Transactions 'in the name of democracy': 'causes', spokespersons and intervention modalities from german party foundations in Brazil

Abstract

Meanings, arrangements and “democratic” articles are historically engendered in configurations of dispute for their imposition, negotiation and redefinition. These are processes that affect as much as they are the result of relations of forces tensioned at different levels and plans (local, regional, national and transnational) by agents (individual and collective) with multiple interests (material and symbolic) in constituting themselves as their interpreters and authorized spokespersons. Our proposal in this article is to examine investments by German Party Foundations in Brazil, particularly by the two largest entities of this type, which are also those that have been present in the country for the longest time: the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS/CDU: Christian Democratic Union) and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES/SPD: Social Democratic Party). Notably, through the analysis of information disclosed on their official pages and other complementary materials (systematized in synoptic tables, network graphs and graphs), we seek to: identify their links with
organizations dedicated to collective claims; investigate the bases of recruitment and the authority of agents who position themselves in debates and controversies that challenge them; apprehend building logic and the establishment of legitimate issues, related to models of democracy; and above all, reflect on the exchanges transacted between moral entrepreneurs of problems thought to be urgent.