Resumo em Inglês:
Several recent studies have investigated if support for Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election of 2018 is positively associated with COVID-19 infections and deaths in Brazil. In these studies, COVID-19 outcomes in 2020 and 2021 are the dependent variables, and votes for Jair Bolsonaro in the 2018 presidential election (as a proxy for ideology) are the key explanatory variable. This article discusses why ecological research designs are difficult to test empirically. We discuss why correlations between vote shares and COVID-19 outcomes using aggregate data can produce biased inferences, and we specifically focus on measurement error, aggregation bias, and spatial and temporal dynamics.Resumo em Inglês:
How can activist bureaucrats unexpectedly influence policy outcomes? What strategies do these actors adopt in order to defend and implement public policies in institutional settings unfavorable to their ideas? How do the individual trajectories of activist bureaucrats influence their strategies and repertoires of action? Drawing from the literature on institutional activism, this article shows how bureaucrats worked as activists to create and institutionalize participatory arenas in slum upgrading projects, within an institutional setting adverse to popular participation. Our research was carried out through interviews with bureaucrats and local community actors, as well as participant observation. The main results of our study were: the identification of four distinct profiles of bureaucrats and four main activist strategies used by them, as well as the identification of bureaucrats’ profiles more associated with the adoption of certain practices - so that specific profiles of bureaucrats have influenced the policy-making process in different ways, according to their relational skills, previous trajectories, and worldviews. These findings suggest that the individual characteristics of bureaucrats are important to understanding the variations in bureaucrats’ activist strategies within the state, as well as how bureaucrats can influence policymaking in heterogeneous ways.Resumo em Inglês:
This article presents a meta-analysis of the history and the literature on the current state of political science in Mexico with the aim of obtaining an overall picture of the characteristics and profiles of political scientists and political science. It notes that there has been a process of change in the profiles of authors and the foci of texts, with a tendency to formalize analysis and a growing influence of the American tradition, along with a process of professional academic specialization and the growth of academic entities offering academic and research programs in political science.Resumo em Inglês:
Do previous trajectories of Federal Supreme Court justices influence their votes in court? Despite recent advances in research on judicial behavior, questions remain about the factors influencing the decisions of STF justices. Building a new typology of these justices' career paths, this article tests the hypothesis that professional characteristics influenced the judicial behavior of the justices judging the Ação Penal 470, a criminal case known as Mensalão . Our theory suggests that STF nominees bring to the court law interpretations and worldviews that were not only developed in their professional activities but also affected by the conditions of stability or political dependence that marked their career paths. Legal expertise means of professional rise, and types of interests justices were used to defending before joining the court shape the decision-making of the justices in the STF. Based on logistical regressions, we conclude that the votes to convict and acquit in the AP 470 trial are associated with these characteristics. Our findings carry implications for theories on judicial behavior and the process of appointing justices to the STF.Resumo em Inglês:
In this article, I consider the approach of racial relations versus the perspective of racial politics. The former, formulated within the framework of the Chicago School of Sociology in the 1920s, assumes that races interact with each other according to the “cycle of racial relations”. This interpretation highlights the cultural and psychological dimensions and neglects the ideological, political, and institutional factors constraining and driving individual and collective choices. The racial politics approach suggests that social interactions are mediated by attributes other than race. The racial or ethnic factor is part of the social framework, and it establishes value and meaning to social categories and creates criteria for social hierarchization. In the first part of the article, I criticize the racial relations perspective and propose an analytical framework centered on the state and social movements, with a mechanism- and process-based explanation. In the second part, I retrace Brazilian racial politics, identifying the mechanisms operating over time. I argue that racial democracy is an ideology that regulates social relations, denies racism, delegitimizes black protest, creates obstacles, and hold back the fight against racism. Finally, I put forward the expression post-racial democracy as an alternative and challenging notion vis-a-vis racial democracy.