Three Essays on Material Considerations in Political Behavior

A classic debate in the social sciences is to what extent material self-interest structures individual decisions. From the political science perspective, this question is important due to its implications to the democratic processes. For example, accountability is compromised if group norms prevent voters from punishing politicians for bad performance. In this dissertation, I engage with this debate. Specifically, I ask when and how material self-interest structures political behavior in Brazil. In Chapter 2, I analyze how material self-interest structures political behavior in a context in which state capacity is limited. The literature typically assumes that materially self-interested voters turn to the state for compensation and insurance in the case of adverse life events. I challenge this view by arguing that in contexts where state capacity is limited, materially self-interested voters might see other institutions as more effective providers of insurance and compensation. This is the case with the Evangelical church in many parts of Brazil. To test this argument, I construct a shift-share instrument for economic downturn based on the exposure of local labor markets to a sharp drop in exports that began in the early 2010s. I match the export shock with electoral and survey data. My results indicate that congregants exposed to the drop in exports become closer to their religious communities and more susceptible to political persuasion by church leaders. If church leaders oppose pro-redistribution parties, then congregants facing economic adversity are more likely to follow the church lead. Chapter 3 examines how material self-interest shapes the way citizens respond to natural disasters. Conventional wisdom holds that natural disasters are unambiguously bad and, thus, increase support for green political platforms. We instead argue that natural disasters have distributive implications, particularly in countries where the primary sector is relatively large. In Brazil, wildfires “clear” land by destroying natural vegetation. For some groups, these newly “cleared” lands present economic opportunities. For the rest of the population, fires carry no benefits. We study the implications of fires to voting behavior by combining satellite, electoral and administrative data and employing two identification strategies: an instrumental variable design exploiting short-term weather variation; second, a differences-in-differences design comparing municipalities affected by fires with those not affected. The results indicate that fires increase support for green political platforms only in municipalities with low concentration of employment in the cattle and soy sectors, which are likely to benefit from fires. Finally, in Chapter 4 we study how narratives affect individual health decisions. Prior scholarship is skeptical about the potential of elite cues to influence individuals' decisions that involve personal costs. We argue that, when attachments to political groups are high, elite cues can influence attitudes and real-world behaviors even in these contexts. Our empirical analysis focuses on how Jair Bolsonaro's cues affected citizens' views and behaviors regarding pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions implemented to contain and fight the COVID-19 pandemic. To study this phenomenon, we employ mobility, administrative, electoral and original survey data. Estimates from a difference-in-differences design and two survey experiments suggest that Bolsonaro's cues affected citizens’ compliance with social distancing measures and willingness to use drugs that have not been adequately tested or approved as COVID-19 treatments. The effect of Bolsonaro's cues is conditional upon political identity and cognitive capacity. These results indicate that individuals with strong attachments to political groups may accept to take high risks to their short-term material well-being in order to comply with group norms.