{"id":534799,"date":"2024-11-07T14:48:52","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T17:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=534799"},"modified":"2024-11-11T09:36:35","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T12:36:35","slug":"more-diversity-in-brazilian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/more-diversity-in-brazilian-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"More diversity in Brazilian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collective candidacies \u2014 where a group of people run for a single seat in city councils, legislative assemblies, or the National Congress \u2014 have become a growing trend in Brazil as a strategy to increase the political participation of underrepresented groups, such as women and Black candidates. Research by Debora Rezende de Almeida, a professor of political science at the University of Bras\u00edlia (UnB), shows that collective and shared candidacies have expanded from just 2 in the elections held between 1994 and 1998 to 542 in the elections from 2020 to 2022. Despite their potential to create more diverse political platforms, group candidacies still face barriers to mainstream implementation due to the lack of regulation by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).<\/p>\n

Almeida has been researching this election format for the last three years, with funding from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). As group candidacies are a relatively new development in Brazilian politics, available data is limited. To date, Almeida has compiled a database with information on 319 candidacies from the 2020 municipal elections and 218 candidacies from the 2022 state and federal elections. She has also interviewed the members of 35 collectively held legislative seats at various levels. Her data indicates that in the 2020 and 2022 elections, white women were the majority of candidates for city council among collective candidacies, outnumbering white men. Similarly, the number of Black women running for state and federal deputy and city-council positions exceeded that of Black men (see chart<\/em>).<\/p>\n<\/div>

\n \n \n \n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso \/ Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span><\/div>
\n

Almeida notes that countries like Spain, Colombia, and Argentina have introduced a similar participatory format known as \u201cshared candidacies,\u201d which have also been experimented with in Brazil since 1994. In this model, individually elected candidates create spaces and mechanisms for public consultation when drafting and voting on bills. They might open online channels or organize discussion groups to elicit public opinions on specific policy issues. \u201cThis model differs from collective candidacies, which are groups of people running to collectively hold the same seat as co-councilors or co-deputies,\u201d Almeida explains.<\/p>\n

To distinguish between collective and shared candidacies, Almeida analyzed the TSE database and intersected it with online information about politicians\u2019 and collectives\u2019 platforms. Some candidates and groups do not specify whether their candidacy is collective or shared, meaning the actual number of such candidacies might be higher than documented in Almeida\u2019s research.<\/p>\n

Luciana Lindenmeyer, who has studied collective candidacies as part of her doctoral research at the Federal University of Cear\u00e1 (UFC), explains that Brazilian law does not currently allow collective candidacies to be formally registered. Typically, one member of the group is registered as an individual candidate. Lindenmeyer, who is a member of the National Front for Collective Candidacies, notes that until recently the TSE prohibited candidates from describing their candidacy as collective. \u201cIn 2020, the Court suspended some candidacies that included the word \u2018collective\u2019 in their descriptions, arguing that it confused voters,\u201d Lindenmeyer says. This rule changed in 2021, allowing candidates to include \u201ccollective\u201d in their official names. Despite the lack of formal recognition by the TSE, collective office-holders often draft a commitment letter outlining the relationship between the officially elected congressperson and their co-representatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore 2021, it was impossible to identify collective candidacies just by looking at TSE records,\u201d Almeida adds. Her research shows that until 2018, shared candidacies, totaling 28 that year, outnumbered collective ones, of which there were just 4. \u201cThis trend reversed in the 2020 municipal elections, where collective candidacies increased significantly, resulting in 29 collectively held seats versus only 5 shared ones,\u201d says Almeida.<\/p>\n

Between 2016 and 2018, there were 98 collective candidacies, a figure which surged to 542 between 2020 and 2022. Among these, 218 were for state and federal deputy positions, and 5 for Senate positions. \u201cThis was the first time we recorded so many group candidacies for these positions,\u201d she notes. She attributes these advances to the efforts of groups who feel underrepresented in Brazilian politics. \u201cSince they can’t find space within traditional party mechanisms to run for elections, they choose to form collective candidacies and pool their political capital,\u201d explains Almeida. Brazil\u2019s fairly recent democratization, she notes, has led to increased interaction between grassroots movements and the political system, with social actors forming part of government administrations, holding office, and participating in policymaking. \u201cThe growth of collective candidacies has been a part of this trend,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"\"Valentina Fraiz<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 2020 elections, Almeida\u2019s research found that collective candidacies were concentrated in the Southeast (52.4%). Another key finding is the high educational level of members of collective candidacies. That year, 28.7% of the total number of municipal election candidates had some level of higher education, while 61% of the official candidates in collective candidacies had completed higher education. \u201cThe higher education levels among collective city-council candidates shows that academic qualifications alone are not enough to guarantee electoral success through traditional political pathways,\u201d Almeida observes. The two main agendas for these slates were the rights of underrepresented groups and social policies.<\/p>\n

Among the 34 group candidacies elected to seats in city councils in 2020, 23 had women as official candidates. Among the official candidates, 19 identified as white, 10 as Black, 4 as brown, and 1 as Asian. Almeida also profiled the 106 members of collective candidacies elected that year. She found that 67 were women and 39 were men, with 2 identifying as transgender women and 1 as a transgender man. Within this group, 39 identified as Black and 16 as brown, while 48 were white. Two identified as Indigenous, and one as Asian.<\/p>\n

During his doctorate at the Institute of Psychology of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (IP-USP), completed in 2022, Jos\u00e9 Fernando Andrade Costa, a psychologist at the State University of Feira de Santana (UEFS), in Bahia, researched the experiences of several collective candidacies in Brazil. One example is a group of five people elected in 2016 to serve in the City Council of Alto Para\u00edso (GO), with only one member officially holding the position and the others serving as co-councilors. Costa also analyzed successful collective candidacies for the state legislatures of S\u00e3o Paulo and Pernambuco in 2018. In terms of legislative activity, the S\u00e3o Paulo group was notably productive. \u201cThis group ranked 8th<\/sup> out of 94 deputies by number of bills introduced.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Costa also identified significant challenges in aligning the agendas of each member. \u201cWe observed disputes over which issues should take priority. Even within parties, individuals with differing ideological positions can disagree when voting on bills,\u201d Costa explains.<\/p>\n

Another notable aspect of collective candidacies, according to Ricardo Alves Cavalheiro, a legal scholar at Santa Catarina State University (UDESC), is their adoption by a diverse range of political ideologies. Cavalheiro coauthored a 2019 study led by the S\u00e3o Paulo-based NGO Rede de A\u00e7\u00e3o Pol\u00edtica pela Sustentabilidade, which found that, up to that year, 1% of collective and shared candidacies had a right-wing ideology, 14% were center-right, 38% were centrist, 33% were center-left, and 14% were left-wing. Cavalheiro views collective candidacies as a new tool for democratic innovation, similar to participatory budgeting. They enable policymakers to give citizens a voice on which areas should be prioritized in the public budget.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso \/ Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>\n

In her master\u2019s research, completed in 2021 at the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) in Minas Gerais, journalist Samara Aparecida Resende Avelar also explored the effectiveness of collectively held council seats. Her study focused on the city councils of Belo Horizonte (MG) and Alto Para\u00edso (GO). According to Avelar\u2019s research, one positive aspect of these collectives was their development of methods to engage with communities during voting and in drafting legislation. They established political councils, held public meetings, and organized touring offices and meetings across different communities, all of which were open to the general public. Avelar sees a connection between these collectives and the deliberative model of democracy proposed by German philosopher and sociologist J\u00fcrgen Habermas. \u201cFor Habermas, a democracy should include society in decisions about the regulation of collective life through deliberative processes. He argues that the more space people have to discuss demands and express views, the more legitimate the resulting laws, and the more likely they are to be followed,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

However, Avelar also found that, despite the significant number of bills created through community dialog, few were ultimately passed. The Belo Horizonte group, for instance, introduced 25 bills, but only one had been enacted by the end of her study, creating a municipal social housing program for women who have experienced domestic violence. The Alto Para\u00edso group\u2019s only successful bill required the local water utility to purchase equipment to remove air bubbles from household pipes, lowering water bills for city residents. \u201cAlthough the members of collectively held legislative seats often advocate for the rights of minority groups, they have only managed to pass laws where they benefit the entire city,\u201d she observes.<\/p>\n

Almeida from UnB recommends caution regarding the democratizing potential of this candidacy format. \u201cThere are still many barriers in the political and party system to the effective inclusion of underrepresented groups,\u201d she notes. The lack of regulation means that the political success of collectively held seats varies significantly depending on the municipality. Because not all co-councilors can officially hold the seat, some groups in larger cities like S\u00e3o Paulo have hired co-councilors as staff, enabling them to share duties and responsibilities with the officially elected councilor. \u201cThis arrangement allows co-councilors to actively participate in plenaries, committee meetings, and caucuses. They receive salaries and can devote themselves exclusively to legislative activities,\u201d Almeida explains. However, councilors in small towns are not always able to hire staff, preventing their co-councilors from having similar access to city councils or institutional processes. \u201cInternal conflicts can arise as a result,\u201d she notes.<\/p>\n

In her analysis, Almeida found that collective candidacies involving people from different parties were unsuccessful, with many dissolving post-election when members had only met during the formation of the collective candidacy. \u201cFor collective candidacies to work, members need to be ideologically, personally, and politically aligned. In general, the most successful groups were those whose members knew each other before the elections,\u201d she argues, noting that in the 2020 elections, 25 collective candidacies were successful, and 7 of them dissolved within the first year. In these cases, the elected official remained in office, as other slate members are not recognized by the TSE. Besides the lack of legal and institutional support, Almeida says many parties oppose collective candidacies, believing the format to be unfair. \u201cCombining the political capital of different members gives collective candidacies an edge over individual candidates,\u201d she comments.<\/p>\n

Despite existing barriers, researchers agree that the emergence of collective candidacies has been beneficial in shedding light on the issue of political inclusion for certain societal groups. These initiatives carry a symbolism that can help to amplify diversity by \u201cencouraging people to think of politics as a collective effort and one that should ensure political alternation,\u201d says anthropologist Carmela Zigoni, a political advisor at the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies (INESC) in Bras\u00edlia. According to Lindenmeyer, regulating collective candidacies is a first step to addressing existing barriers. This could soon be achieved with the approval of Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 379\/2017 and bills 4,475\/2020 and 4,724\/2020, all currently pending in Congress.<\/p>\n

The constitutional amendment, explain the researchers consulted for this article, will add a paragraph to Article 14 of the Federal Constitution to allow for collective candidacies in the Legislative Branch. The two other bills elaborate on how legislative seats would be held collectively in practice, such as requiring that these groups develop a charter to regulate their activities. The charter must include criteria for joining the slate, rules for replacing co-representatives in case of resignation, and the distribution of duties and salaries.<\/p>\n

Gender disparity in elections
\n<\/strong>In Brazil\u2019s 2022 elections, out of the 9,200 women who ran for various positions, only 308 were elected<\/em><\/p>\n

With 105 million women, representing 51.5% of the population, according to the 2022 Demographic Census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), Brazil is one of the countries with the greatest gender disparity in politics in Latin America. This is highlighted by a 2020 study by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and UN Women. The report analyzed 11 nations and found that Brazil is among the three countries on the continent with the lowest representation of women in various spheres of government.<\/p>\n

In Brazil, women held 17% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 12% in the Senate in 2023. In addition, only Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte elected female governors in the last elections. According to the Census of Brazilian Mayors (2021\u20132024) conducted by the NGO Instituto Alziras in Rio de Janeiro, 12% of Brazilian mayors are women, a figure that drops to 4% for Black women. Female mayors are concentrated in smaller cities and govern just 9% of Brazil\u2019s population. Data from the TSE show that in the 2022 general elections there were only 9,800 female candidates compared to 19,400 male candidates, out of a total of 29,200 candidates. Among the female candidates, 308 were elected, compared to 1,375 men.<\/p>\n

Since 1997, Law no. 9,504 has required parties and coalitions to fill at least 30% of their candidacies with female candidates in elections for the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, the Legislative Chamber of the Federal District, legislative assemblies, and city councils. In 2018, the Supreme Federal Court (STF) ruled that the Party Fund must be distributed for election campaigns in proportion to the number of women running. \u201cDespite legal mandates, most parties fail to comply with the gender quota and funding levels. Instead, they allocate more funding to candidates with higher chances of winning,\u201d says anthropologist Carmela Zigoni, a political advisor at the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies (INESC) in Bras\u00edlia. According to Zigoni, the underrepresentation of women is not being adequately addressed through quotas and funding guidelines, leading women to form collective candidacies as a strategy to increase their political participation.<\/div>\n

Scientific articles
\n<\/strong>ALMEIDA, D. R. Representac\u0327a\u0303o como participac\u0327a\u0303o: Os mandatos coletivos no Brasil.<\/a> Revista de Sociologia e Pol\u00edtica<\/strong>. Vol. 31, e. 24. 2023.
\nALMEIDA, D. R. Candidaturas coletivas: Uma nova forma de intera\u00e7\u00e3o entre movimentos sociais e partidos pol\u00edticos<\/a>. Dados \u2013 Revista de Ci\u00eancias Sociais<\/strong>. 62 (2), 2024.<\/p>\n

Reports
\n<\/strong>SECCHI, L. et al<\/em>. Mandatos coletivos e compartilhados \u2013 Desafios e possibilidades para a representa\u00e7\u00e3o legislativa no s\u00e9culo XXI<\/a>. Rede de A\u00e7\u00e3o Pol\u00edtica pela Sustentabilidade<\/strong>, 2019.
\nALMEIDA, D. R. & ANDUJAS, B. Candidaturas e mandatos coletivos no Brasil: O que s\u00e3o e como funcionam? Bras\u00edlia: Editora das Autoras<\/strong>, 2023.
\nBrasil: Onde esta\u0301 o compromisso com as mulheres? Um longo caminho para se chegar a\u0300 paridade<\/a>. Atenea \u2013 Mecanismo para acelerar a participa\u00e7\u00e3o pol\u00edtica das mulheres na Am\u00e9rica Latina e no Caribe. UNDP Brazil, UN Women, and International IDEA<\/strong>, 2020.<\/p>\n

Censo das prefeitas brasileiras (Mandato 2021\u20132024).<\/a> Rio de Janeiro, Instituto Alziras<\/strong>, 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Collective candidacies surge in Brazil, rising from 7 between 2012 and 2014 to 542 between 2020 and 2022","protected":false},"author":601,"featured_media":534804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[214,256,261],"coauthors":[1600],"class_list":["post-534799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","tag-political-science","tag-public-policies","tag-sociology","position_at_home-sumario"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/601"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534799"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":536156,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534799\/revisions\/536156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534799"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=534799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}