Vozes locais, conexões políticas: o papel dos presidentes de bairros como brokers políticos

Abstract

The present research aimed to assess the extent to which neighborhood association presidents act as brokers, understood here as individuals who mediate between politicians and voters, channeling votes to the former and benefits to the latter. To this end, we investigated whether the presidents possess the attributes that the literature associates with brokers, their ties with political leaders and voters, and the resources and strategies they employ. Based on the literature on associativism and brokers, we consider neighborhood association presidents to be potential mediators when they meet the following conditions: they have lived in the neighborhood for a long time, are well-known and familiar with the community, and have connections and access to politicians and public administrators. We argue that neighborhood association presidents differ in the strategies and resources they use in their everyday mediation efforts and that this variation can be understood by examining their trajectories, experiences, and types of connections with the community and local politicians. To test this argument, the research employed three main strategies: a survey of association presidents from municipalities across the five regions of Brazil, a focus group, and in-depth interviews with presidents from Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais. The research revealed that, although slightly less than half of the presidents lack systematic and long-standing ties with politicians and/or parties, they can still be considered potential brokers. The differences between those who have political connections and those who do not, in terms of their ability to gather votes and solve neighborhood problems, were minimal, challenging the notion that such connections are fundamental to the presidents' work. Both quantitative and qualitative evidence indicated that political connections are not indispensable for achieving improvements, as strategies such as community mobilization and media usage can also be effective. The research contributed by proposing the concept of "nominal broker" to describe brokers with connections to individual politicians and by emphasizing the need to move beyond a dichotomous approach to the ties between brokers and politicians or parties. Instead, it is necessary to examine the intensity and longevity of these connections and how they influence the mediators' motivations, strategies, and performance.