Abstract
The article analyzes the career patterns of Brazilian senators during the First Republic. It explores whether there is any relationship between the establishment of a structure of political opportunities and the recruitment patterns of this segment of the parliamentary elite. The aim is to assess the circulation among the political positions attained before reaching the position of Senator. The research consists of the systematic observation of the biographies of the 851 holders of senatorial mandates from the 21st legislature (1890/1891) to the 37th senatorial term (1934/1937). Results suggest that the political careers of senators extended in time and have become more diverse in terms of the political instances they encompassed. The new institutional framework, with more positions facing electoral competition and the strengthening of state-level policy, has intensified political circulation among government levels (municipal, state and federal) and the decision-making arenas (executive and legislative). These results show that the legislative recruitment patterns identified in the literature devoted to the second half of the 20th century were already outlined by the senatorial political elite of the First Republic.
Highlights
The article analyzes the career patterns of Brazilian senators during the First Republic
This article deals with the relationship between the structure of political opportunities and the career patterns of Brazilian senators elected during the First Republic (1889-1930)
Comparative studies on political careers in federal systems indicate that the patterns of political careers in Brazil are much more heterogeneous and open than those found in the USA and Germany (BORCHERT, 2009)
Summary
The article analyzes the career patterns of Brazilian senators during the First Republic. These findings clarify important points about the political elite at the subnational level and in various political sectors, since the relationship of positions examined in the study by Love(1982), Wirth(1982) and Levine (1980) is wider, including the governor, state secretaries, bureaucrats, party leaders and even police chiefs Their results point to the potential of a systematic examination of the recruitment process of the strictly parliamentary segment of the Brazilian political elite during this regime, which remains a blind spot that extends from 1890 to 1934 (year of the last election for the National Congress before the coup which suppressed the representative regime until 1945). This is confirmed by the negative residuals in the group with long careers, whether they were homogenous (-2.8) or heterogeneous (-4.8)
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