Political representation and protectionism: assessing how electoral institutions affect tariff levels in democracies

Author(s)

Flavio Leão Pinheiro

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI)
• Defense date: 2014-02-25

Examining board members

Janina Onuki; Octavio Amorim Neto; Fernando de Magalhaes Papaterra Limongi; Amâncio Jorge Silva Nunes de Oliveira; Adriana Schor

• Advisor: Janina Onuki

Abstract

Do electoral rules affect the level of trade protection in democratic countries? Recent studies indicate that, when it comes to trade protection, electoral systems do matter; however, a thorough analysis of the literature unveils the fact that competing theories and mixed findings still prevail. In this dissertation, I intend to solve the empirical and theoretical puzzle involving political representation and trade policy by offering and testing an alternative explanation. In the first part, I investigate a more specific problem, which, indirectly, was an incentive to develop the second part. The question I attempt to answer is: Does the electoral district size affect legislator\'s preference in trade policy? The question is related to the Constituency Size Assumption, which is widely accepted in the International Political Economy (IPE) literature. Accordingly, the larger the constituency, the more prone the legislator will be to free trade, given that he will be insulated from special interests. Smaller constituencies, however, would lead to concern for particularistic interests, which would result in a protectionist position. Until recently, few studies have proposed empirical analyses of this relationship, and those who have accomplished the feat of presenting findings that cast doubt on the validity of this assumption, have been restricted to the US Congress. In this section, I test the constituency size theory in Brazil and Chile, contrasting vote preference with the trade policy of Representatives and Senators. I found no evidence of the theory\'s validity. The empirical analysis is based on rollcall votes from 1995 to 2010 (Brazil) and from 1996 to 2006 (Chile), in which we compared trade-related bills voted in both Houses. In the second part of this work, I present as an answer to the puzzle the Stigler-Peltzman (S-P) analysis of regulation, formalized by Chang et al. in Electoral Systems and the Balance of Consumer-Producer Power. Adapting their model, I evaluate the effect of electoral institutions on the level of trade protection. More specifically, I analyze 37 democracies from 1995 to 2008 and estimate the effect of electoral systems\' level of responsiveness - electoral disproportionality - on trade protection. The findings indicate that the higher the rate of proportionality created by electoral institutions, the greater the level of protection that politicians will provide for special interest groups, especially in non-presidential democracies. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 09/12376-0 - Congress and foreign policy in Latin America
• Grantee: Flávio Leão Pinheiro
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate