Electoral campaign contributions: an obstacle to health-related sugary drinks regulation in Brazil? The case of the Chamber of Deputies

Objective: To assess corporate electoral campaign contributions from industries related to sugary drinks production and the characteristics of the elected officials financed by the sector. Design: Cross-sectional analysis of electoral campaign contributions from corporations related to sugary drinks production (sugary drink industries and sugary drink input industries) to candidates to the Chamber of Deputies, Brazil. Setting: Elections to the 55th Congress (2015-2019), held in October 2014. Participants: Candidates to the Chamber of Deputies, Brazil. Results: Forty-nine companies or corporate groups that produce sugary drinks and 52 corporations that produce inputs for sugary drinks manufacturing contributed to electoral campaigns of candidates in the 2014 Election. Contributions from this industry sector represented 7.3% of all corporate contributions and helped finance 11.7% of the candidates and 46.2% of the elected officials. The transnationals Ambev and Coca-Cola were the first and second biggest donors, respectively. Revenues mediated by political parties, from sugary drink industries, and from corporate members of some industry associations (Abir, Unica and CitrusBR) were more prevalent. Among elected officials, a significant association was found between being financed by the sector and representing the Southeast region, having higher education level and referring themselves as being professional politicians. In the multivariate model, financed candidates were 27% more likely to be elected. Conclusions: Corporations related to sugary drinks production have contributed to the electoral campaigns of almost half of the Federal Deputies in Brazil in 2014. This possibly facilitates access to decision-makers and could help buy influence on legislative proposals, including health-related food policies.

Conclusion

This chapter explores the scope and limits of the book’s central claims, extending the argument to other circumstances and norms and describing cases that do not fit the theory. The chapter examines the recent variation between the United States and Europe on the question of torture. The human rights picture in Europe has improved over the past few decades in part because European institutions have been clearer than the United States about prohibiting cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, eliminating the antitorture norm’s specificity problem, and preventing a slippery slope that so often ends with torture. Finally, the chapter broadens the argument by demonstrating how the pervasive belief that autocrats have an edge over rule-bound democracies has tempted certain elected officials to chip away at their own liberal-democratic institutions.

Exploring Municipal Mobilization across States

This chapter zooms out to examine the state-level features that are associated with differences in the intensity of local government lobbying. Several state characteristics correlate with municipal lobbying, such as local property tax limitations, but two of the most striking are the combination of term limits and the level of professionalization in the state legislature. Cities are also more likely to mobilize as state transfers comprise a greater share of municipal budgets. These findings suggest that lobbyists might be particularly useful at facilitating representation in complex legislative environments with high turnover among elected officials—especially when cities depend on the state for revenue.

Debating Democracy

Around the world, faith in democracy is falling. Partisanship and mutual distrust are increasing. What, if anything, should we do about these problems? In this accessible work, leading philosophers Jason Brennan and Hélène Landemore debate whether the solution lies in having less democracy or more. Brennan argues that democracy has systematic flaws, and that democracy does not and cannot work the way most of us commonly assume. He argues the best solution is to limit democracy’s scope and to experiment with certain voting systems that can overcome democracy’s problems. Landemore argues that democracy’s virtues, which stem, at an ideal level, from its inclusiveness and egalitarian distribution of power, are not properly manifested in the historical regime form that we call “representative democracy.” Whereas representative democracy centers on an oligarchic form of representation by elected officials, Landemore defends a more authentic paradigm of popular rule—open democracy—in which legislative power is open to all on an equal basis, including via lottery-based mechanisms.

Do constituents know (or care) about the lawmaking effectiveness of their representatives?

Substantial evidence exists that members of the US Congress vary in their lawmaking effectiveness. Less known, however, is whether constituents are sufficiently informed and inclined to hold their representatives accountable, based on their effectiveness. We conduct two separate survey experiments, informing some constituents about lawmakers' effectiveness and comparing their responses to those with the baseline level of information. We find that voters demonstrate little knowledge of their elected officials' lawmaking effectiveness. When presented with objective and credible information about lawmaking effectiveness, however, respondents express greater approval of more effective lawmakers. Effects are strongest among ideological moderates, but are even pronounced among partisans, who approve of effective representatives of the opposing party, and disapprove of ineffective representatives from their own party.

Examining the Effect of Perceived Responsibility on Online Bystander Intervention, Target Hardening, and Inaction

Failure to take responsibility for intervening has been identified as a primary barrier to bystander intervention. Building on these findings, we examine how perceptions of responsibility affect responses to witnessing victimization in the online realm—a topic that has received limited attention. Using a maximum-likelihood selection model, we analyze data from the Pew American Trends Panel ( N = 3709) to estimate the effects of respondents’ perceptions of the role different groups should play in addressing online harassment on their likelihood to engage in intervention, target hardening, or inaction in response to witnessing online harassment, conditioned upon their likelihood of having witnessed such behavior. Findings indicate that the greater role respondents believe online users should have in addressing online harassment, the more likely they are to intervene. ( b = .310). The greater role respondents believe law enforcement or elected officials should have in addressing online harassment, the less likely they are to intervene ( b = −.135 and −.072, respectively). These findings have implications for future efforts to curb online harassment through users’ crime prevention efforts.

PTPARL-D: an annotated corpus of forty-four years of Portuguese parliamentary debates

In a representative democracy, some decide in the name of the rest. These elected officials are commonly gathered in public assemblies, such as parliaments, where they discuss policies, legislate, and vote on fundamental initiatives. A core aspect of such democratic processes are the plenary debates, where important public discussions take place. Many parliaments around the world are increasingly keeping the transcripts of such debates and other parliamentary data in digital formats that are accessible to the public. This is meant to increase transparency and accountability, but these records are often only provided as raw text or even as images, with little, if any, annotation and in inconsistent formats, making them difficult to analyse. Here, we present ptarl-d, an annotated corpus of debates in the Portuguese Parliament, covering the years 1976 to 2019 and representing the entire period of Portuguese democracy.

Children’s participation, local policy and the digital environment: Visions and uses among Spanish municipalities

Children's policies at the local level stimulate initiatives in the municipalities to encourage child participation. In this article, we focus on the local political sphere as a space for the promotion of child participation and citizenship through digital mediation. It is in this immediate environment where the rights of children and adolescents are exercised and promoted. The study aims to analyse the contributions perceived by municipal leaders (elected officials and technical figures) of the digital environment and the uses they make of it to promote children’s participation in the municipality. This study is part of a national project that includes as collaborating entities the International Association of Educating Cities (IACE) and Child Friendly Cities (CAI-Unicef). 279 subjects (191 technical figures and 88 elected officials) from 179 Spanish municipalities associated members of IACE and/or CAI. Data were collected in 2020. Two ad hoc designed questionnaires were applied. Two of the most significant results of the study are: (a) the finding of the variable that establishes differences between those technical figures that mediate children’s participation with technological environments and those that do not; (b) the use made of the digital environment as an interactive space for informational purposes. It concludes on the need to rethink the digital environment as a participatory area and increasing the use of technology in support of children’s citizenship. Las políticas de infancia a nivel local dinamizan en los municipios iniciativas para impulsar la participación infantil. En este artículo nos centramos en la política local como espacio promotor de participación y ciudadanía infantil a través de la mediación digital ya que es, en ese entorno inmediato, donde los derechos de la infancia y la adolescencia se ejercitan y se promueven. El estudio persigue analizar qué aportaciones perciben los referentes municipales (cargos electos y figuras técnicas) del entorno digital y qué usos hacen de él para impulsar la participación infantil en el municipio. Este estudio forma parte de un proyecto nacional que cuenta como entidades colaboradoras a la Asociación Internacional de Ciudades Educadoras (AICE) y Ciudades Amigas de la Infancia (CAI-Unicef). Han participado en él 279 sujetos (191 figuras técnicas y 88 cargos electos) procedentes de 179 municipios españoles asociados a AICE y/o CAI. Los datos fueron recabados en 2020. Se aplicaron dos cuestionarios diseñados ad hoc. Dos de los resultados más significativos del estudio son: a) el hallazgo de la variable que establece diferencias entre aquellas figuras técnicas que median la participación infantil con entornos tecnológicos y con las que no lo hacen; b) el uso que se hace del entorno digital como espacio interactivo con fines informativos. Se concluye en la necesidad de repensar el entorno digital como un espacio participativo e incrementar el uso de la tecnología al servicio de la ciudadanía infantil.