Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores): political position from legislative speech, 1990-2014

• Grant number: 15/22988-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2016
• End date: April 30, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Political Behavior
• Principal Investigator: Pedro Feliú Ribeiro
• Grantee: Amanda Silva Mendes
• Host Institution: Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project aims to analyses PT members of parliament discourses between 1990 and 2014. Lula's presidential election in 2002 is a decisive period to compare the Workers Party's position in the government bench and the opposition bench. The specialized literature has already analyzed the changes in PT's position over time using roll call votes, manifesto data, survey and electoral campaign. The main contribution of this project is to address the same research problem using a different data: legislative discourses. This data allow us to capture substantive changes on the party's positions over time. We use the wordscores method, which allows a quantitative estimation of PT legislator's ideology. This method entails an analysis by theme, permitting the identification of original principles in which the party has maintained or not during the period of analysis.