The legislative branch and the federal budget: an X-ray of special transfers (2020–2024)

Abstract

This paper examines the use of special transfers (transferências especiais) funded by individual parliamentary amendments in Brazil between 2020 and 2024, asking to what extent parties' ideological positions are related to the intensity and territorial distribution of this instrument. The study is quantitative and descriptive. We cover the universe of individual amendments classified as special transfers in the period, using microdata from the SIGA Brasil system organized by author, party, ideological bloc, region, state and authorized values, with ideological classification following Bolognesi, Ribeiro, Codato and Silva (2025). Our analytical strategy relies on aggregate indicators by year, region, state, party and ideological bloc. The results show that the instrument grew from R$ 621 million and 6.6% of all authorized individual amendments in 2020 to R$ 7.7 billion and 30.7% in 2024. Adoption cuts across the party system, and the relevant variation is organized by regional asymmetries and by heterogeneity among parties within the same ideological camp. Left and right follow the same upward trend, with a difference in degree emerging after 2022. We conclude that the left-right cleavage operates as a secondary factor in explaining the observed pattern, and that the diffusion of the instrument responds to the incentive structure created by Constitutional Amendment 105/2019.