Journal article
Political Competition and Local Social Spending: Evidence from Brazil
Studies in comparative international development, v 49(2), pp 197-216
01 Jun 2014
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Electoral theories of democracy imply electoral competition insures accountability. Using data on local elections, socioeconomic factors, and municipal budgets from more than 5,000 municipalities in Brazil for the years 1996, 2000, and 2004, we find that municipalities with more competitive elections allocate less to social spending compared to municipalities with little political competition. We argue that previous theory on political competition and public goods obscures the critical role that financial resources play in shaping the dynamics of social spending and political competition. Municipalities with small budgets lack the resources necessary to engineer convincing electoral victories. Where resources are negligible, voter turnout is low, and incumbents rarely win reelection. Incumbent parties in municipalities with large financial resources win big. Armed with adequate resources, incumbent parties mobilize voters and win by large margins. This new argument and evidence reconcile contradictory findings in the existing literature on competition and public goods.
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Details
- Title
- Political Competition and Local Social Spending: Evidence from Brazil
- Creators
- Carew Boulding - University of Colorado SystemDavid S. Brown - University of Colorado System
- Publication Details
- Studies in comparative international development, v 49(2), pp 197-216
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Number of pages
- 20
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- College of Arts and Sciences; Politics
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000338186700003
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84902366476
- Other Identifier
- 991021903895004721
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Development Studies
- International Relations
- Political Science