Authors meet Critics: Partisans, Anti-Partisans and Non-Partisans: Voting Behavior in Brazil

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

The unique combination of an extremely fragmented party system and a bi-polar presidential dispute has been the defining feature of Brazilian politics for the last 25 years. While many authors have studied the institutional roots of this surprising outcome, the behavioral roots of Brazil’s recent political experience have remained understudied, despite increased public polarization and mounting evidence of partisan behavior among voters. David Samuels and Cesar Zucco’s new book (“Partisans, Anti-Partisans and Non-Partisans: Voting Behavior in Brazil”, Cambridge University Press, 2018) fills this important gap. They highlight how the development of positive and negative attitudes towards the Workers’ Party (PT) helped to shape how Brazilians vote, and provide an array of observational and experimental evidence to make a compelling case for their novel argument.
This panel brings the authors together with four leading experts on the topic of parties and voting behavior in Brazil to discuss the findings of the book and the new research agenda it promotes. In light of Brazil’s most recent election results, the panel also explores the degree to which the trends unveiled in the book will persist or change.

Sub Track

• Political Institutions and Processes

Session Organizer

• Fernando Augusto B Neto, Harvard University

Chair

• Fernando Augusto B Neto, Harvard University

Presenters

• David J Samuels, University of Minnesota

• Argelina C Figueiredo, IESP- Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ)

• Scott P Mainwaring, Harvard

• Noam Lupu, Vanderbilt University