Party objectives in Brazil (1982-2018): building the IOP

Abstract

There have been many theoretical interpretations about political parties’ objectives throughout the last two centuries, which culminate in the denomination of party types, like mass party, catch-all party and cartel party, for example. In this paper, we adopt Wolinetz’s perspective, for whom the main objectives of the parties are: vote-seeking, policy-seeking e office-seeking. Based on a rational choice model, we propose the creation of a Party Objectives Index (IOP). To use the index, we collected data from the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE) for government state elections from 1982 to 2018. These results indicate a good performance of the index, which can situate the main objectives of the Brazilian political parties in a continuum.