INTRODUCTION

Ambition theory suggests that if politicians' behavior can be traced either wholly or partly to their office goals, then scholars can understand politicians' behavior by exploring their political careers. Given this hypothesis, a substantial number of scholars have explored the impact of political ambition in the United States. Research focuses on the House of Representatives, where scholars typically assume that politicians are “single-minded seekers of reelection” (Mayhew 1974, 17). Fewer scholars have explored political careers outside the United States, but the growth within comparative politics of the study of institutions and the roles politicians play within those institutions suggests that scholars ought to seek to uncover how politicians' career incentives influence their legislative, partisan, and electoral behavior.

In this chapter Ⅰ begin to explore the political careers of members of the Brazilian legislature. While numerous studies of Brazilian legislators' background characteristics exist (e.g., Leeds 1965; Verner 1975; Fleischer 1976; Nunes 1978; A. Santos 1995), and some scholars have suggested that Brazilian politicians do not focus their career energies on the Chamber of Deputies (e.g., Packenham 1990 [1970]; Fleischer 1981; Figueiredo and Limongi 1996; F. Santos 1998), this book is the first to provide an empirical and theoretical treatment of incumbent deputies' career goals. I concur that Brazilian politicians do not focus their energies on building a career within the Chamber of Deputies, and in this chapter and the next three chapters I demonstrate that political ambition in Brazil begins and ends at the subnational level. Service in the Chamber serves merely as a springboard to higher office, at a lower level of government.