ABSTRACT
This study seeks to combine an explanation of the actions of the members of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies during the 2007-2011 legislative term, taking into account structural elements, particularly the objective constrictions and potentialities underlying the party structures, with an interpretative understanding of the representations the deputies make of their own conduct. In the course of this process, it seeks to explain/understand the influence that the combination presidential system/open-list proportional representation, on the one hand, and the combination president’s control of the political agenda/Chamber of Deputies’ centralized structure, on the other hand, exert on parliamentary behavior, as well as the actions of the deputies intended to reproduce or transform this state of affairs. It concludes that the existing political rules in Brazil have contributed to the formation of a multiplicity of weak political parties, with little social capillarity, ideological-programmatic identity and cohesion, consisting of individualistic, particularistic, personalistic, and non-partisan politicians, as well as of parliamentary leaders who cannot influence, decisively, the behavior of their own benches. In return, the executive branch of the government has occupied all the gaps of power that parties and party leaders have been unable to fill in the structures of the Chamber of Deputies. Taking the advantage of powerful resources put at its disposal, the executive branch of the government has defined the configuration of the political chessboard of the Chamber, not only co-opting opposition deputies but also determining the choice and maintenance of the leaders of party groups who make up its support base. Comparative analysis of recent attempts to reform the electoral-partisan system, on the one side, and to limit the president’s control of the political agenda, on the other side, makes clear that the executive branch of the government is the great mobilizing power of existing structures in the Chamber of Deputies.
Parliamentary action; party structure; political reform; limitation of legislative powers of the President
