Os deputados federais brasileiros têm cinco escolhas principais de carreira política: retirar-se do jogo político (aposentar-se); concorrer a um cargo legislativo estadual (ambição regressiva); concorrer à reeleição (ambição estática); e concorrer a cargos mais altos (ambição progressiva). Este artigo monta um modelo para explicar as características das escolhas dos deputados com respeito a suas decisões de carreira na eleição de 1998. Sustentamos que não é a "natureza" da ambição política que determina a escolha, mas a avaliação dos riscos e custos contidos na decisão. Usou-se um modelo de regressão logit hierárquico para estimar o impacto das distintas estratégias políticas utilizadas pelos deputados em seus mandatos e suas campanhas eleitorais. Os principais resultados sugerem que os deputados com diferentes escolhas de carreira apresentam distintas estratégias durante seus mandatos, o que influencia decisivamente suas preferências do que fazem para sobreviver politicamente.

The Brazilian incumbent legislators have five major choices of political career: to withdraw from the elected political game (to retire); to run for local legislative position (regressive ambition); to run for re-election (static ambition); and to run for higher offices (progressive ambition). This paper built a model to explaining the features of incumbent legislators choices regarding their career's decisions in 1998's Brazilian election. We argue that it is not the "nature" of political ambition that determines legislators' choice, but the evaluation of the risks and costs entailed in the decision. The main findings suggest that incumbents with different career's choices present distinct strategies during their mandates, which have decisive influences on their preferences of what they do in order to survive politically.

In this work we apply quantitative methods to recover the individual preferences of Brazilian representatives, as expressed in their nominal votes in the 49th and 50th legislatures. The method assumes both the rational choice and spatial theories of voting. Empirical analyses show that Brazilian representatives can be accurately positioned in a single ideological continuum that reflects, in part, the consensus of Brazilian politics observers: members of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT - Workers’ Party) are positioned at the extreme left and those of the Frente Liberal (PFL - Liberal Front) at the opposite end. The Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB - Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy), in turn, moved from a center-left position in the 49th legislature to the right, in the 50th. Additional dimensions contribute very little to the explanatory capacity of the model. The spatial positioning of representatives of a same party vary significantly, and the paramount quality of the statistical model used is its capacity to provide us with a spatial interpretation of this variation. The first dimension is rather stable in both legislatures. Circumstantial evidence is raised to support the hypothesis that these dimensions reflect the relationship between the Executive and the Legislative branches of government. During this period, the Presidents of the Republic were located at the extreme right of the political space.

Dans cet article, on dégage, par le moyen de méthodes quantitatives, les préférences individuelles des députés telles qu’ils les ont exprimées dans leurs votes nominaux pendant les 49ème et 50ème législatures brésiliennes. Cette méthode part du présupposé du choix rationnel et de la théorie de l’espace occupé par le vote. L’analyse empirique montre que les députés brésiliens peuvent être replacés avec exactitude dans un même continuum idéologique. Celui-ci reflète en partie le consensus entre les observateurs de la politique brésilienne, qui situent les membres du Parti des Travailleurs (PT) à l’extrême gauche et les membres du Parti du Front Libéral (PFL) à droite. Quant au Parti de la Social-Démocratie (PSDB), il s’est déplacé de sa position de centre gauche pendant la 49ème législature, vers la droite pendant la 50ème. D’autres paramètres n’améliorent guère les possibilités d’explication du modèle. Il y a une variation substantielle dans la position spatiale des députés d’un même parti, la principale qualité du modèle statistique étant son aptitude à fournir une interprétation spatiale à cette variation. Le premier paramètre est assez stable entre les deux législatures. Quelques arguments sont formulés privilégiant l’hypothèse selon laquelle les paramètres reflètent les relations entre l’Exécutif et le Législatif. Les Présidents de la République de cette période se situent à l’extrême droite de l’espace politique.