Political parties rely on disloyal brokers who broker votes among nonpartisan voters. Lack of strong branding, organization, or activists forces parties to 'hire' local notables with brokerage power.
Broker Disloyalty and Agency Issue: Brokers regularly change political allegiances in Brazil's unique system where they are also local candidates, seeking better returns for their voter control module.
Party Vulnerability Consequence: This broker unreliability prevents stable party-voter linkages, making parties electorally fragile.
Research Context and Innovation
This article examines a distinctive Brazilian political phenomenon: brokers who serve as local candidates act as pivotal vote swappers in nonpartisan electoral micro-systems. Unlike typical clientelistic relationships where brokers maintain long-term loyalty to parties or politicians, this unique institutional setup creates an agency problem for political parties.
Methodological Approach
The study leverages natural experiments and a temporary institutional reform that discouraged broker disloyalty:
- Examined Brazil's specific electoral brokerage system
- Utilized quasi-experimental designs including regression discontinuity
- Analyzed the impact of unexpected policy changes discouraging broker shifts in allegiance
Key Findings
Our findings demonstrate a clear relationship between broker unreliability and party vulnerability:
- Higher broker turnover correlates with greater party fragmentation rates
- The institutional reform significantly reduced broker switching during elections
- Partisan instability among brokers directly translates to electoral outcomes for parties
