Research

Dissertation Project

Working Papers

• Appointments and Disappointments: Revisiting Political Ambition in Brazil

  with Timothy J. Power and Cesar ZuccoR&RComparative Political Studies

  Abstract

  How do political appointments affect electoral careers? Although there exists a broad literature on political ambition and career trajectories across the globe, little attention has been paid to the role of appointments to cabinet positions and their subnational counterparts. We study this phenomenon in the context of Brazil, a three-tiered federation with multiple appointed positions and possible career paths for politicians. First, we field an elite survey and an expert survey asking Brazilian members of congress and academics respectively to rate the relative status of different appointed and elected positions and employ a novel method to create a ranking from pairwise comparisons. We then assemble an original panel of politicians' career trajectories, including appointed positions. Finally, we test hypotheses on how appointments affect political ambition and electoral success, using matching methods to create comparable groups of appointed and non-appointed politicians. Preliminary results suggest that appointments both boost and launch careers; the appointed have higher chances of running for and winning higher-ranked office than similar politicians who were not appointed to an executive position. We also find that appointments decrease the likelihood that politicians run for lower-ranked positions, which would serve as a "second best" to stay relevant between electoral cycles.

• The Rise and Fall of the Party for Rent: State Parties and Individual Careers in Brazil

  under review

• Substantive Cues of Candidates' Class: Insights from Brazil

  with Jorge Fernandes and Mafalda Pratas and Alon Yakterworking paper

  Abstract

  Working-class citizens form the majority of the electorate across much of the world, yet they remain starkly underrepresented in elected office. Why do working-class voters so rarely support candidates who share their class position? We argue the puzzle dissolves once descriptive representation is understood not as a fixed preference but as one consideration weighed against others at the ballot box. Class affinity is real but low in priority, readily outweighed by party, ideology, perceived effectiveness, and viability. Class also operates as an evaluative cue, signaling a candidate's effectiveness, ideological commitments, and campaign resources. We test this argument in Brazil, in two parts. Analyzing the registered occupations and vote shares of over 900,000 candidates in municipal council elections, we find that professional candidates enjoy a clear electoral advantage over working-class ones, a gap that widens in poorer and more left-leaning municipalities. A large-scale survey and candidate-choice experiment isolates the underlying mechanisms. Together, the findings show that working-class underrepresentation can persist without any direct anti-worker bias, arising instead from how voters weigh and interpret class under the constrained choices that elections impose.

• It's Raining Cats and Dogs: The Animal Rights Agenda in Brazil

  with Lucas Gelapeworking paper

  Abstract

  Animal rights have become a salient political platform worldwide, but the comparative literature has studied the phenomenon almost exclusively through dedicated animal advocacy parties. Brazil presents a different model: an animal party has never won a seat, yet "pet politicians" — candidates who campaign and legislate mainly or almost exclusively on domestic-animal issues — thrive across the ideological spectrum. We develop a theory of this candidate-centered "new issue" politics, in which urban demographic change created a mass constituency, compulsory voting and extreme ballot complexity make the pet cause a cheap valence heuristic for disaffected voters, and open-list rules let individual entrepreneurs convert the issue into personal votes within any party. We test its implications with novel data. Using ballot names and 354,854 Instagram campaign posts, we identify animal-agenda candidates in the 2022 elections, describing that population and showing they are concentrated in centrist, personalistic parties. Municipal-level analyses show their vote concentrates in more educated, denser, better-connected municipalities with more blank and null voting. Analyzing 1,608 animal-related bills introduced in the Chamber of Deputies (1991–2026), we document a sharp, recent expansion of the agenda — some 70% of bills come from the two most recent legislatures — a shift from commercial-sanitary regulation toward pet welfare and anti-cruelty punishment, with domestic-animal mentions rising from 20% to nearly 40% of bills, and authorship dispersed across parties while leaning right.