Political Science

A project comparing Brazil and India on the development of state capacity to tax in developing countries.

From Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche and Aaron Schneider.

A comparative project on intergovernmental relations in federal countries.

From Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche.

Cooperation project between the Center for Metropolitan Studies and the University of Edinburgh on policies to reduce territorial inequalities and the political perceptions on inequalities among different jurisdictions.

Researchers involved

The project aims at comparing governance strategies in large metropolitan areas around the world, both in developing and developed countries. It aims at depicting financing strategies and their outcomes.

From Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche.

A multidisciplinary project concerned with explaining the effects that mechanisms that produce access to jobs, public policies and sociability have on poverty and urban inequalities.

Researchers involved

Comparative research involving researchers from the EUA, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Belgium, India, South Africa, Czech Republic, Canada and Brazil on coordination mechanisms for public service management in metropolitan areas and their egalitarian effects.

From Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche e Edgard Fusaro.

The project studies the mechanisms that affect the capacity of the Brazilian state to provide social services as well as the effectiveness of social policies. Particularly, the project examines the impact of federal intervention on the agenda of subnational governments and also the impact of the subnational governments’ political autonomy and the regional disparities on inequality of public policy provision.

Researchers involved

Three main questions guide this research project with the objective of verifying if increases in specific spending categories can be observed before elections whereas other types of spending are reduced by governors in Argentinean provinces and in Brazilian states. The first one asks if since the democratization elections have served as a stimulus to change the composition of spending by governments in Argentinean provinces and in Brazilian states. Secondly, are governor elections in the immediate aftermath of the democratic transition more prone to provoke sudden changes in budget allocations to specific types of spending, again in the provinces and the states? Finally, what is the impact of federalism on the fiscal behavior of Argentinean provinces and Brazilian states in election years? In order to answer these questions, this project will explore how the elections for governor influenced the composition of spending in Argentinean provinces and states in Brazil from the beginning of democratization through to 2009.

From Lorena Guadalupe Barberia e George Avelino Filho.

This project aims to analyze the possibilities of south-American regional integration with a focus on the main domestic institutional obstacles. The investigation observes national features and other aspects of countries and their influence on the process of regional integration. The domestic institutional design of five countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela) is analyzed, in particular executive-legislative relations and the influence of the main interest groups on the decision-making process of foreign policy issues. The comparative analysis of this information will produce an assessment of the level of impact that these institutional relations have on the advancement of a South American integration proposal.

From Janina Onuki.

The objective of this project is to observe whether there is change or rather continuity in the patterns of trade policy by adopting a comparative perspective and focusing on the main aspects of the institutional field. The main puzzle is to explain how two countries (Brazil and Argentina) with similar economic models at some point and facing analogous changes from the world economic scenario, ended up with such distinct trajectories in terms of trade policy. The investigation covers the 1990-2005 period and it adopts a qualitative methodology by building a panel of the main foreign policy approaches in the field of trading and analyzing three levels of decision-making: inter-bureaucratic, legislative dynamics and Executive-Legislative relations.

From Janina Onuki.