Legislative Support, Pork, and Coalitions in Brazil, January 1997-December 2005

This study examined how presidents in multiparty regimes win legislative support by considering dynamism, particular bargaining contexts, and combining separate lines of research on distributive politics and coalition formation. The results of three-stage least squares regression support the assertion that pork (benefits bestowed for legislative support) and coalition goods function as imperfect substitutes, with coalition goods establishing a baseline for exchange, and pork covering the ongoing costs of operation. The empirical tests also show that pork expenditures depend on a president's bargaining leverage and the distribution of legislative seats.