Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Política distributiva na Federação: estratégias eleitorais, barganhas legislativas e coalizões de governo

2004; UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DO RIO DE JANEIRO; Volume: 47; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1590/s0011-52582004000300004

1678-4588

Marta Arretche, Jonathan Rodden,

Social Policy and Reform Studies

This article discusses and tests different hypotheses about electoral and legislative strategies in Brazil, which is a federation with a strong president, over-representation in both chambers, and members of the legislative branch who are encouraged to seek funds for their constituencies. It examines the geographical distribution of budget and extra-budgetary funds during the period from 1990-2000 and measures the relative importance of captive and undecided districts, over-represented states, state governments, congressional party coalitions and indicators of poverty. It concludes that Brazilian presidents have considerable power over the transfer of resources and use it to preserve their political base in congress. They channel the resources available to them to the states with the largest number of legislators in the governing coalition.