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Political geography of violence: Municipal politics and homicide in Brazil

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  • Ingram, Matthew C.
  • Marchesini da Costa, Marcelo

Abstract

Violence has harmful effects on individuals and society. This is especially true in Latin America, a region that stands out globally for its high homicide rate. Building on research on subnational politics, democratization, and an inter-disciplinary literature that seeks to understand sources of violence, we examine the effect of municipal politics on homicide rates in Brazil while controlling for conventional socio-structural accounts. Specifically, we test the effect of four key political variables – party identification of mayors, partisan alignment of mayors and governors, electoral competition, and voter participation – and examine the locally varying effect of these variables with geographically weighted regressions (GWR). Our emphasis on political explanations of criminal violence is a rare departure from dominant accounts of violent crime, suggesting comparisons with the literature on political violence, and the spatial approach allows an analysis of the territorially uneven effect of political variables. The results show the statistical significance, direction, and magnitude of key political factors vary substantially across Brazil’s 5562 municipalities, showcasing the uneven effect of predictors of violence across space, and generating new hypotheses regarding the conditional effect of key predictors. In the time period examined (2007–2012), the largest left party in Brazil, Workers' Party (PT), had a beneficial effect, reducing violence in large parts of Brazil, the center party that held most local governments (PMDB) had a harmful effect in certain areas of Brazil, and the largest center-right party (PSDB) had mixed effects – helpful in some parts of Brazil and harmful in others. These results help us understand key features of the relationship between Brazilian politics and public security across different parts of the country, illuminating the political geography of violence in the region's largest country.

Suggested Citation

  • Ingram, Matthew C. & Marchesini da Costa, Marcelo, 2019. "Political geography of violence: Municipal politics and homicide in Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-1.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:124:y:2019:i:c:19
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.06.016
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    1. Batabyal, Amitrajeet A. & Beladi, Hamid, 2022. "A political-economy perspective on mayoral elections and urban crime," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    2. Federico Maggio & Carlo Caporali, 2022. "Violence and migration: The role of police killings in the Venezuelan diaspora," French Stata Users' Group Meetings 2022 04, Stata Users Group.
    3. Aldenis Vásquez & Rafael Alvarado & Brayan Tillaguango & Cem Işık & Muntasir Murshed, 2023. "Impact of Social and Institutional Indicators on the Homicide Rate in Ecuador: An Analysis Using Advanced Time Series Techniques," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 1-22, September.
    4. Carlos Mendez & Felipe Santos-Marquez, 2022. "Economic and Social Disparities across Subnational Regions of South America: A Spatial Convergence Approach," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 64(4), pages 582-605, December.
    5. Federico Maggio & Carlo Caporali, 2022. "Violence and Migration. The Role of Police Killings in the Venezuelan Diaspora," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS92, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.

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