The Politics of Personality: Candidate-Centered Voting in Brazil.

More and more, elections around the world seem to be won or lost on the basis of the candidates’ personal qualities rather than their policies. Such candidate-centered voting has long characterized established democracies, and now it appears to be characterizing Third Wave democracies as well. This is a matter of both normative and practical concern, as I shall argue, to the quality of democratic governance. Yet we still know very little about what explains candidate-centered voting, particularly in new democracies. I argue that candidate-centered voting is primarily a function of voter ability to cognitively engage policy debates. I test this argument using individual-level panel survey data from the 2002 Brazilian presidential election. I employ two types of vote decision models; the first focuses on choice while the second focuses on utilities. In developing and estimating both models, I pay special attention to endogeneity issues, which I treat as both methodologically and substantively important to understanding vote decisions. My discussion focuses on evaluating my argument as well as the implications for broader political outcomes in new democracies like populism, delegative democracy, and party system structures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]