Abstract:
The article aims to investigate and reflect on collective mandate experiences in Brazil, in particular the Gabinetona, Mandata Ativista and Juntas mandates (2016-2020). We understand collective mandates to be “innovative socio-political technologies”, which have brought about changes in the Brazilian political field. The focus of this article is on the relationship established between intersectional political representation strategies and the challenge posed to the traditional and personalist political party system in Brazil. As these are still understudied and recent phenomena in Brazilian politics, we adopted an emergent research design, using exploratory and in-depth research strategies. The main source of data used were semi-structured interviews conducted with coparliamentarians and other members of the mandates. We identified emerging categories, such as: the driving elements of the experiments, their success factors, the effects of “re-enchantment” in politics, politics strategies based on “hacking”, and tensions with respect to the party structure. We conclude that the logic of political occupation reveals the need to be one step ahead of the limits placed by the dominant political party system.
Keywords:
Political representation; intersectionality; collective mandates; collective candidacies; shared candidacies; collective mandates in Brazil