ABSTRACT
Introduction:
The Legislative studies in Brazil features a strong tradition of research on the Chamber of Deputies, leaving the Senate in the background. Even though a growing number of researchs on the Brazilian upper house has emerged in recent years, there is still a range of subjects not approached about the legislative process in this house. This article analyzes the decision-making role of the committees in the Brazilian Federal Senate.
Materials and Methods:
The objective is consider the results of the bills that have been processed in the Senate between 1999 and 2018, in other words, the projects that had a result in the Senate, totalizing 6493 projects among Ordinary Bills, Complementar Bill and Constitutional Amendment voted in brazilian High Chamber. The projects will be analyzed according to their outcome, proposer, place of decision (plenary or committees) and thematic area. From these period it is possible to realize not only the decision-making role of the commissions system, but also the transformations that occurred in the Senate during this time.
Results:
The committees are responsible for almost half of the decisions taken in the Federal Senate and that the decisions taken by them are not limited to symbolic policies. In addition, there is an increase of final decisions by committees in the legislatures between 2007 and 2014, which are marked by broad and heterogeneous coalitions of government, reinforcing the argument that coalitions of this type hinder the delegation and concentration of powers leaders. It is also observed that the decisions made within the commissions focus on projects originating in the Senate, and the projects proposed by the Executive have only been examined in terminative way at legislatures above.
Discussion:
Committees play an important role in decision-making: in addition to being informational spaces and creating agreements and changing projects, they also have an important role as decision-makers in this legislative house. However, the use of committees’ decision-making prerogatives seems to be related to the capacity to centralize the decision-making process in party leaderships. This means that in contexts where the majority coalition is more heterogeneous and centralization becomes more difficult, the use of commissions, as decentralized decision space, increases.
KEYWORDS:
Legislative; Senate; Legislative Committees; Decision-making Process; Legislative Studies