Liberalism and Marxism are two schools of thought which have left deep imprints in sociological, political and economic theory. They are usually perceived as opposite, rival approaches. In the field of democracy there is a seemingly insurmountable rift around the question of political versus economic democracy. Liberals emphasize the former, Marxists the latter. Liberals say that economic democracy is too abstract and fuzzy a concept, therefore one should concentrate on the workings of an objective political democracy. Marxists insist that […]

Abstract: What does it take to make a coalition successful? Bigger coalitions are more likely to be successful because the GATT/WTO is a consensus-based institution and countries are informally penalized if they isolate them-selves. Through a Bayesian statistical analysis, the article corroborates the above hypothesis. To further investigate the research question, qualitative case studies of the G-10 in the Uruguay Round and the Public Health Coalition in the Doha Round are conducted. These cases show that the more convincing the […]

What factors determine the diffusion of social policies? This article examines the launching of conditional cash transfer programs by Brazilian municipalities to explore this problem. The literature of political science asserts that such programs have been widely implemented because they correspond to an alternative policy strategy adopted by governments facing opposition to implement universal public policies. So, political competition would be at the root of CCT launching. This article presents an alternative explanation. From 1995 to 2001, local governments created […]

Abstract The legislative success of governments in Latin America has been explained by two main theories. For some authors, the main explanation involves the proactive and reactive powers of the chief executive. Other scholars argue that negotiations with deputies for portfolios and pork are the most important factors behind success in approving legislation. This paper proposes an innovative meth-odological strategy to test the mechanisms behind each of these theories. Original survey data of 12 Brazilian state-level assemblies is examined to […]

“A África na Política Internacional – O sistema interafricano e sua inserção mun-dial”, written by Paulo Fagundes Visentini, full professor of International Relations at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, is an important contribution to both African studies in Brazil and to general knowledge in the field of international relations for the country as a whole. The author, a renowned Brazilian historian and an international relations expert, detains vast academic publications and has been for some time now […]

Ibeg your pardon: Octavio wrote a book on what?! For those familiar with previous publications and the career path of Amorim Neto – and there are many in Brazil as well as abroad – nothing could be more surprising than him writing a book on foreign policy. “Domestic” institutions such as presidents, cabinets and parliaments had always been at the core of his research, and articles in World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, the American Journal of Political Science, and Party […]