Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Presidential Bicameralism: Legislative Politics in Brazil

两院制立法机构对立法过程和结果有什么后果？威权政权的民主化带来了总统两院制的迅速扩张。随着人数的扩大，出现了不同形式的总统两人制。与美国的三权分立制度不同，这些新的总统民主政体中的许多都赋予总统大量的立法权。总统两院制的这种发展为探究这种政治制度的运作和后果创造了前所未有的机会，但对这种制度的经验和理论研究都滞后了。到目前为止，几乎还没有关于总统在其中发挥重要立法作用的总统两院制的理论或实证研究。以前对新总统民主国家立法政治的研究集中在总统与下议院的关系上，或将两院立法机构建模为只有一个议院。在立法研究中忽视两院关系是有问题的，因为如果管辖两院关系的规则因国家而异，和/或因一种法案的不同而不同，那么其后果也可能不同。此外，将两院制立法机构建模为单一议院将导致误导性结论，并在研究结果中引入偏见。通过建立在空间理论和讨价还价文献的基础上，本项目揭示了两院制立法机构之间的相互作用及其与行政部门的相互作用如何影响政府的立法能力和结果。通过对巴西总统两院制的考察，本文认为，规则的刚性增加和两院偏好的分歧增加了政治制度立法拖延和僵化的倾向。然而，矛盾的是，总统制度中的两院制分歧有时为总统提供了打破这种停滞和推动政策变化的重要场所。本项目利用巴西1985-2003年的立法数据，采用定量和案例研究方法对这些论点进行了检验。首先，事件历史分析检验了(1)两院不一致、(2)不同决策规则和(3)经济和政治危机对立法和僵局(即失败的法案)的速度和时机的影响。其次，该项目对巴西的重要立法进行了详细的案例研究，以考察总统和上下院之间的战略互动。巴西是检验该项目论点的理想案例，原因有四。首先，巴西的立法制度是总统两院制，拥有实质性的行政立法权，而这种类型的立法特别缺乏研究。其次，关于巴西立法僵局的原因存在很多争论，但还没有研究将巴西的两院制作为一个潜在的原因。第三，由于决定规则的变化，巴西提供了一个自然的实验环境，通过保持国家具体因素不变，探索不同的决定规则如何影响立法结果。最后，但不是最重要的是，巴西提供了检验该项目论点所需的立法数据。先前的实地研究通过联邦参议院的立法信息中心(关于立法时机和速度的定量数据)、众议院图书馆和参议院的文件信息秘书(个别立法的立法历史)核实了立法数据的可获得性。此外，还将对立法者和总统助手进行个人访谈，以收集无法汇总的信息。本论文的结果至少在两个方面具有广泛影响。首先，它们有助于两美制和立法僵局的理论和研究的发展。其次，它们为设计政治机构提供了一个重要的参照点。

What consequences do bicameral legislatures have for legislative processes and outcomes? Democratization of authoritarian regimes has brought about the rapid expansion of presidential bicameral systems. With the numerical expansion, different forms of presidential bicameralism emerged. Unlike the U.S. separation of powers system, many of these new presidential democracies endow their presidents with substantial legislative powers. This growth of presidential bicameral systems has created an unprecedented opportunity to inquire into the workings and consequences of such political systems, but both empirical and theoretical research on such systems has lagged behind. To date, virtually no theoretical or empirical research has been conducted on presidential bicameralism in which the president plays a major legislative role. Prior studies of legislative politics in new presidential democracies have instead concentrated on presidential-lower chamber relations or modeled bicamerallegislatures as if there were only one chamber. Neglect of bicameral relations in legislative research is problematic because if rules that govern bicameral relations differ from country to country and/or from one type of bill to another, then their consequences are likely to differ as well. Moreover, modeling a bicameral legislature as a single chamber would lead one to misleading conclusions and introduce a bias in the results of research. By building on spatial theory and bargaining literatures, this project uncovers the ways in which the inter-chamber interplay in bicameral legislatures and their interaction with the executive influence the legislative capacity of government and outcomes. By examining the presidential bicameral system in Brazil, this dissertation argues that increases in the rigidity of rules and divergence of the preferences of two chambers raise a political system's propensity for legislative delays and immobilism. Yet, paradoxically bicameral divergence in presidential regimes at times offers important venues to the president to break such a standstill and promote policy change. This project tests these arguments using both quantitative and case study methods with the legislative data from Brazil, 1985-2003. First, an event history analysis tests the effect of (1) bicameral incongruence, (2) different decision rules, and (3) economic and political crises on the speed and the timing of legislation and gridlocks (i.e., failed bills). Second, this project conducts detailed case studies of significant legislation in Brazil to examine the strategic interaction between and among the president and upper- and lower-chambers.Brazil is an ideal case to examine the arguments of this project for four reasons. First, Brazil's legislative system is that of presidential bicameralism with substantive executive legislative powers the type that is particularly understudied. Second, much debate exists about the causes of legislative gridlock in Brazil, but no work has examined the Brazilian bicameral system as a potential cause. Third, due to variation in decision rules, Brazil offers a natural experimental setting to explore, by holding country-specific factors constant, how different decision rules affect legislative outcomes. Finally, but not the leastimportant, the legislative data necessary to test the arguments of this project are available in Brazil. Previous field research verified the availability of legislative data through the Centro de Informatica e Processamento de Dados of the Federal Senate (quantitative data on the timing and speed of legislation), and the Chamber of Deputies Library and the Senate's Secretaria de Documentacao e Informacao (legislative history of individual legislation). In addition, personal interviews with legislators and presidential aides will be carried out to collect information not available in aggregate form.The results of this dissertation have broad implications in at least two areas. First, they contribute to the development of theories of, and research on, bicameralism and legislative gridlock. Second, they offer an important point of reference for designing political institutions.