BASES SOCIAIS, ATITUDINAIS E COMPORTAMENTAIS DO APARTIDARISMO BRASILEIRO¹

ABSTRACT

Researches developed in advanced democracies have warned of the spread of a new profile of voters, the apartisan, characterized by high cognitive mobilization, strong support for democracy, critical position in relation to hierarchical institutions and preference for direct forms of political action. Some researchers interested in this phenomenon have been seeking to identify the fundamental outlines of this critical citizenship, including proposing classifications and typologies for these new voters. Among these, Russell Dalton stands combining variables of cognitive mobilization and partisan sympathy to define four basic profiles (independent political, ritual partisans, cognitive partisans and apartisans) and discusses the consequences of each of them to the actual democracy. Although plausible in the context of consolidated democracies, with significant stocks of diffuse support for the regime, such profiles can be not compatible with the context of young democracies, in which the critical citizenship is not always accompanied by consistent democratism because of the short experience with the regime. The objective of this article, therefore, is to assess the pertinence of this classification for this different context, by identifying the social, attitudinal and behavioral determinants of each of the four types of voters among the Brazilian public.

KEYWORDS:
apartisanship; political culture; democracy; Brazil