INTRODUCTION

The last chapter ended with, and this chapter begins with, a puzzle: if porkbarreling in Brazil provides no clear incumbency advantage, why do so many deputies seek pork? In this chapter I solve the puzzle by returning to my arguments about political ambition and the way in which federalism pushes deputies to favor state-based political interests. As I demonstrated in chapters 1 through 4, while very few Brazilian deputies develop long congressional careers, many attempt to jump from Congress to a position in state or municipal government. In Chapter 5 I also demonstrated that a state-based dynamic drives deputy elections.

In what way are deputies' relatively short time horizons in Congress and the strength of subnational political forces related to the structure and process of pork-barreling in Brazil? In the last chapter I hypothesized that porkbarreling is related to the incentives driving deputies' careers in two ways. First, pressure from subnational actors pushes deputies to favor subnational interests in the budget process. Deputies react to these pressures because these actors affect their careers. As I will describe, state-based forces weigh particularly heavily, and deputies have responded by shaping the pork-barreling process to favor state-level interests. Second, although pork-barreling does not appear to help deputies interested in maintaining their seats, the pork-barrel process does allow deputies to pursue their progressive ambition strategies, and progressively ambitious deputies ought to exhibit distinct pork-barreling strategies from those who seek reelection.