The Reaction of Elites in a Democratization Process: Evidence from Brazil

Raphael Bruce and Rudi Rocha

No 2014_09, Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP)

Abstract: This paper examines one of the possible channels through which incumbent elites aligned with the Brazilian dictatorship were able to withhold their political power during the democratization in the 1980s. Based on national household survey data and results from legislative elections, we first find that recently franchised illiterate voters who lived in states that were dominated by the elite party during the dictatorship had a higher probability to register to vote than those who lived in other states.We then investigate whether this positive correlation represents a reaction from the incumbent elites in order to keep their political power through voter manipulation or a reaction from these voters in order to remove the power from the oligarchies. We find that, in states dominated by the elite party, illiterates had higher probability of being politically uninterested and uninformed. Our results suggest that a politically motivated reaction from this population is implausible.

Keywords: Democratization; Elites; Rural Oligarchy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 I25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-06-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-his, nep-lam and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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