Abstract Brazilian municipalities simultaneously function as local administrative units, service providers, electoral districts, and the primary units for aggregating statistical, fiscal, and demographic data. Although their heterogeneity is widely acknowledged, the underlying structure of this heterogeneity is rarely examined. In this article, we argue that this heterogeneity should be understood as discrete, rather than as continuous variations of a single territorial form, and we propose a typology to explore these differences. The typology is derived from cluster analysis of Brazilian […]

This research note examines the electoral impacts of Conditional Cash Transfer programs in the 2014 presidential election, and compares these to results previously obtained for the preceding three elections (ZUCCO, 2013). It analyzes both individual-level survey data and municipal-level electoral data and applies different matching techniques to attempt to ensure that only similar individuals and municipalities are compared to each other. The note shows that although the strictly defined “electoral effect” of Bolsa Família at the municipality level has remained […]