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Article References

LIMONGI, Fernando. Democracy in Brazil: presidentialism, party coalitions and the decision making process.Translated byEoin Paul O'Neil. Novos estud. - CEBRAP [online]. 2007, vol.3Selected edition, pp. 0-0. ISSN 0101-3300.


    2 Sérgio Henrique Abranches. "O presidentialism de coalizão: o dilema institucional brasileiro". In: Dados 31(1), 1988, pp. 5-33. [ Links ]


    3 See, for example, the editorial in O Estado de S. Paulo on 3 June 2006, [ Links ]


    7 Giovanni Sartori. "Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics". In: American Political Science Review 64(4), 1970, pp. 1033-53. [ Links ]


    8 Gerhard Lowenberg & Samuel Patterson. Comparing legislatures. Boston: Little Brown, 1979. [ Links ]


    9 Valentine Hermamn & Françoise Mendel. Parliaments of the world: a reference compendium. London: Inter-Parliamentary Union/De Gruyter, 1976; [ Links ]

    and by the same authors, Parliaments of the world: a reference compendium. Berlin and New York: Inter-Parliamentary Union, 1986. [ Links ]


    10 Analyses of the English parliament can be found in Edward W. Crowe. "Cross-Voting in the British House of Commons: 1945-1974". In: The Journal of Politics, v. 42, 1980; [ Links ]

    John E. Schwarz. "Exploring a New Role in Policy Making: The British House of Commons in the 1970s". In: The American Political Science Review, n. 74, 1980; [ Links ]

    Philip Cowley and Philip Norton. "Rebels and Rebellions: Conservative MPs in the 1992 Parliament". In: British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 1(1), 1999. [ Links ]


    14 José Antonio Cheibub, Adam Przeworski and Sebastian Saiegh. "Governos de Coalizão nas Democracias Presidencialistas". In: Dados 45(2), 2002, pp. 187-218. [ Links ]


    15 For two complete examples of this type of error, consult Terry Moe & Michael Caldwell. "The Institutional Foundations of Democratic Government: a Comparison of Presidential and Parliamentary Systems". In: Journal Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 150(1), 1994, pp. 171-195; [ Links ]

    and Bruce Ackerman. "The New Separation of Powers". In: Harvard Law Review, 113(3), 2000, pp. 633-725. [ Links ]


    16 As Manin states the separation of powers "aimed to place restraints on what the Federalists expected to be the predominant power, the power of the people. (…) The primary purpose of these two prominent checks and balances was thus to slow down the will of the people and to delay its action. These checks were not supposed to operate as bulwarks that stopped definitively the popular will, but only as obstacles which could be overcome, but after a while". Bernard Manin: "Checks, Balances and Boundaries: the Separation of Powers in the Constitutional Debate of 1787". In: Biancamaria Fontana (org.). The Invention of the Modern Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 60-61. [ Links ]


    17 The relevant passage is the following: "The brief description of the characteristic merit of the English Constitution is that its dignified parts are very complicated and somewhat imposing, very old and rather venerable; while its efficient part, at least when in great and critical action, is decidedly simple and rather modern. (...) The efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion of the executive and the legislative powers. According to the traditional theory, as it exists in all books, the goodness of our constitution consists in the entire separation of the executive and legislative authorities, but in truth its merit consists in their singular approximation. The connecting link is the cabinet. By that new word we mean a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body. (...) The legislature chosen, in name, to make laws, in fact finds its principal business in making and in keeping an executive". Walter Bagehot. The English Constitution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2001, pp. 8-9. [ Links ]


    18 Gary Cox. The efficient secret: the cabinet and the development of political parties in Victo­rian England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. [ Links ]


    19 Terry Moe. "An Assessment of the Positive Theory of 'Congressional Dominance'". In: Legislative Studies Quarterly, XII(4), 1987, pp. 475-520. [ Links ]


    20 This ironic observation is made by Terry Moe and Scott Wilson. "Presidents and the Politics of Structure". In: Law and Contemporary Problems 57, 1994, pp 1-44. [ Links ]


    21 In relation to this, see: William Howell. Power without persuasion: the politics of direct presidential action. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. [ Links ]

    For an excellent comparison between Brazilian Medidas Provisórias (Provisional Measures) and Executive Orders, see Marco Aurélio Sampaio. A provisional measure  como ato de governo. Doctoral Thesis. Faculty of Law, USP, 2004. [ Links ]


    22 Fernando Limongi. "Formas de Government, Leis Partidárias e Poder de Agenda". In: Boletim Informativo e Bibliográfico, 55, 2003, pp. 7-39. [ Links ]


    23 "The definition of (…) 'pure' presidentialism is the following: (1) the popular election of the chief executive; (2) the terms of the chief executive and assembly are fixed, and are not contingent on mutual confidence; and (3) the elected executive names and directs the composition of the government; (4) the president has some constitutionally granted lawmaking authority". Mathew Shugart e John Carey. Presidents and assemblies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 19. [ Links ]


    26 Juan Linz.  "Presidential or parliamentary democracy: does it make a difference?" In: Juan Linz  & Arturo Valenzuela (eds.). The failure of presidential democracy: the case of Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994, pp.3-87. [ Links ]


    27 For this reason the Chilean president was responsible between 1990 and 1996 for the submission of 86% of laws passed (Peter M. Siavellis. The president and the congress in post-authoritarian Chile. Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 2000). [ Links ]

    Even a president considered weak, such as in Venezuela, was responsible for proposing 84% of laws passed between 1959 and 1995 (Brian F. Crisp. Democratic institutional design: the powers and incentives of Venezuelan politicians and interest group. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). [ Links ]


    28 Alfred Stepan. "Para uma Análise Comparativa do Federalismo e da Democracia: Federações que Restringem ou Ampliam o Poder do Demos". In: DADOS, 42(2), 1999, p. 231. [ Links ]

    It is not my intention to discuss Stepan's text, but rather the objection raised. A similar objection can be found in Barry Ames. Os entraves da democracia no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV, p. 243ss. [ Links ]


    29 Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz. "Two Faces of Power". In: The American Political Science Review, 56(4), 1962, pp 947-952. [ Links ]

    See also by the same authors, "Decisions and Non-decisions: an Analytical Framework". In: The American Political Science Review, 57(3), 1963, pp. 632-642. [ Links ]


    30 Keneth Shepsle. "The Changing Textbook of Congress". In: John Chubb & Paul Peterson (eds.). Can the Government Govern? Washington: Brookings Institution, 1989. [ Links ]


    31 Keneth Shepsle. "Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multidimensional Voting Mo­dels". In: Mathew McCubbins  & Terry Sullivan (eds.). Congress: structure and po­licy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. [ Links ]


    33 Keith Krehbiel. "Sophisticated Committees and Structure-Induced Equilibrium in Congress." In: Mathew McCubbins  & Terry Sullivan (eds.). Congress: structure and po­licy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. [ Links ]


    34 Kenneth Shepsle & Barry Weingast. "The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power". In: American Political Science Review, 81, 1987, pp. 85-103. [ Links ]

    Keith Krehbiel. "Why are Congressional Committees Powerful?". In: American Political Science Review, 81, 1987, pp. 929-935. [ Links ]

    Kenneth Shepsle & Barry Weingast. "Reflections on Committee Power." In: American Political Science Re­view, 81, 1987, pp. 935-45. [ Links ]


    35 For this reason, within this debate, whether or not the possibility exists for the congress as a whole to amend the proposals made by the commissions (closed or open rules) and if the capacity of the congress floor to remove a bill from a commission by means of a discharge petition is or not effective assume great relevance. I am leaving these questions aside as well as the numerous conditions related to the debate about whether commission are agents of special interests, parties or the majority. For a revision of this literature, see my article: "O Novo Institucionalismo e os Estudos Legislativos: a Literatura Norte-Americana Recente". In: Boletim Informativo Bibliográfico, 37, 1994, pp. 3-38. [ Links ]


    37 For a revision, consult Daniel Diermeier & Keith Krehbiel. "Institutionalism as a Methodology". In: Journal of Theoretical Politics, 15, 2003, pp. 123-144. [ Links ]

    David Austen-Smith & Jeffrey Banks. "Social Choice Theory, Game Theory, and Positive Political Theory". In: Annual Review of Political Science, 1998, pp. 259-287. [ Links ]


    41 This is because the position of the qualified majority capable of overturning the veto has to be located between the ideal point of the president and that of congress. In practical terms the threat to overturn the veto can be ruled out. For an analysis of vetos, see Mauricio Assumpção Moya. Executivo versus Legislativo: os vetos presidenciais no Brasil de 1988 a 2000. Doctoral thesis, Department of Political Science, USP, 2006. [ Links ]


    44 For a model with incomplete information, see Charles Cameron, Veto Bargaining, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2000. [ Links ]


    45 Sérgio Henrique Abranches. "A Democracia Brasileira Vai Bem Mas Requer Cuidados". In: João Paulo dos Reis Velloso (org.). Como vão a democracia e o desenvolvimento no Brasil? Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 2001, pp. 251-277. [ Links ]


    50 Victor Nunes Leal. Coronelismo, enxada e voto: o município e o regime representativo no Brasil. São Paulo: Alfa-Ômega, 1993, p. 253. [ Links ]


    52 Orlando de Carvalho. "Ensaios de Sociologia Eleitoral". Revista de Brasileira de Estudos Políticos, 1958, p. 99 [ Links ]


    55 The best known formulation of the decline of conservative parties due to the erosion of their bases can be found in Glaucio Ary Dillon Soares. Sociedade e Política no Brasil. São Paulo: Difusão Européia do Livro, 1973. [ Links ]