The present study aimed at describing Brazilian political space during 2006 presidential and state elections. The organizing principles from political positioning groups' representations on politics were investigated. A total of 1051 participants answered to a questionnaire that was available on the internet, which contained items about electoral participation and political positioning and wrote up to 7 words or expressions inducted by the word politics. Correspondence analyses were carried out, comparing the representations of participants without political positions or aligned with left-wing, right-wing and center positions. Two factors were retained. The first organizing principle opposed effective politics to corrupt and broken politics. The second organizing principle consisted of the classical opposition between left-wing and right-wing. Results illustrate the determination of representations' anchoring by political positions and indicate the possibility of conceiving the political space as a representational field.
Social representations; politics; electoral behavior
