Coesão partidária no nível municipal: um estudo a partir dos vereadores mineiros

Abstract

My goal with this research is to analyze the party cohesion among municipal legislature members from a sample of councilmen of the state of Minas Gerais. I verify if exists cohesion or dispersion between councilmen of the same party analyzing their opinions, attitudes and behaviors around four political dimensions: ideological self-classification; importance attached to political parties; opinions concerning the role of the State and the market; and controversial issues present in the Brazilian public agenda. The general hypothesis is that, contrary to what is commonly supposed, parties matter in order to structure the councilmen’s perceptions, attitudes and behaviors. It is possible to find differences between councilmen from different parties and cohesion between councilmen of the same party. Subsequent hypothesis are that the degree of cohesion varies according to the ideological field, the size of the municipalities and the councilmen’s time of involvement with the party. So, I consider that contextual, organizational and individual factors impact the degree of cohesion. In this sense, I hoped to find a greater degree of cohesion among councilmen of left-wing parties, among the ones which are long time affiliated with their parties and among the ones which are linked to the medium and large municipalities. It is a descriptive and exploratory study developed study developed from data obtained from a survey conducted with 422 councilmen from 44 municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais, elected in 2012 for the 2013-2016 legislature.