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Article • Bras. Political Sci. Rev. 4 (2) • 2010 • https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-3872201000020001   copy

Federalism, Bicameralism, and Institutional Change: General Trends and One Case-study* * The Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa no Estado de São Paulo (Fapesp) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento do Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes) provided the financial support for this research, executed during my visiting fellowship at the European University Institute and concluded at the Center for Metropolitan Studies. I am grateful to Fernando Limongi, Pedro Neiva and Andréa Freitas for their comments to the original version of this paper as well as to Fernando Limongi, Argelina Figueiredo and Pedro Neiva kindness for allowing me to work with the Cebrap’s Legislative Databank. Thanks to Andréa Freitas, Danilo Buscatto Medeiros, and Paulo Loyola for their technical assistance at statistical analysis. I am also grateful to Greg Michener for the translation to the English version.

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Abstract

The article distinguishes federal states from bicameralism and mechanisms of territorial representation in order to examine the association of each with institutional change in 32 countries by using constitutional amendments as a proxy. It reveals that bicameralism tends to be a better predictor of constitutional stability than federalism. All of the bicameral cases that are associated with high rates of constitutional amendment are also federal states, including Brazil, India, Austria, and Malaysia. In order to explore the mechanisms explaining this unexpected outcome, the article also examines the voting behavior of Brazilian senators constitutional amendments proposals (CAPs). It shows that the Brazilian Senate is a partisan Chamber. The article concludes that regional influence over institutional change can be substantially reduced, even under symmetrical bicameralism in which the Senate acts as a second veto arena, when party discipline prevails over the cohesion of regional representation.

Keywords:
Federalism; Bicameralism; Senate; Institutional change; Brazil

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