Revisiting 1989: an analysis of the election of Collor de Mello using new data and spatial regression models

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

The 1989 presidential election in Brazil was the object of few systematic quantitative studies about its determinants, despite being central in Brazilian political history. In this paper, we apply several models that allow us to more appropriately test the main theses present in the literature, namely: 1) that the victory of Collor de Mello was due to the votes of the small, poor and rural areas; 2) that the party system has not structured the direction of the vote; and 3) when the party system structured the direction of the vote, it was through local party machines.

Materials and Methods:

We elaborate an original database containing the 1989 election results as well as political-party, social and economic information for all Brazilian municipalities and apply spatial regression models. In addition, we replicate a case study on the distribution of votes in the Electoral Zones of the city of São Paulo.

Results:

The results show dubious evidence for the main theses, since, on the one hand, they do not allow us to characterize the base of Collor de Mello as being based in the most vulnerable localities, given the effects found in opposite directions among the variables tested, and, on the other hand, they highlight the local importance of the left-wing parties in structuring the direction of the vote, and little effect of the party machines.

Discussion:

Substantively, the findings indicate that the 1989 race is more complex and not “exotic” in comparative terms, as the literature usually emphasizes. The electorate in poor localities and the poor in rich cities were not captive to the right or to populist discourses. Methodologically, we emphasize the importance of considering the different geographic dimensions in the study of elections.

Keywords
electoral geography; presidential election; Brazilian election of 1989; Collor de Mello; spatial econometrics