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Studies on Digitalization are still incipient in Brazilian political science. In this section, one can find a mapping of activities of teaching, research and scientific production related to this subject by Brazilian researchers. There will be considered disciplines offered by graduate programs, research projects, books and articles published in scientific journals, by Brazilian political scientists, as well as the use of e-learning resources in the teaching of political science in the country. The source for the data collection was the Sucupira Platform, an official and annual register of all activities carried out by graduate programs in Brazil, maintained by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), the governmental agency responsible for accreditation, evaluation and funding of institutions that hold courses at this level.

Among the 43 graduate programs in political science and international relations in operation in Brazil in 2016, only three (03) offered classes related to studies on “digitization”: The discipline “Digital Democracy”, offered by the Institute of Politics of the University of Brasilia (UNB), has as its subject topics such as decentralization, citizen participation, transparency, accountability, grassroots social movements, alternative experiences, popular participation and social movements in the network. Among the topics covered are also the examination of factors of improvement citizen participation in various sites of legislative assemblies of municipalities in Brazil and Latin America and the use of information and communication technologies to increase participation and governance at the local level.

In the program on international strategic studies of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, a course on “Digitalization and Local War” is offered, which is dedicated to studying the impact of digitalization on war especially in the sphere of doctrine, and the correlation of forces in the international system. Finally, the Center for Education and Training of the House of Representatives (CEFOR) through the Professional Masters in Legislative, installed the course “Digital Democracy and Legislative”, aimed to examine cases of digital democracy applied to the legislature, digital culture, technology of information and communication and its diverse applications in democratic processes, social networks, collaborative transparency, digital participation and digital deliberation.

[36] With regard to scientific research on “digitization studies”, only three funded research projects were identified on the theme: researchers from the Federal University of Pará, located in the Amazon region, develop the project “Technological consumption behavior: digital inclusion and sustainability the contributions to social insert and local development”, based on qualitative research developping a focus on ethnographic analysis; another subproject is performing a quantitative research including an analysis of responsible consumption (green technological products). At the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, researchers from the international strategic studies program investigate “Digitalization as factor of international Brazil inset: security, integration and development”, which seeks to verify the impact of the digitization on Brazil’s relations with the countries of the South axis, aiming to evaluate how such a process will benefit the Brazilian international insertion and will enable a leading role in the context of South-South axis relations. Finally, in CEFOR, researchers develop the project “Politics and the internet: strategies of political institutions in digital democracy”, which aims to study the main digital mechanisms aimed at bringing political institutions closer to citizens and civil society, analyzing if contact and debate activities developed on the Internet are an effective instrument for the interaction, visibility and transparency of political institutions, parliamentarians, political elites and civil society organizations.

In the period corresponding to the quadrennial evaluation 2013–2016, researchers in political science published five books, two book chapters and five articles in scientific journals dedicated to analyzing “digitization” in politics:

Table 1: Scientific Production on digitalization in politics (2013–2016)
Production	Publication	Author	Institution
Brazilian parliament and digital engagement	Journal	Barros, A.T; Bernardes, C.; Rehbein, M.	CEFOR
Concepções, debates e desafios da democracia digital (Conceptions, discussions and challenges of digital democracy)	Book	Sampaio, R.C.; Bragatto, R; Silva, S.	UFPR
Deliberação online no brasil: entre iniciativas de democracia digital e redes sociais de conversação (Online deliberation in brazil: between initiatives of digital democracy and social conversation networks)	Book	Fabrino, R; Sampaio, R; Barros,S.	UFPR
Democracia digital: publicidade, instituições e confronto político (Digital democracy: advertising, institutions and political confrontation)	Book	Fabrino, R.; Pereira, M; Filgueiras, F.	UFMG
Democracia digital, comunicação política e redes: teoria e prática (Digital democracy, political communication and networks: theory and practice)	Book	Sampaio, R.C.; Bragatto, R; Silva, S.	UFPR
Democracy in brazil: is technology a game-changer?)	Book Chap.	Rosina, M.; Moncau, L.F.; Lazzari, E.	USP
Digital/commercial (in)visibility: the politics of daesh recruitment videos	Journal	Leander, A.	PUC-RIO
Disputas de poder: entre o totalitarismo e a democracia na era digital Diisputes of power: between totalitarianism and democracy in the digital age)	Journal	Wunsch, M.	UFRGS-EEI
Remarks on the relations between intellectual property and cultural diversity in brazil’s digital environment: an analysis of the civil framework of the internet	Book Chap.	Kauark, G.; Cruz,P.	PUC-RIO
Os clientes diplomáticos e econômicos da espionagem digital estadunidense: análise das ações contra o conselho de segurança da onu e a petrobras (The diplomatic and economic clients of us digital spying: analysis of the actions against the un security council and petrobras)	Journal	Teixeira, C.; Datylgeld,.M.	UNESP
Rumo a um modelo mais participativo de comunicação partidária? um estudo comparado das estratégias de comunicação digital pelos partidos brasileiros e portugueses (Towards a more participatory communication model? a comparative study of digital communication strategies for the brazilian and portuguese parties)	Book	Braga,S.; Rocha, L.; Carlomagno, M.	UFPR
Setting the public agenda in the digital communication age	Journal	Lycarião, D.; Sampaio, R.	UFPR
Source: Sucupira Platform/CAPES

[37] These papers address the problems and challenges associated with digitization, related to political aspects such as democracy, institutions, legislature, parties, agenda and political deliberation, social networks and participation, diplomacy and international relations.

In sequence will be considered digital tools available to researchers in Brazilian political science and distance learning initiatives developed by the postgraduate institutions in the área.

The main digital resource available is the Portal of Periodicals of CAPES⁴, the federal agency for accreditation and evaluation of the Brazilian post-graduation. Funded by the federal government budget, the Portal promotes the signing of 37.8 thousands international journals, allowing its free access by scientific research institutions. In the area of Political Science, 190 international journals are available, corresponding to a total of 376.2 thousand documents, offering access to political scientists affiliated with university institutions, access free to the main journals of greatest international impact. Since 2002, CAPES has also made available the Thesis Catalog, with full access to all PhD Theses in the country⁵

It should be considered, furthermore, the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), an electronic library covering a selected collection of Brazilian and Latin American scientific journals⁶. The library is funded by Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP), in partnership with the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (BIREME), and since 2002, SciELO is also supported by National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). This digital portal currently has a total of 293 scientific periodical titles (88 of human sciences), with free access.

The National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) maintains two digital databases, with information from all Brazilian researchers and research groups: Curriculo Lattes⁷ and the Research Groups Directory⁸.

Parallelly, all Brazilian post-graduate centers undergo an accreditation process, at the time of its creation, and through a periodic evaluation, every four years, carried out by CAPES. In these moments, one of the topics evaluated is the infrastructure available for teaching and research, especially considering the “availability and publicity of databases”, “access to electronic databases of journals” and computational resources for interinstitutional interactions. The Ministry of Science and Technology maintains the National Education and Research Network (RNP), which constitutes Brazil’s advanced network infrastructure for collaboration and communication in teaching and research. It connects more than 250 Brazilian institutions to each other and to the outside. Periodic reports in the Sucupira Platform⁹ reveal a growth in the use of digital resources for access to databases, periodicals and the accomplishment of theses and dissertation examination with participation of members at a distance.

The Brazilian educational system has different incentive programs for distance education. The first, called the Open University of Brazil, was created in 2006, aiming to “expand and internalize the offer of courses and programs of higher education in the country.” These courses are offered by public universities using distance education resources (EaD), as a priority for the training of teachers of basic education, as well as managers [38] and workers in education of the states, municipalities and the Federal District. In 2018, the UAB System had 109 Public Institutions of Higher Education (IPES), offering 800 courses; none of these in the area of political science.

The second modality, is the Master Professional Network, also aimed at the training of teachers of basic education, using semi-resourses and distance learning. In 2018, 12 Master’s degrees were registered in areas such as mathematics, literature, arts, history, biology, chemistry, physics, philosophy, sociology, environmental sciences, hydrology, physical education. none of these, once again, in the area of political science.

It should also be noted that the Interinstitutional PhD and Master’s degrees (DINTER, MINTER), in which a traditional and consolidated institution offers classes and is responsible for the training of doctors and Masters in more distant regions and without the presence of institutions of postgraduate studies in the respective area. There are initiatives in the area of political science, such as two DINTERs from UFRGS (extreme south of the country) in the states of Rondônia and Amapá (extreme north, Amazon region), or PUCRJ (Rio de Janeiro) together with the University of Latin American Integration (southwest). But they are predominantly face-to-face experiences, organized from the physical displacement of teachers, with little use of distance learning resources.

The expansion of Brazilian political science in the last three decades has presented characteristics of regional concentration, with a high density of institutions and research centers in the Southeast and South states, a greater rarefaction in the Northeast and Center-West regions, and practically absence in the far northern Amazon region. Parallel, the rate of doctoral training has been lower, when compared to neighboring areas such as Sociology or Economics. These two facts should constitute a stimulus for the adoption of e-learning resources, as a way to reach more distant regions and to broaden the training of doctors and researchers. However, this is not what can be verified, according to information above.

What are the reasons for the absence of e-learning initiatives in the training of new generations of Brazilian political scientists? Three can be the elements to explain this picture: (1) characteristics of government policy, (2) association of e-learning to low quality courses, and (3) The post-graduate centers in the area of political science recruit students in geographically close regions, so there is a reduced territorial mobility in the training of doctors in the area, with less demand for the use of digital resources or distance education.

Government programs to encourage distance education (such as those mentioned above) are focused primarily on the training of primary school teachers. This is not the potential audience for Brazilian political science, since there are no “politics” disciplines at these levels. Studies and statistical surveys show that PhDs in political science are absorbed mainly in positions of planning and management in the public administration and in centers of research with higher education.

About 70 % of brazilian higher education is developed by private educational institutions. In recent years, e-learning has been strongly used by these institutions as an alternative to cost reduction, in the form of hiring of teachers, physical infrastructure, etc. Its consequence was the dissemination of low quality courses, in which the payment of fees practically ensures the obtaining of the respective diploma. This, in turn, ended up stigmatizing the use of distance education and its potential.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, most doctors of political science and international relations (60.8 %) obtained employment in the same state where they graduated. By extending the territorial scale to the geographical region where the doctoral institution is located, this figure climbs to 73.8 %. Professional migration from the South/Southeast regions to the North, Northeast and Center-West (minus the Federal District) corresponded to a proportion of 14.2 % of new PhDs, whereas circulation between the South and Southeast was an option for only 5.9 % of graduates.

[39] This behavior is also manifested when the information is broken down into graduate programs of the field: most of the graduates obtained jobs close to the place where they did their PhD. The exceptions were UERJ-CP and UNICAMP, where there was a predominance of doctors employed outside the state of the institution. Based on the number of states with PhD graduates engaged in professional activities, USP-CP (18), UFRGS-CP (14), UNICAMP (13) and UNB-RI (10) had the highest territorial dispersion, with graduates working professionally in all the geographical regions of the country. Finally, the ratio between the score obtained by each program, in reference to the period 2013–2016, and nationalization of the professional activity of graduates from each institution, produced residual indices (R² = 0.0409), indicating no association between academic hierarchy and higher odds of national placement of PhD graduates. Considering that 80.1 % of the PhD students in political science and international relations graduate programs in the period were doing their doctorates in the same state where they had obtained their Master’s degree, would appear to indicate low national integration of the system, reflected in interstate and inter-institutional circulation among those seeking academic career opportunities.