%0 Journal Article
%T Too Undisciplined to Legislate? Party Unity and Policy-making in Brazil Demasiado indisciplinados para gobernar? Unidad partidaria y elaboraci車n de pol赤ticas en Brasil
%A Sylvia Gaylord
%J Journal of Politics in Latin America
%D 2012
%I German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA)
%X Discipline and cohesiveness of political parties are essential for legislatures to engage in policy-making. Parties in Brazil have historically been considered ideologically weak and uninvolved in policy issues of national importance. Analyses of roll-call votes, however, have shown that parties can be disciplined government supporters. This paper tests the claim that Brazilian parties have also become programmatic actors in their own right. The paper uses statutory delegation content to test whether voting discipline translates into greater influence on the substance of legislation. The data analysis shows that party unity among parties of the government coalition does not affect statutory content. Opposition parties, by contrast, are more likely to reduce the executive＊s discretion when they are more unified. Overall, the support for the hypothesis of programmatic parties is weak, given that executive authorship is the strongest determinant of statutory content. La disciplina y coherencia internas de los partidos pol赤ticos es fundamental para que las legislaturas cumplan con la funci車n de elaboraci車n de pol赤ticas p迆blicas. Los partidos brasilenos han sido hist車ricamente considerados d谷biles ideol車gicamente y poco involucrados en pol赤ticas de importancia nacional. An芍lisis de votaciones nominales, sin embargo, han mostrado que los partidos pueden brindar apoyos disciplinados al gobierno. Este art赤culo pone a prueba la hip車tesis de que, adem芍s de tener disciplina a la hora del voto, los partidos han desarrollado un mayor compromiso con el contenido program芍tico de las pol赤ticas p迆blicas. El resultado principal del an芍lisis de contenido de una muestra aleatoria de leyes ordinarias es contrario a la hip車tesis en cuesti車n, dado que el poder ejecutivo es el principal determinante del contenido de las leyes. Sin embargo, los partidos de oposici車n est芍n en condiciones de reducir la discrecionalidad ejecutiva cuando se encuentran m芍s unidos.
%K Comparative Politics
%K Legislative Studies
%K Brazil
%K executive每legislative relations
%K political parties
%K statutory content
%K 300
%K 320
%K 322
%K Brazil
%K Latin America
%K 1990s
%K 2000s
%K Random sample ordinary legislation
%K ciencia pol赤tica
%K Brasil
%K disciplina partidaria
%K relaciones ejecutivo-legislativo
%K Brasil
%K 1990s
%K 2000s
%U http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jpla/article/view/564