Gastos com gestão de recursos naturais nos municípios brasileiros e impacto nas eleições no período de 2015 a 2024: uma análise à luz da teoria da Escolha pública

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between spending on natural resource management and the political ideologies of Brazilian municipal managers from 2015 to 2024, as well as to analyze the influence of this spending on reelection trends in the 2016 and 2020 elections, in light of Public Choice Theory. The research was based on the central premise of Public Choice Theory, according to which political agents act driven by rational incentives aimed at maximizing political utility, guiding their decisions more by strategic calculations and electoral demands than by ideological convictions. Thus, Brazilian municipalities between 2015 and 2024 were analyzed using panel data techniques and Difference-in-Differences models, evaluating how managers from different ideological spectrums manage environmental spending volumes. The results show that total expenditures influence environmental spending, while party ideology does not show statistical significance. Mayors from the left, center, and right exhibit similar levels of environmental spending, contradicting the expectation that progressive leaders would allocate more resources to the sector. Causal estimates indicate no effect of switching to left-wing mayors on environmental spending. Findings regarding reelection reveal that, although there is a positive association between environmental spending and reelection, this effect is modest when compared to the substantial impact of total expenditures, suggesting that the electorate responds more to broad and visible policies than to specific investments in sustainability. Additionally, content analysis of party platforms shows that all parties incorporate, to a greater or lesser degree, references to the environment, although with different emphases. The left prioritizes normative statements, while center and right-wing parties present a greater volume of mentions distributed among categories of environmental management and territorial sustainability. However, such discursive differences do not translate into practical differences in municipal spending, reinforcing the Public Choice Theory argument that environmental discourses function as instruments of political signaling intended to capture the approval of the median voter, but have a low capacity to guide budgetary decisions. This study contributes to the literature by showing that party ideology, by itself, does not determine environmental spending patterns in Brazilian municipalities. By revealing that managers from different ideological spectrums exhibit similar fiscal behaviors in this domain, the results reinforce the analytical utility of Public Choice Theory. This theory allows us to understand that, in the municipal arena, decisions regarding environmental policy tend to reflect strategic calculations guided by the logic of political self-interest. Thus, Public Choice Theory is confirmed as an interpretative framework to explain why ideological differences declared in party programs do not necessarily translate into material differences in environmental spending, offering a theoretical framework capable of illuminating the practical convergence observed between left-wing, center, and right-wing managers.