Political Ambition and Career Choices in The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies: A Three-Dimensional Analysis Proposal

• Autor(a) principal: Sainz, Nilton
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Codato, Adriano
• Tipo de documento: preprint
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: SciELO Preprints
• Texto Completo: https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/7169
• topic: deputados federais; escolhas de carreira; ambição política; profissionalização política; perfil sociopolítico; brazilian federal deputies; career choices; political ambition; political professionalization; sociopolitical profile

We employed a three-dimensional analysis model to investigate the influence of (1) institutional rules, (2) the sociopolitical profile, and (3) the level of political professionalization among Brazilian parliamentarians on their career choices. Our data focuses on federal deputies elected in 2014, sourced from the Superior Electoral Court. Utilizing binomial logistic regression models, we examined the combined influence of institutional, social, and professional variables on political ambition. We analyzed the electoral decisions made by these parliamentarians in the 2016 and 2018 elections. Our findings revealed intricate interactions among these dimensions, offering novel insights into the patterns of career choices. We identified a strong correlation between political ambition and political status, with parliamentarians who have more established careers displaying a greater inclination to pursue ambitious political objectives. Additionally, our study highlights variations in career choices and electoral success, contingent on the level of government these individuals aspire to and the specific electoral system they compete in (whether majoritarian or proportional). Regarding the intersections between political ambition and sociopolitical profile, we found that only a lower level of educational attainment affects regressive ambition. Our findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of political ambition, encompassing dimensions that remain underexplored in the scholarly literature, such as political professionalization and the sociopolitical profile of parliamentary elites.