Presidents, assemblies, and accountability

Much research has explored the relationship between economics and elections, and scholars have begun to explore how institutions mediate that link. However, the relationship between presidential institutions and electoral accountability remains largely unexplored in comparative politics. Because voters in presidential systems can cast votes for executive and legislative elections separately, we have good reasons to suspect that the institutions of presidentialism might generate different forms or degrees of accountability than parliamentarism. Powell and Whitten (1993) suggest that the partisan or institutional “clarity of responsibility” might mediate the relationship between economics and elections: when responsibility for outcomes is clear, the relationship should be strong, and vice-versa. I develop this notion for use in presidential systems, and explore executive and legislative elections in 24 countries. The results indicate that economics always influences the incumbent vote in executive elections, regardless of the partisan or institutional clarity of responsibility. Economics also affects vote swings in legislative elections, but the institutional clarity of responsibility does mediate this relationship: legislative accountability for national economic outcomes is lowest when clarity of responsibility is highest, a situation that arises when the president is relatively more powerful and the bases for electing legislators and the president differ. By providing an empirical basis for a discussion of accountability under presidentialism, these findings contribute to important debates in comparative politics.

Accountability and yardstick competition in the public provision of education

This paper explores the institutional change introduced by the public disclosure of an education development index (IDEB, Basic Education Development Index) in 2007 to identify the e ect of education accountability on yardstick competition in education spending for Brazilian municipalities. Our results are threefold. First, political incentives are pervasive in setting the education expenditures. The spatial strategic behavior on education spending is estimated lower for lame-ducks and for those incumbents with majority support at the city council. This suggests a strong relation between commitment and accountability which reinforces yardstick competition theory. Second, we nd a minor reduction (20%) in spatial interaction for public education spending after IDEB's disclosure | compared to the spatial correlation before the disclosure of the index. This suggests that public release of information may decrease the importance of the neighbors` counterpart information on voter`s decision. Third, exploring the discontinuity of IDEB`s disclosure rule around the cut-o of 30 students enrolled in the grade under assessment, our estimates suggest that the spatial autocorrelation | and hence yardstick competition | is reduced in 54%. Finally, an unforeseen result suggests that the disclosure of IDEB increases expenditures, more than 100% according to our estimates.

Creditor's protection and bank loans: lack of competition hamprers bankruptcy reform's effects

This dissertation investigates how credit institutions’ market power limits the effects of creditor protection rules on the interest rate and the spread of bank loans. We use the Brazilian Bankruptcy Reform of June/2005 (BBR) as a legal event affecting the institutional environment of the Brazilian credit market. The law augments creditor protection and aims to improve the access of firms to the credit market and to reduce the cost of borrowing. Either access to credit or the credit cost are also determined by bank industry competition and the market power of suppliers of credit. We derive a simple economic model to study the effect of market power interacting with cost of lending. Using an accounting and operations dataset from July/2004 to December/2007 provided by the Brazilian Central Bank, we estimate that the lack of competition in the bank lending industry hinders the potential reducing effect of the BBR on the interest rate of corporate loans by approximately 30% and on the spread by approximately 23%. We also find no statistical evidence that the BBR affected the concentration level of the Brazilian credit market. We present a brief report on bankruptcy reforms around the world, the changes in the Brazilian legislation and on some recent related articles in our introductory chapter. The second chapter presents the economic model and the testable hypothesis on how the lack of competition in the lending market limits the effects of improved creditor protection. In this chapter, we introduce our empirical strategy using a differences-in-differences model and we estimate the limiting effect of market power on the BBR’s potential to reduce interest rates and on the spread of bank loans. We use the BBR as an exogenous event that affects collateralized corporate loans (treatment group) but that does not affect clean consumer loans (control group) to identify these effects, using different concentration measures. In Chapter 3, we propose a two-stage empirical strategy to handle the H–Statistics proposed by Panzar and Rosse as a measure of market competition. We estimate the limiting effects of the lack of competition in replacing the concentration statistics by the H–Statistics. Chapter 4 presents a structural break test of the concentration index and checks if the BBR affects the dynamic evolution of the concentration index.

A autoavaliação institucional na Escola Municipal Estudante Emmanuel Bezerra: construindo uma dinâmica de participação

This project was based on an implemented investigation of the institutional self-evaluation at Municipal Emmanuel Bezerra school, located at the west zone of Natal capital in Rio Grande do Norte state, where school individuals were analysed in interaction. A qualitative research was taken under the use of several pieces of information and collected out of several sources, such as: managing, docent and administrative staff interviews; present school legislation, political pedagogical project, scholar regiment as well as the 2013 action plans documental analyses; and the literature review focused in books and articles which treats of evaluation, State Evaluator and the public educational politics in order to promote the dialogue between school theory and reality. The institutional evaluation has been the theme debated through several studies. However, with its major focus on the evaluation systems and High Education aiming to raise competition having implying the reaching of educational quality as justification under liberal view. Notwithstanding, over the controlling function of the educational results and competition trigger amongst the educational institutions to the accruement of the received resources, it is believed that this institutional evaluation, however the system, can assist in the educational services improvement offered to the local public, when endeavoured to the purpose of supporting human development. Having the obtained data, the self-evaluation process implemented at the concerned school, the conceptions which permeate the school environment as well as the community joining given in this object lesson, was described and analysed as dialoguing with the political pedagogical project and comprehending the constitution in a democratic management

Os conselhos como mecanismos de democratização da política educacional :participação e poder de decisão nas ações do Conselho de Controle Social do FUNDEF no município de Parnamirim/RN

This study board the FUNDEF social control council implementation in Parnamirim/RN city, concerning their representatives participation in the accompaniment (decision power) in resort, in front of governmental politics of decentralization, unleashed in 90´s, seen in decentralization process needs the society participation in decisions of educative institutions and represent an efficient way of solve the problems difficult the educational management actions. For this, the council creation of Brazil manager configure, since the 80´s, detaching, and the single characterizing, in actual context. The objective is raise pertinent questions of thematic of representatives members participation of collegiate organs, evidencing the decision power of these, in public resource control. The theory-methodological referential the literature treat the participation and power decision of FUNDEF social control decision, such as politics directrix that rules this council. It utilizes as proceeding of collecting data the semi-structured interview and analyze of meeting register to understand the empirics of council implantation in this city, in view of that the electoral process configured in 2003, showed as a innovation, because the counselor is indicated by the local public power representatives (in this case the education municipal secretary). The research result show the representatives have difficult, to accompany the FUNDEF resources amount, particularly in concern in the financial resources (ratio) over plus. Finally, emphasize the importance of democratization in the relations between the state and civil society, elucidating and exciting reflections a: democratic participation in control of public recourses for education, educational management and civil society mobilization in access of public and cultural cash which the citizen has rights

Women's contribution to equality in Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Best practices in defence of competition in Argentina and Brazil: useful aspects for Central America

Includes bibliography

Does discourse matter in the politics of building social pacts on social protection?: international experiences

Includes bibliography

Projeto Calha Norte: política de defesa nacional e segurança hemisférica na governança contemporânea

Evidencia a análise do percurso institucional e geoestratégico do Projeto Calha Norte (PCN) como processo de territorialização da fronteira política. O PCN foi pensado nos moldes convencionais da defesa e influenciado pela Doutrina de Segurança Nacional (DSN) dos anos sessenta e setenta, que objetivava e objetiva garantir o aumento da presença do Estado na Faixa de Fronteira Norte (Arco Norte), contribuindo para a Defesa Nacional e para a assistência às populações locais. Busca entender as implicações históricas, estratégicas, geopolíticas, financeiras e ambientais, desde a sua origem até os anos noventa com ênfase no governo de Fernando H. Cardoso - FHC (1994-2002). Apresenta a idéia de que a política de defesa implementada por este obedeceu às inflexões das mudanças internas na governança brasileira, bem como almejou adequá-la às transformações em curso regional e mundialmente, caracterizadas pela substituição da ordem bipolar para multipolar/unipolar, alteração no perfil das instituições políticas e, sobretudo, da integração hemisférica do país num quadro de incertezas e apelo ao fortalecimento da segurança coletiva. Essas mudanças ocorreram no contexto da modernização capitalista, na qual o PCN é concebido como uma modalidade particular de intervenção e expansão do Estado, que tem o uso exclusivo do monopólio da força, cumprindo suas prerrogativas constitucionais numa área marrom - ausência do Estado enquanto um conjunto de burocracias funcionando efetivamente numa área de baixa densidade demográfica. A ineficácia dessas dimensões do Estado define a peculiaridade do circuito da ilegalidade, isto é, o locus das atividades ilícitas tais como o narcotráfico e o contrabando. Assim, a racionalidade presente na ação do Estado consiste em articular os elementos capazes de estimular a materialização de um processo de homogeneização do espaço social na fronteira política em contexto de integração e cooperação com os países da Pan-Amazônia. Baseando-se em indicadores demográficos, econômico-financeiros e ambientais, e numa ampla base de dados sobre a Faixa de Fronteira Norte, a pesquisa concluiu pela necessidade da intervenção na fronteira política, onde o Estado busca cumprir, relativamente, sua função para ordenar e disciplinar as relações e os processos sociais a partir de referências constitucionais; afirmou que o esvaziamento financeiro deveu-se menos ao programa governamental para ajustar as contas públicas e o pagamento da dívida externa do que à decisão política de reorientar os investimentos para o Projeto; provou-se que há um movimento para a inclusão efetiva da sustentabilidade na nova PDN (Política de Defesa Nacional) e; finalmente, argumentou-se a favor da necessidade de integrar o PCN ao sistema de produção de informações do SIVAM entendido como um novo enfoque sobre a defesa nacional na Era da Informação, e que é necessário para a vigilância da região.

O dualismo partidário no período de 1966 a 1982 e sua representação local

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

As percepções dos jovens estudantes de Londrina/PR sobre política

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

O papel da burocracia no processo de implantação dos Institutos Federais de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia (IFs): o caso do IF de Passos (MG)

Pós-graduação em Planejamento e Análise de Políticas Públicas - FCHS

STATE INSTITUTIONS, POWER, AND SOCIAL NETWORKS IN BRAZILIAN URBAN POLICIES

A large historiographic tradition has studied the Brazilian state, yet we know relatively little about its internal dynamics and particularities. The role of informal, personal, and unintentional ties has remained underexplored in most policy network studies, mainly because of the pluralist origin of that tradition. It is possible to use network analysis to expand this knowledge by developing mesolevel analysis of those processes. This article proposes an analytical framework for studying networks inside policy communities. This framework considers the stable and resilient patterns that characterize state institutions, especially in contexts of low institutionalization, particularly those found in Latin America and Brazil. The article builds on research on urban policies in Brazil to suggest that networks made of institutional and personal ties structure state organizations internally and insert them,into broader political scenarios. These networks, which I call state fabric, frame politics, influence public policies, and introduce more stability and predictability than the majority of the literature usually considers. They also form a specific power resource-positional power, associated with the positions that political actors occupy-that influences politics inside and around the state.

Reflexiones sobre gobernanza; confianza en las instituciones públicas, densidad asociativa y participación electoral en Europa.

[ES] El presente estudio trata de forma abierta de los cambios que se están produciendo en los métodos de gobernar y en las posibilidades que ofrece la nueva gobernanza a la participación de la ciudadanía para influir en las decisiones que conciernen al territorio y su futuro. También introduce elementos relacionados con el dinamismo que han adquirido los movimientos sociales y la participación política no convencional, precisamente cuando más aumenta la desafección a la política y a los partidos políticos e igualmente se incrementan los índices de abstención electoral.

The changing politics of preference formation in international trade negotiations: the European Union in the Doha Round

This research seeks to provide an explanation for variations of “politics” of preference formation in international trade negotiations. Building on the ‘policy determines politics’ argument, I hypothesize the existence of a causal relationship between issue-characteristics and their variations with politics dynamics and their variations. More specifically, this study seeks to integrate into a single analytical framework two dimensions along which variations in the “politics of preference formation” can be organized: configurations of power relationships among the relevant actors in the structures within which they interact as well as the logic and the motivations of the actors involved in the policy making process. To do so, I first construct a four-cell typology of ‘politics of preference formation’ and, then, I proceed by specifying that the type of state-society configurations as well as the type of actors’ motivations in the “politics of preference formation” depend, respectively, on the degree to which a policy issue is perceived as politically salient and on the extent to which the distributional implications of such an issue can be calculated by the relevant stakeholders in the policy making process. The empirical yardstick against which the validity of the theoretical argument proposed is tested is drawn from evidence concerning the European Union’s negotiating strategy in four negotiating areas in the context of the so-called WTO’s Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiations: agriculture, competition, environment and technical assistance and capacity building.