The 2006 presidential elections in Brazil witnessed a dramatic shift of Lula's voting base away from the more developed regions of the country and towards the poorest areas. This paper uses municipal-level data to argue that while this shift represents an important change for the support base of Lula himself, it can mostly be explained by the government's massive cash transfer programme, the Bolsa Familia, and by the empirical regularity with which presidential candidates from the incumbent party in Brazil always perform better in the less developed regions of the country.
EmpresasThis article estimates the electoral effects of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) in three presidential elections in Brazil. It analyzes municipal-level electoral results and survey data and employs matching techniques to reduce causal inference problems typical of observational studies. Results show that CCTs are associated with increased performance by the incumbent party presidential candidate in all three elections but that these effects have been reaped by incumbents from different parties. It also shows that CCTs have had no discernible impacts on party identification and the performance of incumbent parties in legislative elections. Together, these findings suggest that CCTs are significant in the short run, but lack the capacity to induce substantial long-term voter realignments. as well as anonymous reviewers for very constructive suggestions.Brazilian cities of Campinas and Brasilia began making cash payments to low-income families that formally agreed to a series of conditions, the most important of which were keeping children in school and regularly visiting a doctor (Amaral and Ramos 1999; World Bank 2001). Today, CCTs are present in dozens of countries, and large-scale national-level programs such as the Mexican Progresa/Oportunidades and the Brazilian Bolsa Escola/Bolsa Família cover millions of poor families and have become important pillars of their countries' social protection systems (Fiszbein et al. 2009).CCTs are an ideally suited setting in which to evaluate effects of social policies. As the most important policy innovation in the developing world in decades, CCTs are high-profile programs, providing clear individualized monetary benefits to a well-defined population. Although new, CCTs have now existed long enough so that their electoral effects over several elections can be examined, providing us with empirical leverage on the issue of long-term effects of social policy. Finally, CCTs are often
To what extent do party labels influence individuals' policy positions? Much research has examined this question in the United States, where party identification can generate both in-group and out-group pressures to conform to a party's position. However, relatively little research has considered the question's comparative generalizability. We explore the impact of party labels on attitudes in Brazil, a relatively new democracy with a fragmented party system. In such an environment, do parties function as in-groups, out-groups, or neither? We answer this question through two survey experiments, one conducted on a nationally representative sample and another on a convenience sample recruited via Facebook. We find that both in-and out-group cues shape the opinions of identifiers of Brazil's two main parties but that cues have no effect on nonpartisans. Results suggest that party identification can structure attitudes and behavior even in "party-averse" electoral environments. P artisanship is a core heuristic individuals use to make sense of politics. It shapes voters' opinions on a range of issues, motivates engagement in politics, and impacts vote choice. Most of what we know about the nature and impact of party identification (ID) comes from the United States, where the same two parties have competed for over 150 years, and where scholars have found ample support for the idea that source cues can shape public opinion (Goren, Federico, and Kittilson 2009;Greene, Palmquist, and Schickler 2002;Lau and Redlawsk 2006;Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991).Over the last 30 years, new democracies have emerged in nearly every corner of the globe. Scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the study of voting behavior in these countries. However, relatively little experimental research has considered whether the core concept of mass partisanship can travel into such different political contexts, particularly where political parties are new and numerous (for an exception, see Barder and Tucker 2012). Miller, and to the anonymous reviewers and editors at AJPS for comments and suggestions. Thanks to Ted Brader for sharing ideas and experiences with partisan cueing experiments. The online surveys were approved by the IRBs of the University of Minnesota (#1110S05602) and Rutgers University (#E12-231). Thanks to Andy Sell in the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts Office of Information Technology for helping implement and manage the online survey. because free and fair elections are a relatively new phenomenon, and as such, partisanship has had less time to develop as predicted-as a function of consistent information parties provide to voters (Fiorina 1981). Moreover, although individuals in established democracies partly inherit their partisan disposition from their parents (Converse 1969;Jennings, Stoker, and Bowers 2009), in new democracies, neither older nor younger citizens have had many opportunities to vote-and in any case the political context may have changed dramatically and rapidly in recent yea...
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