Artigo
Assessing the strength of pentecostal churches' electoral support: evidence from Brazil
Registro en:
LACERDA, Fábio. Assessing the strength of pentecostal churches' electoral support: evidence from Brazi. Journal of Politics in Latin America, v. 2, n. 10, p. 3-40, 2018.
1868-4890
Autor
LACERDA, Fábio
Resumen
Since the 1980s, the number of Pentecostal candidates elected
to the Brazilian legislatures has grown remarkably. Literature has argued
that the phenomenon is related to Pentecostal churches’ support for
particular candidates. To date, however, this claim has been based only
on ethnographies or studies relying on a few cases of elected candidates.
Drawing from a new data set of Evangelical (Protestant) candidates for
the Federal Chamber of Deputies and state legislative assemblies, I try to
answer the following questions: Do Pentecostal candidates raise fewer
campaign resources than other candidates? What is the effect of being a
Pentecostal candidate on the vote in Brazilian legislative elections? Is the
structure of the church relevant to this effect? Using OLS regression
models, I show that being a Pentecostal has a negative, though not significant effect on campaign spending. Additionally, there is a positive
statistical relationship between being a Pentecostal and receiving votes,
and between having the support of more centralized churches and receiving votes. Qualitative evidence of six Pentecostal politicians who lost
their churches’ support at some point between elections, attempted
reelection, and performed considerably worse than before reinforces the
importance of having the support of a Pentecostal church.