Abstract

SANTOS, Fabiano  and  MARTINS BARBOSA, Leonardo. The worker’s party in Brazil and the defensive integration. Rev. Urug. Cienc. Polít. [online]. 2019, vol.28, n.2, pp.117-142.  Epub Dec 01, 2019. ISSN 0797-9789.  https://doi.org/10.26851/rucp.28.2.5.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the competition between the Worker’s Party (pt) and the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (psdb) in Brazil, from a critical perspective towards the electoral model of Anthony Downs (1957). The polarized competition between these two parties for the presidential chair between 1994 and 2014 was for a long time considered a central key of the Brazilian party system. From a theoretical perspective, we argue that the labor origin of pt conditions and distinguishes its insertion in the political system, and as such, it is expected of pt to have faced obstacles inexistent to parties of equal centrality in the political system. As a result, we argue that an unequal pattern of competition was established in the country, affecting both when pt was the ruling party and when it was the oppositionist one.

Keywords : party competition; party systems; political parties; Brazilian politics.

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