University of São Paulo: Network monitoring shows how religious values ​​influence politics in Brazil

Brazil has one of the largest Christian populations in the world – as the 2019 DataFolha survey found, 50% of Brazilians declare themselves Catholic and 31%, Evangelicals. What is the impact of such religious hegemony on the country’s institutional policy? This question is the proposal for analysis by the Center for the Study of Religion and Public Policy (CERP), a research group at the USP School of Economics, Administration, Accounting and Actuarial Science (FEA). Through a sweep of data on the behavior of influential religious leaders in Brazil, the research group analyzes how the political movements of religion affect society.

“Religion is more at the forefront of public discussion and religious values ​​are determining more, giving more shape to how society behaves. That’s why we created this center, to understand this movement, its causes and consequences”, says Raphael Corbi, associate professor of economics at FEA, founder and coordinator of Cerp . According to him, it is so important that this information, based on reliable data collection and analysis, be disseminated to the population through USP, due to the relevance and wide reach of the University.

The Leadership Monitor is one of Cerp’s main areas of activity. Every week, a newsletter is published that seeks to analyze the discourse and behavior on social networks of religious figures who are decisive for the political dynamics of Brazil.

Corbi says that monitoring guidelines vary according to the public interest; the arrest of former education minister Milton Ribeiro, the proposal to charge tuition fees at public universities and homeschooling are some of the topics that have already been selected, always focusing on the positions of those linked to religious institutions. Right now, presidential elections are the most current discussion.

Religious sectors in the electoral dispute
The latest bulletins released present the feelings contained in the posts of evangelical parliamentarians in relation to the two candidates with the highest scores in the electoral polls, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro. The reason for this new direction is to help understand the current Brazilian context: “We are in an election year, so there is a lot of demand for information regarding religion; the proposal is to inform society”, declares the professor and leader of Cerp.

Among all the works carried out in this project, Corbi highlights one of the researches of the group that he considers very relevant to understand the electoral dynamics of this year. The monitoring in question reveals the impact of religious opinions on public opinion, says the professor: “A while ago, when Lula was well ahead in the polls and Bolsonaro was far behind, they said there was no chance of reelection. But we saw in our data that the churches had not yet entered the campaign; when they started to speak in favor of Bolsonaro, he had a growth. When the religious sectors entered the electoral contest, Bolsonaro had a good start, even if not enough to tie with Lula”.

How monitoring works
Data are collected from tweets published by individuals and organizations, linked to religious entities, which are relevant to the country’s institutional political agenda. Cerp informs that “the link can be formal or informal, and the same user can be linked to more than one group, as the case may be”.

From the gathering of this information, the group analyzes the positions contained in the publication; in the current electoral context, the analysis is directed to the sentiment of the authors of the tweets in relation to the presidential candidates Lula and Bolsonaro. In the following monitoring, for the week of September 15th to 21st, the collected sample reveals that members of the Evangelical Parliamentary Front (FPE) have much more positive feelings towards Bolsonaro than towards Lula — with negative feelings in mind. in relation to the latter intensified.

Currently, the study center collects data only through Twitter, but according to Professor Corbi, Cerp intends to expand the sampling space: “We are also looking at data from open and public WhatsApp groups”.

Sentiment of the members of the Evangelical Parliamentary Front (FPE)
Per week

Religion data and analysis
The objective of the study center, according to Corbi, is to promote a critical analysis of the subject, going beyond the provision of information. “As the name implies, the monitor is simply a monitor, it serves to give a temperature and show where things are going. But our forte is doing deeper data analysis,” she reports. Therefore, one of Cerp’s future projects is the development of a book on religion in Brazil.

The motivation for writing the book also comes from the scarcity of material on religion with an empirical basis, according to the professor and leader of Cerp. The desire is to articulate a literature on religion that is reliable, without the interference of interest groups, explains the professor: “Our training as economists is interested in data and in our book we will bring analyzes combining theory and data; will be a book that uses all available data on religion, economics and politics in Brazil”.

By expanding the population’s knowledge about external interference in political processes, in an election year, information on the subject becomes essential. “Everything that is information, if it is based on impacts and information on measured data, it comes to contribute and to help. So, we aim to inform, both different groups and society in general”, concludes Corbi.

Academic studies
In addition to Corbi, the study center is led by professor Fábio Miessi, a graduate and master in Economics from FEA and a former professor at the house. The group also includes professor Ricardo Madeira, also from FEA, researchers affiliated with the University and master’s and doctoral students from USP and other institutions.

Cerp holds weekly meetings in which it organizes the project’s productions in “three arms”, as Corbi explains. Monitoring on the networks is one of them, but there is also “the strictly academic arm, which produces academic texts that are published in international journals and academic journals, and the arm of communication with society, in which materials are produced in a less complex language”. to take knowledge further”.

The content produced can be accessed through the group’s website, at this link . Institutional studies, discussion texts and opinion articles, which consist of the first two branches mentioned by the professor, work on long-term issues, such as tax exemption for religious institutions, religious subsidies and the expansion of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Brazil.