This article analyses the concept of “good governance” as promoted by the international development community, above all by the World Bank, within the predominant neoliberal development approach, emphasising the implications for local governance and management in developing countries. Highlighting the extent to which it is embedded in the neoliberal development approach, the good governance concept is analysed with regard to its peculiar understanding of participation and democracy. The article discusses the subordination of the World Bank’s consensus- oriented approach of […]

This article proceeds from the premise that, even if you accept the principle that justice is impossible in the complete absence of virtue, a good political system ought to be parsimonious in any requirement of virtue as an input, so as not to impose undue restrictions on its own ability to function. Assuming a more or less random distribution of virtue through time and space, it would be preferable, all other things being equal, to have a system equipped to […]

The article investigates some of the most relevant factors for the voting decision in the 2002 presidential election by testing some of the main hypotheses about electoral behaviour in the country by means of logistic regression analyses based on data from the ESEB (Brazilian Electoral Study), a post-electoral survey conducted on a national sample of voters. In the models, taken as a whole, political opinions did not have much weight in the voting decision. Furthermore, they are unable to “explain” […]

This paper explores the differences and similarities between the electoral systems in Brazil and Colombia and how it affects Brazilian incumbent Federal Deputies’ and Colombian Diputados’ political career choices and electoral success. The main argument is that even though both electoral systems are, in general terms, quite distinct, they appear to produce very similar effects in career choices and reelection. The main cause of the effects found is that the institutional minutiae of the two electoral systems increase their similarities.

Abstract In this article, I propose to examine the issue that at present most mobilizes the European states and public opinion within them: the modification of the institutional-political model, in the form of a Constitutional Treaty for Europe, requiring parliamentary or popular ratification by its twenty-five member States, within a period that remains undecided. Events surrounding the consultation proposed to the European governments and their citizens, indicate – particularly if we take into account the negative votes in France and […]

This article aims to carry out a sociological survey of the Brazilian legal field in the 1990s. To this end, the relationship between the diversification of the legal sphere and the legitimisation of definitions of the Law in Brazil over the course of the 1990s were investigated. The close match between the differentiation of the teaching of the Law, as a place for producing definitions of legal problems, and the mobilization of certain uses of the legal profession and of […]

Abstract Globalization is not merely a competition for market shares and well-timed economic growth initiatives; neither is it just a matter of trade opportunities and liberalization. It has also evolved into a social and political struggle for imposing cultural values and individual preferences. Based on this broader context, this paper adopts the following assumption: transnational networks of social movements are the expression of a new social subject and have shifted their scale of political intervention since the 1990s in order […]

Abstract The Senate remains as an almost uncharted territory for women. And not only in re-democratized countries like Brazil, but also in advanced democracies such as the USA. To date, 33 American and 28 Brazilian women have served in their Senates. Why are these numbers so reduced? This article discusses the key obstacles that women face and, through OLS and probit analyses, examines the degree of competitiveness and rate of success of all candidacies. We show that, even though women […]

This article discusses the emergence in the late 1990s of an innovative conceptualization of security that proclaims the global HIV/AIDS epidemic a threat to international peace and stability. The study provides a framework for understanding the securitization of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as an international norm defined and promoted mainly by multilateral bodies, powerful states in the North and transnational HIV/AIDS advocacy networks. The HIV/AIDS securitization norm (HASN) is an attempt of the present analysis to synthesize under a single analytical […]

Abstract The article analyses the veto power of territorial governments in Brazil, by examining the parliamentary behaviour of state caucuses (bancadas) as well as their institutional veto opportunities when it comes to matters related to sub-national governments’ revenues and decision-making authority over their own taxes, policy responsibilities and expenditures. The “imposition of losses” upon territorial governments characterized legislative production during the 1989-2006 period, even though these decisions were intensely negotiated. The article concludes that the decision-making centralization the central arenas, […]

Research on Brazilian federalism and state politics has focused mainly on the impact of federal arrangements on national political systems, whereas comparative analyses of the workings of state political institutions and patterns of political competition and decision-making have often been neglected. The article contributes to an emerging comparative literature on state politics by developing a typology that systematizes the variation in political competitiveness and the extent of state elites’ control over the electoral arena across Brazilian states. It relies on […]