This article investigates the electorally expressed ideology of Brazilian voters via ecological analysis at the municipal level between 1994 and 2018. Our purpose is to analyze the main conditioners of aggregated patterns of ideology measured at a high spatial resolution. We test four major explanations for the variation in ideology at the municipal level: the effect of incumbent alignments, social modernization, political pluralism, and social inclusion. We find that although the Brazilian electorate as a whole leans to the right, there has been a ‘gravitational effect’ exerted by presidential incumbents over local ideology, and during the PT years this was visible in municipal outcomes. However, the vast majority of municipalities tended to the right even during the period of PT national government. During the late Dilma Rousseff years there was a return to a more conservative vote-revealed ideology at the local level, with a sharper veer to the right in the 2016 municipal and 2018 federal elections under Michel Temer. Overall, when we examine local voting in PR elections, we observe that there was no durable electoral realignment in the period under study.

Horizontal accountability is a key challenge to new democracies, and especially so in those regimes where "reactive" legislatures face dominant presidents. Although the 1988 Constitution gives impressive legislative and agenda-setting powers to the Brazilian president, it also equips the legislature with a set of oversight tools that can be used to monitor or scrutinize the powerful executive. In analysing a large database of oversight initiatives between 1988 and 2005, we trace broad trends and patterns in the overall usage of oversight tools and attempt to isolate the political and institutional conditions under which they are deployed. We find that the use of oversight mechanisms has risen in recent years; that oversight is mediated by measures of presidential popularity and by the size of the pro-presidential faction in Congress; and that oversight responds to the logic of Brazil"s coalitional politics, driven by the shifting context of the executive-legislative relationship under multiparty presidentialism.

Le contrôle horizontal est l'un des grands défis des nouvelles démocraties, surtout dans les régimes associant parlements réactifs et présidents dominants. Si la Constitution brésilienne de 1988 accorde, d'un côté, au Président de larges pouvoirs d'initiative législative et de programme, elle assure aussi, de l'autre, au législatif des mécanismes de contrôle pouvant être mis en oeuvre dans le suivi ou la remise en question d'un pouvoir exécutif très puissant. Après l'analyse, dans cet article, d'une vaste base de données concernant les instruments de contrôle législatif entre 1988 et 2005, on montre les tendances et les modèles de l'usage de ces mécanismes de contrôle, ainsi que les conditions politiques et institutionnelles de ce dernier. On conclut que l'on s'est davantage servi de ces mécanismes ces dernières années, que le contrôle législatif est influencé par la popularité du Président et par l'ampleur de la base du gouvernement au Congrès et que ce même contrôle répond à la logique de la politique brésilienne de coalition, dans le cadre du système présidentiel à plusieurs partis, ce qui altère constamment les rapports exécutif législatif.

A relação entre o comportamento da elite política e as preferências gerais da população está no cerne de discussões sobre democracia representativa. Porém, pouco se sabe sobre quem influencia quem e quanto tempo demora para que tal influência seja sentida. Este artigo apresenta resultados a partir de um conjunto de dados organizados em série temporal que permite verificar a relação entre o clima da opinião pública, a escolha presidencial de instrumentos de governo (legislação extraordinária versus ordinária) e o apoio do congresso às iniciativas dos presidentes no Brasil. Foram coletadas observações mensais sobre a popularidade do presidente, padrões de votação nominal no congresso e uso de medidas provisórias, e da legislação comum, pelo executivo. Esse conjunto de dados permitiu testar, usando técnicas de séries temporais, o impacto dessas variáveis umas sobre as outras e a defasagem temporal necessária para que esses impactos se tornem significativos.

The relationship between elite behavior and mass preferences is in the essence of discussions about representative democracy. However, very little is known about who influences whom and how long it takes for such influence to be felt. This article presents results from a time-series dataset that allows us to verify the relationship between the mood of public opinion, presidents' choice of policy making instrument (extraordinary vs. ordinary legislation) and congressional support to presidents' policy initiatives in Brazil. We collected monthly observations of presidential popularity, patterns of roll-call voting in congress and presidents use of "medidas provisórias" as well as regular legislation. This dataset allows us to test, using time-series techniques, the impact of these variables on each other and the amount of lags it takes for these impacts to become significant.

Este trabalho examina o contexto, as causas e as conseqüências da desconfiança nos políticos no atual período democrático da América Latina. Em termos de contexto, demonstramos que a confiança muito baixa nos políticos da América Latina é meramente um dos aspectos de uma síndrome de baixa confiança generalizada. Em termos das causas da desconfiança, examinamos três características proeminentes do desenvolvimento democrático nos últimos quinze anos: fraco desempenho econômico da maioria das novas democracias da região, escândalos de corrupção e o uso instrumental das instituições políticas pelos governantes. Em termos de conseqüências, examinamos o apoio fraco e desigual à democracia em toda a região, que parece estar relacionado causalmente com a desconfiança nos políticos. No entanto, evitamos o alarmismo sustentando que esses resultados devem ser contextualizados à luz da citada síndrome de baixa confiança multidimensional da América Latina. Ademais, o reservatório de atitudes autoritárias entre os indivíduos é fragmentário e raramente se expressa de forma coerente na ação política. Além disso, como a pesquisa sobre democracias tanto avançadas como emergentes demonstrou recentemente, os cidadãos estão cada vez mais dispostos a separar suas avaliações dos governantes (com freqüência, negativas) da avaliação da democracia como tipo de regime.

This paper reviews the context, causes, and consequences of mistrust of politicians in Latin America's current democratic era. In terms of context, we demonstrate that the very low trust in politicians in Latin America is merely one aspect of a syndrome of low trust across the board. In terms of causes of mistrust, we review three prominent features of democratic development over the past 15 years: poor economic performance affecting most new democracies in the region, corruption scandals, and the instrumental use of political institutions by incumbents. In terms of consequences, we examine the weak and uneven support for democracy across the region that appears to be causally related to mistrust of politicians. However, we avoid alarmism by arguing that these findings must be contextualized in light of the multidimensional low-trust syndrome of Latin America discussed above. Moreover, the reservoir of authoritarian attitudes is fragmentary and is rarely expressed coherently in political action. And finally, research on both advanced and emerging democracries has recently demonstrated that citizens are increasingly willing to separate their evaluations of incumbents (often negative) from their evaluation of democracy as a regume type.

Nos anos 1990, teóricos do capital social passaram a estabelecer uma conexão direta entre cultura política e desempenho de instituições governamentais. Se tal relação causal existe, então deve ser possível identificar fatores culturais associados à corrupção. Neste artigo testamos essa hipótese em nível mundial. Usando métodos quantitativos, desenvolvemos uma série de modelos multivariados que visam medir o efeito de fatores culturais - tais como tradição religiosa, confiança interpessoal e obediência às leis - sobre o nível de corrupção em vários países, usando a avaliação reputacional da organização não-governamental Transparência Internacional como a variável dependente. O artigo mostra que o nível de corrupção em um determinado país é essencialmente uma função do tipo de regime político e do nível de desenvolvimento econômico. Entretanto, algumas características culturais agregam poder explicativo aos modelos, contextualizando as interpretações macroeconômicas e macropolíticas da corrupção.

In the 1990's, theorists of social capital were led to establishing a direct connection between political culture and the performance of governmental institutions. If such a causal relationship does in fact exist, then it should be possible to identify the cultural factors that are associated with corruption. In this article we test this hypothesis at a world level. Using quantitative methods, we develop a series of multi-variate models meant to measure the effect of cultural factors - such as religious tradition, interpersonal confidence and law abidance - on levels of corruption in several countries, using non-governmental organizations' reputational evaluation of "International Transparency" as a dependent variable. This article shows that the level of corruption in a particular country is essentially an attribute of the type of political regime and level of economic development. However, certain cultural characteristics lend explanatory power to these models, thus contextualizing macroeconomic and macropolitical interpretations of corruption.

Dans les années 1990, des théoriciens du capital social commencèrent à établir des liens directs entre culture politique et performance des instituitions gouvernementales. Si tel lien causal existe, il est donc possible d'identifier les facteurs culturels associés à la corruption. Dans cet article, nous vérifions cette hypothèse à l'échelle mondiale. En nous servant des méthodes quantitatives, nous développons des modèles multivariés visant à mésurer l'effet de facteurs culturels - tels que la tradition religieuse, la confiance interpersonnelle et l'obéissance aux lois - sur le niveau de corruption dans plusieurs pays. A cet effet nous utilisons l'évaluation de la renommée de l'organisation non-gouvernementale Transparence Internationale en variable dépendante. L'article montre que le niveau de corruption dans un pays existe notamment en fonction du type de système politique et du niveau de développement économique. Néanmoins, certaines caractéristiques culturelles permettent aux modèles de mieux expliquer le phénomène lorsqu'elles créent un contexte aux interprétations macro-économiques et macropolitiques de la corruption.