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

政治学博士论文研究：总统两院制：巴西的立法政治

• 批准号: 0315126
• 负责人: Barry Ames
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of Pittsburgh
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-07-01 至 2004-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0315126&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

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.

两院制立法机构对立法程序和结果有什么影响？ 独裁政权的民主化带来了总统两院制的迅速扩张。随着人数的增加，出现了不同形式的总统两院制。 与美国的三权分立制度不同，许多新的总统制民主国家赋予总统实质性的立法权。总统两院制的发展为探讨这种政治制度的运作和后果创造了前所未有的机会，但对这种制度的实证和理论研究都滞后了。迄今为止，几乎没有理论或实证研究已经进行了总统两院制，其中总统发挥了主要的立法作用。以往对新总统制民主国家立法政治的研究主要集中在总统与下院的关系上，或者把两院立法机构当作只有一个议院来模拟。 两院制关系在立法研究中的平衡是有问题的，因为如果管辖两院制关系的规则因国家而异和/或因一种类型的法案而异，那么它们的后果也可能不同。此外，将两院制立法机构模拟为一院制立法机构将导致人们得出误导性结论，并在研究结果中引入偏见。 通过建立在空间理论和谈判文献，本项目揭示了两院制立法机构中的议院间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。 通过考察巴西的总统两院制，本文认为，增加了刚性的规则和分歧的喜好，两个议院提高了政治制度的倾向，立法拖延和僵化。然而，矛盾的是，总统制的两院制分歧有时为总统打破这种僵局和促进政策变革提供了重要场所。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检验这些论点。首先，事件历史分析测试了（1）两院制不一致，（2）不同的决策规则，（3）经济和政治危机对立法和僵局的速度和时间的影响（即，失败的账单）。第二，为了考察总统与上下两院之间的战略互动，本项目对巴西的重要立法进行了详细的案例研究。巴西是考察本项目论点的理想案例，理由有四。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，这种制度特别缺乏研究。 第二，关于巴西立法僵局的原因存在很多争论，但没有研究巴西的两院制作为一个潜在的原因。第三，由于决策规则的差异，巴西提供了一个自然的实验环境，通过保持国家特定因素不变，探索不同的决策规则如何影响立法结果。 最后，但并非最不重要的是，巴西有必要的立法数据来检验这一项目的论点。 以前的实地研究证实了通过联邦参议院信息和处理中心（关于立法时间和速度的定量数据）、众议院图书馆和参议院文件和信息秘书处（个别立法的立法历史）提供立法数据的情况。此外，与立法者和总统助手的个人访谈将进行收集信息，而不是在汇总形式。本论文的结果有广泛的影响，至少在两个领域。 首先，他们有助于两院制和立法僵局的理论发展和研究。 其次，它们为设计政治制度提供了重要的参考点。