Ames - The Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil

One day in 1989, I heard that the municipal-level votes received by candidates for Brazilian congressional seats had been recorded on a computer tape. Though the tape included only the votes of winning candidates and covered just two elections in a handful of states, I thought the data might help me understand the workings of Brazil's unusual electoral system. One step led to another. The number of elections grew from two to five, coverage expanded to nearly the whole nation, and the behavior of the elected congressional candidates in subsequent legislatures became an integral part of the research program. The project ultimately took over a decade; fortunately, I already had tenure. Not surprisingly I accumulated a great many debts for the support, both personal and institutional, I received over this long period. I am too disorganized to remember them all, but here is a start.

For help on the most diverse aspects of electoral and legislative processes, both in Brazil and outside, I am grateful to Tim Power, David Fleischer, Shaun Bowler, David Samuels, Bolivar Lamounier, Amaury de Souza, Maria Antonia Alonso de Andrade, Glaucio Soares, Richard Foster, Maria Emilia Freire, Teresa Haguette, Joo Gilberto Lucas Coelho, Gilberto Dimenstein, Luiz Pedone, George Avelino Filho, Peter Kingstone, Maria D'Alva Kinzo, Robert Kaufman, Pedro Celso Cavalcanti, Valentina Rocha Lima, and Simone Rodrigues. The first two on this list, Tim and David, responded to hundreds of inquiries over the years of the project's duration.

In the early stages of electoral data gathering, I received help from Benedito dos Santos Gonalves, of SINDJUS. Jalles Marques helped me with data from Prodasen, the Senate's data processing office. As the years went by, the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral became the central repository of electoral data. I am especially grateful to Carlos Alberto Dornelles, Roberto Siqueira, Srgio, Flvio and Conceio.

The electoral mapping was done with Voyager, a geographic information systems program developed by Rudy Husar at the School of Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis. Rudy and Todd Oberman taught me how the program works.

My investigations into legislative behavior were aided by Orlando de Assis Baptista Neto, Geraldo Alckmin Filho, Eduardo Suplicy, Edwiges, Virgnia Mesquita, Murillo de Arago, Marcondes Sampaio, Rosinethe Monteiro Soares, Feichas Martins, Scott Desposato, and many deputies and aides.

Tim Power, David Samuels, Fabrice Lehoucq, and Scott Morgenstern read all or major parts of the entire manuscript and provided extremely useful comments. Bill Keech read everything and made detailed, line-by-line comments. The manuscript is enormously better for his effort. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for the Press and for various journals who commented on the whole manuscript and on individual chapters. Even though I clearly have not met all their objections, they have made a huge contribution to the quality of the book.

In the study of individual policy areas, I benefited from conversations with Edlcio de Oliveira (INESC), Antonio Carlos Pojo do Rego, Lcio Reiner, Kurt Weyland, Paulo Kramer, Antonio Octvio Cintra and the permanent staff of the Chamber of Deputies, Eleutrio Rodriguez Neto, and Wendy Hunter.

Carmen Prez aided in the acquisition of critical documents in Braslia and helped me enjoy my long stay in the city. Michelle King spent many hours making sense of dusty documents in the Library of Congress. In Pittsburgh, Lcio Renno and Luciana Cozman provided able research assistance.

For counsel on the politics of individual states, I am grateful to Consuelo Novais Sampaio, Celina Souza, Samuel Celestino, and Gei Espinhara (Bahia); Paulo Freire Vieira and Moacyr Pereira (Santa Catarina); Antonio Lavareda and Jos Adalberto Pereira (Pernambuco); Antonio Carlos de Medeiros and Geert Banck (Esprito Santo); Agerson Tabosa Pinto, Aldenor Nunes Freire, Paulo Benavides, and Judith Tendler (Cear); Marcelo Baquero (Rio Grande do Sul); Clovis Borges and Denise Levy (Paran); Jardelino de Lucena Filho (Rio Grande do Norte); Maria Antonieta Parahyba Leopoldi (Rio de Janeiro); Jos de Ribamar Chaves Caldeira (Maranho); and Francisco Itam Campos (Gois). For help in linking micro- and macrophenomena, I often turned to two masters of the problem, Wallace and Gromit.

Without the enormous quantity of institutional support I received, the project could not have gone very far. In 1990 the National Science Foundation (award #8921805) supported my initial field research in Brazil. The IRIS Project at the University of Maryland (directed by Mancur Olson and Christopher Clague) and the North-South Center of the University of Miami supported the congressional phase of the research. In addition to my own interviews, Mauro Porto and Ftima Guimares (Department of Political Science, University of Braslia) and Clcio Dias (then of the University of Illinois, Urbana) conductedinterviews. Washington University, St. Louis, and the University of Pittsburgh provided support for summer trips. The American Philosophical Society contributed a travel grant. In 199596, I was a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. I am grateful to Joseph Tulchin for his support and to the entire staff of the Wilson Center for making that year the most enjoyable of my academic career.

To Michelle King, who produced our daughter Olivia, I owe a debt beyond words. Since Miss O is a lot more compelling than this book, it is fortunate that she was born when the book was essentially done.