Non-partisan initiatives and political renewal in Brazil

Amidst high levels of distrust in political parties and established elites, a number of non-partisan organizations with the aim of promoting political renewal and increasing the representation of politically marginalized groups—such as women and Afro-Brazilians—have emerged in Brazil. These initiatives offer a range of services—from training and mentorship to financial resources and psychological support—and tend to attract prospective candidates with no previous connections to political parties, social capital, or networks. In some ways, these initiatives challenge the highly fragmented, yet stable, party system. In the 2020 municipal elections, at least 100 of these initiatives prepared candidates for the electoral process. But in a country that prohibits independent candidacies, can candidate support initiatives overcome political parties’ resistance to change and provide an alternative avenue for addressing the underrepresentation of women and other marginalized groups? First, to better understand whether and how these initiatives compensate for parties’ lack of support for women and Afro-Brazilians during election campaigns, we employ data from a survey of initiatives and 99 candidate interviews. Next, to understand whether the support initiatives can shape descriptive representation, we employ data from official electoral records to estimate the impact of candidate support initiatives on the electoral performance of women and Afro-Brazilian newcomers.