Political context and clarity of accountability of governors

• Grant number: 16/19378-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2016
• End date: September 30, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - State and Government
• Principal Investigator: George Avelino Filho
• Grantee: Camila Amaral Gonçalves
• Host Institution: Escola de Economia de São Paulo (EESP). Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/15658-1 - Subnational political institutions: a comparative study of Brazilian States, AP.TEM

Abstract

This research assistant project will contribute to the building of a study and data set about "clarity of responsibility" for Brazilian states. Previous studies about the results of fiscal politics on state elections examine competition for the governor's position without understanding whether the incumbent governor's party controls the legislature. Given that studies on economic voting (Anderson 1995; Powell and Whitten 1993) show that the greater "clarity of responsibility" is decisive for determining whether voters reward or punish incumbents for economic performance. These authors show that the vote losses caused by an economic recession are lower for a governing coalition of parties than for a unitary government. They suggest that this result happens due lower "clarity of responsibility"; that is, voters have difficulty in attributing responsibility to each of the government's parties in the case of coalition governments. (AU)