INTRODUCTION

In Section 1, I described the structure of political ambition in Brazil, and provided support for my hypothesis that Brazilian federal deputies do not typically aim to build a carreer within the legislature. Instead, they spend a relatively short time in the Chamber, and direct their energies toward contunuing their careers at the subnational level. In Section 2 I showed how federalism influences legislative elections in Brazil, and how this also consequently affects executive-legislative relations. The combination of political ambition and federalism thus generates strong incentives for incumbent federal deputies to favor subnational interests while they serve in the legislatue. In short, ambition and federalism powerfully shape the dynamics of congressional politics in Brazil. In Section 3, I demonstrate the utility of this interpretation of Brazilian politics for real-world events. I develop and play out several hypotheses that federalism and progressive ambition generate, and contrast the expectations of those hypothesis with what a reelection assumption might generate.