From the European social democracy to the Brazilian Partido dos Trabalhadores: political parties, democratization, and instability

• Grant number: 23/06803-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• End date: July 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Political Theory
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Severino Nobre
• Grantee: Leonardo Martins Barbosa
• Supervisor: Amel Ahmed
• Host Institution: Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass Amherst), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/04486-1 - Social democracy and democratic stability: a case study of the SPD (1919-1933) and of the PT (1988-2016), BP.PD

Abstract

This project is aimed at presenting my plan of work for an internship at the Political Science Department of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as well as justifying its pertinence to my ongoing postdoctoral research. In my current work, I investigate the integration of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) and draw parallels with the early European social democratic experience, with the main objective of better understanding the development of the Brazilian democracy, as well as its fallouts and instability. Instead of analyzing this object in the regularly employed framework of party system models, I apply a historical analytical approach as a strategy to understand the long-term developments that shape political conflict, even when leftist parties resort to moderate programs. In this project I argue that deepening my training in the field of democratization studies and in historical analytical methods at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, will greatly contribute to consolidate my theoretical-methodological framework. Moreover, the supervision of Professor Amel Ahmed will be of great value, as she is a specialist on these themes and shares an academic interest in key topics of my research, including on the concepts of political parties. Finally, I also intend to present and discuss research outputs of my investigation concerning the Brazilian process of democratization, seizing the opportunity to draw comparisons with that of other countries. (AU)