The Brazilian decision-making process after-88: three decades of gradual change

• Grant number: 21/00948-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): January 01, 2022
• Effective date (End): August 31, 2023
• 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

Congress frequently discusses and changes the rules relating to its own organization, its functioning and its decision-making process, and it does so through internal resolutions, matters of private competence of the National Congress or of each of its houses, Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. A preliminary analysis showed that around 280 resolutions that passed in both legislative houses between 1989 and 2018 make reference to changes in the functioning and organization of legislative bodies. In other words, we have that a large part of the changes in the decision-making process are made without much fanfare or press releases. These are modifications made by a simple majority in the Internal Regulations of the legislative houses. Since the rules of the political game shape the strategies available to actors, influencing the progress and outcome of public policies (North, 1990), it is reasonable to assume that the effects of these changes could cause significant changes in the decision-making process as a whole. With this, this project seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the relations between Executive and Legislative regarding the control of the production of laws through the analysis of these changes. More specifically, it seeks to understand how these changes promoted through the approval of internal resolutions change the pattern of operation of the Legislative, giving special relevance to how these changes may have changed the Executive-Legislative relationship in Brazil, especially with regard to standards approval of the laws of each of these Powers after redemocratization. Our hypothesis is that the changes generated by the approval of the resolutions gradually enabled a change in the patterns of functioning and dominance of the Brazilian decision-making process. The research will use data from the Legislative Database of CEBRAP and the websites of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. (AU)