En búsqueda de la racionalidad perdida: algunos determinantes del voto en el Distrito Federal, Brasil

Abstract

Surveys carried out during the military regime have shown that the evaluation of different public policies have low correlations with each other, are particularly low among illiterates and poorly educated respondents and were poor predictors of voting intention and party preferences. However, data from a large pre-election poll, with a stratified random household sample in the Distrito Federal, contradict these findings. In this survey, evaluations of public policies cluster, yet are not "block and blind" answers, the magnitude of their inter-correlations does not follow educational lines, and the evaluations are excellent predictors of voting preference for governor. The disparities among these findings may result from real changes in the population During the last decade and a half, to specificities of the Distrito Federal (higher per capita income and one of the highest educational levels in the nation), to an election in which the incumbent governor ran against a former governor, to the campaign emphasis of the incumbent governor, who was running on his record, to characteristics of the military regime, or to combinations thereof. Regardless of the explanation that one may favours, the 1998 elections showed the existence of rationality that linked voting intention to the evaluation of public policies. However, this linkage might be specific to this particular election, and not generalizable to other electoral levels or to party preferences.