Timothy J. Power

Rewarding Lula: Executive Power, Social Policy, and the Brazilian Elections of 2006

This article analyzes Luiz Inácio da Silvas resounding reelection victory in the wake of corruption scandals implicating his party and government. Voters with lower levels of economic security and schooling played a critical role in returning Lula to the presidency. Least prone to punish the president for corruption, poorer Brazilians were also the most readily persuaded by the provision of material benefits. Minimum wage increases and the income transfer program Bolsa Família expanded the purchasing power of the poor. Thus, executive power and central state resources allowed Lula to consolidate a social base that had responded only weakly to his earlier, party-based strategy of grassroots mobilization for progressive macrosocietal change. Although Lula won handily, the PTs delegation to Congress shrank for the first time, and the voting bases of president and party diverged. The PT benefited far less than the president himself from government investment in social policy.

The Executive Toolbox: Building Legislative Support in a Multiparty Presidential Regime

How do presidents win legislative support under conditions of extreme multipartism? Comparative presidential research has offered two parallel answers, one relying on distributive politics and the other claiming that legislative success is a function of coalition formation. The authors merge these insights in an integrated approach to executive-legislative relations while also considering dynamism and particular bargaining contexts. The authors find that the two presidential “tools”—pork and coalition goods—function as imperfect substitutes. Coalition goods establish an exchange baseline, while pork covers the ongoing costs of operation. Pork expenditures also depend upon a president’s bargaining leverage and the distribution of legislative seats.

Presidentialization, Pluralization, and the Rollback of Itamaraty: Explaining Change in Brazilian Foreign Policy Making in the Cardoso-Lula Era

Since the 1990s Brazilian foreign policy has become increasingly central to Latin American integration, to South—South relations, and to global governance, especially under the leadership of presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995—2002) and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003 to the present). This article argues that the making of Brazilian foreign policy since the mid-1990s has been marked by two major trends: pluralization of actors and the rise of presidentially led diplomacy. These two trends have promoted a gradual erosion of the influence of the highly professionalized and traditionally autonomous Foreign Ministry (Itamaraty). The article analyzes the role of global, regional, and domestic political factors in promoting this transformation, and examines the consequences for Brazils foreign policy outputs.

Compulsory Voting, Invalid Ballots, and Abstention in Brazil

This paper explores the determinants of invalid ballots and abstention in the worlds largest electorate subject to compulsory voting. Previous analysts have seen blank and spoiled ballots either as an expression of po litical protest or as a product of the social structure. To these interpreta tions we add the hypothesis that invalid voting can be caused by institutional factors. In studying twelve legislative elections in Brazil be tween 1945 and 1990, we find that for each of three dependent variables considered (invalid votes for both houses of Congress, and noncompliant abstention), a model incorporating political, socioeconomic, and institu tional factors is more powerful than a model relying on any one of these alone. We also provide evidence that Brazils unusual system of open-list proportional representation generates institutional features which serve as barriers impeding the effective incorporation of newly enfranchised voters. The extraordinarily high rates of invalid balloting in recent Brazilian elec tions point to the necessity of institutional reform in order to achieve democratic consolidation, with important implications for other new democracies.

Does Democratization Depress Participation? Voter Turnout in the Latin American and Eastern European Transitional Democracies

Scholars and policy makers have advanced conflicting hypotheses about the dynamics of voter participation in nascent democratic regimes. The authors advance the research program by examining 108 parliamentary elections in postauthoritarian Latin America and post-Communist Europe from 1978 through 2003. Institutional, political, and demographic variables shape turnout in new democracies, but there is also a strong temporal effect: voter turnout drops sharply after founding elections and continues to fall through the fourth electoral cycle. Moreover, after appropriate controls, rates of turnout in Eastern Europe are consistently higher than the equivalent rates for Latin America. The authors attribute these differences to historical legacies and the mode of transition to democracy.

Rethinking the ‘presidentialism debate’: conceptualizing coalitional politics in cross-regional perspective

The democratization literature has increased our understanding of the role of institutional variables in the study of democratic sustainability. Debates about the dangers of presidentialism have been central to this body of research. In more recent times the presidentialism literature has focused on the capacity of presidents to overcome the conflict-inducing nature of the separation of powers through successful coalition formation. This review article moves this research agenda forward by examining how presidents build legislative coalitions in different regional contexts. Based on the extant analysis of presidential systems in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Union, the article develops the idea that presidents use a toolbox of five key tools when constructing legislative coalitions: agenda power, budgetary authority, cabinet management, partisan powers, and informal institutions. We find that presidents typically utilize more than one tool when they act; that the combinations of tools they employ affects the usage and strength of other parts of the presidential toolkit; and that the choice of tools can create negative consequences for the wider political system. Our findings reveal the limitations of the univariate bias of much of the early presidentialism literature and the need for greater cross-regional research into the effects of presidential rule.

Agenda Power, Executive Decree Authority, and the Mixed Results of Reform in the Brazilian Congress

This article examines how institutional change in the use of extraordinary legislation affects delegation of power and unilateral action in new democracies. From 1988 to 2001, Brazilian presidents were able to reissue decrees indefinitely and thus had substantial legislative power. In 2001, Congress amended the constitution so as to restrict the president to a single reissue of each lapsed decree. This reform has had mixed results: although it ended the practice of infinite reissues, it induced Presidents Cardoso and Lula to use more decrees than previous executives had. Presidential agenda power, rather than being reduced, has been sharpened. By analyzing patterns of presidential initiatives from 1995 to 2005, we demonstrate the mixed results of this constitutional reform.

Lula's Brazil at Midterm

This article assesses the Lula government at midterm. The PT-led government has steered a surprisingly orthodox course in economics, social policy and party politics in light of the factors that led it to victory in 2002, namely, the PTs critique of the economic and social models promoted by the Cardoso administration, its reputation as untainted by corruption and clientelism, and Lulas close personal identification with the plight of the poor. While following convention has helped ensure political and economic stability, the PTs long-term contribution to democracy rests on its ability to promote meaningful social development and political reform.

Bolsa Família and the Shift in Lula’s Electoral Base, 2002-2006: A Reply to Bohn

In a recent article published in LARR, Simone Bohn analyzed electoral results and survey data from Brazil to contest several theses concerning the reelection of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2006. In particular Bohn asserted that beneficiaries of Bolsa Familia, a conditional cash transfer program that covered 11 million families at the time of the 2006, were already supporters of Lula in 2002, and that the program did not contribute to the change in Lula’s constituency from his election in 2002 to his reelection in 2006. We show these claims are based on voter recall data collected 9 and 57 months after each election analyzed that grossly overestimate support for Lula, probably due to well known reporting biases. Reanalysis of Bohn’s results with the same data, and analysis of more reliable surveys suggests that Bolsa Familia did play a role in the 2006 elections.

Shaping the Brazilian Political Class: Causes and Consequences of Recruitment to the Chamber of Deputies

Abstract This article profiles the contemporary Brazilian political class by reviewing recruitment to the lower house of the national legislature. We pose political recruitment as both a dependent and an independent variable. After reviewing changes in the profile of politicians, we ask whether patterns of recruitment have any real impact on the functioning or output of the Câmara dos Deputados. We demonstrate that three intervening variables—party type, social structure of geographic constituencies, and malapportionment—condition the relationship between political recruitment and legislative engagement. Deputies recruited from states with low levels of human development are less legislatively active, and deputies recruited to politics by conservative, catchall parties are less active than their counterparts on the left. Malapportionment magnifies the importance of partisan factors and social structure in shaping Brazilian legislative life.