Bulletin n. 3/2008
February 2009
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
  • Hiroi Taeko
    The Dynamics of Lawmaking in a Bicameral Legislature
    in Comparative Political Studies  , Vol.41, n.12 ,  2008 ,  1583-1606
    This article analyzes legislative performance in a nascent presidential bicameral democracy, taking Brazil as a case. The author argues that the timing and outcomes of legislative production are functions of bicameral incongruence, types of bicameralism, sequence of examination, and legislative bargaining. These hypotheses are tested using a new legislative data set from Brazil that covers over 3,000 bills submitted to the National Congress since 1988. Event history analyses of these bills show that presidential bicameral (coalitional) majorities, presidential elections, initiation by the lower house, and bills proposing provisional changes raise the chances of a bill's approval. The results also indicate that the effects of many of these variables are time dependent. In contrast, bicameral incongruence, symmetric bicameralism, and legislative elections either raise the risks of a bill's rejection or delay the timing of its approval. Economic crises increase legislative activities in general in both approving and rejecting bills.
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