Brazil Studies Program Seminar Series: Power-Sharing, Presidential Style: Brazilian Coalition Politics in Comparative Perspective

Date: 

Thursday, September 13, 2018, 12:00pm

Location: 

CGIS South, S050, 1730 Cambridge Street

Speaker: Mariana Batista, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Federal University of Pernambuco; Visiting Fellow, Harvard University

Moderator: Frances Hagopian, Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government, Harvard University

How presidents coalesce in multiparty systems? This talk explores the role of issue salience in presidential power-sharing strategies, showing how they keep control over policy while coalition partners get control over particularistic expenditures.

Mariana Batista is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil. Her research examines portfolio allocation, coalition governance, agenda formation, and public policy in Latin America. Current projects include the comparative analysis of issue salience and portfolio allocation, the policy implications of coalition governments in Latin America, and the policy content of the presidents’ agendas in Brazil. She was a Visiting Research Associate at the Latin American Centre - Oxford University in 2017 and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation – Harvard University.