Filiados e participação de alta intensidade nos partidos brasileiros: abrindo a caixa preta

Abstract

This research challenges the traditional academic view that there is no internal life within Brazilian political parties. As an alternative, it proposes a more nuanced argument, focusing on party membership as a measure of social rootedness, it evaluates the amount of time party members dedicate each month to their party's organizational activities. Based on an original survey of members and leaders from the twenty-five largest and most traditional parties in Brazil’s party system, this study applies the General Incentives Model (GIM) to analyze the role of three dimensions that remain underexplored in literature: the attitudinal, the value-based, and the chronological. The findings initially show that high-intensity participation is associated with access to material resources, the valorization of collective and procedural incentives, and a sense of political influence—factors that make up its attitudinal foundation. The study also shows that values influence this pattern of engagement: members of left-wing parties are more likely to exhibit high-intensity affiliation. However, when there is a mismatch between a member’s ideological position and their party, a significant drop in activism is observed. Finally, the chronological dimension also proves to be relevant. High-intensity affiliation is more common among young adults in transitional life-cycle stages—such as entering the labor market or starting a family— and among individuals socialized in more recent democratic contexts, for whom political activism serves as a probationary stage for entering politics and advancement within the party. These findings challenge the widespread notion that Brazilian political parties function solely as electoral machines without activism. A consistent pattern of activism among party members is observed, driven by a combination of these factors. By demonstrating that grassroots activism is both significant and shaped by these factors, this dissertation contributes to repositioning the study of political parties in Brazil and advances our understanding of the dynamics that sustain—or constrain—their internal functioning.