The Breakneck Dilution of Brazilian Electoral Law
Posted inInstitutional Politics

The Breakneck Dilution of Brazilian Electoral Law

In the midst of all of Bolsonaro’s bombast and bluster this past month, it has been easy to get distracted from other pressing issues. The past few years have brought a number of statutory rollbacks of anticorruption legislation in Brasília. But the brazenness with which a permissive new electoral code...
September 14, 2021Posted inInstitutional, Politics
Reflections on Bolsonaro’s Brazil
Posted inJudiciary Politics Social

Reflections on Bolsonaro’s Brazil

In case you missed it, American University's AULA Blog has posted two good reflections on Bolsonaro's Brazil in recent days: Ingrid Fontes, a senior at American University, writes about the Bolsonaro administration’s devastatingly incompetent response to the pandemic, showing Brazil’s comparatively high death rate and low vaccination rate, as well...
June 2, 2021Posted inJudiciary, Politics, Social
Reshaping the meaning of politics
Posted inEnvironment Politics Social

Reshaping the meaning of politics

Brazil’s political turbulence remains difficult to fully comprehend, in part because of the enormous concussive shock with which the seemingly golden years of pre-salt oil and commodity-driven prosperity suddenly met a grim sequence of protest, impeachment, and scandal. Scholarship has been challenged by the historical contingency of the unprecedented, fluid...
May 17, 2021Posted inEnvironment, Politics, Social
Discussing Legislative Effectiveness with Rodrigo Maia
Posted inPolitics

Discussing Legislative Effectiveness with Rodrigo Maia

CLALS Research Fellow Beatriz Rey recently discussed the issue of legislative effectiveness in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies with former speaker Rodrigo Maia. In the conversation, Rey and Maia delve into the conditions that foster bill sponsors' and rapporteurs' ability to move their agenda items through the legislative process and into...
April 27, 2021Posted inPolitics
“The Organization”: Corruption and Business
Posted inEconomics Judiciary Politics

“The Organization”: Corruption and Business

This weekend I finished Malu Gaspar’s definitive history of the Odebrecht case (A Organização: A Odebrecht e o esquema de corrupção que chocou o mundo; Companhia das Letras 2020). While not an academic book, it offers an insightful and page-turning perspective on the evolution of business-state relations in Brazil over...
March 16, 2021Posted inEconomics, Judiciary, Politics
Elite quality and development
Posted inEconomics Politics Social

Elite quality and development

The Elite Quality Report 2020 claims to be the “first ever international measurement of elite quality,” aiming to distinguish between elites who are high-quality value creators and elites who are low-quality value extractors.   For readers of this blog, the report will be of interest because it finds the BRIS countries clustered in...
February 6, 2021Posted inEconomics, Politics, Social