Opinião Pública – Vol. 29, Nº 1 2023
Articles in this issue
Authors: Lisa Zanotti, Jose Rama e Talita Tanscheit
This article analyzes the individual factors that help explain the electoral support for Jair Bolsonaro in the 2018 Presidential elections in Brazil in light of the findings for the Populist Radical Right (PRR) in Western Europe. The present article contributes to the comparative literature on the determinants of the vote for the PRR in a non-European country. Analyzing the rise of the PRR in Latin America is particularly relevant since structural constraints limit its chances. To carry out our analysis, we rely on survey data from the Brazilian Electoral Study (BES). Beyond some specificities due to differences in the articulation of the PRR's main ideologies, we found that while certain determinants of the vote for the PRR in Brazil are in line with the hypothesis based on the European experience, others respond to country and region-level indicators like negative identity toward the PT.
Authors: Riccardo Valente e Julian Borba
Prior analyses of authoritarian populism have linked it to hypotheses referring to cultural backlash and negative partisanship, suggesting that conservative values and hatred of opposing parties fuel the desire for strong leadership. This article adds to the previous literature by testing the influence of social class resentment on Bolsonaro coming to power in Brazil. Based on the AmericasBarometer 2018/19 survey, the analysis highlights the central role of the rejection of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party) in explaining the propensity to vote for the far-right candidate, and to a lesser extent, the influence of authoritarian values in this case study. Our findings lend some support to the hypothesis of social class resentment as well. Social class resentment was found to significantly moderate the relationship between anti-PT sentiment and voting behavior, which sheds light on Bolsonaro’s ability to capture resentful voters who were disposed to subordinate social redistribution to the defense of previously acquired privileges.
Author: André Bello
This article analyzes the nature of political polarization in Brazil by applying multiple techniques to increase the robustness of the results. A political polarization index was developed from 1989 to 2019 based on statistical techniques for macro-level data analysis and using questions about positive and negative party sentiment of the Workers' Party (PT). The results indicate that there is affective and dynamic political polarization, structured by periods of more convergence and more divergence. The feelings of petism (pro-PT partisanship) and anti-petism (anti-PT sentiment) produce political polarization, so that the antagonism between the two camps (petistas and anti-petistas) grows over time. This article sparks a debate on political polarization in Latin America from the perspective of macro politics.
Authors: Camila Farias da Silva e Eduardo Georjão Fernandes
Through the study of published images, the present work analyzes how emotions are incorporated into mass media framing of protest events. By coordinating interpretive framing and emotion theories, we built a visual analysis model based on the identification of the dominant frames and keying processes in three dimensions: photographic techniques, interactions, and emotions. The model was used to analyze the newspaper Zero Hora’s coverage of the June 20, 2013 protest in Porto Alegre. The results indicate that the periodical incorporates ambivalent emotional regimes. On the one hand, it associates protesting with symbols of grandiosity, patriotism, and festivity, which tend to be related to moral emotions (e.g., pride) and affective commitment or loyalties (e.g., trust); on the other hand, “violent” tactics are associated with danger/risk and linked to reflex emotions (e.g., fear) and moral emotions (e.g., indignation). The model proved to be efficient and can be replicated in future studies.
Authors: Diego Moraes Silva, Thaíse Kemer e Camila Mont’Alverne
Education is often seen as a solution to democratic deficits, but its role in shaping political attitudes is still poorly understood. This article investigates the association between schooling and adherence to democracy in São Paulo. Departing from a representative sample of 2,417 interviews, our analysis of the São Paulo context is shown to be timely for the study, since the city performs well in educational assessments and has a relevant history of political engagement. Using hierarchical regression models, it was found that schooling is a significant predictor of adherence to democracy, with higher levels of schooling correlating to greater adherence. Our results differ from the findings of other studies that consider Brazil as a whole. We find that access to higher education is a key factor for the valorization of democracy.
Authors: Aleksei Zolnerkevic e Fernando Guarnieri
The 2016 and 2020 municipal elections in São Paulo’s city presented results that deviated from previous ones in the spatial voting patterns and in candidate performance. While the PT in 2016 did not win in any district, with part of these votes "stolen" by Marta Suplicy (PMDB), in 2020 the party, for the first time since 1985, was not among the first place contenders, a position occupied by the PSOL. Through mapping and factor analysis, the present article provides evidence for this deviation and seeks possible explanations by analyzing, through ecological inference, the transfer of votes from one election to another among candidates. The article defends the hypothesis that this transfer is due more to a strategic vote than to electoral realignments. The results show that there was no change in "voter alignment" and the deviations found attributed to the competition strategies adopted by the parties.
Author: Rafael Mesquita
This article investigates whether there is evidence of a “rise and fall” of emerging powers over the past 20 years in the eyes of public opinion. We compared several national and regional surveys on the foreign policies of South Africa, Brazil, and Turkey in search of signs of endorsement or disapproval of the more assertive foreign policies exercised by these countries. The results suggest a pronounced rise and decline for Ankara and some decline for Brasília; however, the results are inconclusive for Pretoria. The present work seeks to contribute to the debate on status and regional leadership by adding a public opinion and comparative regionalism perspective, in addition to offering a convenient summary of diplomatic surveys for countries of the Global South.
Authors: Adolfo Abadía, Luciana Carla Manfredi e Juan Tomás Sayago
This paper investigates how government communications on Twitter®, in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, has produced different feelings among citizens. This type of interaction has effects on the perception of rulers and compliance with restrictions. Using R's tidytext package, a total of 28,344 Covid-related tweets were analyzed between January 2020 and March 2021 from ten user profiles on Twitter® (the mayors and Town Halls of Barranquilla, Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín, the President, and the presidency). The study seeks to contribute to the field of government communications during the Covid-19 crisis and the feelings they arouse toward citizen and government interactions during the study period.
Authors: Carolina Andion, Aghata Karoliny Ribeiro Gonsalves e Thiago Gonçalves Magalhães
Brazil is recognized for having an advanced regulatory framework in terms of guarantees of rights of children and adolescents. However, the daily challenges to put this framework into practice are still immense. How do we explain this gap between regulation and practice? To answer this question, this article proposes an analytical and theoretical approach anchored in a pragmatist perspective, using the method of cartography of controversies in the analysis of this public policy. This entails retracing the trajectory of the debate in the public arenas that compose this policy historically, seeking to analyze it from the main spokespersons, arguments, controversies, and worldviews present in the public debate. The results allow us to understand how public action in this field has been (re-)configured in the past 30 years, by dispute and stabilization processes, identifying its advances and limits. The conclusions of the study contribute to an understanding of the challenges of this policy, showing that these emerge in the interconnection of levels, forms of regulation, and networks of actors; this requires a review of the traditional conceptions adopted in the analysis of public policies.