Training programs can help bring pro-democracy candidates into office, study finds

The strength of democratic institutions is declining around the world. Three out of four people now live in an autocracy—the highest share since 1978—and autocratic regimes outnumber democratic ones for the first time in more than two decades.

Explanations for this democratic backsliding vary, but many point to a common thread: Voters are frustrated with the political choices on offer. Many don’t trust established parties and candidates to address problems they see as pressing.

One potential remedy that shows promise is training programs that aim to bring new pro-democracy voices into politics, according to new research from Berkeley Haas professors Ernesto Dal Bó and Frederico Finan along with collaborators from the University of British Columbia. They studied a Brazilian program that trains aspiring politicians and found that participants were significantly more likely to run for—and win—municipal elections than those who narrowly missed being admitted.

“I find the results very encouraging,” said Dal Bó, a political economist who studies influence, corruption, and collective decision-making. “These interventions can really make a difference in terms of the people who end up running for office and the options voters have available.”

The program, RenovaBR, was founded in 2017 by a group of entrepreneurs in the wake of political corruption scandals and the impeachment of President Dilma Roussef. Billing itself as a “nonpartisan school,” it seeks to prepare Brazilians who have never held office to become political leaders.

When selecting participants, judges prioritize commitment to democratic values, diversity, and competence—as measured by tests of current-events knowledge, logical reasoning, and other relevant aptitudes. Admission is competitive: In 2019, around 1,500 people from 445 municipalities were admitted from a pool of 15,000 applicants.

Participants received training in political communication, campaigning, leadership, and municipal public policy. They attended lectures, took quizzes, completed a final project, and networked with academics, politicians, and potential donors.

The researchers, who had extensive access to data on RenovaBR’s applicants, found that the program doubled candidacy rates: One-third of trainees ran for office in Brazil’s 2020 municipal elections, compared with 16% of those who almost got accepted. Participants were also 55% more likely to succeed at the ballot box, with more than 12% of those who ran getting elected, versus 8% of candidates who were nearly selected for the program.

“The effects that the program had on these outcomes were very substantial,” Dal Bó said.

One reason for participants’ greater electoral success could be that the program equipped them to raise more money. The curriculum covered fundraising strategies, and the aspiring politicians gained access to potential donors. On average, trainees raised 4,617 Brazilian Real (roughly $850 in November 2020) more than candidates who were almost accepted. They were also nearly 10 percentage points more likely to receive private donations (though slightly less likely to get financial support from political parties). “Money matters in Brazilian elections, so it’s plausible that this financial advantage gave them some edge,” Dal Bó said.

While the bulk of the program’s effectiveness came from the training program, the selection process also played a key role. The researchers determined that the program’s screening process accounted for 30% of the increase in candidates running and 43% of the increase in wins.

“These findings suggest the secret sauce may lie in large part to how training programs screen their applicants,” said Finan, who holds joint appointments at Haas and UC Berkeley Economics. “The challenge is whether selecting for traits that drive personal success might unintentionally sideline the organization’s broader mission.”

The researchers also found that RenovaBR succeeded in its goal of advancing candidates who were more competent, more committed to democracy and, to some extent, more diverse than the norm. Compared to those who were nearly admitted, RenovaBR candidates were more educated and scored higher on competence tests, and they expressed stronger pro-democracy views. They were also 13 percentage points more likely to be women.

These differences were also largely due to RenovaBR’s selection process. “The program attracted people with those characteristics—more competence, a lot of women and people with strong pro-democracy inclinations—and then pushed them uniformly to run,” Dal Bó said. “The value-added of a program is not only what people are taught; it’s also how they are selected in the first place.”

RenovaBR’s candidates, however, were no more likely to hail from underrepresented racial groups or to be low-income than their counterparts who nearly got into the program.

“The push to have people who perform better on tests…skewed the sample of those who survived the screening process toward people who were more educated and worked against people from lower-income backgrounds,” Dal Bó said.

Some of the qualities that RenovaBR valued helped candidates at the polls, while others didn’t make a difference. Voters, on average, rewarded candidates who displayed higher competence, but being a woman or having a strong pro-democratic stance didn’t seem to matter as much to voters in the 2020 election. “Those things didn’t hurt, which is maybe the good news, but they didn’t seem to help candidates either,” Dal Bó said. “It would be interesting to see whether this changes in future elections.”

Dal Bó notes that the success of other political training programs may vary depending on their structure, selection process, and other factors. Some organizations, such as Run for Something or Emily’s List in the United States, promote candidates that support specific policies. Others, such as the Emerging Leaders Foundation in Kenya or the School of Democracy in India, are similar to RenovaBR in more broadly advancing new political leaders.

In many other fields, training initiatives often have modest effects that take a long time to materialize. For Dal Bó, the fact that a political training program yielded substantial results in a matter of months is reason for hope. “I think it’s remarkable that a program can take regular citizens with an interest in politics and help them make the jump to actually running a campaign and getting into local office,” he said. “These organizations can bridge the gap in promoting civic participation and hopefully renewing the political class.”

Read the full paper:

When Democracy Refuses to Die: Evaluating a Training Program for New Politicians 

By Ernesto Dal Bó, Claudio Ferraz, Frederico Finan, and Pedro Pessoa

NBER Working Paper 33251

(Updated: October 31, 2025)