Intra-party democracy index: a measure model from Brazil
| Autor | Eneida Desiree Salgado |
| Cargo | Professor of Constitutional Law and Electoral Law at the Federal University of Paraná (Curitiba-PR, Brazil). Eneida Desiree Salgado earned her Ph.D. in Public Law from the Federal University of Paraná; her thesis focused on demonstrating the constitutional foundations of Brazilian Election Law |
| Páginas | 107-136 |
Licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons
Licensed under Creative Commons
Intra-party democracy index: a measure model from Brazil
Índice de democracia intrapartidária: um
modelo de medição desde o Brasil
ENEIDA DESIREE SALGADO I, *
I Universidade Federal do Paraná (Curitiba, Paraná, Brasil)
desisalg@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0573-5033
Recebido/Received: : 27.05.2020 / May 27th, 2020
Aprovado/Approved: 16.08.2020 / August 16th, 2020
Revista de Investigações Constitucionais
ISSN 2359-5639
DOI: 10.5380/rinc.v7i1.74101
Rev. Investig. Const., Curitiba, vol. 7, n. 1, p. 107-136, jan./abr. 2020. 107
Como citar esse artigo/How to cite this article: SALGADO, Eneida Desiree. Intra-party democracy index: a measure model from
Brazil. Revista de Investigações Constitucionais, Curitiba, vol. 7, n. 1, p. 107-136, jan./abr. 2020. DOI: 10.5380/rinc.v7i1.74101.
* Professor of Constitutional Law and Electoral Law at the Federal University of Paraná (Curitiba-PR, Brazil). Eneida Desiree Salga-
do earned her Ph.D. in Public Law from the Federal University of Paraná; her thesis focused on demonstrating the constitutional
foundations of Brazilian Election Law. Her Master Degree in the same University concentrated in the constituent process and
the democratic project. Dr. Salgado worked on the Electoral Court from 1995 to 2008 and has been a Constitutional Law and
Election Law Professor at the Federal University of Paraná since 2008. She performed postdoctorate research on the National
Autonomous University of Mexico, working on electoral integrity and election authorities; another postdoctorate research was
on Political Science Program on the Federal University of Paraná, creating an intraparty democracy index. She has writings about
political reforms, access to information, transparency and social control, gender quotes, judicial activism, fundamental rights,
constitutional amendments, democratic theory, political parties, and electoral systems. Dr. Salgado is currently Constitutional
Law and Election Law Professor at the Federal University of Paraná, leader of the Constitutional Research Center and coordinator
of Politics from/by/for Women Project. She is a Visiting Scholar at the Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD),
University of California, Irvine. E-mail: desisalg@gmail.com.
Abstract
Political parties are, by constitutional force, essential
to Brazilian democracy, and equally necessary for the
composition and functioning of republican institutions.
The 1988 Brazilian Constitution also determines, from a
systemic reading, that political parties should be inter-
nally democratic. Thus, the present work seeks to de-
velop an intra-party democracy index from the Brazilian
experience, considering the elds of Political Science
and Electoral Law. The methodology used consisted in
the analysis of the statutes of the political parties regis-
tered in Brazil until 2018, based on a series of variables,
developed from the constitutional and legal norms and
principles applicable to the parties, by the reading of the
Resumo
Os partidos políticos são, por força constitucional, essen-
ciais à democracia brasileira, sendo igualmente necessá-
rios para a composição e funcionamento das instituições
republicanas. A Constituição de 1988 determina, a partir
de leitura sistêmica, que os partidos políticos sejam inter-
namente democráticos. O presente trabalho busca desen-
volver um índice de democracia interna intrapartidário
a partir da experiência brasileira, a partir dos campos da
Ciência Política e do Direito Eleitoral. A metodologia utiliza-
da consistiu na análise dos estatutos dos partidos políticos
existentes no Brasil até 2018, a partir de uma série de va-
riáveis, desenvolvidas a partir das normas e princípios cons-
titucionais e legais aplicáveis aos partidos, examinadas a
ENEIDA DESIREE SALGADO
Rev. Investig. Const., Curitiba, vol. 7, n. 1, p. 107-136, jan./abr. 2020.
108
CONTENTS
1. Introduction: Partisan Democracy and democracy within parties; 2. The model for measuring intra-
-party democracy; 3. The degree of internal democracy of Brazilian political parties; 4. Conclusion: the
low degree of democracy in Brazilian parties; 5. References.
1. INTRODUCTION: PARTISAN DEMOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY
WITHIN PARTIES
Democracy has not always been representative and representative democracy
has not always been associated with political parties. After the spread of universal su-
rage on the Western World, representation became an essential mechanism for ma-
naging the participation of individuals in the democratic politics. Although there is no
ontological connection between the idea of democracy and the existence of political
parties, the increasing professionalization of politics during the 20th century has been
accompanied by a tendency to monopolize the presentation of candidates through
political parties. As a result, the key to representation, a fundamental part of contempo-
rary democracies, lies within the partisan dominion. The link between representation
and partisan aliation, which endured for more than half of the 20th century and was
absolutely consistent with the prominence of partisan associations as promoters of po-
litical awareness and public debate, can still be observed today, despite the rivalry of
social movements and the low ability of political parties to aggregate supporters and
channel social interests.
In Brazil, political parties are favoured by the Constitution with a very particular
legal regime. For instance, the Constitution indicates partisan aliation as a condition
specialized literature, which were translated into ques-
tions, whose respective answers were transformed into
data, presented as tables, which present the degrees of
internal democracy of the Brazilian political parties. The
results obtained indicate a low level of internal democ-
racy in the parties, with little use of democratic mecha-
nisms for their organization and decision-making. The in-
vestigation demonstrated the need to extend the study
to concrete party practices, as well as research on how to
make the functioning of parties more plural, which was
not the subject of the investigation. It is concluded that
even after the Brazilian re-democratization, political par-
ties use oligarchic practices, incompatible with the Brazil-
ian Constitution and with the democratic principle itself.
Keywords: political parties; internal organization of po-
litical parties; Brazilian Electoral Law; statutes of political
parties; intra-party democracy.
partir da literatura especializada, traduzidas em pergun-
tas, cujas respectivas respostas foram transformadas em
dados, apresentados a partir de tabelas, as quais apre-
sentam os graus de democracia interna dos partidos polí-
ticos brasileiros. Os resultados obtidos indicam um baixo
nível de democracia interna nos partidos, com pouco uso
de mecanismos democráticos para sua organização e
tomada de decisões. A investigação demonstrou a neces-
sidade de extensão do estudo para as práticas partidárias
concretas, bem como a pesquisa acerca de como tornar
mais plural o funcionamento dos partidos, o que não foi
objeto da investigação. Conclui-se que mesmo após a re-
democratização brasileira os partidos políticos se utilizam
de práticas oligárquicas, em descompasso com a consti-
tuição brasileira e com o próprio princípio democrático.
Palavras-chave: partidos políticos; organização interna
de partidos políticos; sistema eleitoral brasileiro; estatutos
de partidos políticos; democracia intrapartidária.
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