ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how multilevel elections, strong subnational governments, and decentralized electoral rules shape the workings of Brazil’s democratic institutions. I seek to answer two major questions. First, to what extent have institutions adopted by the 1988 Constitution created effective incentives for party nationalization and integration and, therefore, for organization of party competition around the dispute over the national executive? Second, what is the impact of multilevel elections on electoral coordination and party fragmentation in congressional races? The core argument is that the institutional mix chosen by the drafters of the 1988 Constitution created cross-cutting incentives. Concurrent presidential, national legislative, and state elections since 1994 have tended to strengthen presidential coattails and the related incentives for party coordination around presidential campaigns, and extensive presidential legislative powers facilitate centralization of the policy-making process. But, although these institutions foster the organization of a nationalized party system and effective intergovernmental coordination, incentives and opportunities provided by multilevel elections in the context of autonomous subnational party branches and highly permissive electoral rules allow for the survival and growth of poorly integrated, office-seeking party organizations organized around subnational races. The chapter concludes that Brazil’s federalism weakens the connection between presidential and legislative races, while at the same time fostering high levels of party fragmentation, therefore increasing the costs of coalition formation.
