Race and Competitiveness in Brazilian Elections: Evaluating the Chances of Black and Brown Candidates through Quantile Regression Analysis of Brazil's 2014 Congressional Elections

Abstract

Although the proportion of black, brown and indigenous electoral candidates in Brazil is close to the proportion of blacks, browns and indigenous in the general population, the proportion elected to the country’s Federal Congress is significantly lower. Statistical techniques such as linear or logistic regression are typically used to estimate the effect of a particular variable such as color/race or gender on a candidate’s electoral performance. However, in Brazilian elections, characterized by substantive, asymmetrical differences such as extreme variations in [...]