Consequences of Corruption for Political System Support: Evidence From a Brazilian Scandal

Comparative Political Studies · 2025-05-13

How do corruption scandals affect mass support for democratic institutions? We leverage the surprise news of Brazil’s historic 2015 corruption scandal, which broke during Latinobarometer data collection, to assess the causal effects of scandals on political system support. From the corruption literature, we derive and test two hypotheses: (1) a conditional hypothesis in which the public rewards democratic institutions for uncovering corruption and punishes those institutions implicated in the scandal, and (2) a cynical hypothesis in which the public punishes democratic institutions as complicit or failing to prevent corruption. Our regression discontinuity analysis finds support for the cynical hypothesis. Being randomly sampled after the news of the scandal broke leads to a significant reduction in trust in institutions, whether they were involved in the scandal or not, in democratic values, and in support for democracy. We conclude with the implications of these findings for accountability and challenges to democracy.

Education, perceived discrimination, and identity voting: evidence from Brazil’s 2018 election

Politics Groups and Identities · 2024-05-26 · 1 citations

Brazil's electoral arena has long been characterized as devoid of identity politics. Recent analyses, however, have uncovered shifting racial subjectivities and effects of race and gender on electoral preferences. This paper leverages Brazil's 2018 election to reassess conventional wisdom and test whether recent findings derived from racial groups extend to other subordinate social groups in this context, namely women and sexual minorities. I test two hypotheses: (1) that higher levels of education correlate with greater perceptions of group-based discrimination, and (2) that perceptions of group-based discrimination explain within-group variation in support for Bolsonaro. Analysis of national survey data show that education correlates with group consciousness among subordinate groups, and that these individuals are more likely to oppose the far-right populist candidate. This article provides a more complete understanding of the electoral salience of identity in the Brazilian context, and provides evidence that insights derived from one marginalized group can extend to others.

Bolsonaro and the Black Vote: Racial Voting in Brazil’s 2018 Election

Latin American Politics and Society · 2023 · 5 citations

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Political Science

ABSTRACT Two competing narratives characterize the role of race in Brazil’s 2018 election. Journalists observe that Jair Bolsonaro “entranced” nonwhite voters while “insulting them.” Scholars argue that Bolsonaro politicized race, costing him nonwhite support. In contrast, this article argues that racialized patterns of voter behavior were not distinct from those in recent general elections, and that voters’ electoral choices varied within as well as between racial categories. This study incorporates recent findings on racial subjectivity in Brazil, which emphasize the interaction of racial identification and educational status in shaping racial consciousness. Survey data show that racial differences are driven by highly educated black voters, who are least likely to support Bolsonaro compared to educated white voters and more likely to support leftist candidates. By incorporating findings on racial subjectivity into theoretical predictions and leveraging the 2018 election, this study identifies conditions in which racial identification operates to shape electoral behavior.

LAS volume 54 issue 2 Cover and Back matter

Journal of Latin American Studies · 2022-05-01

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What Happened to the “New Middle Class”? The 2016 BORP (Brazil’s Once-Rising Poor) Survey

Latin American Research Review · 2022-06-08 · 6 citations

Abstract This research note provides a detailed account of the development and implementation of a household survey conducted in 2016 as part of a larger investigation into the lifeways and political subjectivities of Brazil’s “once-rising poor,” the demographic sector comprising poor and working-class people who experienced various forms of socioeconomic mobility in the early twenty-first century. After reflecting on the challenges of maintaining a critical perspective on class labels and relations that were intensely contested at the time, the article introduces the survey sample ( n = 1,204), highlighting variables captured. It then establishes the demographic profile, mobility experiences, political values, attitudes, and behaviors of the sample. The portrait that emerges for this sector is one of economic precarity, heterogeneous experiences of socioeconomic mobility (and nonmobility) over the past two decades, and significant alienation from formal politics.

Tenuous Pacts and Multiparty Coalitions: The Politics of Presidential Impeachment in Latin America

Journal of Latin American Studies · 2022-03-09 · 4 citations

Abstract When and why do legislatures impeach presidents? We analyse six cases of attempted impeachment in Paraguay, Brazil and Peru to argue that intra-coalitional politics is central to impeachment outcomes. Presidents in Latin America often govern with multiparty, ideologically heterogeneous coalitions sustained by tenuous pacts. Coalitions are tested when crises, scandals or mass protests emerge, but presidents can withstand these threats if they tend to allies’ interests and maintain coalitions intact. Conversely, in the absence of major threats, presidents can be impeached if they fail to serve partners’ interests, inducing allies to support impeachment as acts of opportunism or self-preservation.

Public Trust in Latin America's Courts: Do Institutions Matter?

Government and Opposition · 2022 · 10 citations

• Political Science
• Political Science
• Sociology

Abstract Despite the integral role of the judiciary to democracy, and the importance of judicial trust for judicial system performance, we know relatively little about the bases of public trust in this institution. How does institutional quality affect judicial trust? We explore this question in the context of Latin America, using a multilevel data set comprising survey data spanning 2001 to 2016 and country-level institutional and economic factors. We find that the effects of institutional quality on judicial trust are highly circumscribed. Factors like rule of law and corruption impact the judicial trust of only the best-educated survey respondents. Among the broader public, however, judicial trust is shaped more strongly by individuals' subjective economic and regime evaluations, as well as one's personal experiences with the judiciary.

Racial Reclassification and Political Identity Formation

World Politics · 2020 · 30 citations

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Gender studies

Abstract This article leverages a phenomenon of racial reclassification in Brazil to shed new light on the processes of identity politicization. Conventional wisdom tells us that race mixture, fluid racial boundaries, and stigmatized blackness lead Brazilians to change their racial identifications—to reclassify—toward whiteness. But in recent years, Brazilians have demonstrated a newfound tendency to reclassify toward blackness. The author argues that this sudden reversal is the unintended consequence of state-led educational expansion for the lower classes. Educational expansion has increased the exposure of newly mobile citizens to information, social networks, and the labor market, leading many to develop racialized political identities and choose blackness. The author develops and tests this argument by drawing on in-depth interview data, systematic analyses of national survey and longitudinal census data, and original survey experiments. This article contributes a novel account of identity politicization and emphasizes the interaction between social structures and citizenship institutions in these processes.

Replication Data for: Racial Reclassification and Political Identity Formation

Harvard Dataverse · 2020-08-03

Files for reproduction of analyses presented in the main text and supplementary appendix

The Racialized Effects of Social Programs in Brazil

Latin American Politics and Society · 2018-01-15 · 14 citations

Abstract Studies of the electoral effects of cash transfer programs in Latin America have largely treated the poor as a unitary group. This study considers how the effects of social benefits vary across groups among the targeted poor by exploring the consequences of race for the electoral effects of Brazil’s Bolsa Família program. A matching analysis of LAPOP survey data shows that race shapes baseline propensities to participate in elections and to support the incumbent PT at the polls; these tendencies then shape the mechanisms through which cash transfers boost support for the incumbent. Benefits mobilize Afro-Brazilians to participate but have little effect on their vote choice. By contrast, benefits have little effect on whites’ participation but persuade them to support the PT over the opposition. This article deepens understanding of how social benefits affect the electoral behavior of recipients and highlights how race shapes political behavior among the poor.