The unveiled oligarchy: Organization and structure of brazilian political parties

Abstract

This article focuses on the organization and internal structure of Brazilian political parties, based on a traditional institutionalist approach, seeking to understand how a specific set of rules (party statutes) can affect the community of actors (parties, party leaders, those affiliated) and the relationships between these groups. The intention of this study, from a normogenetic perspective, is first to identify how Brazilian political parties are organized and internally structured. After that, we sought to verify the organizational or structural elements that configure different types of party behavior, such as certain oligarchic characteristics in the Brazilian political parties, in contrast to what the classic references in the literature on political parties affirm. It is a documentary research, exploratory and comparative in nature. We constructed quantitative operational indexes when necessary. Among the main findings is the identification of how facilitators of the process of oligarchy were inscribed in the norms instituted by the parties themselves and, once embedded in the statutes, became propellers of oligarchy and institutionalized it. Also pointed out, in the conclusions, are several common elements in party norms that underline the process of power concentration in the parties, called oligarchic markers.