Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Federalism, Political Parties, and Policy-Making in Brazil

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ABSTRACT This award supports the dissertation research of the co-principal investigator. The research project will assess the influence of federal institutions on congressional politics in Brazil where subnational politics play an important role in national politics. This award will be used to construct a database of electoral statistics at the national, state, and local levels in Brazil. The study's central hypothesis is that, contrary to common expectation, electoral multipartism is not a function of district magnitude and timing of presidential elections but rather the concurrence between national and state electoral cycles and the electoral formula for gubernatorial elections. By establishing a theoretical comparison between these two models of party competition that will be tested with empirical data, the research promises to make a valuable contribution not just for area specialists but for the comparative study of electoral systems. The research will promote an understanding of federalism, the dynamics of executive-legislative relations in presidential systems, and the influence of subnational actors on national politics.