for first democratic elections. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Similar to the media in democracies, the Brazilian media presented elite cues on key issues to the public that allowed citizens to form opinions about matters that were relevant to their decision making during Brazil's competitive authoritarian period. In the initial phase of authoritarianism, the media remained dominated by one perspective — that of the government. This led to a general consensus on many issues among the public related to the authoritarian regime. As the regime opened up politically, however, elections became more encompassing and more competitive, the media diversified, and opposition voices gained space. As the regime and its authoritarian measures became discredited, the media coverage began to portray mostly opposition voices. As the weight of coverage shifted more toward expressing voices of the opposition, opinions among the public turned against the regime's policies and the military's role in government. Using public opinion surveys from 1972-73, prior to political liberalization; 1978, the first election following the government party's substantial losses in 1974; and 1982, the year of the final elections of the non-democratic period, I demonstrate that public opinion on key issues followed the opposition elites' lead. These data confirm that changing coverage in media led to shifts in the public's opinion of the regime. In the early phases of censorship, the public expressed strong support for the regime. However, once the media began to report more openly, coverage became increasingly critical and reflected opposition stances. This changing coverage moved the opinion of those who were politically inclined to support the opposition and aware enough to receive the new cues. Over the course of the dictatorship, shifts in public opinion reflected shifts in media coverage, with increasingly critical coverage resulting in the public's rejection of the military's role continued in government. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an established literature on governing coalitions in parliamentary regimes, relatively little is known about how executives in multiparty presidential regimes use coalition management and other tools to generate support. We examine coalition management in Brazil, a prime example of a multiparty presidential regime, during a period in which the relevant institutional rules remained constant. Our focus is on the executive's distribution of pork and his management of coalition heterogeneity, size, and coalescence. We find that the two executives in the sample, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, often used these tools in very different ways and that these tools are interdependent and substitutable to an extent in terms of generating legislative support. Furthermore, among other results, we uncover evidence of the mensalão corruption scandal in the Lula administration and propose that coalition management at least partly necessitated using unorthodox means to generate legislative support. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the main proposition of the argument in which the professionalism of a state's military depends partly on the division of labor and partly on the external threats that a state confront. It compares the historical trends in military professionalism in the Middle East and South America focusing more closely on Brazil and Egypt. The article concludes with an evaluation of the empirical evidence and draw lessons for future research.

This article outlines findings from a study of two prominent global private environment regulatory programs in Argentina and Brazil from 1992 to 2004. It explores whether some types of programs, supported by different sets of actors, are more likely than others to be effective across different national contexts. Findings suggest that program advocacy on the part of transnational corporations is less consistent than it is often claimed to be and that governments have little influence on these initiatives.

The article looks at the participatory budget governance of Brazil and examines how effective such decision making mechanism is in expanding citizenship rights. A survey of 833 Participatory Budgeting delegates from 11 municipalities revealed that participatory democracy promoted pluralism, thus supplanting clientelism and personalism. However, five municipalities complained of having little power.

This essay looks at the history of changing levels of power and interactions between indigenous populations in Brazil and the Brazilian nation state. The theoretical framework of this essay considers this change through international relations theories of constructivism (Price 1998: Wendt 1994: Wendt and Friedman 1995) as well as through Foucault’s (1977) conception of policy being considered differently within different temporal contexts. Foucault’s idea of changing conceptions and operations of policy is related to historical change of policy in Brazil though the creation and enforcement of norms on the societal level (see: Finnemore 1996: Finnemore and Sikkink 1998 for an overview of the conception of norms). In light of the history of poorly enforced laws to protect indigenous populations in Brazil this essay turns toward Machiavelli’s assertion (1517) made in The Discourses that governments can use time to default on promises of change made to dissenting people and organizations. The unwillingness of local governments to enforce national and international norms is conceptually related back to Allina-Pisano’s (2004) analysis of land use in post-Soviet Ukraine which analyzes reasons why policy makers only pretend to follow national directives while simultaneously doing the opposite. The main argument of this essay is that, despite some of the positive changes in the levels of power of indigenous populations, as reflected in partial legal victories in Brazil, the history of state society relations in Brazil has many examples which provide empirical evidence to demonstrate that the Brazilian nation state has potential to fall short of its legal promises. Subsequently, this essay concludes by recommending that indigenous people and concerned NGOs should focus more on gaining power at the local level, rather than the national level in Brazil. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]