Publications
Working Papers
Legislative Effectiveness and Legislative Member Organizations: Evidence from Brazil
What explains legislative effectiveness in presidential democracies? Drawing upon novel data from Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, I argue that highly organized legislative member organizations (LMOs) have specialized staff that provides legislators with information – a key resource for effectiveness. LMOs are voluntary, cross-party organizations centered on specific political issues/themes. Quantitative and qualitative evidence suggests that deputies associated with strongly organized LMOs are more effective than their peers at navigating their own proposals through the legislative process. These findings have implications for scholarly understanding of congressional and party politics.
O fortalecimento do Congresso e a formulação de leis no Brasil pós-redemocratização (with Felipe Brasil)
Diversos autores têm apontado o crescente fortalecimento do poder Legislativo no Brasil no que diz respeito à formulação de políticas públicas (Almeida 2014; Argelina e Limongi 2017) e do orçamento (Faria 2022; Bonfim et al. 2023). Por exemplo, Almeida (2014) identifica o ano de 2009 como o primeiro em que o Congresso aprovou mais leis e leis complementares de autoria dos parlamentares do que de autoria do Executivo. Entretanto, os trabalhos existentes ainda não investigaram por que e como esse processo ocorreu. Este artigo foca na segunda pergunta – de que maneira se deu o fortalecimento do Congresso desde a redemocratização? Mais especificamente, exploramos o processo de formulação de políticas públicas entre 1988 e 2022 para entender se houve alteração no poder de agenda temático do Executivo e de Legislativo ao longo dos anos. Sobre quais assuntos o Executivo e o Legislativo legislaram nesse período? O processo de fortalecimento do Legislativo veio acompanhado por dominância deste poder sobre determinados temas? Para responder essas questões, usamos dados compilados pelo Brazilian Policy Agendas Project (BPAP), que codifica tematicamente proposições legislativas no período analisado de acordo com as diretrizes do Comparative Agendas Project (CAP; Baumgartner e Jones 1993, 2005). Para este trabalho, analisaremos as ênfases temáticas nos projetos de lei, projetos de lei complementar, propostas de emenda à Constituição, leis, leis complementares e emendas à Constituição propostos e aprovados no período em questão. O artigo busca contribuir com a literatura sobre a relação Executivo-Legislativo no Brasil e em regimes presidencialistas multipartidários de maneira geral.
Legislativo e Desenvolvimento Econômico: Uma Análise Comparativa das Comissões de Finanças e Tributação (CFT) e de Desenvolvimento, Indústria, Comércio e Serviços (CDEICS) na Câmara dos Deputados (with Fabiano Santos and Yago Paiva)
O objetivo do trabalho é identificar se em que medida as comissões de assuntos econômicos — CFT e CDEICS — expressaram a ascensão e a queda da confluência entre social-democracia e desenvolvimentismo, no Brasil, entre 1995 e 2018. Conceitualmente, questionamos a micro fundamentação do comportamento dos congressistas em abdicarem de qualquer influência na política econômica. São realizadas análises descritivas sobre as dinâmicas das comissões a partir de dados solicitados diretamente à Câmara dos Deputados. Os resultados mostram maior volume de atividades com relação a propostas enviadas pelo Poder Executivo durante os governos de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, bem como melhor desempenho em termos de matérias aprovadas, momento que representa o auge da implementação da combinação entre social-democracia e desenvolvimentismo no Brasil. Nas gestões de Dilma Rousseff e de Michel Temer, há declínio nesses mesmos indicadores, com enfraquecimento do modelo de desenvolvimento supracitado. As comissões de assuntos econômicos devem ser consideradas como lócus fundamentais para a superação de entraves que dificultam o fortalecimento de capacidades estatais voltadas à formulação e à execução de políticas econômicas de orientação desenvolvimentista.
Agribusiness Representation and Legislative Behavior in Brazil (with Daniela Campello, Gabriel Madeira, and Fabiano Santos)
Recent scholarship has identified important cleavages in Brazilian agribusiness, with respect to the environment. In one extreme, groups deny climate change and demand that Brazil leave the Paris Agreement. On the other extreme, socio-environmental organizations propose zero deforestation in the Amazon and defend the rights of indigenous populations. It has been claimed that these cleavages are driven by different levels of integration of these firms in international markets, with the ones most integrated experiencing pressures from foreign consumers and governments with respect to environmental protection. This paper is a first effort to identify how different perspectives on the environment among Brazilian agribusiness groups are represented in the Brazilian Lower House. We rely on roll call data and novel data on legislator membership of the Agribusiness Parliamentary Front to analyze voting patterns related to environmental issues in the 2015-2018 legislature. Preliminary results suggest that the cleavages observed in the public discourse of Brazilian agribusinesses are not reflected on the floor of the House of Representatives. Not only do we find surprising homogeneity in the voting behavior of agribusiness representatives, but we also observed that this vote is far more attuned to denialists and conservatives than to more progressive perspectives. Next, we rely on biographies and campaign funding to test hypotheses about why progressive environmental views are not represented in the Brazilian Congress.
Black Representation and Agenda-Setting: Legislative Speeches and Racial Issues in Brazil (with Cristiano Rodrigues, Andre Felix and Fabiano Santos)
Recent scholarship has identified a trend towards increased Black representation in Brazil’s Congress due to institutional incentives and pressure from civil society. However, not much is known about the extent to which race has been incorporated into the congressional agenda. We test whether increased representation has been associated with higher levels of attention to racial issues in legislative speeches. We also explore the relationship between legislators’ race and party affiliation and speech valence. The paper relies on a novel dataset with all speeches given by Brazilian federal deputies and senators between 2000 and 2022. Speeches are coded by their content related to racial issues. We hope to incorporate these data into the Brazilian Policy Agendas Project in the future. Our findings suggest that Black and leftist legislators emphasize racial issues more frequently than White legislators, doing so in a positive manner. Racial issues are not salient among White legislators affiliated with center or right parties – when these lawmakers discuss the topic, they do so using neutral or negative frames. The paper expands our understanding about how race influences agenda-setting in multirracial/multicultural democracies. As such, it can guide future research linking racial cleavages to legislative production more broadly.
Financial Resources and Framing: The Case of the Gun Control Referendum in Brazil
In 2005, Brazil conducted a referendum that allowed citizens to decide whether the sale of guns and ammunition should be prohibited. In July of the same year, 80% of Brazilians declared they would vote “Yes”. After being exposed to propaganda and media coverage for three months, a surprising percentage of 63.9% of Brazilians voted “No”. Why did citizens abruptly change their minds? Using content analysis of advertisements and news articles, and data collected from the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court, this study proposes two explanations to this puzzle. First, the framing strategy of the “No” campaign was a powerful driver of this shift. “No” frames were recurrent, simple, negative, symbolic, and individual-focused. Furthermore, they were conveyed by a reliable framing source. Second, financial resources seem to be a critical explanatory variable for the success of the “No” campaign. I find that the “No” advocates had substantially more financial resources than the “Yes” supporters, receiving large donations from the gun industry and recreational gun users. These resources were used to “buy” framing expertise. These findings shed light on a theme that has not been explored by the existing literature: the relationship between financial resources and framing.
- Rey, Beatriz. 2023. "O Congresso e o balanço de poder no Brasil." Journal of Democracy em Português. São Paulo: Plataforma Democrática.
- Rey, Beatriz. 2023. "Processo legislativo: transparência parlamentar e devido processo legislativo" in Democracia e Políticas Públicas Anticorrupção, Fundação Konrad Adenauer e Transparência Internacional Brasil.
- Santos, Fabiano and Beatriz Rey. 2023. “O problema da governabilidade em Lula III,” in Eleições 2022 e a reconstrução da democracia no Brasil, edited by Leonardo Avritzer, Eliara Santana and Rachel Callai Bragatto, São Paulo: Editora Autêntica.
- Brasil, Felipe Gonçalves and Beatriz Rey. 2022. "A Teoria do Equilíbrio Pontuado: Incrementalismo e Pontuações na Dinâmica das Políticas Públicas," in Abordagens Contemporâneas para a Análise de Políticas Públicas, edited by Ana Cláudia Niedhardt Capella and Felipe Gonçalves Brasil, Rio de Janeiro: Eduerj.
- Baumgartner, Frank R., Marcello Carammia, Derek A. Epp, Ben Noble, Beatriz Rey, and Tevfik Murat Yildirim. 2017. "Budgetary change in authoritarian and democratic regimes." Journal of European Public Policy 24, no. 6: 792-808.
- Rey, Beatriz. 2016. "Horizontal social movements and agenda-setting: evidence from Brazil." Agenda Política 4, no. 1: 130-151.
Working Papers
Legislative Effectiveness and Legislative Member Organizations: Evidence from Brazil
What explains legislative effectiveness in presidential democracies? Drawing upon novel data from Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, I argue that highly organized legislative member organizations (LMOs) have specialized staff that provides legislators with information – a key resource for effectiveness. LMOs are voluntary, cross-party organizations centered on specific political issues/themes. Quantitative and qualitative evidence suggests that deputies associated with strongly organized LMOs are more effective than their peers at navigating their own proposals through the legislative process. These findings have implications for scholarly understanding of congressional and party politics.
O fortalecimento do Congresso e a formulação de leis no Brasil pós-redemocratização (with Felipe Brasil)
Diversos autores têm apontado o crescente fortalecimento do poder Legislativo no Brasil no que diz respeito à formulação de políticas públicas (Almeida 2014; Argelina e Limongi 2017) e do orçamento (Faria 2022; Bonfim et al. 2023). Por exemplo, Almeida (2014) identifica o ano de 2009 como o primeiro em que o Congresso aprovou mais leis e leis complementares de autoria dos parlamentares do que de autoria do Executivo. Entretanto, os trabalhos existentes ainda não investigaram por que e como esse processo ocorreu. Este artigo foca na segunda pergunta – de que maneira se deu o fortalecimento do Congresso desde a redemocratização? Mais especificamente, exploramos o processo de formulação de políticas públicas entre 1988 e 2022 para entender se houve alteração no poder de agenda temático do Executivo e de Legislativo ao longo dos anos. Sobre quais assuntos o Executivo e o Legislativo legislaram nesse período? O processo de fortalecimento do Legislativo veio acompanhado por dominância deste poder sobre determinados temas? Para responder essas questões, usamos dados compilados pelo Brazilian Policy Agendas Project (BPAP), que codifica tematicamente proposições legislativas no período analisado de acordo com as diretrizes do Comparative Agendas Project (CAP; Baumgartner e Jones 1993, 2005). Para este trabalho, analisaremos as ênfases temáticas nos projetos de lei, projetos de lei complementar, propostas de emenda à Constituição, leis, leis complementares e emendas à Constituição propostos e aprovados no período em questão. O artigo busca contribuir com a literatura sobre a relação Executivo-Legislativo no Brasil e em regimes presidencialistas multipartidários de maneira geral.
Legislativo e Desenvolvimento Econômico: Uma Análise Comparativa das Comissões de Finanças e Tributação (CFT) e de Desenvolvimento, Indústria, Comércio e Serviços (CDEICS) na Câmara dos Deputados (with Fabiano Santos and Yago Paiva)
O objetivo do trabalho é identificar se em que medida as comissões de assuntos econômicos — CFT e CDEICS — expressaram a ascensão e a queda da confluência entre social-democracia e desenvolvimentismo, no Brasil, entre 1995 e 2018. Conceitualmente, questionamos a micro fundamentação do comportamento dos congressistas em abdicarem de qualquer influência na política econômica. São realizadas análises descritivas sobre as dinâmicas das comissões a partir de dados solicitados diretamente à Câmara dos Deputados. Os resultados mostram maior volume de atividades com relação a propostas enviadas pelo Poder Executivo durante os governos de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, bem como melhor desempenho em termos de matérias aprovadas, momento que representa o auge da implementação da combinação entre social-democracia e desenvolvimentismo no Brasil. Nas gestões de Dilma Rousseff e de Michel Temer, há declínio nesses mesmos indicadores, com enfraquecimento do modelo de desenvolvimento supracitado. As comissões de assuntos econômicos devem ser consideradas como lócus fundamentais para a superação de entraves que dificultam o fortalecimento de capacidades estatais voltadas à formulação e à execução de políticas econômicas de orientação desenvolvimentista.
Agribusiness Representation and Legislative Behavior in Brazil (with Daniela Campello, Gabriel Madeira, and Fabiano Santos)
Recent scholarship has identified important cleavages in Brazilian agribusiness, with respect to the environment. In one extreme, groups deny climate change and demand that Brazil leave the Paris Agreement. On the other extreme, socio-environmental organizations propose zero deforestation in the Amazon and defend the rights of indigenous populations. It has been claimed that these cleavages are driven by different levels of integration of these firms in international markets, with the ones most integrated experiencing pressures from foreign consumers and governments with respect to environmental protection. This paper is a first effort to identify how different perspectives on the environment among Brazilian agribusiness groups are represented in the Brazilian Lower House. We rely on roll call data and novel data on legislator membership of the Agribusiness Parliamentary Front to analyze voting patterns related to environmental issues in the 2015-2018 legislature. Preliminary results suggest that the cleavages observed in the public discourse of Brazilian agribusinesses are not reflected on the floor of the House of Representatives. Not only do we find surprising homogeneity in the voting behavior of agribusiness representatives, but we also observed that this vote is far more attuned to denialists and conservatives than to more progressive perspectives. Next, we rely on biographies and campaign funding to test hypotheses about why progressive environmental views are not represented in the Brazilian Congress.
Black Representation and Agenda-Setting: Legislative Speeches and Racial Issues in Brazil (with Cristiano Rodrigues, Andre Felix and Fabiano Santos)
Recent scholarship has identified a trend towards increased Black representation in Brazil’s Congress due to institutional incentives and pressure from civil society. However, not much is known about the extent to which race has been incorporated into the congressional agenda. We test whether increased representation has been associated with higher levels of attention to racial issues in legislative speeches. We also explore the relationship between legislators’ race and party affiliation and speech valence. The paper relies on a novel dataset with all speeches given by Brazilian federal deputies and senators between 2000 and 2022. Speeches are coded by their content related to racial issues. We hope to incorporate these data into the Brazilian Policy Agendas Project in the future. Our findings suggest that Black and leftist legislators emphasize racial issues more frequently than White legislators, doing so in a positive manner. Racial issues are not salient among White legislators affiliated with center or right parties – when these lawmakers discuss the topic, they do so using neutral or negative frames. The paper expands our understanding about how race influences agenda-setting in multirracial/multicultural democracies. As such, it can guide future research linking racial cleavages to legislative production more broadly.
Financial Resources and Framing: The Case of the Gun Control Referendum in Brazil
In 2005, Brazil conducted a referendum that allowed citizens to decide whether the sale of guns and ammunition should be prohibited. In July of the same year, 80% of Brazilians declared they would vote “Yes”. After being exposed to propaganda and media coverage for three months, a surprising percentage of 63.9% of Brazilians voted “No”. Why did citizens abruptly change their minds? Using content analysis of advertisements and news articles, and data collected from the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court, this study proposes two explanations to this puzzle. First, the framing strategy of the “No” campaign was a powerful driver of this shift. “No” frames were recurrent, simple, negative, symbolic, and individual-focused. Furthermore, they were conveyed by a reliable framing source. Second, financial resources seem to be a critical explanatory variable for the success of the “No” campaign. I find that the “No” advocates had substantially more financial resources than the “Yes” supporters, receiving large donations from the gun industry and recreational gun users. These resources were used to “buy” framing expertise. These findings shed light on a theme that has not been explored by the existing literature: the relationship between financial resources and framing.