INTRODUCTION

In Section 1 I demonstrated that Brazilian federal deputies do not seek long-term careers in the Chamber. Instead, many are willing to abandon their seats after winning the election in order to take a position in state or local government, and the majority also continue their political careers at the state and/or municipal level after finishing their time in the Chamber. Because politicians' future career goals shape their present behavior, the career structure in Brazil thus tends to generate behavioral incentives for incumbent legislators to “represent” municipal and state governments' interests in the national legislature. By acting as advocates for their state and/or local governments, deputies also are strategically seeking ways to potentially advance their own careers at those levels. A few deputies may seek national positions, but most of those who do land a national position also end up returning to state or local politics, meaning that even the deputies who seek to reach a national position also have incentives to represent state and municipal interests in the legislature.

In this section I begin to connect these individual-level incentives to broader phenomena. Although the study of elections has gained prominence in the (re)emerging Latin American democracies and across the globe, we still know relatively little about some of the primary factors driving these elections. In this section, I explore how federalism in Brazil produces a particularly state-level dynamic in legislative elections.