This paper focuses on the timing of coalition formation under presidential systems. While elections in parliamentary regimes have recently been characterized by a high degree of uncertainty both in the results and the formation of cabinets, this is not the case for presidential politics. As a result, we argue that coalition cycles differ across systems of government. As a matter of fact, we argue that the process of coalition formation under presidentialism is more complicated. To test our claim, we […]

Evangelical black activism exists in Brazil since the 1970s. Its current public reemergence, however, is still under-explored in the social sciences. Moreover, part of the specialized literature has recently characterized this activism as incomplete – since its actors are considered to be ‘rejecting African inheritances’ – and advocates that black and evangelical identities are incompatible. Differing from this perspective, this article shows how evangelicals participate in the public problematization of racism; it proposes to address this issue with a non-essentialist […]

The objective of this article is to evaluate how the most important political families in the nine states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon responded to two aspects of the 2022 elections: the advance of ‘bolsonarismo’ as a political force in the Amazon, and the environmental agenda. Based on the concept of political dynasties, the main family groupings (one per state) were selected. Our research question is: did the support of candidates backed by these families for Lula or Bolsonaro imply […]

Among the themes frequently studied by Brazilian social movement’s scholars is the relationship between movements and the state. The Lula administrations (2003-2010) were marked by intense state-society interactions, which allowed for important theoretical and analytical advances (ABERS and BULOW, 2011; ABERS, SERAFIM and TATAGIBA, 2014; BLIKSTAD, 2012; DOWBOR, 2012; DOWBOR et al. 2018; GUTIERRES, 2018; GURZA LAVALLE et al., 2018; NASCIMENTO, 2012; SILVA and SCHMITT, 2012; SILVA and OLIVEIRA, 2011; TATAGIBA and TEIXEIRA, 2021; TEIXERA, 2013). The ‘mutual constitution’, the […]

This article evaluates the effects of two educational policies implemented in the Brazilian state of Ceará. The first was a tax incentive (TI) for mayors to improve municipal education. Under this policy, municipal tax transfers were conditioned on educational achievement. The second was a program to offer educational technical assistance (TA) to municipalities. The impact of these policies was estimated by employing the synthetic control method to create a synthetic Ceará not affected by TI and TA. When the two […]

Has war become obsolete? Some argue that macro-historical social processes are leading war into obsolescence, while for others that pattern is explained by the fact that war is a lingering potential outcome of international politics. I argue that both answers reveal a fundamental problem with the debate about the ‘end of war’. The focus on securing predictions about the end of war keeps analyses trapped in either a teleological or nomothetical linearity and overshadows the varied set of contingent mechanisms […]

In the article “Clientelism and Local Politics: Interactions Between Municipal Councilors and Voters in the State of Minas Gerais”, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1981-3821201900030002, published at 13(3): e0002. Page 1: […]

Despite its recent growth, the academic literature on credit displays theoretical controversies and empirical differences regarding the predominant effects of consumer credit policies. At the same time, such policies have been given central importance in the historical accounts of a government that adopted them on a large scale in Brazil: the Lula government. Drawing upon theoretical debates and descriptive content, this article aims to contribute to the existing literature by examining the trajectory of Brazilian credit policies from the perspective […]