Institutional change of the procedural rules on committees of the Chamber of Deputies and it's impact on legislative production

• Grant number: 19/01847-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): June 01, 2019
• Effective date (End): December 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Political Behavior
• Principal Investigator: Andréa Marcondes de Freitas
• Grantee: Géssica Batista de Freitas
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 16/14525-6 - Political institutions, patterns of executive-legislative relations and government capacity, AP.TEM

Abstract

Between 1989 and 2016, twenty resolutions modified the commissions system, either by changing the rules governing its operation, or by creating, merging, dismembering and, or extinguishing thematic committees of the Chamber of Deputies. This large set of resolutions approved by the House demonstrates a concern with this institution on the part of the political actors, and for that reason the relevance of the commissions is suggested, in this work, from the attention that the House of Representatives itself gives to the functioning of its system of commissions. The centralization of the Brazilian Congress in political parties led literature to disregard the role of thematic commissions. More recently the literature has argued in the opposite direction, showing that committees play an important role in the legislative process (Santos and Almeida, 2011; Freitas, 2016). These papers seek to reposition the Legislative in the analysis, showing its importance and highlighting the role of committees. However, they raise doubts as to whether this role of the committees is institutional, that is, given by the institution, or whether it delegated from parties to individuals. In this sense, through a comparative analysis of the resolutions amending the Internal Regulations regarding the commission system and its effects on parliamentary behavior, the objective of this project is to understand how the Chamber of Deputies interprets the role of committees and in what sense it seeks to change this role, as well as the consequent effect of these changes on legislative production.