Bypassing the Enemy: Distributive Politics, Credit Claiming, and Nonstate Organizations in Brazil

Abstract

How do incumbents prevent the opposition from claiming credit for government programs? The received scholarly wisdom is that central government authorities favor copartisans in lower tiers of government to reward allies and punish opponents. Yet this depiction ignores the range of strategies available to incumbents at the center. I argue that another effective strategy is to channel resources through nonstate organizations, thus bypassing the opposition and reducing “credit hijacking.” Using a regression-discontinuity design with data from Brazil, I show that mayors from the president’s party receive more resources, but that the election of an opposition mayor induces the central government to shift resources to nonstate organizations that operate in the locality. Original survey data, fieldwork, and data on organizations’ leaders support the claim that opposition mayors do not hijack credit from government spending through nonstate organizations.

Alinhamento partidário e demanda por transferências federais no Brasil

“…Much less investigated, on the other hand, is the role of subnational governments in the distribution of discretionary resources. If the results above are correct, to belong to the party aligned to the federal government means to access more resources, better ways to pressure for disbursement, to have a higher capacity for investment, and credibility with constituents (Brollo & Nannicini, 2012;Bueno, 2017;Ferreira & Bugarin, 2007). Also, if subnational governments anticipate this, it is possible to hypothesize that they will have more or fewer incentives to apply for federal transfers according to their degree of alignment.…”

“…The majority of studies on distributive politics in countries with decentralized fiscal federalism assume that the national government has limited resources and that these resources are valuable electoral assets because they can be used in the implementation of local public policies serving their constituents (Bracco, Lockwood, Porcelli, & Redoano, 2015;Bueno, 2017). In this sense, the decision on resource allocation turns into an electoral decision for the central government, considering that subnational authorities may obtain electoral advantages when they channel resources and are at risk of not being re-elected otherwise (Arulampalam, Dasgupta, Dhillon, & Dutta, 2009).…”

“…In a simple case, where the choice to distribute resources is limited to two possibilities -to allocate resources to politically aligned subnational governments or to other subnational governments that are aligned to the national government's opposition -the assumption is that the best strategy for the central government is to channel more resources to its allies (Arulampalam et al, 2009;Bracco et al, 2015;Brollo & Nannicini, 2012). First, because this prevents the local opposition from misappropriating credit from the application of these resources (Bueno, 2017). Second, because in doing so the central government provides resources for securing and expanding its constituents, promoting the electoral performance of the party or coalition (Arulampalam et al, 2009).…”

“…Thus, the central government's electoral incentives and factors related to the demand for intergovernmental transfer, are part of the strategies available to subnational governments to raise funds. Some of these strategies are: lobbying the central government (Goldstein & You, 2017), requesting support from members of Congress to intervene with the federal bureaucracy (Bueno, 2017), and investing more or fewer resources and time to send more proposals, or to request more substantial amounts from the federal government, which is the specific strategy analyzed in this work.…”

“…This process may be induced by a call for proposals launched by agencies of the federal government (Portaria Interministerial CGU/MP/MF n. 127, 2008), or by amendment to the budget which makes resources available for the object of the agreement (Brasil, 2009). In the second stage, the federal government agencies technically and legally receive and evaluate the project submitted and decide whether or not to sign the agreement -a step where pressures from members of Congress may occur to accelerate the commitment of the resources to transfer (Bueno, 2017). Finally, once signed, the release of resources from the federal government may begin, according to the schedule, followed by the delivery of monitoring reports from the subnational government.…”