AS BASES SOCIAIS E ATITUDINAIS DA ALIENAÇÃO ELEITORAL NO BRASIL

Abstract

One of the central premises of the theory of political culture is that feelings, beliefs and political values regarding citizenship become materialized into behavioral patterns. Starting from these more general pressupositions of political theory, the article intends to analyze whether the alienated electoral behavior (abstention or blank vote) may be understood through the use of political culture indicators. The few works dealing with the issue in Brazil draw on the socio-economic and demographic bases of alienation as well as official election turnout data for reference. Our empirical basis, by contrast, is a post-election survey (by ESEB) which allows us to test and compare the culturalist hypothesis with other explanations for electoral alienation.