Evangélicos e a representação política descritiva no Congresso brasileiro : uma agenda de pesquisas

Abstract

This thesis looks at the classic subject of the political representation and relates it to the overly publicized evangelical participation in the domestic politics. Analyzing what was pictured by authors within the field, as well as the most recent facts in Brazilian political scene, this research identifies in the existing dynamic between a specific group of evangelical politics and theirs constituents a very particular form of representation: the descriptive one. Although already studied by other authors, it is argued that in the dynamic above, the descriptive representation have been consistently transformed; these transformations and their possible consequences are also explored. Does a constituent s ability to identify, based on religious beliefs, with her representative at Brazilian National Congress affect somehow her perception of that representative, of the Brazilian Congress itself as an institution, and of the representative government? Do the representatives that mobilize support on the grounds of a shared faith understand differently, because of that, their role as representatives? This thesis investigates, therefore, a specific framing of that classic topic of the descriptive representation, when the groups being represented are religious, and, more specifically, evangelical.