Octavio Amorim Neto

La ciencia política en Brasil: el desafío de la expansión

Brazil’s political science managed to establish itself in the 1970s under a military regime. From the 1980s till the late 1990s the discipline grew and became institutionalized. However, there now exist within the country’s political science write out community two schools that simply do not communicate with each other, namely, an empirical school and a normative‐philosophical one. We propose that a political science community that still needs to expand must adopt a, so to speak, consociational model to organize the interaction between its main schools. To do so, there must be an ample consensus on the community’s lines of expansion, a consensus that should rest upon the improvement of the teaching of methods in humanities.

La ciencia política en Brasil en la última década: La nacionalización y la lenta superación del parroquialismo

El periodo 2005-2014 fue una de las mejores decadas de la Ciencia Politica (CP) brasilena. Para que esto ocurriera, contribuyeron, en primer lugar, el crecimiento de la economia del pais y el consecuente aumento del gasto publico dedicado a las universidades y a la actividad cientifica en general y las politicas del Ministerio de Educacion. Tambien fue vital para este exito la accion colectiva eficaz en el seno de la comunidad de politologos brasilenos. Consecuentemente, la CP brasilena se encuentra hoy, en el contexto latinoamericano, mas cercana al potencial generado por la poblacion y la economia del pais. Ademas, la disciplina ha sido nacionalizada y su agenda de investigacion hoy es menos parroquial. Por el lado negativo, sin embargo, se mantiene la relativamente baja visibilidad internacional de la produccion de los politologos brasilenos, se constata la escasa aplicacion fundamentada de metodos cualitativos y, recientemente, ha aflorado una considerable inseguridad sobre los recursos disponibles para la disciplina, teniendo en cuenta los anos de ajuste fiscal que se avecinan.

Brasil en el 2007: el desencuentro entre la economía y la política

El ano 2007 estuvo marcado por un gran desencuentro. Por un lado, Lula permanecio con una alta popularidad y la economia marcho bien, por el otro, el Presidente paso crecientes dificultades politicas con los partidos y el Congreso. Desde el punto de vista economico, la coyuntura mundial favorable trajo beneficios al pais, el que presento mejoras en diversos indices. Politicamente, una serie de problemas del Poder Legislativo, la mayoria asociada a escandalos de corrupcion, propicio un mayor activismo judicial. Tambien el gobierno federal revelo serias debilidades en la gestion politica, demostrandose con el rechazo de la prorrogacion del impuesto sobre transacciones financieras por parte del Senado Federal, camara legislativa en que se concentro la oposicion a Lula.

Bases políticas das transferências intergovernamentais no Brasil (1985-2004)

The politics of intergovernmental transfers in Brazil. This article examines the political economy of public resources distribution in Brazils federal system in 1985-2004. We propose an empirical exercise to analyze how the countrys federal governments deal with the tradeoff between the provision of material wellbeing to sub-national governments (the states in our study) and the pursuit of political support from the latter. To identify the determinants of the transfer of resources from the federal government to the states, a set of economic, political, and institutional variables is econometrically tested. Based upon instrumental variables estimation for panel-data models, our estimates indicate that in Brazil the pursuit of political goals prevails over social equity and economic efficiency criteria: higher levels of per capita transfers are associated with the political makeup of governing coalitions, while larger investments in infrastructure and development by the states are associated with a lower amount of per capita resources transferred to sub-national governments. Our findings also suggest a trend toward the freezing of interregional inequalities in Brazil, and show the relevance of fiscal discipline laws in discouraging the use of the administrative apparatus for electioneering.

Un año inolvidable: violencia urbana, crisis política y el nuevo triunfo de Lula en Brasil

El presente articulo tiene como objetivo dar al lector una perspectiva sintetica de como fue el ano 2006 para Brasil en terminos de su aspectos economicos, sociales y politicos. Mediante el analisis de hechos claves y sus consecuencias, el articulo intenta permitir una comprension preliminar de lo que tuvo resonancia en Brasil durante el mencionado ano. La creciente violencia urbana ha sido una de las marcas de 2006. La presentacion de detalles estadisticos de las elecciones generales de final del ano es la cortina de fondo del analisis de la reeleccion de Lula. Esta fue en gran medida resultado de sus politicas sociales. Tales politicas tambien han resultado en la mudanza de la base electoral del candidato hacia las zonas mas pobres del pais. La crisis politica experimentada por Brasil en 2006 es explicada por el estilo de gobierno de Lula, que produjo una coalicion ejecutiva altamente fragmentada y mal monitoreada. Datos de la produccion de leyes demuestran el control la rama ejecutiva tiene sobre el proceso de decision. Finalmente, la ideologia de los partidos, la organizacion y funcionamiento del Poder Judicial y la federacion son brevemente descritos

Redesenhando o Mapa Eleitoral do Brasil: uma proposta de reforma política incremental

This article presents a proposal for an incremental reform of the electoral system of the Chamber of Deputies. The incremental nature of the proposal rests on the assumption that this political system is a complex and delicate architecture, and therefore, abrupt and ambitious changes are more likely to make it worse than to improve it. The proposal advocated here maintains the current system of open-list proportional representation, but it changes two key variables of this electoral system, since it reduces its average district magnitude and establishes a proportional distribution of seats among parties that form electoral coalitions. The way the reform is operationalized leads to a redesign of the electoral map of the country, with smaller districts within 12 states. The article also presents the results of a simulation exercise based on data from the 2006 elections, whereby the party makeup of the Chamber of Deputies is recalculated according to the rules proposed here.

O novo método histórico-comparativo e seus aportes à ciência política e à administração pública

This article seeks to identify the contributions that the new comparative-historical method has made to political science and public administration in Brazil. By showing how recent advances in this new historical-comparative method can generate analytical gains through a more precise establishment of causal conditions, and through the use of tests associated with process tracing, the article hopes to contribute to the strengthening of the qualitative-based research of these two disciplines in Brazil. To achieve this, the paper begins by dissecting the main elements of this method. It then reviews, and reorganizes, as it were, the classic work entitled Sessenta e quatro: anatomia da crise (Sixty-four: anatomy of the crisis) by Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos, in light of the method’s main tenets. The paper also reviews and reorganizes a number of studies on Argentina’s foreign policy in the same light and highlights the gains that can be generated by the disciplined application of the historical-comparative method. In the conclusion, the potential and the limitations of the method are identified, and some final considerations are made with regard to the importance that its application could have to Brazil’s political science and public administration.