The Violence of Law and Order Politics: The Case of Law Enforcement Candidates in Brazil
Candidates in the developing world often run campaign platforms that promise to improve security, but what do these law-and-order candidates achieve after taking office? In Brazil, where violence is widespread, many law enforcement agents run for office in municipal councils under an unambiguous security platform. However, through an electoral regression discontinuity design, this paper shows that the election of law enforcement candidates generates a surge in homicides. This increase in violence affects non-white men only. Mano-dura tactics cannot explain this violence, but local politics can. Law-and-order politicians distort public policy to benefit their relatively wealthier constituency, neglecting areas that did not vote for them. Spatial analyses using geocoded robberies and homicides show neighborhoods that did not support law-and-order politicians experiencing more violence and crime, and supporting areas becoming more secure. An event study using police strikes demonstrates how the withdrawal of policing results in killings, and illustrates the dangers of politicizing the police.
Presented at Insper, EESP-FGV, FGV-RI, DCP-USP
Media: blog faces da violência, época
Candidates in the developing world often run campaign platforms that promise to improve security, but what do these law-and-order candidates achieve after taking office? In Brazil, where violence is widespread, many law enforcement agents run for office in municipal councils under an unambiguous security platform. However, through an electoral regression discontinuity design, this paper shows that the election of law enforcement candidates generates a surge in homicides. This increase in violence affects non-white men only. Mano-dura tactics cannot explain this violence, but local politics can. Law-and-order politicians distort public policy to benefit their relatively wealthier constituency, neglecting areas that did not vote for them. Spatial analyses using geocoded robberies and homicides show neighborhoods that did not support law-and-order politicians experiencing more violence and crime, and supporting areas becoming more secure. An event study using police strikes demonstrates how the withdrawal of policing results in killings, and illustrates the dangers of politicizing the police.
Presented at Insper, EESP-FGV, FGV-RI, DCP-USP
Media: blog faces da violência, época
Commodity Shocks and Incumbency Effects (submitted, with Luis Schiumerini)
Why do incumbents enjoy an electoral advantage in some developing democracies but suffer from a disadvantage in others? We propose a novel explanation linking variation in incumbency effects with exogenous commodity shocks. While voters attempt to sanction incumbents for economic performance, changes in commodity prices affect their evaluations and condition the electoral fortunes of incumbents vis-à-vis challengers. We test our argument combining a plausibly exogenous measure of variation in commodity prices with a ``close election'' regression discontinuity design. Our results show that increases in the price of agricultural commodities greatly enhance the mayoral incumbency advantage, while negative changes exacerbate their incumbency disadvantage, especially in rural municipalities. Further investigation suggests that commodity shocks do not operate via mechanisms such as candidate entry, candidate selection, campaign donations, or voter preferences. Instead, we find suggestive evidence that commodity shocks affect voters' evaluations through their direct effect on local economic growth.
Presented at Sciences Po 2017, MPSA 2015, APSA 2015.
Why do incumbents enjoy an electoral advantage in some developing democracies but suffer from a disadvantage in others? We propose a novel explanation linking variation in incumbency effects with exogenous commodity shocks. While voters attempt to sanction incumbents for economic performance, changes in commodity prices affect their evaluations and condition the electoral fortunes of incumbents vis-à-vis challengers. We test our argument combining a plausibly exogenous measure of variation in commodity prices with a ``close election'' regression discontinuity design. Our results show that increases in the price of agricultural commodities greatly enhance the mayoral incumbency advantage, while negative changes exacerbate their incumbency disadvantage, especially in rural municipalities. Further investigation suggests that commodity shocks do not operate via mechanisms such as candidate entry, candidate selection, campaign donations, or voter preferences. Instead, we find suggestive evidence that commodity shocks affect voters' evaluations through their direct effect on local economic growth.
Presented at Sciences Po 2017, MPSA 2015, APSA 2015.
The exit trap: the gender gap in political perseverance
(Working paper, with Guadalupe Tuñon)
Presented at: IAST, EPSA 2017.
(Working paper, with Guadalupe Tuñon)
Presented at: IAST, EPSA 2017.
Edited democracy? Evidence of media slant in the coverage of presidential debates (submitted, with Alexsandros Cavgias, Raphael Corbi, and Luis Meloni)
We investigate how powerful non--openly partisan media can change the trajectory of an election by unexpectedly manipulating a single piece of news -- the coverage of a political debate during the 1989 Brazilian presidential race. Using geographical distribution of broadcaster-specific TV signals and the timing of election events, we find that the left-wing candidate lost $4.1$ p.p. in vote share due to the misleading reporting, potentially costing him the election. We provide evidence that our results are best explained by viewers switching candidates, as their beliefs of who won the debate were swayed by the manipulation.
We investigate how powerful non--openly partisan media can change the trajectory of an election by unexpectedly manipulating a single piece of news -- the coverage of a political debate during the 1989 Brazilian presidential race. Using geographical distribution of broadcaster-specific TV signals and the timing of election events, we find that the left-wing candidate lost $4.1$ p.p. in vote share due to the misleading reporting, potentially costing him the election. We provide evidence that our results are best explained by viewers switching candidates, as their beliefs of who won the debate were swayed by the manipulation.
The new left in broker-mediated party systems
(forthcoming in Kapiszewski, Levitsky and Yashar (eds.) The Inclusionary Turn: Democracy and Citizenship in Contemporary Latin America, CUP, with Thad Dunning)
With the growth of economic informality, the transformation of traditional left party-union linkages, and the rise of political decentralization, local intermediaries have played an increasingly critical role in shaping political participation, interest intermediation, and distributive exchange in Latin America. Left parties in the region— even those who are externally mobilized or who advance unambiguous programmatic goals—have often needed to negotiate with such local "brokers" when seeking to capture popular-sector constituencies electorally. In this chapter, we consider the resources that intermediaries offer to parties but also the challenges broker-mediated incorporation poses for left parties. We focus on several dimensions of variation: the durability of brokers’ partisan linkages; the resources they can offer for electoral mobilization; and the degree and nature of horizontal competition between brokers. We then use new evidence from Brazil to assess possible implications of broker-mediated incorporation for political accountability, economic distribution, and the autonomous mobilization of popular sectors.
(forthcoming in Kapiszewski, Levitsky and Yashar (eds.) The Inclusionary Turn: Democracy and Citizenship in Contemporary Latin America, CUP, with Thad Dunning)
With the growth of economic informality, the transformation of traditional left party-union linkages, and the rise of political decentralization, local intermediaries have played an increasingly critical role in shaping political participation, interest intermediation, and distributive exchange in Latin America. Left parties in the region— even those who are externally mobilized or who advance unambiguous programmatic goals—have often needed to negotiate with such local "brokers" when seeking to capture popular-sector constituencies electorally. In this chapter, we consider the resources that intermediaries offer to parties but also the challenges broker-mediated incorporation poses for left parties. We focus on several dimensions of variation: the durability of brokers’ partisan linkages; the resources they can offer for electoral mobilization; and the degree and nature of horizontal competition between brokers. We then use new evidence from Brazil to assess possible implications of broker-mediated incorporation for political accountability, economic distribution, and the autonomous mobilization of popular sectors.
Modular Parties: making clientelism work in volatile systems
(working paper)
How do weakly-institutionalized parties make clientelism work in electorally volatile party systems? In this article I argue that parties do not have to build patron--client linkages from the ground up when local notables have already established them. If parties incorporate local bosses into their organizations, the parties will forge local connections and have access to local notables to broker votes. However, the relationship between parties and local authorities only works as long as parties have access to state resources. When this flow is curtailed, such as when subnational candidates lose elections, the vertical bonds between parties and local authorities are severed. When power changes hands, a new incumbent will form alliances with local notables. I test this model in Brazil, and I show that when gubernatorial candidates win close elections, their parties are able to field more mayoral candidates and subsequently gain more seats in Congress. The same pattern holds on a smaller scale when congressional candidates win their elections. The model helps to explain why clientelistic party systems are stable when parties are not.
Presented at: 2015 Brokering Votes Conference - Berkeley 2015, APSA 2015.
(working paper)
How do weakly-institutionalized parties make clientelism work in electorally volatile party systems? In this article I argue that parties do not have to build patron--client linkages from the ground up when local notables have already established them. If parties incorporate local bosses into their organizations, the parties will forge local connections and have access to local notables to broker votes. However, the relationship between parties and local authorities only works as long as parties have access to state resources. When this flow is curtailed, such as when subnational candidates lose elections, the vertical bonds between parties and local authorities are severed. When power changes hands, a new incumbent will form alliances with local notables. I test this model in Brazil, and I show that when gubernatorial candidates win close elections, their parties are able to field more mayoral candidates and subsequently gain more seats in Congress. The same pattern holds on a smaller scale when congressional candidates win their elections. The model helps to explain why clientelistic party systems are stable when parties are not.
Presented at: 2015 Brokering Votes Conference - Berkeley 2015, APSA 2015.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
2018 - "Disloyal Brokers and Weak Parties" - American Journal of Political Science 62.1
2010 - "The effect of re-election on health expenditures: an analysis of the reputation-building model". Brazilian Review of Political Economy (Revista de Economia Política) - v. 30, p. 140-158. (with Enlinson Mattos, and in Portuguese)
2009 - "Scale economies in the supply of health services: a study of São Paulo Municipalities". Revista ANPEC, v. 10, p. 357-386. (with Paulo Arvate, Enlinson Mattos, Veronica Orellano, and Fabiana Rocha)
Non Peer-Reviewed
2018 - DECEPÇÃO À VISTA
Revista Época, 22 de março 2018
2010 - MEXICO CENTENNIAL: LIMITED INDEPENDENCE, LIMITED DEMOCRACY
(with Sinaia Urrusti-Frenk)
Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies
