Programmatic Policies, Bureaucratic Performance and Party Building in Brazil

• In Event: Cash Transfers and Subsidies in Developing Democracies and Indigenous States (Recorded)

Abstract

In recent decades many developing nations adopted widespread programmatic social policies such as cash transfers programs. In addition to significantly enfranchising large shares of the poor, these programs were often designed to minimize clientelistic capture by local politicians. This paper argues that this paradigm shift changes the way in which politicians engage with poor voters: while the gains from targeting benefits are reduced, the performance of the bureaucracy becomes more salient to voters, especially in the implementation of these policies. Consequently, parties have incentives to field candidates that provide better signals of administrative quality. I show evidence of this mechanism using a regression discontinuity design in close municipal races, combined with administrative data from Brazil’s Bolsa Família. During the program expansion in 2009-2012, incumbent parties heavily recruited new candidates from the pool of public servants responsible for Bolsa Família enrollment. What is more, parties focused on better performing bureaucrats, and in areas of higher program expansion.

Author

• Anderson Frey, University of Rochester