In the article “Following the trail of words: mapping trending topics of graduate research in Brazil’s IR (1987-2018)”, DOI: 10.1590/1981-3821202400010002, published at 18(1): e0003, Page 01, Affiliation, Where it reads: […]

This paper advances our understanding of the Brazilian IR scholarship by exploring the topics addressed and the geographic scope adopted by its authors, tracing their evolution over time. We utilize data from 2417 master’s theses and doctoral dissertations from all IR graduate programs in the country, spanning the years 1987 to 2018. By employing a structural topic model, we identify latent topics present in the abstracts of these documents. This analysis not only allows us to trace a thematic profile […]

What challenges are posed for building analytical frameworks and empirical studies on regional integration processes in the South? The authors aim to contribute to this debate by producing a detailed empirical analysis of Brazil’s foreign policy regarding the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and South American regional integration. From a theoretical-methodological standpoint, the authors introduce an important innovation in this work, with a multilevel analysis of the Mercosur regional integration process, looking into the domestic, regional, and systemic levels. […]

In multiparty presidential regimes, the head of the Executive manages a heterogeneous political base through a series of instruments. Among these tools, the use of patronage in appointments for governmental positions and the deployment of pork barrel to please congressional representatives have been highlighted by the literature as the glue that holds together multiparty coalitions. However, current studies neglect the role of politicians as active actors in multiparty presidential regimes in channeling resources to their constituencies and parties when holding […]

Introduction Increasing global warming, health pandemics, accelerated losses of biodiversity, growing deforestation rates, frequent and non-anticipated climate events such as off-the-scale floods, longer droughts, storms, typhons and cyclones in Brazil and world-wide are also political agendas. They have produced intense public debates about the responsibility of states and corporations, the connections between the climate emergency and development models, including the role of the fossil economy, agribusiness and mining in obstructing sustainable transition policies. The climate emergency has also steered governments […]

Climate governance in Brazil is necessarily connected to the interests of three sectors: deforestation and land use change, agriculture, and energy, which, combined, represent around 90 percent of the country’s emissions. While there is a significant number of studies on the first sector, few studies have looked into the bottlenecks of decarbonization in the agricultural and energy sectors. Thus, this article addresses some modulations in Brazilian climate politics and policy by analyzing the interest groups associated with low-carbon transitions in […]

Understanding the impact of political and institutional factors on the fight against climate change has become increasingly important in the global debate on sustainability. From a political science perspective, it is crucial to research how different democratic institutions affect the development of climate policies. To contribute to this agenda, we discuss the role of participatory institutions in this policy sector. We offer a global literature review of cases where participatory mechanisms have helped improve the tools used to combat global […]

Climate change affects individuals differently. Women are one of the social groups most vulnerable to climate change. Since the legal study of climate change is associated with the idea of correcting imbalances, the goal of this study is to assess the extent to which state laws addressing climate change take into consideration gender vulnerabilities. To achieve this, the study has been structured in three phases: initially, an examination of the concept of climate justice; next, a review of the vulnerabilities […]

Studies on the environment, public opinion, and voting have shown that, despite widespread support for the environmental cause among the population, this support does not necessarily translate into votes. This article will look into concepts including agenda setting, framing, and media effects to provide a background of how the environment became a prominent issue in public opinion. It will also test hypotheses that argue for the significance of issue decision salience, in conjunction with the issue ownership theory, to explain […]

The book ‘Fighting Falsehoods: Suspicion, Analysis, and Response’, by Irene Rubin, published in 2022, provides a unique perspective on a topic that contemporary societies around the world have been concerned about: the spread of fake news and how to fight it. The book adopts a perspective of individual empowerment of citizens and addresses possibilities and strategies to fight this problem individually. […]

This article investigates the impact of political and electoral institutions on party system stability in 40 democracies, including Brazil. Party stability is analyzed using the Electoral Party Variation (EPV) indicator, based on the Effective Number of Electoral Parties (ENEP). The political and electoral institutions of interest include electoral magnitude, electoral formula, and an approach derived from Sartori (strong, feeble, and moderate electoral systems). The analysis employs four models using the generalized estimating equation (GEE) method for panel data (40 cases, […]

How are the subjects of energy and energy justice discussed within multilateral forums? Given the significance of this subject and the disparities among nations, examining how energy-related matters are addressed in intergovernmental arenas reveals how governments manage the implications of inequalities in basic needs, such as energy. To investigate the phenomenon, we monitored how the seven categories identified in the literature – ‘Efficiency’, ‘Access to Energy’, ‘Renewable Energies’, ‘Capacity Building’, ‘Research and Development’, ‘Technology Transfer’, and ‘Financing’ – were evoked […]