Partisan Dealignment in Germany: A rejoinder to Russell Dalton

The work of Russell Dalton has undoubtedly played a seminal role in the study of the relation between political sophistication and partisan dealignment. We furthermore acknowledge the presence of a consensus on the occurrence of lower levels of partisanship in Germany. Using panel data as well as pooled cross-sectional observations, however, it is clear that generational replacement is not the sole driving force of partisan dealignment, but that period effects should also be taken into account. While on an aggregate level rising levels of political sophistication have occurred simultaneously with decreasing partisanship, individual level analysis suggests clearly that the least sophisticated are most likely to feel alienated from the party system. We close with some very specific suggestion on how to address the democratic consequences of declining levels of partisanship.

Resolving conflict in bipolar societies: The fate of political settlements in Fiji and Northern Ireland

Ethnically divided societies that might be described as ‘balanced bicommunal’ (where there are two communities, each of which comes close to representing half of the population) pose a particular challenge to conventional principles of collective decision-making, and commonly threaten political stability. This article analyses the experience of two such societies – Northern Ireland and Fiji – with a view to exploring whether there are common processes in the route by which political stability has been pursued. We assess the manner in which a distinctive relationship with Great Britain and its political culture has interacted with local conditions to produce a highly competitive, bipolar party system. This leads to consideration of the devices that have been adopted in an effort to bridge the gap between the communities: the Fiji constitution as amended in 1997, and Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement of 1998. We focus, in particular, on the use of unusual (preferential voting) formulas for the election of parliamentarians and of an inclusive principle in the selection of ministers, and consider the contribution of these institutional devices to the attainment of political stability. We find that, in both cases, the intervention of forces from outside the political system had a decisive impact, though in very different ways. In addition to being underpinned by solid institutional design, for political settlements to work effectively, some minimal level of trust between rival elites is required.

Décentralisation et allocation des ressources : les détours de la municipalisation du système de santé brésilien.

Dans cette thèse, nous avons analysé le déroulement d’un processus de municipalisation du système de santé, effectué au Rio Grande do Norte (RN), un des états fédérés du nord-est du Brésil. En tenant compte des contextes historiques d’implantation, nous avons centré notre attention sur la contribution des acteurs impliqués dans ce processus, spécialement dans l’allocation des ressources financières du système. Les croyances, perceptions, attentes, représentations, connaissances, intérêts, l’ensemble des facteurs qui contribuent à la constitution des capacités cognitives de ces acteurs, favorise la réflexivité sur leurs actions et la définition de stratégies diverses de façon à poursuivre leurs objectifs dans le système de santé. Ils sont vus ainsi comme des agents compétents et réflexifs, capables de s’approprier des propriétés structurelles du système de santé (règles et ressources), de façon à prendre position dans l’espace social de ce système pour favoriser le changement ou la permanence du statu quo. Au cours du processus de structuration du Système unique de santé brésilien, le SUS, la municipalisation a été l’axe le plus développé d’un projet de réforme de la santé. Face aux contraintes contextuelles et de la dynamique complexe des espaces sociaux de la santé, les acteurs réformistes n’ont pas pu suivre le chemin de l’utopie idéalisée; quelques détours ont été parcourus. Au RN, la municipalisation de la santé a constitué un processus très complexe où la triade centralisation/décentralisation/recentralisation a suivi son cours au milieu de négociations, de conflits, d’alliances, de disputes, de coopérations, de compétitions. Malgré les contraintes des contextes successifs, des propriétés structurelles du système et des dynamiques sociales dans le système de santé, quelques changements sont intervenus : la construction de leaderships collectifs; l’émergence d’une culture de négociation; la création des structures et des espaces sociaux du système, favorisant les rencontres des acteurs dans chaque municipalité et au niveau de l’état fédéré; un apprentissage collectif sur le processus de structuration du SUS; une grande croissance des services de première ligne permettant d’envisager une inversion de tendance du modèle de prestation des services; les premiers pas vers la rupture avec la culture bureaucratique du système. Le SUS reste prisonnier de quelques enjeux institutionnalisés dans ce système de santé : la dépendance du secteur privé et de quelques groupes de professionnels; le financement insuffisant et instable; la situation des ressources humaines. Les changements arrivés sont convergents, incrémentiels, lents; ils résultent d’actions normatives, délibérées, formalisées. Elles aussi sont issues de l’inattendu, de l’informel, du paradoxe; quelques-unes plus localisées, d’autres plus généralisées, pour une courte ou une plus longue durée.

Espaços especiais em Natal (moradia e meio ambiente): um necessário diálogo entre direitos e espaços na perspectiva de proteção aos direitos fundamentais na cidade contemporânea

Some protected special spaces on behalf of fundamental rights to the environment and the housing at the city of Natal are fragile by facing actions and attempts to suppress and changing (or omission in the implementation) of standards in furtherance of those rights at the local level, which seems to reflect a situation that goes beyond the context of the city. Based on integrated approach of the housing rights and the environment and its protection of special spaces on the field of fundamental rights, the thesis seeks to understand the weaknesses that affect the legal state duty under the realization/implementation of fundamental rights to the environment and housing in cities, focusing on the issues of flexibility of the founding legislation of special spaces to the detriment of the attributes they protected and the lack of implementation of the legal system that allows their effectiveness. So, it looks initially to understand the environment and housing rights and their special protected areas in the brazilian legal system, looking forward the evolution of its legal protection, as well as the weaknesses that emerge in the field of their effectiveness. Analyzing the trajectory of the environment and housing rights and their special protected areas in Natal, considering its standards, attributes, protection indicators, weaknesses and negative evidence within its legal protections and their enforcement by state entity, this thesis proposes to verify the existence of forms to confronting the weaknesses founded in the maintenance of legal protection and its implementation. At this point it discusses the legal basis and safeguard instruments of protection, especially within the juridical field, as part of a (re)discussion about issues of legislative and administrative discretion in the face of objective legal state duty to realization/implementation of fundamental rights in the urban space. With all these issues together the thesis does not ignore the scenario where the dividing line between public and private (economic) are becoming ever more tenuous in the field of state action and where the city stands as a special commodity to the reproduction of real estate, according to the interests of capitalist logic

A potencialidade do PROEJA: histórias dos estudantes evadidos do IFRS Câmpus Rio Grande

A presente investigação situa-se na área da integração da Educação Profissional com Educação Básica na Modalidade de Jovens e Adultos (PROEJA) e busca a compreensão das vivências dos estudantes do curso no Câmpus Rio Grande que integra o Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS-RG). Faz parte também dos objetivos identificar as contribuições do curso para a socialização desses estudantes e os significados atribuídos ao curso. Em função da elevada taxa de evasão, a pesquisa foi desenvolvida com estudantes que não concluíram o curso. A hermenêutica filosófica constitui-se na epistemologia que ancora teoricamente a abordagem metodológica. A Análise Textual Discursiva foi a metodologia qualitativa adotada para a análise do material empírico constituído centralmente pelas histórias contadas pelos estudantes. Eles contam sua passagem pelo PROEJA, desde o ingresso até a sua evasão. Foram produzidos dados quantitativos além de levantamentos para conhecer o contexto da trajetória escolar dos estudantes. Esses elementos subsidiaram a análise qualitativa das informações. Como resultados foram encontradas: uma taxa de evasão geral da ordem de 57%. Nos dois primeiros módulos ocorreu 87 % de toda a evasão do curso. Em todo o período de oferecimento do curso, ou seja sete anos, apenas três estudantes concluíram o mesmo. Pela análise qualitativa, emergiram cinco categorias que tratam: a) do ingresso no PROEJA e dos desencontros nesse processo; b) do estudante com suas peculiaridades, dificuldades e significados; c) do ser professor no PROEJA; d) do curso pelo viés da formação integrada; e) dos componentes constituintes da evasão. Como conclusões a pesquisa aponta para a inadequação do curso em seus diversos aspectos. Reforça que a construção curricular adaptada de um curso existente foi um equívoco. A formação dos professores e gestores promoveu a proposta de um curso repleto de contradições. Mesmo com todos os distanciamentos, o curso promoveu um ensino de qualidade na formação humana e por isso os estudantes desenvolveram sentimentos positivos quanto ao curso. Promoveu os estudantes a novas oportunidades na sua vida social, inclusive com ingresso na universidade. A tese geral aponta para a potencialidade do PROEJA do Câmpus Rio Grande, na transformação da realidade do sujeito, apesar do alto índice de evasão e da inadequação do curso.

“Você, Quaresma, é um visionário!”: o conflito entre herói e mundo no romance de Lima Barreto Triste fim de Policarpo Quaresma

O presente trabalho pretende analisar o conflito entre o protagonista do romance de Lima Barreto Triste fim de Policarpo Quaresma e o seu mundo, o mundo que representa ficcionalmente o Rio de Janeiro da Primeira República, tendo como referencial teórico A teoria do romance, de Georg Lukács. Busca-se aplicar ao herói Policarpo Quaresma dois conceitos elaborados nesta obra: o conceito de heroísmo problemático e o conceito de idealismo abstrato. Policarpo Quaresma será entendido, portanto, como um herói problemático, sujeito a um idealismo abstrato que o coloca em descompasso com a realidade concreta em que vive, o que lhe configura, perante as demais personagens do meio que o circunda, a imagem de um “visionário. Como, de acordo com Georg Lukács, o herói problemático, que se encontra em conflito com o seu mundo, surge com o romance na modernidade, este estudo visa ressaltar o caráter moderno da obra ficcional de Lima Barreto, buscando contribuir para sua reinserção no sistema literário brasileiro como obra própria, produção autônoma, para além do epíteto de pré-modernista.

Vagabundos e criminosos: o trabalho como mecanismo de poder e índice de criminalização no discurso jurídico-penal de reinserção social dos apenados

This study was a critical investigation of the configuration of discourse on work in the Brazilian criminal legal discourse. We problematized the discourse of an alleged reintegrative social function proposed by the criminal legal system and analyzed the role of such discourse in the core of disciplinary power strategies that impose on individuals the honest worker condition as a major criterion for their rehabilitation and return to society as citizens. This critique is our starting point to build the argument that discourse on work as it appears in current criminal legal texts operates more as a criminalization index of those who do not have a lawful occupation than a guarantee of legitimate social transit for convicts and recognition of their dignity. For this purpose, we used as corpus the main sources of Law, namely the Federal Constitution of 1988, the Penal Code, the Penal Execution Law, the Brazilian criminal doctrine and an extensive, more recent penal jurisprudence with regard to techniques of resocialization through work. This critical line enabled us to recognize complexity and plurality of discourses - antagonistic, at times - that build the world of work as portrayed in legal texts. We also sought reference in the discussion on the centrality of work as a formative category of the social being as well as theories that defend the non-centrality of work. Throughout our investigation, we sough to question the very condition of such centrality and to understand the ways in which it was possible to produce a legitimating discourse on work as a model of emancipatory social conduct defended and demanded by the Brazilian punitive system. In a context of precariousness, unemployment and flexibilization of the world of work in contemporary society, convicts hardly ever succeed to resume the identity of honest, hard-working citizens - and no longer offenders. In this context, we also questioned the formulation of a discourse that speaks about human labor as the essence of man and criticizes the Marxist vision that is based on work centrality, and we approached the concept of Michel Foucault, our theoretician of reference, who understands work more as a mechanism of power that promotes the individuals’ submission and adaptation to a goods-producing society than the natural activity of man. We ascribe our study to the field of questions that tackle the political conception of the body as subject to labor imposed as productive and political force. It is about the issue of political technology of individuals, a technology of power, as named by the French author. The intended analysis has not dismissed the material existence of labor relations but sought to discuss the validity of a discourse that considers work the main resource for convict rehabilitation and index for the recognition of dignity and honesty. The Foucauldian discourse analysis was the foundation for the investigation of our object, especially if we understand discourses as social practices with power to institute knowledge and produce truths.

Décentralisation et allocation des ressources : les détours de la municipalisation du système de santé brésilien

Dans cette thèse, nous avons analysé le déroulement d’un processus de municipalisation du système de santé, effectué au Rio Grande do Norte (RN), un des états fédérés du nord-est du Brésil. En tenant compte des contextes historiques d’implantation, nous avons centré notre attention sur la contribution des acteurs impliqués dans ce processus, spécialement dans l’allocation des ressources financières du système. Les croyances, perceptions, attentes, représentations, connaissances, intérêts, l’ensemble des facteurs qui contribuent à la constitution des capacités cognitives de ces acteurs, favorise la réflexivité sur leurs actions et la définition de stratégies diverses de façon à poursuivre leurs objectifs dans le système de santé. Ils sont vus ainsi comme des agents compétents et réflexifs, capables de s’approprier des propriétés structurelles du système de santé (règles et ressources), de façon à prendre position dans l’espace social de ce système pour favoriser le changement ou la permanence du statu quo. Au cours du processus de structuration du Système unique de santé brésilien, le SUS, la municipalisation a été l’axe le plus développé d’un projet de réforme de la santé. Face aux contraintes contextuelles et de la dynamique complexe des espaces sociaux de la santé, les acteurs réformistes n’ont pas pu suivre le chemin de l’utopie idéalisée; quelques détours ont été parcourus. Au RN, la municipalisation de la santé a constitué un processus très complexe où la triade centralisation/décentralisation/recentralisation a suivi son cours au milieu de négociations, de conflits, d’alliances, de disputes, de coopérations, de compétitions. Malgré les contraintes des contextes successifs, des propriétés structurelles du système et des dynamiques sociales dans le système de santé, quelques changements sont intervenus : la construction de leaderships collectifs; l’émergence d’une culture de négociation; la création des structures et des espaces sociaux du système, favorisant les rencontres des acteurs dans chaque municipalité et au niveau de l’état fédéré; un apprentissage collectif sur le processus de structuration du SUS; une grande croissance des services de première ligne permettant d’envisager une inversion de tendance du modèle de prestation des services; les premiers pas vers la rupture avec la culture bureaucratique du système. Le SUS reste prisonnier de quelques enjeux institutionnalisés dans ce système de santé : la dépendance du secteur privé et de quelques groupes de professionnels; le financement insuffisant et instable; la situation des ressources humaines. Les changements arrivés sont convergents, incrémentiels, lents; ils résultent d’actions normatives, délibérées, formalisées. Elles aussi sont issues de l’inattendu, de l’informel, du paradoxe; quelques-unes plus localisées, d’autres plus généralisées, pour une courte ou une plus longue durée.

Evolución de la Ley de Directrices y Bases de la Ley de Educación Nacional Law - nº 5.692/1971 la enfermería profesional en Brasil

A garantia da memória histórica do ensino em nível profissionalizante em enfermagem, na década de 1970, foi o objeto dessa investigação. Teve como objetivos descrever e analisar o contexto sócio-político e as circunstâncias históricas em que a Lei nº 5.692, de 12 de agosto de 1971, das Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional, foi promulgada, bem como discutir as mudanças e desdobramentos dessa no ensino profissionalizante em enfermagem. Trata-se de estudo descritivo, qualitativo, exploratório e de natureza histórico-social, com base em análise documental. Optou-se pela Micro-história para dar sustentação teórica à discussão dos resultados dessa investigação, pois a análise dos documentos históricos, sob o prisma de que, embora não seja possível enxergar a sociedade inteira a partir de um fragmento social, é possível enxergar algo da realidade social que envolve o fragmento humano examinado. A delimitação das fontes históricas do estudo compreende o Acervo do Arquivo Histórico da Associação Brasileira de Enfermagem - Seção São Paulo; o Acervo documental sobre a ABEn/SP, existente no Centro Histórico Cultural da Enfermagem Ibero-Americana da Escola de Enfermagem da USP e a Série Documenta do Ministério da Educação e Cultura. A partir dessa LDB nº 5.692/71, o ensino de Enfermagem foi totalmente integrado ao sistema nacional de Educação e sua promulgação ocorreu durante a Ditadura Militar e a ideologia do “milagre econômico”. De acordo com essa ideologia, o sistema educacional brasileiro deveria adequar-se ao modelo econômico desenvolvimentista, com treinamento de pessoal de nível técnico, visando aumentar e baratear os recursos humanos para o trabalho. A ABEn, como entidade representativa dos interesses políticos e ideológicos dos profissionais da área, liderava os debates sobre as questões da formação dos recursos humanos na enfermagem, sendo que na década de 70 mais da metade do contingente de enfermagem era majoritariamente sem formação específica. Também por conta dessa realidade, houve iniciativas governamentais para tentar reverter essa situação. Apesar das questões do ensino da enfermagem não se encontrarem explicitadas no texto da LDB nº 5.692/71, os resultados deste trabalho revelaram que a legislação estudada teve desdobramentos nas decisões políticas no âmbito do ensino profissionalizante e, consequentemente, impactou sobre a formação dos profissionais de enfermagem.

Diretrizes para o gerenciamento de riscos em contratos de obras públicas : estudo de caso da contratação integrada

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Tecnologia, Departamento de Engenharia Civil e Ambiental, 2015.

Sobreposição de coisa julgada: uma perspectiva no exterior e no Brasil em busca de uma solução adequada para o direito brasileiro

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Direito, Programa de Pòs-Graduação em Direito, 2015.

Espaços especiais em Natal (moradia e meio ambiente): um necessário diálogo entre direitos e espaços na perspectiva de proteção aos direitos fundamentais na cidade contemporânea

Some protected special spaces on behalf of fundamental rights to the environment and the housing at the city of Natal are fragile by facing actions and attempts to suppress and changing (or omission in the implementation) of standards in furtherance of those rights at the local level, which seems to reflect a situation that goes beyond the context of the city. Based on integrated approach of the housing rights and the environment and its protection of special spaces on the field of fundamental rights, the thesis seeks to understand the weaknesses that affect the legal state duty under the realization/implementation of fundamental rights to the environment and housing in cities, focusing on the issues of flexibility of the founding legislation of special spaces to the detriment of the attributes they protected and the lack of implementation of the legal system that allows their effectiveness. So, it looks initially to understand the environment and housing rights and their special protected areas in the brazilian legal system, looking forward the evolution of its legal protection, as well as the weaknesses that emerge in the field of their effectiveness. Analyzing the trajectory of the environment and housing rights and their special protected areas in Natal, considering its standards, attributes, protection indicators, weaknesses and negative evidence within its legal protections and their enforcement by state entity, this thesis proposes to verify the existence of forms to confronting the weaknesses founded in the maintenance of legal protection and its implementation. At this point it discusses the legal basis and safeguard instruments of protection, especially within the juridical field, as part of a (re)discussion about issues of legislative and administrative discretion in the face of objective legal state duty to realization/implementation of fundamental rights in the urban space. With all these issues together the thesis does not ignore the scenario where the dividing line between public and private (economic) are becoming ever more tenuous in the field of state action and where the city stands as a special commodity to the reproduction of real estate, according to the interests of capitalist logic

A emergência das minorias étnicas no Brasil : agendamento das políticas públicas para comunidades quilombolas

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciência Política, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência Política, 2014.

Discurso do ódio no Estado Democrático de Direito : o uso da liberdade de expressão como forma de violência

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Direito, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Direito, 2015.

Crimes de maio : estigmas e memórias da democracia das chacinas

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Centro de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação sobre as Américas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudos Comparados sobre as Américas, 2016.