Eroding the clientelist monopoly: The subnational left turn and conservative rule in northeastern Brazil
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Abstract
- Well-financed opposition parties can exert their organizational strength to
undercut the territorial advantages of political machines and clientele networks. In
the first decade of the twenty-first century, leftist parties in Brazil’s Northeast region
brought conservative dominance to an end. The Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores,
PT) led this shift, not only garnering regional majorities in presidential elections
but also winning multiple governorships and increasing its share of federal and
state legislative seats in the region. In contrast to arguments attributing recent electoral
shifts in the Northeast to civil society, aggregate growth, and conditional cash transfers,
we argue that the territorial expansion of the PT organization played a central role. A
spike in party finances between 2001 and 2003 enabled the PT, for the first time, to
establish party offices in northeastern municipalities from the top down. Drawing from
under utilized data and sources, we show that the PT leadership eroded conservatives’
monopoly on rural territory in the Northeast by strategically targeting hundreds of conservative-
dominated municipalities and investing resources to stimulate the formation
of local offices. The study demonstrates that this top-down territorial targeting produced
considerable electoral gains for PT candidates across federal and state races.
| Title | Eroding the clientelist monopoly: The subnational left turn and conservative rule in northeastern Brazil |
|---|---|
| Creator | Van Dyck, Brandon |
| Montero, A. P. | |
| Publisher | Latin American Research Review |
| Academic Department | Government & Law |
| Division | Social Sciences |
| Organization | Lafayette College |
| Date Issued | 2015 |
| Date Available | 2016-02-08T19:03:15Z |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Bibliographic Citation | Van Dyck, B. and Montero, A. P. (2015) "Eroding the clientelist monopoly: The subnational left turn and conservative rule in northeastern Brazil." Latin American Research Review 50 (4): 116-38. |
| Standard Identifier | Handle 10385/2080 |
| Permalink | http://hdl.handle.net/10385/2080 |
| Rights Statement |
In Copyright
|
| Rights Holders | Latin American Studies Association |
Contains
| File | VanDyck-LatinAmericanResearchReview-vol50-2015.pdf | Uploaded 2019-10-20 | Public | Download |
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