Screen captured from the website politicaesporteclube.com

Despite being pulverized by Germany at home during the last World Cup, Brazil champions soccer as the country’s main sport for decades. Among its critics, it is a common saying that “if people discussed politics as much and with such memory and detail as they do with soccer, the situation would be infinitely better than it is nowadays”, as it would provide citizens that are at the same time informed to know how many times a player has been injured since he was hired and could not play – or spent more time than wise at night parties -, organized enough to protest against their clubs’ directors, sometimes violently, and justice-driven to the point of debating the causes of Brazilian soccer downwards spiral over the last years.

That considered, when I saw Política Esporte Clube being presented at our last class as an example of civic engagement, my first thought was that its creators may have hit the jackpot by putting toghether the interest of the sport and politics, an area seen in Brazil as a mixture of despise and lack of interest.The mechanics of the site are pretty much the same of a fantasy soccer competition which have also been booming over the last years, specially with Brazilian teenagers and young adults: gather your real players (in this case, congressmen) based on their characteristics and cheer for their best performance during the following weeks. Instead of measuring results every round, PEC bases its gaming on weekly activities balances on the Congress. Some of the criteria used for comparison are presence during the week, projects presented and expenses with public money (every congressman has a monthly value for sponsoring his or her activities).

A closer look at the idea, however, reminded me of the soccer classes I’m taking at Harvard (The Global Game: Soccer, Politics and Popular Culture). In one occasion we discussed how soccer could be used by authoritarian governments to create hegemony. In other words, a closed system where people can subvert the ruling order and even criticize the state of things, but in the end nothing changes. A weaker team can beat a millionaire and stronger one; a poor boy can become the king of the sport; fans can believe they are changing the result of a game of the policy of their clubs by supporting or protesting. But in the end there are still a majority of clubs living close to bankrupcy, almost all players subsisting with minimum wage or less and a growing violence among hoolingans. Using a soccer metaphor, you can change the coach, the players and even the referee, but the game is still the same.

Transporting this debate to politics and the PEC idea of participatory citizenship, we can see some models debated by M. Schudson in “Changing concepts in Democracy” being reproduced:

– The solid citizenship: based on the virtues of each congressman to create a scale of values between “good” and “bad” ones. Despite thecriteria used, establishing this is very important for Brazilian political debate, as voters have no idea on how to determine if their chosen candidate, when elected, has worked well or not.

– The party citizenship: this particular concept, altough contemplated by the site over the party to party comparisons, is subdued. The main value is on the person itself. And the playing system allows you to be highly ecletical on picking “players” regardless of their affiliation.

– The informed citizenship: although the competitive environment of the fantasy soccer style may stimulate users to go after news mentioningcongressmen, the site itself does not provide any data source to help choosing the “players”. Perhaps a simple associated search on Google linked to each politico would be a good start.

– The rights citizenship: probably the weakest link on the site. Players do not have the opportunity to discuss the political system or the activities of each congressmen regarding their own rights, just rate them based on static criteria.

– The monitorial citizenship: on one hand, PEC provides citizens with the possibility of investing less efforts on following political activity by “slicing” the full amount of congressmen (594 elected ones) in small teams. It also allows the contact with other citizens doing the same with different politicians. On the other hand, however, it requires a bit more than a passive behavior – just reacting when there is a problem -, as ratings are weekly and demand attention more frequently associated with what would be an active monitoring.

It is when we compare PEC to the models os citizenry proposed by Westheimer and Kahne in “What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy“, however, that thing get more interesting. Based on their model of what could be a good citizen, they established the following categories:

– Personally responsible citizenship: PEC certainly speaks to this group, as it has a set of rules to be followed and is rooted on individual behavior at first.

– Participatory citizenship: the game requires some degree of organization when selecting players, as well as engaging on frequent monitoring and comparison.

– Justice oriented citizenship: that is certainly the biggest problem with the site. It completely lacks any form of debate on what makes a good politician. Participants just have to accept judging their chosen congressmen based on third party criteria. And many of the elements used for that task are highly controversial. For instance, propositions presented: it includes speeches and everyday ordinary communication, not only projects that can become laws and effectively change citizens’ lives. Even if they did, there seems to be no apparent division between complex laws and the ones that simply name streets, airports or create festive days, as the National Pasta Day. By the same logic, presence during votings and expenses during the mandate are not black and white divisions between good and bad, and may not lead to a accurate judgement of good political activity.

The controversy raises the question: what makes a good job over four years in Congress? I do not possess the answer, but I certainly do not rate my elected officials by how many projects they presented, but by the quality of their ideas, being them approved or not. This is another aspect PEC minimizes, as there is no detailing about each proposition or the reasons that led the politician to present it. To get them, it is easier to go to the Congress official website.

For all above, Política Esporte Clube may be a good idea, but today it leaves citizens in the very same position as soccer fans: thinking they can change the game result, but with very little more than that.