This article analyzes Poupatempo, a recent bureaucratic reform in Brazil. We argue that it offers insight into a potentially successful strategy to promote institutional reforms. After analyzing the design of the project and the obstacles to its implementation, we conclude that Poupatempo’s most innovative feature was the fact that it did not try to reform existing institutions. Instead it created a new pathway around an inefficient bureaucracy. This type of reform — the institutional bypass — has not been considered […]

A first wave of theories on globalization suggested that because of new competitive pressures, national economies would converge into a single market economy model. Economic rationale would overcome politics, and political choices would be restricted to the implementation of a set of policy prescriptions aimed at favoring private investment, so-called “market-oriented reforms”. More recently, research based on economic sociology and historical institutionalism has shown that the implementation of market-oriented reforms at national, regional and industry-level has been characterized by a […]

Generally, party programmes are neglected in Brazil owing to their alleged (and assumed) irrelevance. It is argued that given that such documents are designed on order and with propaganda purposes, they could hardly be accepted as depictions of the parties’ true political positions. However, such an assessment lacks empirical verification. This article tests the hypothesis that Brazilian parties emphasise distinct questions in their manifestos. This hypothesis is based on saliency theory, according to which parties can be distinguished from one […]

This article systematically investigates, in a comparative perspective, the support for new extreme right-wing political parties (ERPs) in national elections across the Western European Union countries (WEU). The objective of the research is not to explain why or how the ERPs platforms can be convincing and persuasive, but to describe conditions that contribute to identify when this has occurred. Since the reactionary nature of ERP discourse met the spreading phenomenon of Euroskepticism, a vote for ERP candidates and platforms is […]

This article reviews the case of the often claimed “crisis of parties” in Portugal, and argues that such controversy rests at least in part on “ambiguous” evidence. We will try to answer two fundamental research questions: 1) What motivates popular support for political parties (or lack thereof)? 2) Why does anti-party rhetoric resonate with some citizens, but not with others? The empirical data and statistical regression models used allow the following conclusion: in the eyes of Portuguese citizens, parties have […]

This essay discusses the problem of endogenous institutional change in the context of the new historical institutionalism. It reviews the critique of traditional theorizing on institutional change and offers a comparative analysis of innovative approaches to institutional change on the contemporary agenda of historical institutionalism in comparative political science. The analysis focuses on the logic underlying the conceptual and analytical transformations in the methodological debate of how to expand the explanatory capacity of traditional models by introducing institutional variables in […]

Time for democracy for all Maria Celina D’Araujo’s book is an original and coherent contribution on democracy and the achievements and difficulties of the South American, especially Brazilian, Armed Forces in accepting that differential treatment which has granted them corporative privileges is not appropriate under democracy, and that the past, present and future actions of the Armed Forces should be monitored through public rules and institutions as they are set up. The book has non-linear structure which identifies the profound […]

Firstly, this book makes for a great read, with rigorous research typical of a specialist who wants to appeal to those who are not. The book is about the creation of the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN, National Steel Corporation) founded in 1941, during the Vargas dictatorship and, at the same time, about the emergence of the city which would be its home, in the Paraiba Valley, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. In particular, it deals with how the […]