Electoral Incentives and Racial Switching in Brazil

• In Event: Identity Formation and Maintenance in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Politicians are typically presumed to have stable, innate racial identities. Yet in Brazil, more than one-fourth of the veteran politicians that ran for public office in Brazil’s 2016 and 2020 elections changed their self-declared race across elections. Why would a politician discard membership in one racial category and declare membership in another? Starting from the basic assumption that politicians are ambitious, I contend that politicians adopt new racial identities when it furthers their political careers. When politicians are seeking reelection or already occupy a different elected office they can be expected to racially identify themselves consistently. On the other hand, when they are running in a new electoral district, they may choose to racially reinvent themselves. I test these expectations using individual-level data on the thousands of veteran politicians that competed in Brazil’s 2016 and 2020 elections. Consistent with expectations, I find that politicians are most likely to change how they racially identify themselves when it is electorally advantageous.

Author

• Andrew Janusz, University of Florida