Dissertation
My dissertation identifies and explains in-country variation in individual legislative effectiveness in Latin America. I document this variation by adapting Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman's Legislative Effectiveness Score (LES) to the context of Brazil’s lower house (i.e., Chamber of Deputies). I propose that association with legislative member organizations (LMOs) is a key factor in explaining legislative effectiveness where political parties provide few incentives for active lawmaking. LMOs are voluntary, cross-party organizations comprised of lawmakers who share a common interest in a topic. To examine this claim, the project adopts a mixed-methods approach with original data collected from extensive in-country fieldwork. Statistical analysis shows that legislators who belong to select LMOs are more effective than their peers who do not associate with those groups. Qualitative analysis - including data from interviews with more than 80 politicians and staff, congressional archives, and participant observation notes - unpacks the mechanisms through which LMOs increase effectiveness. In particular, I process trace the lawmaking activities of legislators who belong to the rural, public security, and evangelical organizations in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.
Publications
Works in Progress
My dissertation identifies and explains in-country variation in individual legislative effectiveness in Latin America. I document this variation by adapting Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman's Legislative Effectiveness Score (LES) to the context of Brazil’s lower house (i.e., Chamber of Deputies). I propose that association with legislative member organizations (LMOs) is a key factor in explaining legislative effectiveness where political parties provide few incentives for active lawmaking. LMOs are voluntary, cross-party organizations comprised of lawmakers who share a common interest in a topic. To examine this claim, the project adopts a mixed-methods approach with original data collected from extensive in-country fieldwork. Statistical analysis shows that legislators who belong to select LMOs are more effective than their peers who do not associate with those groups. Qualitative analysis - including data from interviews with more than 80 politicians and staff, congressional archives, and participant observation notes - unpacks the mechanisms through which LMOs increase effectiveness. In particular, I process trace the lawmaking activities of legislators who belong to the rural, public security, and evangelical organizations in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.
Publications
- Baumgartner, Frank R., Marcello Carammia, Derek A. Epp, Ben Noble, Beatriz Rey, and Tevfik Murat Yildirim. "Budgetary change in authoritarian and democratic regimes." Journal of European Public Policy 24, no. 6 (2017): 792-808.
- Rey, Beatriz. "Horizontal social movements and agenda-setting: evidence from Brazil." Agenda Política 4, no. 1 (2016): 130-151.
Works in Progress
- "Legislative Effectiveness in Latin America: The Role of Legislative Member Organizations in Latin America" (Working Paper)
- "Religion in Congress: The Effectiveness of Evangelical Lawmakers in Brazil and Mexico" (Working Paper)
- "Financial Resources and Framing: The Case of the Gun Control Referendum in Brazil"
- "Teaching with Data: Understanding the Instruction of Qualitative Research Methods in the Social, Education, and Health Sciences," with Diane Kapiszewski, Sebastian Karcher, and Jessica Lester.