State Government, Political Competition and Education Reform: Comparative Lessons from Brazil

The article explores the connection between democratisation, decentralisation and sub‐national policy making. It seeks to explain variation in the policy choices that were made by Brazilian state governments in the definition of school governance structures following the return to democracy. Whereas some state governments decided to institute the election of school principals by parents, students and teachers, others decided on the maintenance of opaque and discretionary practices that secured the distribution of school posts according to political criteria. The research relies on primary comparative evidence from three states: Bahia, Ceará and Minas Gerais. The argument is that the institutional choices made by state governments depended on the structure of political competition and on the extent and intensity of elite divisions at the state level.