Paving the way to political change: decentralization of development in the Brazilian Amazon

Previous research by the authors examined the political consequences of internationally funded, decentralized development programs that target local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The Planafloro Community Initiative Projects, sponsored by the World Bank from 1995–1998, had powerful effects on politics, increasing electoral support for the Left in the 1998 presidential race. In this paper, we test whether those effects diffuse across space. Using Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), we find that the diffusion of political change is constrained by infrastructure: political change diffuses from one municipality to the next only when connected by a major highway—an important distinguishing feature in landscapes with difficult terrain. From a methodological standpoint, the study demonstrates the importance of contextual knowledge when performing ESDA. From a practical standpoint, our results imply that programs designed to diffuse information or program benefits in developing areas operate under important physical geographic and infrastructural constraints.