Established, outsiders, and renovators politicians: measuring party loyalty among federal deputies elected in 2018

Abstract:

We analyzed the social and political profile and political behavior in roll-call votes of deputies elected to the 56th Legislature of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies (2019-2023). The deputies were divided into three groups: The established (those who were not in their first term); the outsiders (those who were in their first term); and the Renovators (outsiders who were members of supra-party political renewal organizations). The objective was to verify significant differences existed among the groups and whether the Renovators exhibited peculiarities in their parliamentary behavior. The results showed that the groups presented differences in terms of age, race, party ideology, and campaign finance patterns. However, through analysis of mean differences, the article concludes that there is no difference among the average party loyalty indices of the parliamentarians in each group, indicating very similar behavior among the deputies. This finding undermines the alleged novelty brought by the wave of political renewal in 2018 in Brazil.

Keywords:
outsiders; roll-call votes; parliamentary behavior; political renewal; parliamentary elites