This article explores the causes and consequences of extreme non-viable candidacies, also known as “ laranja ” (orange) candidacies in the Brazilian political lore. We first define and delineate what makes a candidate a laranja, engaging the comparative literature on sacrificial lambs and using district-level electoral results to operationalize the concept. We then advance a typology of laranjas with four ideal types that vary along dimensions of legality and intentionality. Next, we apply descriptive statistics and a hierarchical logistic regression model to explore the individual, party, and district-level characteristics of extreme non-viable candidates and assess whether and how laranjas are distinct from non- laranjas. Finally, we illustrate the gendered character of laranjas, documenting how the candidate gender quota law in Brazil has been associated with a proliferation of candidatas laranjas (women extreme non-viable candidates).
No abstract
Established in 2003, the Frente Parlamentar Evangélica no Congresso Nacional (National Evangelical Front in the National Congress) unites evangelical members of the Brazilian National Congress to pursue political agendas informed by their shared religious beliefs, as opposed to traditional party affiliation or political coalition. The rise in power and influence of the Evangelical Caucus is related to the transformation of Brazilian society from centuries of Catholic dominance to an early 21st century where around one-quarter of the population identifies as evangelical. Even though this group is known for its heterogeneity, as the Evangelical Caucus continues to increase in numbers and influence, the group may be able to better influence policymaking related to morality politics and views shared among evangelical Christian voters.
Dilma Rousseff's presidency ended in controversial form. The first woman elected to the position in Brazil, Rousseff's 2016 impeachment was seen as a coup by her supporters and as a necessary step for democracy by her detractors. With the Brazilian economy facing its worst recession in history and the Car Wash corruption scandal ravaging the political class, critics continually raised questions about Rousseff's leadership style and abilities. This article analyzes how this criticism in part can be attributed to gendered subjective understandings of preferred leadership traits. Using a thematic analysis of interviews with political actors in five different Brazilian states conducted in 2017 and 2018, we demonstrate that gender stereotypes and sexism fueled criticisms about women's political leadership. While Rousseff's presidency was riddled with problems, the president's leadership style and abilities were scrutinized in distinct gendered ways, indicating a gendered double bind and a backlash against women in politics.
Since transitioning to democracy in the 1970s and 1980s, Latin American countries have experienced a rise in the presence of women in the formal political process. This phenomenon has been uneven throughout the region and throughout different political institutions. As more women have entered the political arena, the literature on women's representation in Latin America has expanded considerably. Works range from in-depth case studies to cross-national analyses, vary widely in terms of methodological approaches, and have contributed to the theoretical and empirical development of a dynamic literature on women's representation in comparative perspective. Leslie Schwindt-Bayer's edited book serves three important purposes. First, it directly connects the literature on women's representation with the literature on democracy, political parties, and political institutions. Second, it provides a detailed account of the state of literature on women's representation in the region, focusing on specific themes, as well as providing case studies of seven Latin American countries. Third, with a number of chapters bringing new data and new empirical analyses, this book provides fresh perspectives on research questions surrounding the women's representation literature in Latin America. While each chapter provides its own nuanced approach to understanding representation, they all (implicitly or explicitly) contend that "gender inequality in political representation in Latin America is rooted in institutions and the democratic challenges and political crises facing Latin American countries" (2). By connecting the growing literature on women's representation with more recent representational issues experienced in Latin America, the authors provide analyses that contribute not only to the gender and politics literature but also to the literature on democratic representation. Using arenas of representation to highlight the importance of institutions and politics in the regional context (8), part 1 provides a general overview of how women's presence in formal politics varies across the region. Chapters 2 (Catherine Reyes-Housholder and Gwynn Thomas) and 3 (Michelle Taylor-Robinson and Meredith Gleitz) center on women in the national executive. Latin American presidencies have been extensively researched, but a limited number of such works focus on how gender dynamics influence the election and nomination of executive leaders or their influence on policy priorities. This is problematic, since, as the authors of chapter 2 claim, "Men's historical dominance of presidential power shaped societal expectations surrounding presidential leadership as well as the institution of presidency itself" (21). No woman was democratically elected to the position in the region before 1990, and since then, women have been elected a total of nine times in the region (20). While encouraging, these numbers show how the presidency is one of the most male-dominated spaces in Latin American politics. The underrepresentation of women as presidents is replicat...
Coalitional presidentialism is a power-sharing strategy deployed in multiparty presidentialist democracies that entails the distribution of cabinet positions to coalition partners to facilitate governability. This model of governance is increasingly common worldwide, gaining growing scholarly interest. The consequences of coalitional presidentialism for women’s cabinet representation, however, have received scant attention. In this article, we provide a gendered analysis of the Brazilian experience with coalitional presidentialism. Through the quantitative analysis of an original dataset of all ministerial appointments ( N = 597) under eight Brazilian presidents (1985–2019) and a descriptive assessment of the coalitional dynamics during that period, we evaluate the Brazilian experience with coalitional presidentialism through the lens of Feminist Institutionalism. We show that coalitional presidentialism restricts women's access to cabinet seats, with the demands of multiparty coalition formation and management often overriding presidential considerations about descriptive representation, and coalition parties rarely advancing women to fill portfolios allocated to them by the president.
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