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影响？独裁政权的民主化带来了总统制两院制的迅速扩张。随着人数的增加，出现了不同形式的两院制总统制。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。总统制两院制的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，但对这种制度的实证和理论研究都落后了。迄今为止，几乎没有对总统发挥主要立法作用的总统制两院制进行过理论或实证研究。先前对新总统制民主国家立法政治的研究，集中在总统与众议院的关系上，或者把两院制立法当作只有一个议院来模拟。立法研究中忽视两院制关系是有问题的，因为如果管理两院制关系的规则因国家和/或一种法案与另一种法案的不同而不同，那么它们的后果也可能不同。此外，将两院制立法机构建模为单一议院将导致人们得出误导性结论，并在研究结果中引入偏见。通过建立空间理论和议价文献，本项目揭示了两院制立法机构中两院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。通过研究巴西的总统制两院制，本文认为，规则的刚性和两院偏好的分歧增加了政治制度对立法拖延和僵化的倾向。然而，总统制中矛盾的两院制分歧有时为总统提供了打破这种停滞状态并推动政策变革的重要场所。本项目利用1985-2003年巴西立法数据的定量和案例研究方法来检验这些论点。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，以及(3)经济和政治危机对立法和僵局（即失败的法案）的速度和时间的影响。其次，本项目对巴西重要立法进行了详细的案例研究，以考察总统与参众两院之间的战略互动。巴西是检验这一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制两院制，具有实质性的行政立法权，这种立法制度尤其没有得到充分的研究。其次，关于巴西立法僵局的原因存在很多争论，但没有人将巴西两院制作为潜在原因进行研究。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个项目的论点。以前的实地研究证实，通过联邦参议院的立法信息处理中心（关于立法时间和速度的定量数据）、众议院图书馆和参议院的文献和信息秘书处（个别立法的立法历史）可以获得立法数据。此外，还将对国会议员和总统参谋进行面谈，收集不能以综合方式获得的信息。本文的研究结果至少在两个领域具有广泛的意义。首先，它们有助于发展两院制和立法僵局的理论和研究。其次，它们为政治制度的设计提供了重要的参考点。

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.