Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Lobbying for Labor Rights in Brazil’s National Constituent Assembly

2021; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.3985724

1556-5068

Gabriel Benzecry,

Global trade, sustainability, and social impact

Do interest groups lobby their friends or foes? The literature is divided when it comes to the main target of interest groups’ tactics. This paper uses a unique case study of Brazil’s National Constituent Assembly (ANC) in 1988 to contribute to this contentious literature. Inside the Brazilian National Assembly, a lobbying group known as the Departamento Intersindical de Assessoria Parlamentar (DIAP) represented the working class’s interest. This paper finds that the DIAP focused its lobbying efforts on their friends, left-wing political parties, and the Centrão, a group of uncommitted centrist politicians. The lack of an ideology made members of the Centrão sensitive to popular opinion. Therefore, to disincentivize centrist politicians to oppose the workers’ agenda, the DIAP supported left-wing parties and influenced the Centrão politicians’ knowledge on the popularity of labor rights through propaganda and activism. In the institutional and political scenario of 1988 Brazil, pro-labor rights groups lobbied both centrist and like-minded politicians.