The strength of the committees in Brazil: recruitment and distribution preferences

• Grant number: 16/10421-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2016
• End date: September 07, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - State and Government
• Principal Investigator: Andréa Marcondes de Freitas
• Grantee: Vitor Lacerda Vasquez
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 11/08536-1 - Political institutions, executive-legislative relationship and government performance, AP.TEM
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/00013-9 - Comittee assignment in Brazil, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Within the legislative studies, two models mark the starting points for political science: the US Congress, decentralized in committees; and the British Parliament, centralized in the cabinet. This conformed a dichotomy between centralization and decentralization, which has extended to a duality between strong parties or strong committees, such as the presence of one indicates the absence of another. In the Brazilian case there is a consensus regarding being centralized in the Executive, however, there is a divergence in terms of party strength and, more recently, on the strength of the committees. The hypothesis of this research is that the Brazilian legislative process can be centralized in the Executive and still have at the same time, strong committees and strong parties; since the committees work as means to party leaders consolidate the centralization of the Executive, through the coalition that support this Power. Thus, the strength of the committees can be verified by the role of political parties in recruitment and distribution of preferences in these organs. In this way, as these are essential to the legislative process, it is expected that the parties will strive to have their interests met there. In other words, the party leaders would reward their most disciplined parliamentarians placing them in their preferred committees. The hypothesis will be tested by investigating the composition of committees in every year since 1995, the beginning of the first FHC`s government - (PSDB), by 2014, the final year of the first Rousseff's mandate (PT) and taking as methodological tool the established debate between the three streams of parliamentary action mode: distributive, informational and party.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

VITOR VASQUEZ; HENRIQUE CURI; BRUNO SOUZA DA SILVA. Prefeitos e a Construção do Apoio Legislativo nos Municípios. Dados, v. 64, n. 2, 2021-03-31. (16/10421-1)

MONIZE ARQUER; VITOR VASQUEZ. INSTITUCIONALIZAÇÃO DO SISTEMA PARTIDÁRIO: MESMAS DIMENSÕES, OUTRAS INTERPRETAÇÕES. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, v. 34, n. 100, 2019-07-18. (16/10421-1)

VITOR VASQUEZ; BENJAMIN DE OLIVEIRA MAGALHÃES. O partido do presidente do Brasil no Legislativo: centralização de trabalho nas comissões permanentes. Opin. Publica, v. 29, n. 2, p. 505-527, 2023-10-23. (19/02542-1, 16/10421-1)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

VASQUEZ, Vitor Lacerda. Committees: the power of the legislative branch. 2020. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas Campinas, SP.