Subnational Politics and Redistribution in a Federal System: Determinants of Progressive Social Spending in Brazilian States

Abstract

What role do subnational governments play in shaping a country’s redistributive efforts? Existing literature suggests that federalism can be a hindrance to redistribution. Such negative effects may be particularly true of Latin America’s federations due to high levels of regional inequality and malapportioned political institutions. However, in order to fully understand redistribution in federal systems in Latin America, we need to examine not only how subnational governments affect centralized redistributive efforts, but also what efforts these subnational governments are making themselves. In this article, I contribute to our understanding of subnational social spending in Latin America’s largest federation, Brazil. My results suggest that, in Brazil, state governments are constrained actors, but they do pursue different levels of redistributive social spending with higher levels being more likely under left parties.