Delegation and Defensive Legislative Strategies in Brazil

Abstract

In the course of the legislative process, legislators choose how much policy discretion to delegate to the executive branch. Uncertainty about policy outcomes and bureaucratic intentions weighs heavily in such decisions. In Brazil, executive control over the budget creates uncertainty about the availability of discretionary spending, which results in comparatively high levels of delegation in the legislature's direct‐spending decisions. I demonstrate that sidelining the legislature from the budget in order to insulate government spending from political pressures diminishes the value of legislative work in Brazil and reinforces historical patterns of policymaking centered on the federal executive.

Latin American Legislative Politics: A Survey of Peer-Reviewed Publications in English

“…Studies of legislative oversight and the bureaucracy also fall in this category. Among the former we find Siavelis' (2000) work on Chile, and Eaton's (2003) work on Argentina; among the latter we find Gaylord's (2010) study of legislation regulating the Brazilian bureaucracy's authority to make policy, and Ferraro's (2008) examination of congressional influence on the bureaucracy in Chile. Some studies center on the passage of landmark legislation, such as tax reform (Eaton 2001) and privatization (Llanos 2001) in Argentina, and pension reform in Brazil (Hiroi 2008a).…”

Legislative Oversight of Brazilian Foreign Policy: An Analysis of Requests for Information and Summonses to Ministers, 1991-2014

“…Congresses in Latin American countries are generally perceived to be weak and reactive compared to their presidencies (Cox and Morgenstern 2001;Gaylord 2010). According to Amorim Neto and Tafner (2002), delegation is a key element of Latin American democracies.…”

Influencia de los Congresos sobre el proceso de las políticas públicas y las burocracias: los casos de Chile y Perú

“…Por su parte, Gaylord (2010) analiza el caso de Brasil y, desde la perspectiva de la escuela de la elección racional, se pregunta bajo qué circunstancias los legisladores deciden delegar o no autoridad de decisión en la burocracia. Para ello analiza el proceso presupuestario, caracterizado en lo formal por otorgarle al presidente poderes muy fuertes en contraposición a las débiles prerrogativas de la legislatura.…”

“…Además, pueden ejercer influencia en las políticas por fuera de los procedimientos legislativos formales, mediante negociaciones bilaterales entre legisladores y representantes del gobierno o de la administración pública (BID, 2006). la administración, lo cual les permite participar activamente, por ejemplo, en los procesos presupuestarios (Jones, 2001;Siavelis, 2006;Gaylord, 2010).…”