The objective of the article is to analyze the Brazilian House committee system, using rational choice theories developed originally to analyze the U.S. Congress (distributive, informational and majority party). The article starts by noting that despite the preponderance of the Executive over the Legislative agenda, the committees do appear to play an active role in congressional decision-making. The existence and functioning of the committees is initially analyzed using the distributive theory. Although this theory did provide some explanation for the working of the committee system in Brazil, this was not deemed sufficient, therefore the paper turned to the informational theory. The Gilligan and Krehbiel model (1997) was adapted to the specificity of the Brazilian Congress, generating hypotheses that are tested using data from the legislatures of 1995 to 1998. The results of a probit analysis on the choice of whether or not to discharge a given committee provide empirical evidence that the committees do in fact have, at least in part, an informational role.
Committees; Executive-Legislative relations; Distributive theory; Informational theory; Congress
