Andreia Reis do Carmo did her PhD at the Brazil Institute. She began her PhD in 2015 and her research focused on corruption and political participation.

During her MPhil in the University of Oxford, her thesis examined how popular participation was able to result in legislative changes in Brazil. The debate tends to sustain the hypothesis that an increase in corruption perception amongst the population resulted in a learning process triggered by a social movement and its campaign toward the enactment of the law. This learning process shifted the behaviour of the population that engaged and supported the bills, therefore pressuring the Brazilian Congress. Fieldwork was carried out in the summer of 2014, using a qualitative approach to the research question, and was able to develop a ‘causal map’ that led to the outcome.

Her PhD research was sponsored by CAPES Foundation, an agency under the Ministry of Education of Brazil.

Research

Thesis title: 'The mobilising power of corruption'

Andreia's PhD looked at first improving the existing qualitative research. Secondly, quantitative methods were used to examine the same research question. LAPOP Survey database will be used to assess the impact of corruption perception on political participation and thus operating the legislative transformation regarding political corruption.

This research was innovative in the sense that it analysed the effects of society, through the proxy of political participation, on the struggle against corruption, adding to institutional approaches.

PhD supervision

• Principal supervisor: Anthony Pereira
• Secondary supervisor: Kostantinos Tsimonis

Further details

See Andreia's research profile