From beliefs to pork: three tales that Brazilian political institutions matter

• Ano de defesa: 2015
• Autor(a) principal: Bertholini, Frederico
• Orientador(a): Pereira Filho, Carlos Eduardo Ferreira
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Palavras-chave em Português: Políticas públicas; Governos de coalizão; Eleições; Inclusão social
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Belief of social inclusion; Coalition management; Electoral connection; Political institutions
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/10438/18415

In this multiple paper thesis, I discuss why and how Brazilian Political Institutions matter, from different standpoints. The first paper underscores how a dominant belief in social inclusion not only shaped Brazilian post-1988 institutions, but also still dominate the political policy preferences of politicians regardless of their ideological orientation. Based on a unique survey with Brazilian legislators and their roll call voting records, I compare the degree of consistency between what lawmakers say and how they behave. The results demonstrate that although social inclusion is the spoken imperative among legislators, neither ideology nor spoken beliefs appear to shape the voting behavior in Congress. When we observe actual roll call voting behavior, the division between government and opposition distinguishes itself as the principal cleavage. Therefore, a gap exists between what politicians say they believe and how they vote. My second paper examines the effects of Presidential Coalition Management strategic decisions in Governing Costs. I apply Principal Components Analysis to create an innovative Governing Costs Index and regress this Index by Coalition Management variables through a first-differences panel. Results indicate that ideological heterogeneous and disproportional coalitions tend to be more expensive over time, so Presidential individual decisions and styles matter. Notwithstanding, this coalition management specific strategy profile will not be more efficient in granting political support for the President. Finally, the third paper investigates career patterns of state legislators in Brazil and the effects of their legislative performance on reelection probability. The main empirical findings suggest that the majority of state legislators run for reelection and those that decide to do so are successfully reelected, similarly to what happen at the national legislative counterpart. This empirical finding might be associated to the degree of institutional coincidence between state assemblies and national Congress, which reinforces the idea that endogenous institutional aspects may have an effect on electoral performance. On the other hand, legislative performance inside state legislatures provides a positive and statistically significant effect on reelection. While in 2002 voters tended to reelected legislators that presented only symbolic bills, in 2006 the substantive bills turned to be significant. It might suggest that Brazilian voters are moving in the direction of universalistic material goods, such as budgeting and public policies, rather than particularistic symbolic goods, like changing a street name.