VIOLENCE, VOTE CHOICE, AND THE PROVISION OF PUBLIC SECURITY IN BRAZILIAN STATES by Douglas Aaron Block Bachelor of Arts, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008 Master of Arts, University of Texas at El Paso, 2010 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2019 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Douglas Aaron Block It was defended on December 6, 2018 And approved by Steven Finkel, Professor, Political Science Michael Kenney, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs Scott Morgenstern, Professor, Political Science Dissertation Director: Barry Ames, Professor, Political Science ii VIOLENCE, VOTE CHOICE, AND THE PROVISION OF PUBLIC SECURITY IN BRAZILIAN STATES Douglas Aaron Block, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2019 This dissertation examines the relationship between politics and violence in Brazilian states. I challenge the assumption that ideology alone leads political parties from the left and right to implement different public security policies. Using a mixed method approach, I argue that politicians’ responses to violence depend on how security issues affect their electoral success. This process occurs in a four-stage cycle that involves elections, the provision of resources for law enforcement, the distribution of these resources and violence. Chapter 1 uses the lens of retrospective voting to examine how violence influences elections. I show that contrary to Western democracies, where conservative parties gain when security issues arise, security is a double-edged sword for Brazilian political parties. Voters punish/reward right parties more harshly than they punish/reward leftist parties for security failures/successes. In Chapter 2, I then analyze the policies that governors implement to address crime rates. Using state budgetary data, I show that while left and right parties advocate different security policies during the campaign, in office, they both turn to law enforcement to address crime. However, their spending priorities depend on political competition. Right parties spend more on law enforcement when they face leftist competitors that they can paint as being soft on security, while leftist parties spend more on security when they face centrist or other leftist competitors. Chapter 3 turns to the issue of how governors distribute law enforcement resources. I show that governors send more police officers to large municipalities that are important for their electoral iii success. Chapter 4 then integrates the findings from previous chapters to examine how resources and ideology influence municipal homicide rates. I show that homicide rates decline in states where the governor is from a right party and when states spend more on education. However, the effects that law enforcement has on crime depends on state wealth and the cities voting behavior. In the concluding chapter, I summarize the main findings and discuss the project’s overall importance. iv Copyright © by Douglas Aaron Block 2019 v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1 1.1 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................... 5 1.1.1 Project Assumptions ................................................................................................. 7 1.1.2 Brazil’s Party System ................................................................................................ 9 1.1.3 The Argument ......................................................................................................... 15 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES ....................................................... 18 1.3 METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................... 20 1.4 PROJECT ORGANIZATION ....................................................................................... 25 2. CHAPTER 2: VIOLENCE AND VOTING IN GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS ........... 28 2.1 CRIME AND PUBLIC SECURITY POLICIES ........................................................... 30 2.1.1 Approaches to Crime Control ................................................................................. 32 2.2 POLITICAL PARTIES AND CRIME ........................................................................... 35 2.2.1 Crime and Non-Incumbent Party Support .............................................................. 41 2.2.2 Crime and Incumbent Party Punishment ................................................................ 44 2.3 THEORETICAL MODELS AND DATA ..................................................................... 45 2.4 EMPIRICS AND ANALYSIS ....................................................................................... 52 2.4.1 Violence and Support for Alternative Crime Control Measures ............................ 60 2.4.2 Alternative Model Specifications ........................................................................... 62 2.4.3 Politics and Public Security .................................................................................... 65 2.5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ............................................................................ 68 3. CHAPTER 3: THE POLITICS OF PUBLIC SECURITY SPENDING ............................... 70 3.1 FEDERALISM IN BRAZIL .......................................................................................... 75 3.2 IDEOLOGY AND STATE BUDGETS ......................................................................... 77 3.2.1 Punitive and Preventive Crime Control Policies .................................................... 79 3.2.2 Political Competition .............................................................................................. 84 3.2.3 Political Careers ...................................................................................................... 92 vi 3.2.4 Additional Determinants of Budgetary Allocations ............................................... 94 3.3 DATA AND ANALYSIS .............................................................................................. 96 3.4 EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE AND ANALYSIS ............................................................. 104 3.4.1 Politics and Spending on Law Enforcement and the Judiciary ............................. 104 3.4.2 Politics and Education Spending .......................................................................... 109 3.4.3 Partisanship and Spending Priorities .................................................................... 112 3.5 NORTHEAST NEIGHBORS: THE CASES OF CEARÁ AND PIAUÍ ..................... 114 3.5.1 Ceará: The Land of Technocrats ........................................................................... 115 3.5.2 Piauí: Familiar Politics .......................................................................................... 126 3.6 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION .......................................................................... 135 4. CHAPTER 4: POLITICS AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF POLICE OFFICERS ............ 138 4.1 RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION .................................................................................... 139 4.1.1 The Politics of Resource Distribution ................................................................... 142 4.1.2 The Political Determinants of Resource Distribution ........................................... 143 4.1.3 The Spillover Effects of Law Enforcement Policies............................................. 149 4.2 STATE POLITICAL ALLIES AND PARTISANSHIP .............................................. 152 4.3 DATA AND EMPIRICAL MODELS ......................................................................... 155 4.3.1 Primary Independent Variables ............................................................................. 158 4.3.2 Technical Determinants of Policing...................................................................... 158 4.4 EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE AND ANALYSIS ............................................................. 161 4.4.1 A Panel Analysis of Police Distribution ............................................................... 166 4.4.2 Voting Behavior and Resource Provision in Surrounding Areas ......................... 173 4.5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION .......................................................................... 181 5. CHAPTER 5: POLITICS AND MUNICIPAL VIOLENCE, 1997-2014 ........................... 184 5.1 Crime and Violence in Brazil ....................................................................................... 188 5.1.1 Political Incentives and Crime Fighting Policies .................................................. 191 5.1.2 Gubernatorial Crime Fighting Tools ..................................................................... 192 5.2 CRIME CONTROL POLICIES IN RIO DE JANEIRO AND PERNAMBUCO ....... 202 5.2.1 Rio de Janeiro: The Marvelous City ..................................................................... 203 5.2.2 Pernambuco: The Pact for Life ............................................................................. 214 5.3 MODELS OF CRIME CONTROL .............................................................................. 224 5.3.1 The Political Determinants of Crime Control ......................................................