This article discusses the methodology for the definition, classification, and measurement of social positions of the parliamentary political elite. We present some theoretical and methodological strategies for classifying the variable “occupation held prior to political career”, and suggest the use of more than one indicator for this measurement. We argue that a typology of both social and political characteristics of parliament members is the best way to grasp the transformations on the patterns of political recruitment throughout the 20th century. The first model we tested classified Brazilian senators elected between 1918 and 2010 among occupations conventionally used in studies on political elites. The second applied model seeks to change the coding of occupations so as to grasp this group’s sociopolitical transformations over time. We conclude with a new classification suggestion, which results from a typology sensitive to the varying values ascribed to professional occupations throughout history.
O artigo discute metodologias para a definição, classificação e mensuração de posições sociais de origem e sua influência para compreender processos de recrutamento da elite política. Apresentamos algumas estratégias teóricas e metodológicas para classificar a variável “ocupação prévia à carreira política” e sugerimos o uso de mais de um indicador para essa medida. Argumentamos que uma tipologia que leve em conta características tanto sociais como políticas é a melhor maneira de compreender as transformações nos padrões de recrutamento parlamentar ao longo do século XX. O primeiro modelo testado por nós classificou os senadores brasileiros eleitos entre 1918 e 2010 nas ocupações de origem convencionalmente utilizadas em estudos sobre elites políticas. O segundo modelo procurou mudar a codificação das ocupações. Concluímos com uma nova sugestão de classificação resultante de uma tipologia sensível à variação dos valores atribuídos às ocupações profissionais ao longo da história.
At first glance, the social history of Brazil’s political class contradicts a common trend in Western democracies where the dilettante and the
Consider, for example, the case of the Upper House
The evidence points towards the existence, at the early stages of the republican regime, of a high level of expertise from Brazilian congressmen and a high rate of politicians originating from typically liberal professions, such as lawyers (
Two different explanations regarding the Brazilian political class may be mentioned at this point: either Brazil is an atypical case of a “deprofessionalization” of the political class (short careers, political novitiate, lateral recruitment, a decrease in the amount of delegates from more traditional liberal professions); or the findings in this study reflect a distorted image, the result of an inadequate categorization and erroneous measurement of social attributes and career profiles of Brazilian politicians over time. For that reason, one question must be asked: are these conflicting perceptions functions of reality or fruit of the observers’ predispositions?
Our hypothesis is that this is a problem regarding analysis parameters. Conventional measures which merely collect the
The objective of this article is to test a model that could correlate the
We hereby analyzed Brazilian senators elected between 1890 and 2010. The database for this experiment collects information on 844 individuals elected for 1445 terms from 1890 (22 nd legislature) to 2010 (53 rd legislature)
The article is divided into three parts. In the first part, we sought to demonstrate how conventional classifications based on descriptive criteria might not be the most appropriate approach for comprehending changes in the social profile of the political elite over time. In the second part, we suggest an alternative typology for addressing the issue of classifying professions in Political Science studies on elites. The third part tests our model to verify its consistency and ability to grasp the transformations within the Brazilian senatorial elite over the course of nearly a century.
A common method for classifying occupations in studies on parliamentary elites is the one used by the EurElite Project (
Since the mid-1980s, the
The solution adopted was the
With the
Nevertheless, when one adopts a more general point of view, that is, by observing the results in longer temporal series, it becomes possible to compare the peculiarities of national cases with regular changes in the social configuration of the parliamentarian board during the course of four major periods. The first period runs from 1848 until the 1880s, when European parliamentarians displayed a social profile very close to the ancien régime aristocrats (extremely high educational level when compared to the rest of the population as well as being landowners). They are the “dignitaries”. The second period encompasses roughly four decades (1880 until 1920) and is a time of change within the political elite. Nobility bonds cease to be a prerequisite for arriving to parliament and the old rural aristocracy gradually leaves the scene with an increase in the group of “semi-professional” political representatives: lawyers. However, this is a very gradual process since the parliamentary renewal rate in most elections remains under 40% (
The story of the transformation of the parliamentary representation profile may be told from four key indicators:
Noblemen legislators
Teachers/Professors
Journalists and other writers
Full-time, paid political party (or trade union) employees
Civil servants (Higher administrative-level, excluded military, judges, professors, and clergymen)
Public sector employees (All levels paid by public institutions)
Military persons, all levels
Priests, all clergymen
Lawyers, practicing
Judges, Prosecutors
Primary sector, agriculture, fishermen
Blue-collar workers, industrial sector
Managers, “businessmen”
Professions other than the law
Small independent craftsmen and merchants (
We based ourselves on this classification of occupations and applied two tests to our database to investigate their analytical performance. We included an additional variable, “professional politician”, i.e., an individual who has never practiced any effective occupation outside of politics. This variable was absent from the original model, but we consider it vital due to the particularities of our population.
The most glaring obstacle here is data dispersion due to the high number of occupations. This, however, is the least of troubles. The variable “Professions other than the law”, a kind of residual variable, has very high values in our case. This is because it encompasses professions that have traditionally delivered many politicians in Brazil, such as medical professions (an average of 11.45% in the considered period). Moreover, the aggregation of a plethora of liberal professions under a single label hides, for example, “engineers” and “economists”, and is thus unable to document the entrance rate of more technical and less traditional crafts into the national political class. The recurrence of ‘Lawyers’ throughout the whole series (an average of 21.6%), the constant presence of “Journalists and other writers,” and the vigorous appearance of businessmen (urban and rural) in more recent legislatures could lead us to conclude, based on the conventional classification, that there is an excessive closure of the political market to new occupations and new qualifications. Therein lies the difficulty in this aggregation of occupations to grasp, for the Brazilian case, the confluence between modernization (of society), democratization (of the political market), and professionalization (of political agents). The most significant presence of professional politicians since the 1990s may only be documented due to its inclusion in the set of variables, as it was not envisaged in the original list. The value of 11% of politicians among Senators in the past two decades could even be underreported due to the difficulty of obtaining accurate information from sources. In any case, it is a number greater than, for example, “Lawyers”, which has been decreasing at each legislative term (9% in the 2000s decade).However, another set of problems exists, not regarding the empirical inadequacy of the variables to our universe, but rather methodological obstacles.
Despite the analytical advantages of descriptive categories for shorter time diagnostics, these conventional classifications present a special obstacle for diachronic analyses. This difficulty in grasping large temporal changes is due to, among other things, i) the omission from the descriptive classification of the political weight of each profession in each historical moment (certain professions in certain periods are true incubators for political vocations (
Even the “Lawyer” category, an omnipresent social type in Western parliaments and whose characterization could be peaceful at first, cannot be taken anti-historically. Dezalay and Garth underlined the deep transformations within this profession during the XX century. In Brazil and in other important Latin American countries, the gentleman politician of the law gave way to the technocrat-specialist-globalized-lawyer (
Let us see how
In our timeline, the first period goes from 1918 to 1937, that is, from the height of the oligarchic politics until the coup d’état, which abolished all political parties in 1937, closed down the legislative houses, and terminated parliamentary mandate terms. The second period, from 1945-1962, encompasses an important cycle in Brazilian politics: the “populist” democracy, which ends with the 1964 military coup. The third period ranges from the military dictatorship until the liberalization of authoritarian control over the political system (1964-1982). Lastly, the fourth period is from 1982 until 2010 and spans the final political transition period, the consolidation of liberal democracy in Brazil until the current regime. The contingency coefficient in
Contingency coefficient = 0,376 (sig = 0,000). Occupations were defined from the N mandates = 1,437 (+8 Missing). Surce: Nusp/UFPR; The observatory of social and political elites of Brazil
I
II
III
IV
First Republic (1890/1937)
Populist Democracy (1945/1962)
Military Dictatorship (1966/1982)
New Democracy (1986/2010)
%
sr
%
sr
%
sr
%
sr
1.Noblemen legislators
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
2.Teachers/Professors
2,6
-4,2
8,3
1,1
6,9
0,3
15
6
3. Journalists and other writers
5,6
-1,2
7,1
0,3
10
1,5
7,8
0,8
4. Political party/trade union employees
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
5. Civil servants
0,6
0,4
0,6
0,2
–
0,8
0,3
-0,4
6. Public sector employees
6,9
1
3
-1,6
3,1
-1,4
6,8
0,5
7. Military persons, all levels
15,9
3,2
13,1
0,4
8,5
-1,2
2
-4,9
8. Priests, all clergymen
0,8
-0,2
1,8
1,2
–
-1,1
1
0,2
9. Lawyers, practising
22
1,1
24,4
1,2
20,8
0,1
12,9
-2,8
10. Judges, Prosecutors
8,2
2,2
7,7
0,8
1,5
-2,2
2
-2,9
11. Primary sector, agriculture
2,7
-1,1
6,5
2,2
2,3
-0,7
4,1
0,6
12. Blue-collar workers
–
-2,2
–
-1
–
-0,9
2,7
5
13. Managers, “businessmen”
3,9
-3,8
7,7
0,1
12,3
2
15,3
4,9
14. Professions other than the law
20
-0,4
19
-0,4
27,7
1,8
20,1
-0,2
16. “Professional politician”
10,9
1,7
0,6
-3,7
6,9
-0,8
9,9
0,4
In order to analyze
Nevertheless, what does this entail, in terms of sociological relevance, beyond the openly stated? That is, that the total number of lawyers plummeted from 22% at the beginning of our series to 13% almost one hundred years later? Or that we rarely find ex-military members in the Brazilian Senate? Or that businessmen have significantly increased their presence within the political elite?
As we have previously suggested, descriptive professional categories fail to clearly recognize morphological changes in the political class over time. Even if the variables are precise (their meanings immediately recognizable), they are less revealing of long-term transformations within this population, since they describe activities whose names remained constant over time, but for which their social
We may find ‘Lawyers’ in all political periods (especially in the pre-1986 period). If we look exclusively at occupations, we could believe that parliamentarians elected in recent periods (where we have a larger number of ‘businessmen’) are increasingly recruited from the high society, in the “social elite”. In reality, the Old Republic ‘Lawyers’ may belong to the high society (and in fact they did), while businessmen in current legislatures may have a more wealthy origin, albeit alongside an extensive political career and political party activism. Therefore, the values in each professional category, while correct, may fault to recognize the measurements and decline verified in the contingent of lawyers. In turn, the increase of businessmen may hide, for example, the politic professionalization of those elected for the Brazilian Senate.
The above classification and the brief interpretation of the tests presented in
N mandates = 1,437 (+ 8 missing). Occupations were defined from the Source: Nusp/UFPR; The observatory of social and political elites of Brazil
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
1. Noblemen legislators
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
2. Teachers/professors
4
3,1
2,3
–
1,5
5,7
11,9
5,3
7,9
9,7
13,6
17,8
3. Journalists and other writers
6,6
3,4
3,4
7,2
8,8
5,7
5,1
12,3
7,9
12,5
7,3
7,4
4. Political party/trade union employees
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
5. Civil servants
0,7
1,1
–
–
–
–
–
1,8
–
–
–
0,7
6. Public sector employees
10,2
8,4
2,3
1,3
5,9
4,3
1,7
3,5
2,2
6,9
5,5
7,4
7. Military persons, all levels
17,2
18,7
21,6
11,1
2,9
15,7
11,9
12,3
6,7
4,2
1,8
2,2
8. Priests, all clergymen
0,7
1,9
–
–
–
1,4
1,7
1,8
–
1,4
–
1,5
9. Lawyers, practicing
15,7
17,2
13,6
39,9
36,8
24,3
22
24,6
23,6
16,7
15,5
8,9
10. Judges, Prosecutors
4,4
10,7
15,9
7,8
4,4
12,9
6,8
–
2,2
2,8
0,9
2,2
11. Primary sector, agriculture
4,4
3,4
–
1,3
–
8,6
5,1
5,3
2,2
4,2
3,6
3,7
12. Blue-collar workers
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
1,4
2,7
3,0
13. Managers, “businessmen”
5,5
3,1
4,5
1,3
5,9
7,1
10,2
5,3
13,5
11,1
20
13,3
14. Professions other than the law
18,2
16
15,9
28,8
27,9
14,3
23,7
24,6
27
23,6
18,2
20,7
15. “Professional politician”
12,4
13
20,5
1,3
5,9
–
–
3,5
6,7
5,6
10,9
11,1
TOTAL
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
N mandates = 1437 (+8 Missing). Source: Nusp/UFPR; The observatory of social and political elites of Brazil
POLITICAL TYPES
Type 1
Type 2
Type 3
Type 4
Type 5
Type 6
Type 7
Type 8
Total
POLITICAL PERIODS
n
62
79
148
272
42
54
95
99
851
%
68,1%
63,2%
71,5%
70,5%
42,9%
37,8%
59,4%
42,1%
58,9%
SR
1,1
,6
2,4
3,0
-2,1
-3,3
,1
-3,3
n
13
18
24
36
16
16
14
31
168
%
14,3%
14,4%
11,6%
9,3%
16,3%
11,2%
8,8%
13,2%
11,6%
SR
,7
,9
,0
-1,3
1,4
-,2
-1,1
,7
n
8
14
14
24
8
10
22
30
130
%
8,8%
11,2%
6,8%
6,2%
8,2%
7,0%
13,8%
12,8%
9,0%
SR
,0
,8
-1,1
-1,8
-,3
-,8
2,0
1,9
n
8
14
21
54
32
63
29
75
296
%
8,8%
11,2%
10,1%
14,0%
32,7%
44,1%
18,1%
31,9%
20,5%
SR
-2,5
-2,3
-3,3
-2,8
2,7
6,2
-,7
3,9
Total
n
91
125
207
386
98
143
160
235
1445
%
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
The classification suggested below is an attempt to escape the traps of categories conventionally used in elite studies. This typology aims to contextualize the social distance between two variables identical in their terminology – ‘Teachers/Professors’, ‘Journalists and other writers’, Civil servants, etc. –, but apart in historical time. Therefore, the solution hereby outlined prioritizes a categorization that considers, at the same time, the weight of social
According the Weber’s classic formulation, the substitution of the notable for the professional politician is concomitant to the decrease in importance of the social
Our
In turn, the
The second
The proposed analytical model consists of three dummy variables:
Elite profession: yes or no (social
Political vocation: yes or no (political
The logical combinations from the six qualities lead us to eight “political types”:
type 1: individual with a national career, political vocation and elite profession;
type 2: individual with a national career and vocation, but no elite profession;
type 3: individual with a national career, elite profession, but no political vocation;
type 4: individual with a national career, but with no vocation or elite profession;
type 5: individual with vocation and elite profession, but with a local career;
type 6: individual with vocation, local career, but no elite profession;
type 7: individual with a local career, with an elite profession, but not political vocation;
type 8: individual without vocation, local career, and no elite profession.
To what extent are such logical types also historical types and capable of explaining the change in the profile of individuals who reached the Brazilian Senate since 1918? Are these types concentrated within a particular political period or randomly distributed throughout the XX century? Are these indicators – profession, career orientation, and political vocation – indeed suitable to capture the historical changes of the national political class?
In order to answer these questions, we conducted two tests, as described below.
First, we tested for any coincidence between these eight ideal types obtained by a logical combination of both dimensions (political and social) and the Brazilian senators’ biographical data within the studied period.
The first thing we should stress is the concentration of more accentuated positive and negative standardized residues in the First and Sixth Republics. This trend towards a concentration of type-cases in regimes at the beginning or end of the studied period suggests that the proposed typology is sensible to modifications that affect the Brazilian senatorial elite over time, even if not wholly adequate.
We ran a correspondence analysis to verify the contiguity between logical types and historical regimes (Graf 1).
The test revealed a correspondence between points, marked in the graph in the colors white for logical types and black (filled) for political regimes.
We then replicated the initial typology and aggregated types 1 and 3 in a new category named new type 1, and types 5 and 6 into a new category titled new type 2 (the remainder were also aggregated in new types 3 and 4, but they will be disregarded as they were not statistically significant). Thus, the final rankings arrived to the following new types:
The first new type fixes the values of the
The following test presents the correlation results between new types and national political regimes (Graf 2).
The correspondence analysis of equidistant points between the two distributions reveals that
Nevertheless, we may attempt a further sociological understanding of the possible connections between the political profile and political period.
Our model indicates that there are two characteristic types of professional politicians at the beginning and end of the analyzed period rather than a progression or replacement of types (the notable for the professional, the oligarch for the professional, etc.) as one could be led to believe solely with the variations of the amount of professions. Thus, there does not seem to be a less professional politician at the beginning of this series in contrast to a more professional one at the end. Instead, we find a change in the attributes of the professional politician in Brazil.
Four of our findings are worth underlining:
Elite professions (index of high social
In the 6 th Republic, a high social
Localism in the 1st Republic may be an important characteristic for political careers, but not necessarily for the Senate, given that according to the results of our model senators mostly pass through national level offices and positions;
Political vocation (young career entrance and long permanence time throughout the political life) seems to be a necessary attribute in the 6 th Republic, but not for the 1 st .
We recall here how the codification of the politicians’ prior professions may lead not only to indexations that distribute individuals per occupations and from thereon produce a socio-graphical mapping of the studied universe, but also how they orient their own explanations as to their recruitment processes and professionalization.
We present here a proposal of a new classification by confronting a logically deduced typology with the Brazilian contexts or political regimes of the XX century. It has revealed itself to be potentially capable of assimilating variations in the profiles of politicians’ careers as well as the social values (
In more general terms, this
First, the categorization of occupations prior to a political life seems to be necessarily
The second conclusion asserts that purely descriptive classifications provide interesting resources for interpreting specific category variations in short periods of time. However, this same classification would produce, if it were used for the case of Brazilian senators, a mistaken inference on the evolution and changes in the politicians’ occupational origin types.
In this case, the third conclusion of this study points towards the potential return of a strategy that unites a long term theoretical lens with indicators more sensitive to the history of the analyzed cases, that is to say, contextual. In order to verify the strength of this proposal the same indicators suggested by our model should be tested in a wider range of cases.
SUMMARY
DIMENSION
PROPORTION OF INERTIA
CONFIDENCE SINGULAR VALUE
Correlation
Singular Value
Inertia
Chi Square
Sig.
Accounted for
Cumulative
Standard Deviation
2
1
,303
,092
,864
,864
,026
,058
2
,101
,010
,096
,960
,027
3
,066
,004
,040
1,000
Total
,107
154,040
,000
1,000
1,000
OVERVIEW ROW POINTS
POLITICAL REGIMES
SCORE IN DIMENSION
CONTRIBUTION
Of Dimension to Inertia of Point
Of Point to Inertia of Dimension
Mass
1
2
Inertia
1
2
1
2
Total
1ªrep
,589
-,399
,111
,029
,309
,071
,971
,025
,996
4ªrep
,116
,117
-,223
,005
,005
,057
,105
,126
,232
5ªrep
,090
,186
-,933
,009
,010
,775
,100
,843
,943
6ªrep
,205
1,000
,218
,063
,675
,096
,983
,016
,998
Active Total
1,000
,107
1,000
1,000
OVERVIEW COLUMN POINTS
LOGICAL TYPEs
SCORE IN DIMENSION
CONTRIBUTION
Of Dimension to Inertia of Point
Of Point to Inertia of Dimension
Mass
1
2
Inertia
1
2
1
2
Total
type 1
,063
-,498
-,191
,006
,051
,023
,861
,042
,903
type 2
,087
-,338
-,418
,005
,033
,149
,607
,308
,915
type 3
,143
-,520
,122
,012
,128
,021
,970
,018
,988
type 4
,267
-,392
,294
,015
,135
,228
,827
,155
,981
type 5
,068
,625
,060
,009
,087
,002
,874
,003
,876
type 6
,099
1,041
,472
,035
,353
,218
,935
,064
,999
type 7
,111
-,066
-,421
,004
,002
,194
,038
,512
,550
type 8
,163
,626
-,320
,021
,210
,164
,920
,080
1,000
Active Total
1,000
,107
1,000
1,000
SUMMARY
DIMENSION
PROPORTION OF INERTIA
CONFIDENCE SINGULAR VALUE
Correlation
Singular Value
Inertia
Chi Square
Sig.
Accounted for
Cumulative
Standard Deviation
2
1
,243
,059
,926
,926
,027
,023
2
,064
,004
,064
,990
,028
3
,025
,001
,010
1,000
Total
,064
91,901
,000
1,000
1,000
OVERVIEW ROW POINTS
POLITICAL REGIMES
SCORE IN DIMENSION
CONTRIBUTION
Of Dimension to Inertia of Point
Of Point to Inertia of Dimension
Mass
1
2
Inertia
1
2
1
2
Total
1ªrep
,589
-,322
,084
,015
,252
,066
,979
,018
,996
4ªrep
,116
,072
,129
,001
,003
,030
,187
,158
,345
5ªrep
,090
-,115
-,800
,004
,005
,900
,072
,927
,999
6ªrep
,205
,937
,035
,044
,740
,004
,999
,000
,999
Active Total
1,000
,064
1,000
1,000
OVERVIEW COLUMN POINTS
NEW TYPES
SCORE IN DIMENSION
CONTRIBUTION
Of Dimension to Inertia of Point
Of Point to Inertia of Dimension
Mass
1
2
Inertia
1
2
1
2
Total
new type 1
,206
-,559
,312
,017
,265
,314
,917
,075
,992
new type 2
,167
,996
,076
,040
,682
,015
,996
,002
,998
new type 3
,197
-,255
-,464
,006
,053
,663
,530
,461
,991
new type 4
,430
-,001
,033
,000
,000
,008
,000
,083
,083
Active Total
1,000
,064
1,000
1,000
. Legislative Power in Brazil, on a federal level, is carried out by the House of Deputies and by the Federal Senate. Together, both houses comprise the National Congress. The House of Deputies represents voters individually. As for the Federal Senate, it represents the federative states and the Federal District, home to the country’s capital, Brasília. Brazilian Senators are elected by a majority vote in a single shift. The electoral district is the state.
.
. In 1990, no less than 58% of Brazilian federal congressional representatives were in their first term. In 1994, only 9.6% of representatives had a career of over 15 years in politics (
Source: adapted from (
1848-1880
1920-1960
dignitary
party employee
1880-1920
1970-
semiprofessional politician
professional politician
. See
. In the period between 1945 and 1965 the Federal Senate had 13.7% representatives originating from these new professions against 70.5% of lawyers and doctors. In the early 1980s that quota had already increased to 26.2% (
. Costa and Codato show that in 1990 there were no less than 39% of “businessmen” in Brazil’s Senate and that until 2010 this number was never below ¼ of the House (
. During Brazil’s First Republic (1889-1930) three senators were elected to the Federal District for a nine year mandate. New elections took place every three years in which one third of the senate was renewed. The election was by a majority system, with the top three voted statewide being elected. The second republican Constitution of 1934 determined that each state and the Federal District would elect two senators for an eight year term. The 1946 Constitution increased the number of senators to three per state while maintaining the same mandate period. This rule was confirmed by the 1967 and 1988 Constitutions. Currently each state and the Federal District elect three senators for an eight year term. This representation is renewed every four years, alternately by one and two thirds.
. Denmark, Germany, Italy, Holland, Norway, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Spain, Portugal and Finland.
. A detailed description of the 53 variables can be found in the Appendix to Chapter 1 (
. Barman and Barman drew attention to the affluence of Law graduates in Brazil after 1850 and its negative impact on the recruitment process of the national political class. A few decades earlier, graduating in Coimbra meant a greater likelihood of entering the closed circle of the elite, whereas the relative “democratization” of the diploma meant that recruitment for political positions became more selective and public sector jobs came to rely more on family ties and influence networks (
. We consider the following positions to be of a national level: “Minister”, “President of the Republic”, “Senator”, “Federal Congressman”, “Vice-president of the Republic”, and “Other positions appointed by the federal bureaucracy.” Of local or regional level: council member, mayor, state deputy, and state or municipal secretary.
. We obtained the measure of ‘career time’ and ‘age of début in politics’ by comparing the observed values for each office term with the decade median. For example, in the case of Senator José Cesário de Faria Alvim, elected for a term that began in 1890, we observed a career time of 26 years until his arrival in Senate, with a premature age of début in politics (24 years). In this decade, the median for career time was 3 years and the median for political debut was 35 years. If an individual spends more time in politics and begins earlier, then they have “political vocation”.
. The Second Republic refers to the short legislative term between 1930 and 1937, when just one legislature took place, in 1934. Therefore, it will be added to the first Republic.