This article analyses the interaction between Brazilian companies and government in the context of foreign policy, observing the state’s support for the internationalization of large Brazilian civil construction firms. The results show that over the years these companies had privileged access to the Federal Executive, including civil service agencies. One consequence of this system of channelling demands through the Executive was to demote the Legislative branch to a secondary role. This pattern of interaction changed following the restoration of Congress’s […]

This study looks to analyse to what extent the neorealism versus neoliberalism debate contributes to understanding the complexity of the European Union’s institutionalization, focusing on the impacts of the 2008 financial crisis and the asymmetries between Germany and Greece. How far can Greece be considered guilty for its situation and how far is Germany involved both in the cause and in the resolution of this crisis? To answer these questions, a brief analysis of the European Union’s formation and of […]

This paper argues that the concept of social accountability can be useful to explain the transparency and accountability policies adopted by international organizations (IOs). Social accountability is understood as the contributions of civil society actors in the functioning of IOs. In international politics, the recent development of IOs’ accountability mechanisms has been challenged by the absence of a world government and the impact of inter-state power relations on the decision-making process of international organizations. The presence of civil society actors […]

The Editor-in-Chief of the Brazilian Political Science Review manifests that the authorship of the book review entitled The Neo-Gramscian School to International Political Economy, Passive Revolution and Globalization , DOI: 10.1590/1981-382120160002000010, published in the Brazilian Political Science Review Vol.10(3), on pages 01-08, was published with the omission of the name of one of its authors, due to a mistake at the time of sending the file. In the authorship of the article, the name of Davi Demuner must be Added […]

The rise of participatory democracy has often been explained by the renewal of collective action in Europe and Latin America. This review essay questions the ‘movement-based’ genesis of Brazilian participatory democracy by analyzing the idea of the state upon which it rests. It argues that the focus on social movements falls short of explaining the spread of participatory experiments, and that it rests on a simplified understanding of the dynamics of the Brazilian State prior to the 1980s. The argument […]

As the popularity of formal analyses of legislative activity in Latin America grows, so does the importance of understanding the limits of the estimates produced by such analyses and the methodological adaptations necessary when using these measures to make formal comparisons. This research note details the considerations involved and demonstrates their significance with an empirical example using the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. This empirical analysis leads to conclusions that are the opposite of those in the […]

Portfolio allocation is the keystone of coalition government analysis. It constitutes the fundamental payoff in coalition formation, providing access to government decision-making. However, are all portfolios the same or have the same weight in government decision-making? This research note presents a measure of portfolio differences based on three dimensions: policy, office, and budget. Factor analysis is used to generate a composite indicator of portfolio importance in Brazil from 1999 to 2014. Results show that portfolios vary significantly in importance in […]

This article compares the intelligence systems of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Three questions drive the research: How are the national intelligence systems organized? How is power distributed among organizations in each country? What are the organizational risks? By employing Network Analysis to publicly-available data on intelligence agencies, collegiate bodies, and supervising organizations, authority relations and information flows were mapped. Regarding organizational configuration, similarities were found between India and Russia, as well as between China and South Africa. […]

I still have memories of the impact that caused me reading the book ‘Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability: the Stabilisation of Europe Electorates’, 1885-1995, by Stefano Bartolini and Peter Mair (1990), while still doing my doctorate. Today, I consider it one of the most elegant and well-made books of contemporary Political Science. And the reason is simple: the rare combination of a detailed conceptual discussion – particularly the concept of cleavage – and a dense empirical research. The authors collected […]

Two phenomena have been especially prevalent in Latin America during the decades of the 1980s and 1990s: re-democratization and economic liberalization. In this context, it is legitimate to wonder if it is possible for democracy itself to become a hostage to investors. A vast literature argues that in emerging economies such as those of Latin America, the market has greater capacity to influence political outcomes and also has preference for candidates based on their position on the party-political spectrum. That […]

The enactment of the 1988 Constitution aroused pessimistic interpretations regarding the chances of fulfilling its promises. Some considered that the institutions established or re-established by the constitution would make the country ungovernable. Furthermore, they also argued (and still argue) that the list of constitutionalized social policies did not fit into the government budget. Others, however, faced the challenge of designing a complex institutional architecture capable of putting into practice some of the constitutionalized social rights. The most challenging task was […]

“Hegemonia, revolução passiva e globalização: o sistema G7/8”, a book by Leonardo Ramos published in 2013 by Editora PUC Minas, outbreaks a central issue of the contemporary international system and, consequently, of International Relations as an independent field of study: the relationship between hierarchy, order and change. In fact, several traditions of the political and economic thought removed the inequality of power and conditions among social actors as well as external constraints from the analysis of the international scenario. For […]