Suppressing the State: Visibility, Competition, and Deforestation Politics in the Amazon

Do competitive local elections impact environmental protections in consolidating democracies? Existing research on protections, and public goods more generally, remains divided. Also, past research tends to overlook how local politicians rarely control environmental stringency unilaterally. This paper contributes on both fronts. First, it argues the effect of competition depends on politicians' expectations of a voter backlash. In competitive contexts, incumbents face demands for private goods from special interests, which often requires limiting environmental protections. Politicians are more likely to give into these demands when the consequences are unlikely to become salient to voters. The second point is that even when local politicians lack complete control over protections, they can turn to a strategy this paper calls ``suppressing the state'', whereby mayors interrupt other authorities' attempts to provide public goods. The theory is tested by studying forest protections in the Brazilian Amazon. I leverage the unpredictability of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and effects on smoke from fires as plausibly exogenous variation in visibility of degradation for causal identification. The analysis shows competition decreases deforestation when weather conditions exacerbate fires and smoke, but it increases deforestation when weather conditions render externalities of deforestation less visible. Qualitative analysis of over 100 expert interviews complements the quantitative results, supporting the idea that mayors suppress federal enforcement officials when fires from deforestation are set to be mild. The findings clarify local electoral dynamics and environmental governance with wider implications for the study of the politics of public goods.