On the limited potential for congressional caucuses to sustain majority coalitions in Brazil

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

This paper investigates the potential for legislative caucuses to actively engage in presidential coalitions in the Brazilian congress, bringing new methods for measuring the size and levels of institutionalization of these groups.

Materials and Methods:

The underlying assumption was that caucuses need to be minimally large and organized to effectively substitute parties as stakeholders in a presidential coalition. The problem, however, is the lack of reliable data about the size and the internal structure of these groups. Two methods were used to overcome this shortcoming of legislative studies in Brazil. First, to estimate the size of legislative caucuses, legislators participated in a survey where they self-declared their participation in these groups. Then, existing literature on political parties was used to help construct an index for legislative caucus institutionalization. Twenty groups were selected for a representative, non-random sample, with data from the survey and interviews being used for the measurement.

Results:

Empirical evidence demonstrated that every legislative caucus in Brazil is significantly smaller than they appear to be compared to the list of signatures for their formal creation, the only publicly available information on their size. Except for the rural caucus, legislative caucuses in Brazil have no more than a few dozen members each and have a relatively low level of institutionalization.

Discussion:

This underscores the notion that legislative caucuses, despite their occasional influence in the legislative process, do not have minimal conditions to sustain a governing coalition and that, in line with the dominant view, have mostly an informative and symbolic role in the parliament. Empirical evidence also supports new typological categories for legislative caucuses with the observation of groups with very low internal organizational levels.

Keywords:
Legislative caucuses; coalitional presidentialism; institutionalization; Executive-Legislative relations; political parties