Uneven Democracy? Subnational Authoritarianism in Democratic Brazil

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More than twenty years since Latin America joined the global resurgence of

democracy, scholars have begun to wonder if the deficiencies of these young

democracies – the lack of rule of law, rigged elections, human rights violations, to name a

few – are bumps on the road of a long transition or permanent features of these regimes.

As scholarship on federalism and decentralization has become more prominent, some

observers have come to focus on subnational governments that appear and behave much

like the erstwhile authoritarian governments that were once replaced at the national level.

As nondemocratic polities that exist within national constitutional systems that define and

defend political and civil rights, subnational authoritarian governments restrict access to

power and exercise authority in ways that challenge these de jure principles. Far from

being a subtype of democracy or authoritarianism, subnational authoritarianism

represents a problem of governance within national democratic regimes. Subnational

authoritarianism challenges the quality of democracy as opposed to its existence.1

Subnational authoritarianism is both a persistent and a pervasive threat to

democratization in Latin America. These subnational enclaves of limited electoral

democracy have been identified throughout the region as “brown areas” representing

exceptions to national, constitutional norms (O’Donnell 1993; Diamond 1999: 133-4;

Chavez 2003). Speaking about the Mexican case, Wayne Cornelius (1999: 11) predicts

that “the subnational political arena will be the principal source of inertia and resistance

to democratization…” [in that country]. Outside of the region, the uneven development of

democracy has been studied in India, Russia and Central Asia, and Southeast Asia (Beer

and Mitchell 2006; Heller 2000; McMann and Petrov 2000; McMann 2006; Way 2004;

Franco 2001; Sidel 1999).

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Despite the importance of these authoritarian enclaves, studies of democratization

have neglected the examination of subnational authoritarianism because the literature has

focused almost exclusively on the national level of analysis (Snyder 2001; McMann

2006: 6-7). This national bias, while understandable during a time of national regime

transition and subsequent consolidation, makes less sense after more than two decades of

democratization and after numerous studies have pointed to the problems of democratic

governance embedded in local government. Moreover, patterns of national transition set

the stage for problems of subnational democratic governance. Third wave transitions to

democracy favored the consolidation of provincial authoritarianism by weakening the

center’s previous direct control over subnational fiscal and policy authorities. This

allowed authoritarian elites at the local level to strengthen their respective bases of power

by providing them with greater relative autonomy and much-needed resources. In cases

where national politicians cultivated the support of subnational executives and their

political machines prior to founding elections, democratization at the national level was

engineered through a political arbitrage process in which local bosses could secure their

newly (re)gained autonomy and power as the price of their support. After being elected,

national incumbents in these cases found serving the interests of these subnational

bailiwicks a valuable method of maintaining themselves in power. Finding themselves

beholden to the masters of authoritarian enclaves, national leaders playing the democratic

game could gain strategic advantages at the center by advancing the interests of the

authoritarian periphery.

In many studies of subnational regimes, the central analytical dimension shaping

these polities is conflict between incumbents and the opposition. Given that subnational

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authoritarians prosper in the absence of a strong opposition, the relative cohesion and

organization of opposition is a powerful predictor of electoral turnover (Van de Walle

2006: 78). Inspired by Schattschneider (1960), Gibson (2004; 2005: 107) argues that

subnational authoritarian incumbents are constantly engaged in “boundary control,” the

politics of closing down their opposition’s access to national resources and possible

allies. The Achilles’ heel of subnational authoritarians, he argues, is that they need access

to national leaders to solidify their own subnational power, but the degree to which they

become embroiled in national politics makes them more vulnerable by opening up

another front at the national level that can weaken and undermine their control over local

bailiwicks. This logic produces a Faustian bargain that determines how effective

subnational incumbents will be in limiting the opposition. The degree of pluralism, then,

in subnational polities is the object of authoritarians’ strategic concerns, making it an

indicator of the degree of subnational authoritarianism.

Another dimension of pluralism is factionalism. Even in hegemonic party systems

incumbents may find themselves engaging in rearguard actions against rivals within their

own organizations. For example, Gibson (2005: 114-5) describes how Governor José

Murat in Oaxaca, Mexico, faced more opposition within the hegemonic party (the PRI)

and by national PRI interests in the 1998-2004 period than he did from politicians of the

opposition PRD. The emergence of opposition and its cohesion can be a function of how

effective party elites are in stemming the flow of rebels to the other side (Van de Walle

2006: 87). Incumbents not only must engage in boundary control against partisan

oppositions but they must also purge the state bureaucracy and their own party offices of

interests linked to rival factions.

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Given the more recent concern for subnational authoritarianism as a problem of

governance in new democracies the literature on the causes of this phenomenon is

limited. Gibson’s work represents an important, initial step in understanding the politics

of “boundary control” at the subnational level, but it may not be applicable to all cases.

First, the Faustian bargain of which Gibson speaks is less evident in the case of

authoritarian incumbents who have neither the desire nor the resources to venture into

national politics. Second, Gibson’s approach works well in the Mexican and Argentine

cases, where the availability of highly disciplined and even hegemonic parties makes the

parameters of the bargaining between national and subnational elites straightforward. The

same cannot be said for Latin American countries with weak party systems such as

Brazil. The absence of hegemonic parties or the overall weakness of the party system

may prevent subnational incumbents from having either a regular voice or leverage in

national decision-making.

Nonetheless, the focus on incumbent-opposition dynamics does offer some

potentially important variables for determining levels of subnational pluralism.

Incumbents have incentives to control access to resources (boundary control), but their

capacity to do so is only as strong as the ability of the opposition to organize and garner

patronage resources to challenge established interests. In their study of electoral

authoritarianism, Hartlyn and McCoy (2006: 47) use the term the paradox of capacity to

describe how oppositions lacking the organizational, technical, and material resources to

provide oversight reinforce the ability of authoritarian incumbents to rule by fraud and

intimidation. By corollary, the greater the array of potential patronage resources

available, the higher the costs to incumbents of exerting controls on access and the lower

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the costs to the local opposition of garnering these resources to mount their challenge.

The paradox of capacity extends to the bureaucratic and technical resources of the state

apparatus. Incumbents that fail to exert their monopoly of control over subordinates in the

public sector risk losing the coercive, extractive, and distributive services that reinforce

their rule (Way 2006: 167). “Patronage leakage,” therefore, can empower the opposition

and set up incumbents for an eventual electoral loss.

An alternative to the focus on incumbent-opposition dynamics is the political-

economic and geographic approach. It has long been argued that more diversified

political economies generate larger public sectors and more economic resources

(Schwartzman 1982). Insights from the study of democracy and economic development

suggest that the notable correlations between the maintenance of democracy and patterns

of development may play out even at the subnational level. Geographic factors such as

the size of the region may determine the availability of opposition. Small regions tend to

have more concentrated power structures and homogenous societies. Lacking geographic

diversity, political cleavages are more likely to be less differentiated than in regions with

multiple social and geographic centers of economic and political power (Reis and Castro

1992). Synthesizing these logics into an understanding of “economic autonomy,” Kelly

McMann (2006) argues that economic differentiation (capitalist development) provides

individuals with a measure of protection from the actions of autocrats by affording them

access to economic lives that are relatively independent of the resources public

authorities command. Where economies are less differentiated, economic autonomy is

low. Perhaps the best illustration of this tendency is the classic image of highly

agricultural, economically marginal regions that are dominated by powerful landed

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families whose influence pervades government and economy alike (Nunes 1976). The

iconic representative of these polities is the landed “colonel,” a patron of a political

machine that runs an extended clientelist network.

This study argues that the politics of “boundary control” are more dependent on

political-economic differences, and particularly capitalist development, across

subnational units and over time. The degree to which subnational authoritarians can

preserve their rule with all of the attendant violations of rights and coercive impediments

to the opposition is only as likely as the political economic context will allow.

Authoritarians in “backwater” regions have a strategic advantage in maintaining their

positions and consolidating anti-democratic politics for the long haul since their costs of

coercion are relatively low. Of course, the power of these incumbents is not absolute.

These states may be less bureaucratically developed than those in more advanced areas,

thereby allowing for the leakage of patronage resources to the opposition. Yet this

tendency is tempered by the relatively low levels of patronage available in these states. In

more advanced capitalist economies where the degree of economic autonomy is greater,

the opposition is more likely to be developed. Patronage resources are more available in

these cases and the costs to incumbents of maintaining a monopoly over these resources

are high.

Political economic variables may weigh more heavily in democracies where

national parties are weak and provide few continuing or functional links between

subnational incumbents and national elites. In these cases, parties at the provincial level

may exert leverage in national politics but provide fewer of the opportunities or

incentives for authoritarians to pursue national careers that characterize Gibson’s

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treatment of the national-subnational Faustian bargain. Moreover, weak party systems

undermine attempts by incumbents to make their political machines hegemonic. Absent

programmatic and ideological sources of cohesion, undisciplined party organizations are

likely to produce factionalism and thereby encourage the emergence of rivals to

authoritarian leaders. In these cases, political economic variables will provide a more

consistent explanation for the rise and maintenance of subnational authoritarian polities.

The present study predicts subnational authoritarian governments as a function of

relative levels of economic development. Following the aforementioned paradox of

capacity, we expect state governments to be more closed to opposition and more directly

oppressive of civil society in cases where lower levels of economic autonomy have

weakened opposition actors. The political establishment in these states is more likely to

be able to concentrate their control over patronage resources with little threat of leakage

to the opposition.

The next section will discuss empirical measures for subnational authoritarianism

(the dependent variable) and it will be followed by an examination of these measures in

democratic Brazil. The subsequent section will employ a statistical test of independent

variables to assess the explanatory value of political, economic, and geographic factors.

The final section offers some conclusions and suggestions for further research.

Measuring Subnational Authoritarianism

All depictions of subnational authoritarianism revolve around the parochialization

of local politics; the closure of political exchange to a relatively small cadre of elites who

have shared interests in limiting access to public office to all but those loyal to them.

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Consistent with scholarship on “hybrid regimes” known as “electoral authoritarian” or

“competitive authoritarian,” subnational variants of these polities permit limited forms of

pluralism in political society without wholesale restrictions on the franchise. Political

elites can compete for power, but a small, predictable few capture and hold it repeatedly

(Levitsky and Way 2002). This degree of parochialization allows for alternation in power

and high voter turnout, qualities that keep these polities within the realm of democracies,

but access by the opposition is restricted (Howard and Roessler 2006; Schedler 2006: 10;

Van de Walle 2006). These polities are, in the words of Kelly McMann (2006: 180-1),

“strong in participation, weak on contestation.”

Besides limited access, the authoritarian exercise of power is another dimension

of these subnational polities.2 Subnational authoritarian governments violate both the

spirit and the letter of national democratic rules by infringing on the rights of individuals

and groups. This may occur directly through the explicit exercise of restrictions on the

opposition or indirectly by indulging or creating a climate of oppression and intimidation.

The latter is accomplished by breaking down the distance normally reserved in

democratic government between state officials such as police, administrators, and tax

authorities on one side and politicians on the other (Way 2006: 169). This conflation of

political interests and the coercive apparatus allows incumbents to use police forces to

harass and even kill, tax officials to threaten, and other public officials to cajole and

coerce support for state leaders.

As a problem of the quality of democracy, subnational authoritarianism is a

variable of degrees rather than discrete, ordinal types. But unlike national regimes, there

are no data that measure levels of subnational authoritarianism across units within

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countries or across time. Nothing like Polity IV or Freedom House scores exist for

subnational governments. More important, many of the conceivable indicators for

subnational authoritarianism suffer problems of invalidity or data availability. The

following points attempt to take the most accessible indicators and discuss their relative

utility for empirical study.

Beginning with indicators of subnational pluralism, one accessible and systematic

indicator is the competitiveness of subnational elections for governor. Political theorists

from Madison and Schumpeter (1942) to Przeworski (1991) and Dahl (1971) have

observed that if the outcome of elections is predictable, democratic institutions cannot

keep power in check. Elections in subnational authoritarian regimes are not completely

rigged as the opposition enjoys the possibility, albeit limited, of unseating the incumbent,

but the level of contestation is low. Of course, electoral margins by themselves are

insufficient indicators of subnational authoritarianism because large ones are not

consistent in such polities and slender ones are not necessarily a threat to established

interests. As Gibson (2005: 102) observes, greater competition in southern Mexican

states after 2000 produced smaller margins in gubernatorial contests but established

interests retained their hold on power through the use of electoral fraud. Margins can also

shrink due to one-off factors such as economic crises that turn a large percentage of the

electorate against the incumbent.

Still, some aspects of electoral competition do offer some partial clues about the

degree of pluralism in a subnational polity. While margins by themselves might be

insufficient, the averages and the standard deviations of margins over long periods of

time provide a better sense of tendencies toward parochialization. Gubernatorial and state

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legislative elections with large mean margins suggest the existence of political

establishments that are infrequently challenged. The dispersion of these margins indicates

how consistently dominant first-round winners are. The number of gubernatorial

elections that go to a second round also indicates how common decisive electoral

victories are over time. Finally, the effective number of parties (ENP) in gubernatorial

and state legislative elections as well as the percentage of seats in the legislature held by

the incumbent’s party are all indicators of pluralism. The latter is especially important

because oppositions in hybrid or competitive authoritarian regimes tend to build their

capacity for competing against incumbents by capturing and organizing within the

legislature (Levitsky and Way 2002: 56). Data for these indicators are usually available

and if pooled and analyzed over several elections, are likely to present some tell-tale

patterns of relative competitiveness.

The degree of turnover is another basic indicator of pluralism. The rate of

turnover predicts the risk of incumbent defeat. In polities governed as electoral

authoritarianisms, such as the archetypal cases in Southeast Asia, elections are organized

to provide “feedback,” not changes in government (Case 2006: 96). Turnover may be a

good indicator of factionalism as well if incumbents lose but their parties retain the seat.

Nonetheless, turnover may be a less valid indicator in countries in which institutional

impediments to reelection such as term limits produce a false impression of pluralism. In

these cases, individuals holding the governorship may change regularly, but the same

political families control the official apparatus. This underscores the need for multiple

indicators of pluralism including ENP, margins, and the legislative dominance of

incumbents’ parties.

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The use of extra-judicial or illegal techniques are often cited as a defining

attribute of the politics of subnational authoritarians. The aforementioned example of

southern Mexico shows that electoral fraud can keep incumbents and/or their hegemonic

parties in place. Authoritarian techniques by definition extend to the use of physical

coercion, including assassination and other politically-motivated killing. A focus on these

factors, though, favors qualitative comparisons such as Gibson’s since data on

subnational electoral fraud are most often case-specific or just anecdotal. Moreover,

electoral manipulation is unobservable ex ante and only detectable in the cases that it is

revealed through media exposés or official investigation ex post (Schedler 2006). These

measures may not even reflect the main reasons for low levels of pluralism. Not all cases

of weak opposition and hegemonic incumbents are the results of manipulative,

undemocratic action by established elites (Hartlyn and McCoy 2006: 46).

Clientelism as a mode of political organization appears in all cases of subnational

authoritarianism, suggesting that it is a defining attribute, though its utility as an indicator

is questionable. In his assessment of the Mexican states, Jonathan Fox (1994: 153) refers

to states that are “authoritarian clientelist” for the way that clients are persistently

subordinated politically at the subnational level. The rule of political families in the

Argentine provinces of San Luis, La Rioja, Catamarca, and Salta are also prominent

examples (Gibson 2005: 122). Yet like electoral authoritarian regimes at the national

level, the subnational variants do not follow entirely “sultanistic tendencies.” That is,

personalism and the dispensing of patronage are tools to maintain power, but they are

hardly the lifeblood of politics. Incumbents must still keep power through multiparty

elections and that means that they have to mobilize their voters and demobilize those of

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the opposition. Moreover, in national polities where the use of clientelism is systemic, it

is difficult to discriminate among subnational governments that employ it more or better

than others.

Following the precept that authoritarian governments must at least act like

authoritarian governments, indicators of arbitrary use of public authority to oppress

members of civil society through human rights violations are prima facie measures of the

degree of authoritarianism. Once again, the availability of systemic data at the

subnational level is a problem, but it is not one that is insurmountable considering the

number of official and non-governmental entities presently collecting information on

rates of official violence, including police homicides. One may object that such acts may

not represent the politics of incumbents but are the actions of others. Still, the consistency

of these problems over time reflects a more fundamental tendency on the part of political

incumbents to countenance or condone these acts as a normal part of the way the

subnational polity functions.

Given the exploratory nature of current studies of subnational authoritarianism,

this paper argues in favor of an eclectic set of indicators that incorporates an array of

measures of pluralism and government behavior. These are presented in the next section

with a focus on the Brazilian experience.

Uneven Pluralism and Democratic Governance in the Brazilian States

A comparison of state governments in Brazil provides a good test of the wider

incidence of subnational authoritarianism in Latin America. First, the choice of Brazil

diversifies the extant scholarship’s focus on Mexico and Argentina within Latin America

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(e.g., Fox 1994; Chavez 2003; Snyder 2001; Cornelius et al. 1999; Gibson 2005). This

case selection has favored explanations focusing on changes in hegemonic parties such as

the PRI or highly disciplined parties such as the Partido Justicialista (Peronists). By

contrast, Brazilian parties with very few exceptions are highly undisciplined (Mainwaring

1999). Even the relatively disciplined Partido dos Trabalhadores (the Workers’ Party) is

hardly hegemonic in its ideological proclivities or its leadership group (Lacerda 2002).

Second, there is great variance in the relations between incumbent elites and oppositions

among the Brazilian states. To be sure, subnational authoritarian governments in Brazil

are what Lucan Way (2006: 170) would call “weak authoritarian states” since they

confront large and autonomous business classes and civil societies. Though, as I argue

here, the capacity of the opposition differs across subnational units, making some of the

Brazilian states pure electoral democracies, others hybrid regimes, and perhaps one or

two de facto electoral authoritarian cases. Finally, there is much variance in political

economic levels of development across the states (Schwartzman 1982). This allows for

testing political factors and political economic independent variables across time and

space.

Using electoral and human rights data for several of the core indicators discussed

above, I found systematic distinctions in the level of pluralism and democratic

governance among the twenty-seven Brazilian states from 1982 to 2002. The first

subsection below focuses on indicators of pluralism for all 27 states while the second

examines extrajudicial killings as a proxy for governance in 19 Brazilian states.

Uneven Pluralism

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Using data compiled by Nicolau (1998, 2005) for gubernatorial and state

legislative elections from 1982 to 2002, I calculated average scores for first-round and

second-round margins, their standard deviations, the effective number of parties (ENP)

based on votes in gubernatorial contests and seats in the state legislature,3 the incidence

of run-offs and re-election of incumbents, and the average percentage of state legislative

seats held by the parties in the winning and rival coalitions (mean legislative

concentration). The distribution of values across the 27 Brazilian states as reported in

Table 1 evinces a three-fold categorization of subnational polities that we label here

conservative, moderate, and broadened competition. As we argue below, these categories

are not internally homogenous. The attempt here is to specify some of the deviant

patterns within categories as well as draw distinctions among the three groups of states

we believe reflect certain similar attributes.

[Table 1 about here]

Conservative competition – Eleven states (Mato Grosso, Bahia, Maranhão, Ceará,

Alagoas, Tocantins, Sergipe, Pernambuco Goiás, Paraíba, and Amazonas) rank at the top

in order of mean first-round margins. This group contains the only four states to never

have a second-round contest for governor (Mato Grosso, Alagoas, Pernambuco, and

Amazonas) and, with the exception of Paraíba, they all re-elected governors at least once

(five did twice, and one, Amazonas, three times).4 The limited competitiveness of these

states’ elections is also reflected in average ENP scores for governor’s races. These states

have the lowest average ENP scores with none exceeding 2.4. (Only three of the other

states in the other categories have 2.4 or lower ENP scores). The dominant parties tend to

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be the catch-all, right-wing PFL (Party of the Liberal Front/Partido da Frente Liberal)

and PDS (Social Democratic Party/Partido Democrático Social), and center-right PMDB

(Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement/Partido do Movimento Democrático

Brasileiro), commensurate with the conservative profile of these cases. The center-left

social democratic PSDB (Party of Brazilian Social Democracy/Partido da Social

Democracia Brasileira), which is dominant in only the case of Ceará, elected a winning

governor only five times (including one re-election) in the other states. The progressive

PT captured no governorships in this cohort and it found itself in only four partisan

coalitions of successful candidates. In virtually all cases, conservative candidates and

right-wing parties retained control of the governorships of these states.

The conservative competition cohort may be subdivided in terms of the dispersion

of first-round margins. The largest standard deviations of first-round margins occur in

this group, with Maranhão, Paraíba, Sergipe, Alagoas, and Mato Grosso representing the

highest dispersion rates and Tocantins, Goiás, Ceará, Amazonas, Pernambuco, and Bahia

representing the lowest. This difference reflects distinct conditions facing conservative

establishments in these states in particular elections, although the overall nature of these

regimes is relatively low competition among conservative interests. The variation of

margins reflects first-round victories that are small when notables of the conservative

establishment of these states battle between each other for the governorship and large

when conservatives are united either against a leftist or populist threat.

The legislative profile of these states’ elections follows the dynamics of the

governor’s races. Consistent with the relatively larger first-round margins and low ENP

scores of this group, the parties of the winning and rival coalitions represent on average

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85 percent of the party-seats in the state legislature. This is an indicator of the importance

of gubernatorial contests in these states for maintaining political machines. Even minor

parties have strong incentives to join one of the two rival coalitions to claim rights to the

patronage of the executive office after the election. Not surprisingly, average legislative

margins for the parties of the coalition supporting the winning gubernatorial candidate are

the largest of all of the states. Only in Alagoas does the rival coalition win a larger

percentage of seats, but that occurred during the second half of the 1990s when the

conservative establishment was challenged by the rise of a left-of-center governor,

Ronaldo Lessa. The same dynamic appeared in Mato Grosso where the legislative margin

was uncharacteristically in the single digits. Excluding these two states in the top cohort

the mean legislative electoral margin is 26 percent in favor of the coalition of parties

electing the governor.

Moderate competition – The eight states that compose the middling cohort (Espírito

Santo, Acre, Rio de Janeiro, Paraná, Amapá, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pará, and Rio Grande

do Norte) are more developed cases of tendencies present in conservative competitive

states such as Alagoas and Mato Grosso, namely, the erosion of the hegemony of right-

wing parties and personalities and the emergence of more consistent and viable left-wing

or populist challengers. In these states, conservative notables in the PMDB and PFL were

unable to maintain anything akin to the position their co-partisans enjoyed in Bahia or

Maranhão. All of the states in this cohort had run-offs and fewer former governors return

to the governor’s mansion. The number of parties that compete was also greater, as

demonstrated by the higher ENP scores for both gubernatorial and legislative races.5

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With the exception of Rio Grande do Norte and Mato Grosso do Sul, which maintained

the lowest joint ENP numbers of the cohort, the state legislatures in this group were not

under the complete control of parties that ran candidates in the gubernatorial races. The

more fragmented polity in these cases undermined the dominance of any one political

machine of conservative notables. Consequently, the center-left PSDB and the leftist PT

made more inroads in gubernatorial and legislative races in these states. The more

consistent challenge of the PT was particularly notable as the party won governorships in

Espírito Santo, Acre, and Mato Grosso do Sul and it joined winning coalitions in Rio de

Janeiro and Amapá.

The other salient quality of this cohort is that gubernatorial elections are more

consistently competitive than those in the conservative cases. A wider array of rivalries

develops in these cases that is not present in the conservative cohort. The three states with

ENP scores above the average for the cohort (Rio de Janeiro, Amapá, Pará) demonstrate a

full range of rivalries: conservative vs. populist, populist vs.leftist, center-left vs. center-

right, etc. The case of Rio de Janeiro is particularly notable as populist governors such as

Leonel Brizola and Anthony Garotinho (PDT) battled conservatives (Wellington Moreira

Franco, PMDB-PFL), leftists (Jorge Bittar, PT), and center-left moderates (Marcello

Alencar, PSDB), often getting the upper hand with larger margins, but sometimes losing

in close contests. Rivalries in Amapá and Pará forced run-offs four times in these poor

northern states. But these were not just cases of strong PT-led challenges to conservative

parties. In some cases, PSB-PT incumbents defended against conservative and populist

candidates and vice versa (Amapá) or conservative candidates challenged center-left

PSDB incumbents (Pará).

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The other states offer numerous examples of the same tendencies, with the

common denominator being more diverse rivalries than those evident in the conservative

competition cohort. Only Rio Grande do Norte seems to reflect tendencies of

conservative competition. In this case, traditional elites in the divided conservative

establishment battled one another and never needed an alliance to fend off a populist or

leftist challenge. Given its mean legislative concentration score and its ENP, Rio Grande

do Norte could easily be placed in the conservative competition cohort if it were not for

the highly divided nature of its right-of-center polity. Its mean first-round margin is the

lowest of the moderate competition cohort.

Several indicators illustrate that legislative elections are more competitive in the

middle cohort than in the conservative group. The average legislative margins of these

states are well below the scores of the conservative cohort. ENP scores are significantly

higher than those of the conservative cohort (t=-2.486, p=.024) and mean legislative

concentration is significantly lower than in the least competitive states (t=3.131, p=.006).

That is not to say that these states are devoid of political machines, but only that several

such groups battle for the political control of the governor’s mansion and the state

legislature in each election.

Broadened competition – Eight cases compose the cohort of the most competitive states

(Santa Catarina, Rondônia, Distrito Federal, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Roraima, Rio

Grande do Sul, and Piauí). Although the ENP scores, mean legislative margins,

legislative ENPs, and mean legislative concentration numbers are not significantly

different from the moderate competition cohort, these states show several qualitative as

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well as quantitative attributes of higher competition. First-round margins are significantly

different from those of the moderate cohort (t=-5.466, p<.001) as are second-round

margins (t=-2.301, p<.05).6 Second, the most competitive cohort has more run-offs and

fewer re-elections than the moderate competitive states.7 Third, as in the cases of

moderate competition, a variety of political agents win office in these cases. PSDB and

PT have more governorships and participate in more winning coalitions than in the other

two cohorts. But more notable is the fact that a larger variety of independent candidates,

populists, and right-wing elites compete for power. This gives competition in the bottom

cohort a breadth as well as an intensity that separates these states from the other two

groups.

Some of the states in the broadened competition cohort are surprising. Piauí mixes

a very high legislative concentration score (90 percent) with the lowest first round margin

numbers of all of the Brazilian states. A closer look reveals a long history of deep intra-

conservative competition, independent candidacies, and the success of the PT in recent

years without the reactive conservative alliances seen in many of the least competitive

states. These factors are replicated in other northern and northeastern states with low

first-round margins (Rio Grande do Norte, Roraima, and Rondônia), although in these

cases it is parties such as the PPB, PSDB, PDT, PSL, and not the PT that expand the

range of non-conservative forces.

The other states in the most competitive cohort are not surprising: São Paulo, Rio

Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Minas Gerais, and the Distrito Federal. These are the most

socio-economically developed states and therefore places where the widest range of

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interests are represented. If it were not for their relatively higher first-round margins, Rio

de Janeiro and Paraná might also be in this cohort.

Uneven Democratic Governance

Finding comprehensive human rights data for the Brazilian states is complicated

by the lack of a central statistical authority with complete time-series or cross-subnational

data. Acquiring and analyzing data on perhaps the most obvious indicator of official

miscarriage of authority – the incidence of extrajudicial killings by police – was

especially a fool’s errand until recently. Using raw data collected by the National Human

Rights Movement (Movimento Nacional de Direitos Humanos, MNDH) from newspaper

reports of homicides, Ronald Ahnen (2007) has recently analyzed data for 19 states and

for a broader time frame (1994-2004) than has heretofore been available. Using this data

on police homicides as a proxy, the current study measures respect for human and

individual rights by public officials. The validity of this indicator is based on the idea that

police abuses of power are both an indicator and a variable: they are indicative of a

generalized “ambiguity of law” that continually protects the wealthy and powerful, but

they are also instrumentalities of inequality, tools of oppression that are applied

predictably and selectively to the poor and the landless (Pereira 2000).

[Table 2 about here]

Using general homicide rates based on mortality data as reported in the Ministry

of Health’s database (DATASUS) and MNDH’s raw police homicide data, Table 2

orders twenty-six Brazilian states from highest police homicide rates to the lowest.8 As

with the raw homicide data from the Ministry of Health, it is likely that the MNDH data

21

are biased due to over- and under-reporting in newspapers. Ahnen (2007) calculates a

correction based on differences between official statistics and the MNDH data. The tests

below include model specifications using the estimated figures employing Ahnen’s

correction.

The Study

Which variables explain the distribution of pluralism and democratic governance

across the Brazilian states and over time? To answer this question, I designed statistical

models for time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) tests of several core indicators of

subnational pluralism and police homicides as the main proxy for subnational democratic

governance. The pluralism models focus on ENP of gubernatorial elections as the

dependent variable. The comparison of the three state cohorts suggests that as the

effective number of parties increase, margins should decline. This expectation is

consistent with that in the extant literature on ENP and partisan competition (e.g., Hecock

2006) and is affirmed in preliminary tests using the Brazilian data that found a strong

inverse correlation between ENP in gubernatorial races and first-round margins. The

second set of models use police homicides as the dependent variable. This variable is

weighted by the population of each state. Below we discuss each independent variable in

terms of how it should predict changes in pluralism and governance across the

subnational units and over time.

Political Factors

22

According to the aforementioned paradox of capacity we expect factors specific

to the organizational capacity of the opposition to determine the pluralism of the

subnational polity. We measure this variable straightforwardly as the share of seats in the

state legislature of the coalition of parties supporting the runner-up. The models also

include the seat share of the party of the runner-up. Using ENP of legislative seat shares

as a control, we expect that opposition parties with strong positions in the legislature will

increase the competitiveness of gubernatorial races, particularly in the first round where

there are few institutional disincentives to run candidates.

Conceivably, less competitive states are dominated by conservative parties. After

all, these parties tend to be in power in the northern and northeastern states that dominate

the conservative competition cohort. Conversely, the greater role of leftist parties such as

the PT, especially in the more industrialized states of the south and southeast, may

explain patterns of broadened competition. The political models take this into account by

controlling for the presence of PFL and PDS, the most conservative parties, and the PT,

the largest leftist party, in winning coalitions. ENP in gubernatorial contests across units

and time should decline if the conservative parties tend to support the winner and they

should increase where the PT supports the winner. One model also includes the PMDB

and PSDB as catch-all center-right and center-left options, respectively, to test the

consistency of findings for the more conservative and leftist parties. If party identity

matters, then these parties should have no or little discernable effect on ENP.

Other political factors may intuitively affect pluralism. The incidence of runoffs is

one. There were runoffs in over forty percent of all state elections after 1990, when a

second round was first required if a candidate did not receive a majority in the first round.

23

If a runoff occurred in the previous election, political agents may expect another close

call and organize their co-partisans to stave off a repeat of the past. This may mean

establishment parties offer greater concessions of patronage to allies to get their support

in the first-round to secure an early win. If runoffs occur with great frequency, this

calculus will become less useful. The past can also play a role in the case of candidates

that are seeking re-election as incumbents or as ex-governors giving it another go. Sitting

and ex-governors are apt to wield patronage more effectively than their challengers to

secure first-round victories. Therefore, we might expect states with a penchant for run-

offs to be more competitive overall and states with a tendency to see incumbents or ex-

governors be re-elected to be less competitive.

In the police homicide tests, these political factors may all work in the same

intuitive manner they do in predicting degrees of pluralism. The organizational capacity

of the opposition, the presence of leftist parties in winning coalitions, and the high

incidence of run-offs and low rate of re-election should be associated with lower rates of

extrajudicial killings. Conversely, weak oppositions, conservative party dominance in

winning coalitions electing the governor, low run-off rates, and high incidences of re-

election should be linked to more extrajudicial killings.

Socio-Economic Variables

If Table 1 were converted into a map, one might easily conclude that the

conservative competitive states tend to be agricultural, low growth, and generally the low

population states in the northern and northeastern regions. The history of states such as

Maranhão, Alagoas, and Bahia evoke images of extractive, heavily agricultural

24

economies with landowner-dominated polities. These are the attributes most associated

historically with colonelismo and patron-client politics in Brazil (Nunes 1976). As

suggestive as this erstwhile impression is of the states of the north and northeast, it is

apparent that not all the states in these regions fall within the conservative competitive

cohort. This begs the question whether the socio-economic characteristics of the Brazilian

states help to explain the overall pattern of their political competition.

The first dimension of socio-economic differences is population and percentage of

the GDP represented by each state for each year. We found a strong correlation between

these two variables as one would presume from the fact that the more populous states

compose a larger share of the GDP. Following much scholarship on the political

economic dynamics of subnational polities in Brazil, we should expect the more

industrialized states to have more competitive politics while the more agricultural ones

should be in the conservative cohort (Stepan 2000; Snyder and Samuels 2004). However,

preliminary tests on the percentage of the economy represented by industry or agriculture

failed to yield confirmation of this presumption. This may have to do with the nature of

the data. Agroindustry is sufficiently capital intensive and industrialized to blur the lines

between agricultural and industrial sectors. The service sector, which is not measured

separately, is now more important and more dynamic than either industry or agriculture.

A comprehensive variable such as the relative share of GDP measures can serve as a

proxy for the overall sectoral development of the subnational economy, so we employ it

in the models.

We also calculated a growth rate in the relative share of GDP term and used it in

several tests. The arguments regarding growth in relative shares are more nuanced with

25

two hypotheses seeming plausible. An increase in a state’s relative position could create

incentives for new capital to back candidates outside the establishment, especially if

incumbent powers do not respond to the interests of new sectors of the economy.

Alternatively, declines in relative shares of GDP could cause capital connected to the

establishment to force a change so as to not see the state fall further behind its rivals. This

would increase competition among traditional elites, some of whom would appeal to the

reactionary movement while others would defend the status quo. Such an outcome is

suggested by patterns of occasional high competition among the states in the conservative

cohort, but it remains to be seen if this tendency explains change in the other cohorts in

which competition among conservatives is less important. If incumbent powers are

responsive, new capital might invest in the political establishment so as to secure their

property rights, thereby linking improvements in relative economic position of the state

to increased competitiveness.

The second dimension of socio-economic differences we tested was growth and

transformation of the state economy. Given Brazil’s numerous monetary and financial

crises, working with comparable time-series data for subnational growth is treacherous.

Fortunately, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) calculates a

growth index that allows for standardized, longitudinal and cross-sectional comparisons.

The index, which begins in 1985 (100) and proceeds to the present, is based on the value-

added to each state economy by all economic activities. Since the index shows an

exponential increase for all states from 1985 to 2002, we used the natural log of the index

as our variable.9

26

As argued above, we expect socio-economic variables to play an important role in

explaining subnational pluralism and democratic governance. Evidence from the three-

cohort comparison suggests that there might be some merit to the role of relative GDP

shares, a position somewhat consistent with historical approaches to Brazilian politics.

We are less certain about the effects of changes in the economy and growth on

democratic governance. Economic modernization could be associated with greater

pluralism and therefore more oversight and limits on arbitrary uses of political authority.

Alternatively, such transformations can generate backlashes by incumbent authorities

against political rivals.

Government Size Variables

Most of the literature on gubernatorial politics emphasizes the central role of

patronage in linking political ambitions and policy-making in Brazil (Samuels 2000,

2003). Government spending is the lifeblood of patronage politics, so we expect

expenditures and the weight of government in the state economy to affect the

competitiveness of gubernatorial and legislative elections. Yet it is plausible to imagine

two alternative hypotheses. First, that as the size of government expands, the availability

of patronage to incumbents makes challenging the political establishment of the state

more difficult. By undercutting the electoral capacity of the opposition, incumbents are

able to secure their own re-election or elect their successors. This is consistent with the

image of conservative machine bossism. Alternatively, the greater availability of

patronage encourages political rivals to the incumbent to organize their own forces to

garner the more considerable rewards of executive office. Expenditures thus reinforce the

27

ambitions of the opposition and raise the costs to incumbents of preventing patronage

leakage. Poorer states are less likely to create these opportunities for the opposition due

to the lack of patronage, but this too may depend on the ability of incumbents to more

effectively control the state apparatus. Despite the possible caveats, we expect

government size to be positively correlated with pluralism and inversely with police

homicides.

Other Control Variables

Fiscal, demographic, and social development variables may all potentially

impinge upon the relative pluralism and democratic governance of subnational polities in

Brazil. Regarding the fiscal, the capacity of governors to secure fiscal resources is a sine

qua non of their ability to dispense patronage. Although all the state governments can

extract tax revenues through their control of the ICMS (value-added tax), real revenues

vary by state due to the different sizes of tax bases. Poorer states rely more heavily on

fiscal transfers that are constitutionally guaranteed. Recent work that applies “rentier

theory” to fiscally federal cases argues that this dependence on transfers determines the

characteristics of the regime (Gervasoni 2006). Accordingly, one may expect that states

with a greater dependence on fiscal transfers are less dependent on the need to cultivate

popular support since they do not require the taxation of their people. Conservative

oligarchies can count on fiscal transfers to avoid taxing (or representing) much of the

population and diverse capitalist interests. And they can still produce sustained popular

support through the distribution of patronage. Therefore, greater fiscal autonomy through

28

taxation and less of a reliance on fiscal transfers should be associated with more

pluralism and better democratic governance.

The first two pluralism models tested below include regional dummies to account

for geographic factors. The specifications control for five regions: northeast, north,

southeast, south, and center-west. States were designated to regions following the IBGE’s

categories. The regression tables do not report the coefficients for these dummies to

facilitate the presentation. Models 3 and 4 in the pluralism tests do not include the

regional dummies. In the governance models, the lag of homicide rates as reported by

DATASUS is used to control for crime as a cause of residual police violence in these

models. Since these rates are known to underestimate the real number of homicides, we

employ Ahnen’s (2007) correction to these figures.

Results

The pluralism models provide support for the proposition that relative capitalist

development predicts the competitiveness of subnational polities in Brazil across space

and time. Evidence for the importance of political factors in general was inconsistent. As

Table 3 demonstrates, unit shares of GDP were strongly and consistently correlated with

higher ENP scores in the Brazilian states from 1982 to 2002. This is true controlling for

political factors such as the strength of the opposition, ENP of seats in the legislature,

differences in which parties supported winners, the incidence of run-offs and re-election,

government size, and other fiscal and economic factors. Model 1 offers some support for

the argument that the capacity of the opposition matters, though it is the seat share of the

chief rival’s party and not the wider coalition of parties that explains ENP of

29

gubernatorial contests. However, once this variable is retested in model 2, it loses

statistical significance and changes sign.10 The removal of the rival coalition variable

might have explained the loss of significance of this variable, but model 3 demonstrates

that share of seats of the rival coalition without this other factor is insignificant.

[Table 3 about here]

The effect of partisan identity of the winning coalition is uncertain. As predicted,

the conservative parties are associated with lower ENP scores, but so is the leftist PT. As

we would predict the PT to be part of winning coalitions in more competitive systems,

this was an unexpected finding. We tested this factor further in model 2 by adding the

main catch-all party of the center-right, the PMDB, and the center-left PSDB. These

coefficients were also negative and significant (though PSDB is insignificant in model 3).

As a result, there is no clear interpretation of partisan identity and ENP scores across the

Brazilian states. Conservative parties may not be any more associated with parochial

subnational polities than are the other major parties.

Notably government size as a proxy for the availability of patronage does not

have an effect on subnational pluralism. In preliminary tests we examined the hypothesis

that this factor may interact with capitalist development or industrialization, but the

resulting interaction term proved insignificant in all tests. Neither dependence on fiscal

transfers nor the economic growth factors proved significant in models 1 and 2,

suggesting that it is the complexity of the capitalist economy, its structure and not its

performance, that is the key predictor of subnational pluralism. Model 3 shows that fiscal

transfers are positively and significantly correlated with greater pluralism, but this defies

the logic of rentier theory which predicts the inverse relationship. Rentier effects may still

30

play a role in that transfer dependence may limit economic development, thereby

requiring further testing of these variables (Wantchekon and Asadurian 2002). Models 1-

3 explain a reasonable degree of the variance of ENP scores.

We retested the core specification in a fourth model that regressed an index of the

dependent variable. Using the first factor of a principal components analysis (PCA) of

ENP variables, absolute value of first-round margins, the reelection variable, and

legislative concentration (the percentage of seats held by the two largest parties), we

constructed an index term as an alternative to the ENP of gubernatorial elections to see if

this would change the results of the core model. Since the index term measures

subnational autocracy, the signs are reversed for the purposes of interpretation. The

results generally verify those found in the first three models with the exception that share

of seats of rival coalitions is shown to deepen authoritarian tendencies, a counter-intuitive

outcome that will require further testing of the PCA model. GDP share remains

significant and its sign runs in the expected direction. The logged growth term becomes

significant in this model, suggesting that not only more developed but better performing

economies have more plural political societies.

Regarding democratic governance, Table 4 presents the models predicting police

homicides per hundred thousand inhabitants in each unit and over time. Once again,

relative shares of GDP performed as expected with the more developed and complex

economies representing lower rates of extrajudicial killings. Unlike the first three

pluralism models, the growth term in relative shares was consistently significant and

positive in all tests. This finding suggests that economies undergoing more rapid changes

in development patterns generate political tensions that result in violations of human

31

rights. This is consistent with erstwhile arguments such as Huntington’s (1968) that rapid

economic transformation undermines traditional political systems in ways that lead to

breakdowns in order rather than transitions to democracy.

[Table 4 about here]

Political factors in the governance models proved inconsistent in explaining

police homicides. Neither of the variables measuring the organization of opposition

achieved statistical significance. The PFL/PDS variable was consistently significant but

with a negative sign, indicating that conservative parties are associated with lower levels

of extrajudicial killings. In Model 2, the PMDB variable also proved negative and

significant (p<.1), demonstrating that incumbents with center-right and right-wing

support are not more likely to countenance violations of human rights. Indeed, they lead

polities with lower police homicide rates. Taken together with the findings in the

pluralism models, there is no consistent support for the notion that partisan identity, and

especially conservative leadership, is a distinctive attribute of subnational

authoritarianism. Of course, the weakness of parties in Brazil throws partisan

explanations into doubt, making this an area for further research into political variables.

The only other political factor that proved significant and consistently so in all

tests was the incidence of run-offs in the past.11 Both governance models demonstrate

that states with a history of competitive first-round gubernatorial contests produce

tensions that are associated with extrajudicial killings by public servants. Once again, this

variable may work in much the same way the growth in relative shares of GDP works.

That is, societies facing acute change in economic structures and greater competition for

32

state power undermine status quo arrangements, leading to the use of extrajudicial

responses by incumbent interests.

Conclusions

The results of the statistical tests offer a preliminary suggestion that the progress

of democracy at the subnational level is arduous and potentially contradictory to national

de jure principles of democratic governance. The most consistent finding is that capitalist

development and different levels of economic autonomy across units and over time

enhance both pluralism and the exercise of democratic rule. Simpler and lesser developed

economies offer fewer options for citizens to become economically autonomous from the

state and incumbent interests. These conditions lend these polities a conservative

tendency, though this is not necessarily reflected in the continuation of conservative and

right-wing parties. Partisan identities and the organization of political society appear less

important than social and economic structures.

The results of the governance models also suggest that changing subnational

authoritarian polities is treacherous. Socio-economic transformation of subnational

polities in Brazil is associated with the tendency to pursue anti-democratic solutions to

the inevitable social tensions wrought by modernization. Moreover, there is no

ameliorating role played by the public sector. The size of the public sector neither

provides enough patronage to reduce the threats felt by incumbents nor does it offer any

of the social protections that lessen tensions in rapidly changing societies in more

advanced capitalist states. These observations underscore the more pessimistic view that

competitive authoritarianism represents a problem of the quality of democratic

33

governance that will not be easily resolved as part of a larger and sustained process of

democratization. Further democratization in these cases may be possible, but the process

of change may itself deepen authoritarian tendencies in the medium-term.

Structural and not institutional explanations seem to enjoy the strongest support in

the present study, though these findings may provide guidance to future work on

institutional approaches. Much current work on decentralization, and particularly the

fiscal and policy dimensions, tends to view the process as dominated by differences in

national political institutions such as party systems and inter-governmental structures

(e.g., Willis, Garman, Haggard 1999). The analytical approaches of these studies embrace

collective action logics that see subnational interests existing in competition or contingent

cooperation with national actors. This framework territorializes national politics but it

does not take territorial interests seriously. As Tulia Falleti (2005) has argued, the

interests of governors and state legislatures are not reducible to a universal set of

preferences. These actors have preferences that have different scope and dimension based

on the practices, informal understandings, and institutional structures of the subnational

polities in which they are embedded. Beginning with a political economic approach to

unpacking the way that territorial interests are themselves shaped by factors endogenous

to subnational societies and polities will produce more powerful hypotheses about the

role of political institutions. In this regard, understanding the politics of “boundary

control” and integrating intergovernmental relations; that is, national-subnational

interaction, in the analysis will require an understanding of socio-economic change and

how it affects institution-formation and political practice.

34

Table 1 Indicators of Pluralism in the Twenty-Seven Brazilian States, 1982-2002

Gubernatorial Elections State Legislative Elections

State

1st Rd. Mean

Margin St.

Dev.

2nd d. Mean

Margin St. Dev. ENP

(votes) Run-offs

Re-elected

1 Rd. Mean

Margin St. Dev.

ENP

(seats)

Mean Legislative

Concentration Conservative Competition Mato Grosso 29.4 18.9 - - 2.1 0 1 4.9 26 4.6 86.9 Bahia 28.5 14.7 17.2 - 2.3 1 1 32.2 17 4.7 79.3 Maranhão 28 28.8 4.5 4.7 2.1 2 1 37.9 24.6 5.4 83.3 Ceará 27.4 10.9 0.1 - 2.2 1 2 28.3 14.8 3.9 83.4 Alagoas 25.4 22.9 - - 2 0 2 5.1 24.2 5.5 83.9 Tocantins 22.3 7.5 11.8 - 2.2 1 1 28.2 26.7 4 92.8 Sergipe 21.3 23.5 7.4 3.5 2.2 3 2 27.1 42.4 5.7 86.8 Pernambuco 19.9 12.3 - - 2.1 0 2 9.2 11.3 5.4 83.6 Goiás 19.5 10.6 9.7 4.4 2.4 2 2 15.6 27.7 4.5 81.7 Paraíba 18.9 24.4 9.9 6.9 2.2 3 0 16.7 35 3.5 88.0 Amazonas 18.6 11.9 - - 2.2 0 3 36.9 15.9 5.4 85.5 Moderate Competition Espírito Santo 18.3 16.4 22.8 14.5 2.5 2 0 11 12.2 7.6 48.6 Acre 18.3 13.5 8.3 1.3 2.6 2 1 11.8 5.5 5.1 74.3 Rio de Janeiro 17.8 14.8 14.1 2.7 3 2 1 14.1 14.3 7.5 56.0 Paraná 13.7 18.9 12.7 3.1 2.6 3 2 15.8 23.5 5.4 77.0 Amapá 13.1 4.4 15.1 12.7 3.2 4 1 2 24.3 7.7 56.8 Mato G. do Sul 13.1 13.6 15 10.7 2.3 2 2 1.4 24 5.8 82.0 Pará 11.7 17.9 9.3 11.1 2.8 4 2 8.2 39.3 5.5 79.7 Rio G. do Norte 9.2 5.1 13.1 12.6 2.4 2 2 5.6 23.2 3.7 90.3 Broadened Competition Santa Catarina 9 19 1.1 0.7 2.6 2 1 9.6 21.6 4.1 75.4 Rondônia 8.4 11.7 15.6 8.4 3.9 4 0 4.1 34 6.9 49.1 Distrito Federal 7.8 18.4 4.1 3.4 2.8 3 2 11.2 25.6 8.5 63.2 Minas Gerais 7.2 17 11.7 8 2.8 3 0 6.5 25.1 6.8 62.6 São Paulo 7.2 16.6 11 5.6 3.4 4 1 11.8 12.6 6.2 56.6 Roraima 7.1 5.8 9.6 5.1 2.7 4 1 12 19.4 7.7 69.0 Rio G. do Sul 7.1 8.6 8.5 9.4 2.9 4 0 1.5 28 5.4 62.7 Piauí 3.7 9 7.7 5.1 2.3 3 0 12.3 30.6 3.5 90.0

35

Table 2 Police Homicide Data

States

Average Yearly

Homicides Years

All Police Homicides per

100,000 People

Espírito Santo 1092.89 94-02 36.31 Roraima 79.44 94-02 25.96 Acre 116.75 94-01 21.90 Mato Grosso 422.67 98-00 17.46 Alagoas 480.11 94-02 17.23 Amapá 69.50 98-01 15.65 Pernambuco 1211.73 92-02 15.58 Sergipe 245.40 97-01 14.17 Mato G. do S. 284.75 99-02 14.07 Amazonas 374.60 94-98 13.92 Paraíba 451.89 92-00 13.29 Rio de Janeiro 1873.57 95-00 13.29 D. Federal 247.00 94-00 12.56 Bahia 1372.20 96-00 10.67 Tocantins 118.75 95-02 10.65 Goiás 476.00 94-05 9.86 Ceará 669.29 92-98 9.25 São Paulo 3177.14 95-01 8.81

Pará 464.00 94-00 7.76 Rio G. do N. 191.90 92-01 7.08 Piauí 187.50 95-00 6.70 Rio G. do S. 568.00 94-01 5.68 Santa Catarina 285.00 00-01 5.47 Paraná 279.50 99-02 2.98 Minas Gerais 476.67 99-01 2.74 Maranhão 86.00 98-99 1.56 Note: Police homicide data based on raw MNDH scoring.

36

Note: Figures are regression coefficients with unbalanced data. Numbers in parentheses are panel-corrected standard errors. Coefficients in bold are statistically significant: * p<.1; ** p<.05; *** p<.001.

Table 3 Estimates of Effective Number of Parties (ENP) in Gubernatorial Elections, 1982-2002

Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Share of seats of rival party .010* -.001 -.004 (.005) (.004) (.014) Share of seats of rival coalition -.007 -.004 .018* (.005) (.005) (.009) ENP of seats in legislature .085** .060** .050** (.036) (.026) (.021) PFL/PDS -.524*** -.471*** -.486*** .920*** (.134) (.089) (.106) (.143) PT -.390** -.654*** -.612*** .247 (.163) (.15) (.135) (.414) PMDB -.258** -.258** .553*** (.085) (.097) (.086) PSDB -.157* -.119 .621** (.087) (.105) (.302) Run-offs (t-1) .003 (.147) Re-election -.397*** -.391*** -.381** (.106) (.099) (.111) GDP share 4.570*** 4.147*** 2.951*** -7.902*** (.898) (1.028) (.770) (.953) Growth in GDP share -.169 -.210 (.227) (.540) lnGrowth .026 -1.402* (.132) (.783) Government size .103 .490 -2.333 (.585) (.423) (1.442) Fiscal transfers -.267 .410** .933 (.445) (.172) (.980) Constant 2.260*** 2.747*** 2.756*** 6.073 (.638) (.251) (.302) (3.862) N 80 108 106 106 R2 .43 .43 .35 .29 Wald X2 71.75 24989.92 1651.37 46492.79 Prob > X2 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

37

Table 4 Estimates of Police Homicides per Hundred Thousand Population, 19 Brazilian States, 1994-2002

Variable Model 1 Model 2

Share of seats of rival party -0.102 (0.153) Share of seats of rival coalition -0.133 -0.156 (0.110) (0.111) PFL/PDS -3.666** -4.300** (1.342) (1.955) PT -2.863 -2.831 (6.293) (4.455) PMDB -3.435 -2.965* (2.173) (1.701) PSDB -2.307 -1.888 (3.726) (3.347) Run-offs (t-1) 7.172** 6.856*** (3.261) (1.921) Re-election 0.251 (3.746) GDP share -145.05** -143.95** (72.267) (59.886) Growth in GDP share 5.374** 4.794** (2.157) (1.928) lnGrowth -5.449 -3.070 (14.248) (10.409) Government size -24.023 -13.846 (70.499) (21.951) Fiscal transfers 6.439 (26.521) Corrected homicide rate (t-1) 0.003* 0.003* (0.002) (0.001) Constant 49.511 37.421 (71.848) (51.431) N 40 41

R2 .30 .28

Wald X2 5.21 6.67 Prob > X2

0.157

0.083

Note: Figures are regression coefficients with unbalanced data. Numbers in parentheses are panel-corrected standard errors. Coefficients in bold are statistically significant: * p<.1; ** p<.05; *** p<.001.

38

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Notes

1 Conceivably, the proliferation of subnational authoritarian regimes could produce the collapse of national

democracy, though the author is unaware of any cases of democratic breakdown that fits this

characterization.

2 This distinction differentiates subnational authoritarianism as a problem of the quality of democracy from

electoral authoritarianism as a regime type. Observers of the latter phenomenon restrict their definition

exclusively to indicators of access rather than the nondemocratic exercise of power. See Schedler 2006 (5-

6).

3 We calculated the effective number of parties using the conventional Laakso and Taagepera (1979)

equation. This formula is represented as N = 1/∑ x2i where xi is the percentage of seats held by the i-th

party. Following this formula, if the distribution of seats favors two parties in similar proportions, with a

third minor party taking the remainder of seats, N will be some number between 2.0 and 3.0.

4 Although re-election for governor were not legalized until 1998, several governors in some cases returned

for nonconsecutive second or more terms during the pre-98 period.

5 An independent-sample t-test confirmed that the difference in means was significant at the .001 level (t=-

4.983).

6 Neither first-round or second-round margin standard deviations are significantly different between the two

cohorts, suggesting that margin degrees are distinct but not their dispersion. Both cohorts are consistently

competitive.

7 Tests of differences in means found statistical significance at the .1 level.

8 Rondônia is excluded for insufficient police homicide data.

9 We calculated the rate of change in the value-added index for each state and ran the growth rate as a

control. However, the transformed index proved insignificant in every test. We report the coefficient for the

natural log of the index and not the growth rate in our models.

10 The number of observations increased from 80 to 108 between the models because all of the pre-1990

cases were excluded due to the run-off variable in the first model. Run-offs became legal only after the

1990 contests.

45

11 We also tested the ENP variables in multiple specifications but found these indicators of pluralism to be

insignificant in all tests.