Earmarks, Political Parties and the Corruption of Belonging

False Jiwasa, Political Personas and the Struggle for the Body-Territory

Imagine a community that needs a living school, a functioning health unit, a safe square, public internet, sports, culture, transportation, standing forest and dignity.

Now imagine that this community is only heard when someone turns its need into political currency.

The square becomes a favor.

The ambulance becomes propaganda.

The school becomes a stage.

The bridge becomes a photo.

The earmark becomes purchased belonging.

Politics should expand paths for the Body-Territory.

But when electoral money, parliamentary earmarks and political parties begin to organize public attention, belonging can be displaced from the living territory into the struggle for visibility.

The question is simple:

when politics stops listening to the Body-Territory and starts competing for attention, what kind of Tekoha does it form inside the citizen?

Belonging as a Real Need

Human beings need to belong.

They belong to family.

They belong to school.

They belong to the neighborhood.

They belong to work.

They belong to territory.

They belong to the group.

They belong to the future they imagine.

This belonging is biological, affective, social and political.

In the Human Behavior Map, we call this Human Quorum Sensing: the ability to feel the group, adjust the body to the collective and perceive where life can continue with others.

When this belonging is healthy, it opens Zone 2.

Fruition, Metacognition, criticality, creativity and True Jiwasa appear.

The person feels:

I am the strength of the group that moves me.

The community feels:

we can organize life together.

In this state, politics becomes care for the Body-Territory.

When Politics Buys Belonging

The problem appears when belonging becomes a campaign resource.

The citizen receives political presence only during election season.

The neighborhood is remembered only when votes are needed.

The city is seen as a map of influence.

The parliamentary earmark begins to function as proof of belonging:

“I brought resources to you.”

“I obtained the project.”

“I am the owner of this delivery.”

This gesture may look like care.

Sometimes it delivers something necessary.

But it can also displace the axis of democracy.

The question stops being:

which public policy improves the Body-Territory?

And becomes:

who appears as the author of the delivery?

The living territory becomes a stage.

The real need becomes propaganda.

Collective attention is guided by the politician’s name, the party’s label, the short video, the photo of the project and the narrative of loyalty.

The Political Persona and the Fixed Tensional Self

It is normal to have Tensional Selves.

They help the body act.

The Teacher Self teaches.

The Doctor Self cares.

The Political Self negotiates.

The Religious Self prays.

The Researcher Self investigates.

The Father Self protects.

The Worker Self executes.

In a healthy Zone 1, these Selves appear according to the task.

Then the body returns the tension to the territory.

The next moment can be born whole.

The problem emerges when a Tensional Self becomes a fixed persona.

The persona stops being a function.

It becomes rigid identity.

The person stops circulating among different Jiwasas.

They begin to represent the same group, the same belief, the same narrative, the same aesthetic, the same fear, the same enemy.

A representative may enter any space and repeat:

“everything I do is to go to heaven.”

This sentence may make sense inside a specific religious group.

But when it occupies every context, it reduces the ability to listen to the Jiwasa that is present there.

The person arrives already representing an internalized Jiwasa.

They arrive with a ready-made persona.

The real group in front of them loses space.

The living territory loses space.

The plurality of the Secular State loses space.

The persona occupies the Body-Territory.

True Jiwasa and False Jiwasa in Politics

True Jiwasa allows different bodies, histories, beliefs and needs to find passage in the same territory.

It expands paths.

It welcomes differences.

It distributes strength.

It sustains trust.

It organizes life.

False Jiwasa offers narrow belonging.

It delivers fast identity.

It delivers an enemy.

It delivers certainty.

It delivers obedience.

It delivers a persona.

In politics, False Jiwasa appears when the group asks for loyalty before reality.

The party becomes a symbolic family.

The leader becomes a symbolic father.

The ideology becomes a symbolic home.

The enemy becomes the glue of the group.

The earmark becomes the food of belonging.

The citizen feels collective strength.

But Metacognition loses space.

Criticality decreases.

Political Tekoha becomes marked by fear, favor, debt, devotion to the persona and war for attention.

Earmarks and the Struggle for Political APUS

A parliamentary earmark can finance schools, health, infrastructure, sports, culture and important actions.

The problem is not the resource reaching the territory.

The problem appears when the resource arrives with low traceability, little social participation, weak planning, little evaluation and strong symbolic capture.

In this case, the earmark stops being a republican instrument.

It becomes an extension of the political persona.

The community’s APUS, which should perceive collective paths, begins to perceive dependency.

“we need to please this representative.”

“we need to keep this party.”

“we need to vote for whoever brought the project.”

The community begins to walk through narrow corridors.

The territory receives money, but may lose autonomy.

The project appears, but belonging becomes conditioned.

The Body-Territory gains an object, but may lose voice.

Political Parties and the Choreography of Attention

Political parties are necessary in representative democracies.

They organize projects, disputes, programs, alliances and governability.

But parties can also become machines of attentional capture.

When the party label becomes more important than the territory, the citizen is pushed into the game of cheering for a side.

The question stops being:

which proposal improves concrete life?

And becomes:

which side are you on?

In the game Paper, Stone and Scissors, this is capture by Stone in Zone 3.

The response becomes fast.

The defense becomes automatic.

The attack is ready.

The body replicates.

The group applauds.

The algorithm distributes.

The persona grows.

And politics becomes war for attention.

Scissors, Stone and Paper in Politics

Healthy politics needs all three movements.

Scissors analyzes.

It cuts through data.

Classifies priorities.

Examines the budget.

Compares indicators.

Separates evidence from propaganda.

Stone acts.

Executes projects.

Delivers services.

Builds schools.

Opens health units.

Organizes transportation.

Brings internet.

Protects territory.

Paper contemplates.

Perceives effects.

Listens to the community.

Questions biases.

Opens Metacognition.

Reorganizes the plan.

Expands paths.

The healthy cycle is:

Scissors analyzes.

Stone acts.

Paper perceives and transforms.

In the corruption of belonging, this cycle breaks.

Scissors becomes distant technocracy.

Stone becomes automatic delivery for a photo.

Paper loses space.

The community receives a project, but does not participate in the question.

Receives resources, but does not participate in Metacognition.

Receives a narrative, but does not participate in the future.

Political Zone 3: When the Persona Occupies the Territory

In political Zone 3, the space of possible movements narrows.

Attention gravitates around enemies, scandals, fear, guilt, shame, debt, favor, religion, consumption and party belonging.

The politician speaks to keep the group activated.

The voter reacts to keep the group protected.

The party moves to keep electoral territory.

The earmark circulates to keep loyalty.

Social media amplifies to keep attention.

The political persona grows in this environment.

It repeats high-impact phrases.

It simplifies dilemmas.

It turns complexity into identity.

It offers fast belonging.

It occupies the place of Metacognition.

The citizen begins to feel that thinking differently threatens the group.

At this point, political Tekoha becomes fragile.

The person continues participating in democracy.

But participates with little internal space to perceive other Jiwasas.

The Role of Algorithms in the War for Belonging

Digital politics intensified the struggle for belonging.

Social media offers immediate group.

It offers ready-made phrases.

It offers outrage.

It offers an enemy.

It offers reward.

It offers visibility.

The algorithm learns which affects keep the body attached to the screen.

Anger holds attention.

Fear holds attention.

Shame holds attention.

Identity holds attention.

Humiliation holds attention.

Symbolic victory holds attention.

Politics becomes a sequence of short stimuli.

The Body-Territory begins to alternate between Stone and Scissors without reaching Paper.

It reacts quickly.

It analyzes to defend its own side.

It reacts again.

The space of Fruition and Metacognition decreases.

False Jiwasa grows.

What Recent Brain Works Are Showing

The works presented at the Brain Behavior and Emotions congresses between 2021 and 2025 help us understand this landscape.

Many investigate problematic smartphone use, gaming, university mental health, dependency, compulsions, physical activity, emotional suffering, negative symptoms, autonomic regulation and social functionality.

We need to praise these researchers.

They study real bodies, real students, real patients, real symptoms and concrete Brazilian or Latin American populations.

BrainLatam2026 adds a political question:

what happens when the same mechanisms of attentional capture studied in mental health are also used to organize electoral belonging?

When the screen becomes territory.

When the digital group becomes clan.

When the political persona becomes a fixed Tensional Self.

When the earmark becomes a sign of love for the territory.

When the party becomes symbolic family.

When the enemy becomes fuel for belonging.

Politics begins to produce symptoms in the Body-Territory.

Collective anxiety.

Rigidity.

Automatism.

Polarization.

Fatigue.

Obedience.

Loss of public creativity.

Scientific References and Experimental Paths

Fleury, S. (2025). Works on parliamentary earmarks, democracy and public policies in Brazil.
The analysis of earmarks shows how the growing centrality of these instruments can affect planning, equity, transparency and coordination of public policies.
Experiment: compare municipalities with high and low dependence on earmarks, measuring social participation, policy continuity, perception of belonging and institutional trust.

Leal, J. G. R. P. et al. (2025). Studies on parliamentary earmarks directed to SUS and electoral effects.
These works help investigate how health-directed resources may be associated with local electoral dynamics.
Experiment: cross data on health earmarks, SUS access indicators, municipal reelection and community perception of territorial autonomy.

Transparência Brasil (2024). Studies on Pix earmarks and traceability.
These analyses show the importance of transparency, origin, destination, work plans and social control over special transfers.
Experiment: create local citizen traceability panels, comparing public trust before and after data openness.

CGU, TCU, STF and Portal da Transparência (2024–2026). Data and decisions on traceability of parliamentary earmarks.
These institutions have produced databases, determinations and instruments to expand transparency, control and traceability.
Experiment: test whether clear information about origin, destination and execution of earmarks increases political Metacognition and reduces vote-by-favor.

Kubin, E., & Sikorski, C. (2021). Systematic review on social media and political polarization.
The literature shows that media and social networks participate in the formation of polarization environments, especially when they fragment information and amplify identities.
Experiment: measure EEG/fNIRS, GSR and HRV during exposure to cooperative, technical and polarizing political content.

Rossini, P. et al. (2023). Studies on electoral misinformation in Brazil in 2022.
This research shows how political trust, ideology, information habits and digital platforms influence beliefs in electoral misinformation.
Experiment: test Metacognition interventions before sharing political content among adolescents and adults.

Balles, P., Matter, U., & Stutzer, A. (2024). Political economy of attention and electoral accountability.
The attention economy helps explain how distraction, salience and informational competition affect democratic accountability.
Experiment: compare electoral decisions after exposure to content about a concrete public project, an emotional scandal and a public policy dashboard.

International IDEA (2024). Regulation of online campaign financing in Brazil.
The study discusses how digital advertising, boosting and online financing impact campaigns and electoral transparency.
Experiment: evaluate whether clear labeling of funding, boosting and content origin reduces capture by political personas.

Brain Behavior and Emotions works from 2021–2025 on mental health, compulsions, physical activity, smartphone use and social functionality.
These works help observe how attentional capture and fragilization of the Body-Territory appear in real populations.
Experiment: measure whether political education based on Paper, Stone and Scissors reduces automatic responses and increases criticality in young people.

BrainLatam2026 Experimental Proposal

Central question:

does exposure to political narratives based on earmarks, favors, enemies and fixed personas increase markers of Zone 3, automated Stone and False Jiwasa, while narratives based on Body-Territory, traceability, participation and Metacognition increase markers of Zone 2, Paper and True Jiwasa?

Experimental design:

Compare four types of political message:

personalistic delivery of an earmark;

attack on a political enemy;

accountability with traceable data;

community listening with participatory decision-making.

Participants:

adolescents;

university students;

community leaders;

adult voters;

public managers;

school groups.

Tasks:

evaluate trust;

decide public priorities;

identify the political persona;

distinguish public policy from favor;

analyze the traceability of an earmark;

participate in a decision circle;

classify their own state as Stone, Scissors or Paper.

Measures:

prefrontal fNIRS;

EEG;

EEG microstates;

HRV/RMSSD;

GSR;

breathing;

eye-tracking;

speech analysis;

belonging scales;

polarization scales;

institutional trust scales;

belief rigidity measures;

budget comprehension measures;

willingness-to-cooperate measures.

Hypothesis:

personalistic and polarizing messages will increase fast responses, rigidity, autonomic activation and identification with the persona.

Traceable, participatory and territorial messages will increase Metacognition, cooperation, institutional trust and perception of collective paths.

How to Transform This Evidence into Public Policy?

If you are a candidate for President of the Republic

Propose the National System for Traceability of Public Belonging, integrating budget, earmarks, Citizen DREX, SUS, education, culture, sports, standing forest and Body-Territory indicators so that every citizen can see how public money reaches the living territory.

If you are a candidate for the Senate

Propose a Legal Framework for Earmark Transparency and Democratic Belonging, requiring work plans, goals, traceability, territorial impact evaluation and community participation before, during and after resource execution.

If you are a candidate for Governor

Create State Human Behavior Map Centers for Living Budget, connecting universities, courts of accounts, schools, SUS, communities and EEG/fNIRS laboratories to study how transparency, participation and belonging affect public trust and collective mental health.

If you are a candidate for Federal Representative

Allocate resources to multicenter research on parliamentary earmarks, polarization, digital financing, fNIRS, EEG, HRV, GSR, electoral behavior, traceability and political education for adolescents.

If you are a candidate for State Representative

Support municipal public earmark panels, participatory budgeting circles, school citizenship laboratories, affective neighborhood maps and political education projects based on Paper, Stone and Scissors.

Citizen DREX and the Liberation of Economic Belonging

The corruption of belonging grows when survival depends on favor.

When the community must ask for everything.

When the citizen must be grateful for the minimum.

When the territory must kneel before whoever controls resources.

Citizen DREX enters as the economic metabolism of the State to reduce this obedience.

It offers a daily foundation for existence.

It allows the Body-Territory to breathe.

It allows the person to participate in politics with less fear.

It allows the community to negotiate with more dignity.

With Citizen DREX, carbon credit, standing forest, traceability of earmarks and participatory budgeting, politics can return to asking:

which path expands life in this territory?

The earmark stops being a favor.

The budget returns to being public metabolism.

The citizen stops being dependent on the persona.

The Body-Territory recovers voice.

Phrases for a Government Plan

A public earmark must be a path for the territory, not the signature of a persona.

A party should organize a project, not capture belonging.

The budget is the metabolism of the State; when it loses traceability, the Body-Territory loses voice.

The political persona is born when a Tensional Self becomes a fixed identity and stops listening to the present Jiwasa.

True Jiwasa expands paths among different groups.

False Jiwasa offers fast belonging through fear, enemy, debt or favor.

Paper, Stone and Scissors teach citizenship: Scissors analyzes, Stone acts, Paper perceives and transforms.

A healthy earmark begins with a real need, passes through transparency and ends in territorial autonomy.

Citizen DREX reduces economic obedience and strengthens democratic participation.

True public policy asks what kind of Tekoha, APUS and Jiwasa each public resource will produce.

Mature democracy begins when public money stops buying belonging and starts sustaining common life.