Multilevel party organization: Brazil and Western Europe in comparative perspective

Abstract

In the literature on political parties, a growing trend proposes to study parties that operate in countries with federal or devolved systems of government, focusing on those that participate in the political scene over the entire territory, in both national and regional elections. The way these state-wide parties coordinate their actions across local, regional and national levels has important consequences for the functioning of federalism, the behavior of the electorate, and the quality of democracy. In Brazil, the major parties have adopted traditional federative forms of organization, with considerable levels of autonomy granted to state party branches (the only exception was the PT). The main purpose of the project is to evaluate the internal relations of party organizations in Brazil, among national, state and local party branches, i.e.: the impact of Brazilian federalism in the formation of multilevel organizations. The specific objectives are: a) discussion of the Brazilian case in the light of the coding scheme developed by Elodie Fabre; b) testing theories of multilevel party organization (hierarchy, delegation, stratarchy, franchise) with the Brazilian case; c) comparing the Brazilian case to European countries; d) redaction of a co-authored paper, with a comparative approach; e) dissemination of the research currently carried out by the applicants, and discussion of the Brazilian experience in events at UFSCar and OUB; f) promotion of PG student mobility between UFSCar and OUB, around research areas of common interest; g) development of a broader collaborative project to be submitted to ESRC (RCUK-FAPESP MoU). (AU)