Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Corruption and Electoral Accountability in Brazil

该奖项符合SEC第五章B组的要求。《2013年综合及进一步继续拨款法案》(2013年3月26日制定的第113-6号法律公告)第543条。该项目解决了新兴民主国家的腐败问题，这是一个对世界政治稳定至关重要的问题。它开发和测试了一种理论，以了解当候选人涉嫌腐败时，在什么情况下提高或降低选举问责水平，重点是巴西的情况。最近在主要城市举行的反对滥用公共资金的大规模示威活动表明，加强对缓解腐败条件的了解具有重要意义。巴西是一个国际影响力日益增强的新兴经济大国，其政治表现和稳定关系到美国的经济利益和国家安全。这项研究的学术价值在于，它能够使用不同的方法论方法来检验一种理论，即在什么情况下选民更有可能惩罚被指控腐败的候选人。该项目的基础是两个理论论证。首先，当候选人之间的意识形态距离较小时，选举责任就会增加。相比之下，当意识形态分化更大时，对被控腐败的候选人的惩罚程度应该会更低，因为选民更有可能根据他们在问题上的立场来选择候选人。其次，当被指控腐败的现任候选人可以声称提供物质利益的功劳时，选举的问责制将会降低。这些假设通过多方法设计进行验证，包括选举数据、在线调查实验和对巴西市政选举候选人的采访。该项目利用新获得的候选人腐败公共记录数据进行大N观察性分析。对18岁以上的巴西合格选民进行的在线调查实验将使用2×2因子设计来评估处理交互作用的待遇；在第一个实验中，一个处理是涉及候选人的腐败指控的存在(不)，另一个处理是政党两极分化程度高(低)，以及在第二个实验中，候选人在任职期间的社会提供和公共工程方面的正(负)记录。经过测试的招聘平台以最低成本开发了研究不足国家的代表性选民样本。对当地精英的访谈是为了了解干预措施和理论上感兴趣的结果之间的因果联系。更广泛的影响与这项研究对民主化和发展知识的潜在贡献有关。该项目促进了一项新的研究议程，即选民通过关注发展中世界新民主的情况来追究其代表的责任。因此，这项研究不仅会引起学者的兴趣，而且会引起更广泛的国际社会的兴趣，包括决策者、外国援助捐助者、非政府组织和国际组织。

This award satisfies Division B, Title V, Sec. 543 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-6, enacted on March 26, 2013). The project addresses corruption in emerging democracies, an issue critical to political stability in the world. It develops and tests a theory to understand what circumstances raise or lower the level of electoral accountability when candidates are suspected of corruption, focusing on the case of Brazil. Recent massive demonstrations in major cities against misuse of public funds illustrate the importance of improved knowledge about the conditions that mitigate corruption. Brazil is an emerging economic power of growing international influence and its political performance and stability are of great interest to the economic interests and national security of the United States. The intellectual merit of this research lies in its capacity to use different methodological approaches to test a theory on the circumstances in which voters are more likely to punish candidates accused of corruption. Two theoretical arguments are at the foundation of the project. First, electoral accountability increases when the distance between candidate ideologies is low. By contrast, when there is greater ideological polarization there should be lower levels of punishment to candidates accused of corruption, as voters will be more likely to choose a candidate based on their issue positions. Second, electoral accountability will be lower when incumbent candidates accused of corruption can claim credit for delivering material benefits. These hypotheses are tested with a multi-method design incorporating election data, online survey experiments, and interviews with candidates for municipal elections in Brazil.The project takes advantage of newly available data on candidates' public records of corruption to perform a large-N observational analysis. The online survey experiments with Brazilian eligible voters over 18 years old will use a 2 x 2 factorial design to assess treatment by treatment interactions; one treatment being existence (absence) of corruption allegations involving the candidate and the other treatment being high (low) degree of party polarization in the first experiment, and positive (negative) candidate records of social provision and public works while in office in the second experiment. The tested recruitment platform develops representative samples of voters in understudied countries at minimal cost. Interviews with local elites are used for the purpose of understanding causal linkages between the interventions and outcomes of theoretical interest. The broader impacts are related to the study's potential contributions to knowledge about democratization and development. The project contributes to an emerging research agenda on the circumstances in which voters hold their representatives accountable by focusing on the case of a new democracy in the developing world. Hence, the study will be of interest not only for scholars but also for the broader international community, including policy makers, foreign aid donors, non-governmental organizations and international organizations.