Banca de DEFESA: AMANDA RAFAELA DOMINGOS DE LIMA

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
DISCENTE: AMANDA RAFAELA DOMINGOS DE LIMA
DATA : 10/05/2023
HORA: 11:00
LOCAL: Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
TÍTULO:

Beyond borders: How spatial spillover effects shapes the role of pork barrel politics on subnational public policy provision

PALAVRAS-CHAVES:

Distributive politics; Spatial spillover effects; Pork barrel collective effects; Multilevel

dynamics;

PÁGINAS: 168
RESUMO:

To what extent do the effects of pork barrel policies in public policy spill over? Pork barrel

greases the wheels of politics in many ways, being a crucial tool for building support in

Congress and with the electorate. Due to their discretionary nature, they are considered an

inefficient, poorly planned expense with a high possibility of generating corruption and creating

clientelistic networks. Despite its lousy reputation, Pork barrel policies influence the electorate’s

daily life as they positively affect public policy in the target jurisdiction, even with small

and dissipative effects. However, these effects could be underestimated as neither research

considers the spatial relationship among municipalities. I argue that pork barrel collective

effects are more prominent when considering spatial spillover effects, which permit them to

reach neighbouring jurisdictions. Spatial interdependence among local units and the strategic

allocation of pork monies draws this overflowing feature. The restriction on the amount of

pork barrel policies available for distribution forces politicians to target units that can better

absorb the demand of neighbouring areas and better process the benefit due to the accumulation

of human and material resources. Consequently, spatial spillover effects increase

the pork’s beneficiary network, helping to soften its inefficiency and becoming politically efficient

despite increasing subnational unevenness in policy provision. I use Brazil as a case to

test this argument, as they have the proxy for pork barrelling, have good quality subnationallevel

data information available and provide 5,570 municipalities allowing the understanding

of heterogeneous effects under the same institutional incentives and electoral features. To

test this claim, I leverage the municipal level in an original time-series cross-sectional dataset,

gathering data on 33,240 impositional budgetary amendments and health indicators for 5,214

municipalities between 2014 and 2018. I apply the Spatial Durbin Model that accounts for the

interdependence among local units and verifies both the direct and indirect effects in target

units and their neighbouring municipalities, respectively. The results show that legislators allocate

pork barrel resources following a well-defined strategy: concentrating the highest share

of pork barrel monies in a single municipality while benefiting its neighbours with lower values.

Furthermore, suggest that pork barrel has a positive (albeit small) effect on health policy

in the target municipality and neighbouring local units. Nonetheless, these effects are more

prominent when analysing policy input indicators (measured as annual spending per capita)

while losing their strength when analysed as policy process indicators, measured as BCG

vaccine coverage, and outcome indicators, measured through the infant mortality rate. Taken

together, these results contribute to understanding the effects of distributive policies on public

policies at the subnational level and how the territorial dynamics can extend the network of

beneficiaries and, ultimately, soothe the inefficiency of spending on the pork barrel policy.

MEMBROS DA BANCA:
Presidente - 2926936 - MARIANA BATISTA DA SILVA
Interno - 1998934 - DALSON BRITTO FIGUEIREDO FILHO
Externa à Instituição - MARTA MENDES DA ROCHA - UFJF
Externo à Instituição - VICTOR AUGUSTO ARAUJO SILVA
Externo à Instituição - TOMAS DOSEK