The book Emoções ocultas e estratégias eleitorais by Antonio Lavareda is innovative with respect to explaining the determinants of the vote. The author does not set out to explain the motives for voter decision based solely on what has already been proposed by the Brazilian literature. Grounded in his empirical experience and academic qualification, Lavareda provokes researchers who take an interest in electoral behaviour by proposing arguments that complement existing explanations of the determinants of the vote, as well as […]

The “third wave” of democratization in Latin America, starting with the Dominican Republic’s transition in 1978, was accompanied by a vigorous academic debate on the working of presidential systems. This debate started with an initial generation of studies framed by pessimistic argument on the perils of presidentialism, and was soon followed by a second generation of studies emphasising the diversity of institutional formats and party systems in presidentialist countries and, more importantly, how this diversity had a relevant impact on […]

Abstract Studies on the relation between decentralization reforms and the performance of governments and their policies have presented a myriad of theoretical developments but inconclusive results on the empirically verifiable effects of these propositions. Many of the reviews carried out thus far in this field merely criticize these propositions without proposing alternatives for analysis. This article presents a review of this debate in a very specific way: it selects the propositions that points towards the causal factors explaining government’s responsiveness […]

Abstract The article distinguishes federal states from bicameralism and mechanisms of territorial representation in order to examine the association of each with institutional change in 32 countries by using constitutional amendments as a proxy. It reveals that bicameralism tends to be a better predictor of constitutional stability than federalism. All of the bicameral cases that are associated with high rates of constitutional amendment are also federal states, including Brazil, India, Austria, and Malaysia. In order to explore the mechanisms explaining […]

In recent years a considerable number of studies have been undertaken concerning the impact of interest groups’ influence in the European and North American policy-making process. However, little can be acquired from the literature regarding this knowledge outside of both of these environments. Therefore, this study aimed to assess conditions for policy influence of local government associations in Brazil and the Netherlands. This comparative case study carried out exploratory research, based on interviews, a questionnaire, and document analysis. Specifically, this […]

The article analyses a form of judicialization of public policies in the health field. It has as its object lawsuits initiated against Belo Horizonte Municipality arguing for the provision of services or the acquisition of inputs not obtained in the public system via institutional access routes. The argument is that the individualized quest for the guarantee of the right to healthcare via the judicial path is a form of reproduction of the tensions produced in democratic societies between the social […]

Coalition presidentialism has revealed itself to be one of the most instigating ways of forming a government. Its recurrence has introduced new challenges in the study of relations between the Executive and Legislative branches, gradually displacing the focus to the decision-making process and the micro-institutions that regulate it. This analytical trend has given rise to a considerable number of studies on the dynamics of the aforesaid relations, which have gradually provided readers with a more thorough picture of the political […]

Political Science and Political Power The various sorts of bureaucratic rules, constitutional texts, government systems and other institutional frameworks that “gave shape” to the Western State emerged as a consequence of long-running processes of legitimization of certain social groups’ political power. According to Max Weber’s sociology of domination, it is critical to regard the social structures that allowed for the legitimacy of certain practices in the exercise of power as a specialized social sphere. The differentiation of politics in western […]

This article addresses the relationship between the privatization of security and the State in contemporary Mexico City. By presenting an analysis of the development of the local private security market, its regulatory framework and the problems stemming from inefficient enforcement of legal standards, it demonstrates that private security in Mexico City is not beyond the State. Rather, through formal and informal practices, the local state and its public security agencies play a central role within the recent transformations of local […]

This article compares the career profiles of judges from the highest bodies of the Judiciary in Brazil and the United States of America, examining the biographies of all the ministros of the Supreme Court of Justice (Empire) and of the Supreme Federal Tribunal (Republic) in Brazil, and of all the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, appointed until 2008 in both cases. Based on the sociology of political elites perspective, the article examines data concerning academic background, […]

This article aims to identify the variables with the greatest impact on the chances of electoral success for candidates for the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies in the 1998, 2002 and 2006 elections. Based upon data provided by the Supreme Electoral Court, this article firstly analyzes the relations between occupation, gender and level of education, on the one hand, and the electoral results (those elected and not elected), on the other. The article then presents a model of logistic regression in […]

This article analyses the core critiques on institutional change theories within the neoinstitutional research agenda in comparative political science. It offers an explanatory typology using analytical challenges for the development of theories with new institutional approaches. This typology provides key critical issues that should be seriously considered by political scientists when analysing change. The framework suggests that the analytical challenges be posed in five interwoven dimensions: a) inclusion of institutional variables; b) agency and cognition; c) contextual sensitivity; d) increasing […]