Pork Politics and Municipality Size: Evidence from Brazil
Please join us for a guest lecture with Alison Post, associate professor of political science and global metropolitan studies, as she discusses which types of municipalities are better positioned to deliver local infrastructure projects.
Co-sponsored by the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, the Global Development program, and the School of City and Regional Planning.
About the Speaker
Alison Post is an associate professor of political science and global metropolitan studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She currently serves as co-director of the Global Metropolitan Studies program. Her research examines urban politics and policy and other political economy themes, including environmental politics and policy, regulation, and business-government relations. She also collaborates with engineers, urban planners, and public health scholars on infrastructure, natural resource management, and smart city technology adoption. She works primarily in Latin America and, more recently, in India and the United States. She is the former chair of the Latin American Political Economy Network (REPAL) and former president of the Urban and Local Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Her research has been funded by the Hewlett Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Swedish Research Ministry, and USAID, among others.
Abstract
In most low- and middle-income countries, municipalities do not collect enough tax revenue from their populations to fund the water, health, education, and transportation infrastructure their citizens require. This project examines which municipalities are better positioned to secure discretionary funds from higher tiers of government for local infrastructure projects. Scholarship on distributive politics emphasizes that funds typically flow to jurisdictions with core voters (controlled by aligned politicians) or those with significant numbers of swing voters. This project, however, emphasizes an alternative predictor: municipal population size. Mayors and municipal councilors in smaller municipalities have less revenue available for infrastructure projects, creating stronger incentives to lobby for funds. Infrastructure projects in smaller cities are more visible, making credit-claiming and credit-attribution efforts more effective. Using an original dataset of approximately 65,000 project-specific budget amendments made by national deputies to Brazilian budget legislation from 2015 to 2023, we find an inverse relationship between municipal population size, per capita spending, and project count. This relationship is particularly strong for infrastructure projects. Deputies, however, award simpler, cheaper projects to smaller municipalities, reflecting concerns about state capacity.