QUE REGIME É ESTE? THE LEFT IN BRAZIL, CHILE AND VENEZUELA

There has been considerable debate on the left in Latin America. This paper argues that the distinction between lefts is symptomatic of a larger problematic distinction in academic literature, that of regime types. The author reviews typologies presented by Juan Linz, Larry Diamond, and Peter Smith and Melissa Ziegler, before offering an alternative typology. According to that typology, Chile is an embedded liberal democracy, Brazil is a semi-embedded managed republic, and Venezuela is a semi-embedded heavily managed republic. These distinctions help not only understand the different lefts within the countries but also their.É recorrente o debate sobre governos de esquerda na América Latina. O presente artigo argumenta que a distinção entre alguns regimes de esquerda na referida região é sintomática e passível de crítica na literatura acadêmica. Nesse sentido, o autor resgata as tipologias de Juan Linz, Larry Diamond e Peter Smith e Melissa Ziegler, bem como apresenta uma tipologia alternativa. Conforme essa tipologia, os governos de esquerda do Brasil, Chile e Venezuela podem ser caracterizados, respectivamente, como uma democracia liberal consolidada, uma república ligeiramente "administrada" semi-consolidada e uma república excessivamente "administrada" semi-consolidada. A análise dos governos desses países ajuda-nos não somente a entender a lógica dos regimes de esquerda, mas, também, a distinção entre eles

China and Brazil: Potential Allies or Just BRICs in the Wall?

Brazil is an increasingly important actor in global governance and for China specifically. Sino-Brazilian relations have deepened considerably but they remain concentrated in areas of trade and investment. There is also considerable overlap in interests between the two countries in other areas, such as diplomatic and political relations. At the same time, China must manage carefully important differences that exist over the enlargement of the UN and the potential challenge to the Brazilian industry

Why Brazil has not Grown: A Comparative Analysis of Brazilian, Indian, and Chinese Economic Management

This paper does not aim to dispute that Brazil would benefit from reforms in any or all of these areas. Rather, the paper offers a skeptical perspective on reform menus and proposes an alternative explanation for the faster growth of Brazil’s peers India and China2. The paper begins by introducing (section 1) the idea of the BRICs countries, to establish the basis for comparisons of most similar cases. It then surveys the results of a generation of Washington Consensus era growth (section 2). Although there is a considerable amount of divergence over what causes growth, it seems that something approaching a consensus holds that universally applicable holistic reform programs have been largely discredited by economic performance in developing countries over the last two decades. Section 3 argues that post-Keynesian approaches, which focus on the maintenance of monetary and fiscal policy autonomy, offer a compelling explanation for the difference in growth results of Brazil, India, and China. That is, the inflation targeting system in Brazil has failed to adequately control inflation and contributed to slow start-stop growth while the more managed approaches favored by China and India have done the reverse

South-South relations and the English School of International Relations: Chinese and Brazilian ideas and involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa

The rise of large developing countries has led to considerable discussions of re-balancing global relations and giving greater priority to understanding South-South relations. This paper, in exploring the central ideas of Chinese and Brazilian foreign policy and the behavior of these two rising Southern countries toward Sub-Saharan Africa, argues that the English School of International Relations is well suited to understanding the intentions and actions that characterize South-South relations

Elections and Economic Turbulence in Brazil: Candidates, Voters, and Investors

The relation between elections and the economy in Latin America might be understood by considering the agency of candidates and the issue of policy preference congruence between investors and voters. The preference congruence model proposed in this article highlights political risk in emerging markets. Certain risk features increase the role of candidate campaign rhetoric and investor preferences in elections. When politicians propose policies that can appease voters and investors, elections may have a limited effect on economic indicators, such as inflation. But when voter and investor priorities differ significantly, deterioration of economic indicators is more likely. Moreover, voter and investor congruence is more likely before stabilization, when an inverted Philips curve exists, as opposed to following stabilization, when a more traditional Philips curve emerges

Speak Clearly and Carry a Big Stock of Dollar Reserves: Sovereign Risk, Ideology, and Presidential Elections in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela

Partisan theories of political economy expect that bondholders will panic with the election of a left-wing presidential candidate. The latter seems to be what happened in Brazil in the 2002 presidential elections. However, quantitative analysis of perceptions of sovereign credit risk in Argentine, Brazilian, Mexican, and Venezuelan presidential elections from 1994 until 2007 shows no real evidence of a link between partisanship and perceptions of risk, even if the left-right divide is further broken down into left, center-left, center-right, right. Instead, international and domestic economic fundamentals have a stronger influence on risk evaluations. Qualitative analysis of the individual presidential elections shows the importance of policy uncertainty in explaining why certain electoral periods seemed more critical than others and how bondholders select between multiple equilibria. This research helps shift political analysis away from partisanship and more in the direction of policies and articulation

Bonds, Stocks or Dollars? Do Voters Care About Capital Markets in Brazil and Mexico

How does vote intention in presidential elections vary according to the economic conditions of a country, especially indicators of the financial market? Does the state of the economy, both its fundamentals as well as capital market, affect variation in candidates’ percentage of vote intention in national polls? This paper tests how economic indicators influence vote intention in presidential elections in two emerging markets: Brazil and Mexico. The presidential elections of 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2006 in Brazil and 2000 and 2006 in Mexico are analyzed using all poll returns for each electoral period and corresponding economic data. The paper finds that no theory is capable of explaining results throughout the dataset but partisan explanations and Stokes’ (2001) categories of alternatives to retrospective voting help elucidate vote intention