Political Studies Association (PSA-UK)
66th Annual International Conference,
21 – 23 March 2016, Hilton Brighton Metropole,
Brighton, UK
LEGISLATIVE AND HEALTH IN BRAZIL: HOW DO PARLIAMENTARIANS BEHAVE?
Barbara Salatiel Borges,
Master student at Programme of Post-Graduation in Political Science
(PPG-CP), Federal University of Goias (UFG),
Dr. Fabiana da Cunha Saddi
PNPD-CAPES Research Fellow, Programme of Post-Graduation in
Political Science (PPG-CP), Federal University of Goias (UFG), Brazil
Research paper – work in progress
INDEX
Abstract .................................................................................................................................................. 2
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3
2 THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM AND ITS IMPLICATIOINS FOR THE POLITICAL SYSTEM ..................................... 5
3. PRESIDENTIALISM OF COALITIONS AND THE REGIMENTAL RULES OF THE FEDERAL CHAMBER............. 8
4. SOCIAL BACKGROUND: A NEW LOOK AT PARLIAMENTARY BEHAVIOUR ......................................... 12
5. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS .................................................................................................................... 17
6. Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 18
ABSTRACT
Most studies of the Brazilian political system point to a relationship between electoral
rules and the performance of parliamentarians. Therefore, how voters make their
choices interfere in the behavior of political actors and the party system. However, since
the 90s, a number of other studies have begun to be made in the opposite direction to
this analytical orientation. In this new approach, it is assumed that the links between
electoral and legislative arenas are extremely weak.
From what has been said, we can observe that the literature on the
Legislativeemphasizes the influence that both political parties and electoral connections
can exert on parliamentary decisions and behavior. However, little attention has been
given to another dimension: the force that the group he belongs to or has belonged to,
exerts on his activities.
Therefore, the purpose of this paper, fruit of ongoing research, is to observe how the
behavior of federal deputies varies depending on their social background related to
health. We will analyze the roll call votes of Brazilian federal deputies during the 54th
Legislature, who declared their profession to be, exclusively or not, the exercise of
Medicine and/or development of other activities in institutions related to health policy
and services.
The intent is to verify to what extent representatives with a social background in
Medicine and health public policy acted, during the 54th Legislature, either in favor of the
private or public health sector in Brazil. The prominence of the latter indicates that
deputies are voting in favor of the Constitutional Unifying System of Health.
1. INTRODUCTION
What factors influence the behavior of our legislators? Within the ambit of diverse
interests: executive, party leaders, electoral districts, and governors, what proportion
does their social background constitute in the conduct of parliamentarians? The aim of
this study is to investigate to what extent Brazilian federal deputies’ backgrounds
influences their behavior in the legislative arena, more specifically, the variation in their
conduct in the nominal voting in the Chamber of Deputies during the period that
corresponds to the 54th legislature.
A large part of the studies into the Brazilian political system point to a relationship
between the electoral rules and the conduct of parliamentarians. This being the case,
the way in which, in a determined election, voters make their choices, and how votes
are tallied to become mandates, interferes in the behavior of political actors and in the
party system (Ames, 1995a; 1995b; 2001; Mainwaring, 2001; Haggard, 1995). The work
of Anthony Downs (1957) and David R. Mayhew (1974) was the first to point out this
electoral connection, which would be elections as a modulating factor in the behavior of
politicians.
One of the main and initial contributions about the electoral connection is the study by
David R. Mayhew (1974). According to this author, there exist two arenas (the two-
arena model): the electoral and the legislative, given that the first conditions the
behavior of the politicians in the second.
Beginning in the 90’s, other studies began to be undertaken in the opposite
direction to this analytical orientation. These point toward two problems: one conceptual
and the other empirical. The conceptual one arose because variables such as the role
of party politics, the role of leadership, and the internal regimental rules of the
Congress, were excluded from the analysis (FIGUEIREDO, LIMONGI, 1995; SANTOS,
1997). The empirical one emerged because there was evidence that it is not only the
electoral arena that conditions the legislative arena, nor is the legislative production of
the National Congress only characterized by law reforms of a parochial nature
(FIGUEIREDO, LIMONGI, 1999).
Different to the perspective of the electoral connection, this new empirical approach
presupposes that the ties between the electoral and legislative arenas are extremely
weak, which is what Shaun Bowler (2000) calls the “one arena model”. The behavior of
the parliamentarians would not be determined by the incentives of the electoral arena,
but rather orientated by the restrictions of the centralizing rules and procedures of the
legislative arena. The political parties would have, in this way, an advantage over the
deputies considered individually; political survival would depend on the parties and on
the figure of their leaders.
Until now, one observes that the literature on legislative research, offers in a
disconnected way, contradictory responses to the action of congressmen. On one hand,
the parliamentarians would need to attend to the demands of their respective electoral
circumscriptions; on the other hand, they would be restricted by the will of the leaders of
their lobbies.
Perceiving the limitation of these frameworks and the little attention that has been given
to further dimension, this research will include one more explicative variable, which
would be: the social background of the parliamentarians. By social background, we
understand the history and trajectory of the parliamentarian. Beyond this, owing to a
methodological choice and given the limitation of this research, the social background
that interests us is that which, in a certain manner, would be connected to the health
sector.
It is also important to underline that this research is under construction, and given this,
the data that will be presented in the unfolding of the text is preliminary and refers
specifically to the profile of the parliamentarians with a social background in health.
2 THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM AND ITS IMPLICATIOINS FOR THE
POLITICAL SYSTEM
The study of the interactions between the electoral system and the political system has
become one of the most important subareas of contemporary Political Science. The
specialized literature has been attempting to comprehend how the electoral political
system conditions interferes in the dynamics and functioning of political representation,
as well as in the party system and in the democratic life of the country.
In democratic regimes, electoral systems can be defined as the set of rules (method)
that transform votes into mandates (political power). These rules can vary, and in fact
do, from country to country, generating a multiplicity of electoral systems. Given such
diverse possibilities of classification of electoral systems, the most classical was that of
Douglas Rae (1967), which defined three basic components: i) electoral magnitude,
which signifies the number of seats for electoral circumscription; ii) the structure of the
ballot, that is to say, the way in which voters express their choices; iii) the electoral
formula, that is, the mathematical equation that converts votes into political
representation (seats). This last component results in three types of electoral systems:
proportional representation; majority; and mixed representation.
The system of proportional representation tends to reproduce, in a consistent manner,
the will of the voter, since the number of seats gained by the party reflects with less
distortion, the number of votes that they receive. It is in this sense that the defenders of
this system affirm its democratic, representational, and inclusive character.
In contrast, the majority system guarantees for the party that they obtain the greatest
number of votes, and in a disproportional way, the majority of the seats. The formation
of this legislative majority would be, for some theorists, the most efficient way for
democracies to allow governability and to provide, beforehand, alternatives of coherent
government for voters. In this way, the discussion regarding which would be the better
electoral system revolves around the governability trade-off (efficiency) versus
representation.
In countries that adopt the proportional system for the Legislative seats, there are two
possible manners for the voter to vote, which would vary according to the type of list. If
the list is non-preferential or closed, the voter votes on the party instead of choosing the
candidate. This type of vote, called a party vote, strengthens the party in the electoral
arena, given that its members and party leadership would be responsible for organizing
the electoral list – the candidates found in the upper part of the list would be elected. In
this model, the ties between voters and party would be clear. Examples of the countries
that adopt the closed list would be those such as Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Italy, and
South Africa.
In contrast, if the list is preferential or open, the voter can choose amongst all the
candidates of the party, with no pre-established ranking. In this type of vote, called
nominal, the voter has more influence over the definition of the parliamentary lobbies
(MARENCO, 2006, p. 722). As the vote becomes personalized however, clientalist
relations become recurrent.
In the elections for the Chamber of Deputies, Brazil has adopted, since 1945, the
proportional system or the open list. In this system, two options are offered to voters:
vote for one name or for one party. The seats that each party (or coalitions between
parties) obtain will be occupied by the most voted candidates in each list. A curious and
distinct difference from other countries that employ the preferential vote, such as
Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, and Finland for example, is that the Brazilian ballot
never presented a complete list of all of the candidates. That is to say, in the elections
for the Chamber of Deputies, the voter always wrote, (or typed, after the implementation
of the electronic voting booths) the name or number of the candidate, without there
being any mention of the other components on the list. Beyond this, in the same
election other positions are chosen by the majority system. According to Jairo Nicolau
(2006), these factors contribute to “reinforcing in voters the false impression that the
elections for the Chamber of Deputies are made according to a majority rule in which all
the candidates compete amongst themselves”.
In this way, there is a consensus amongst specialists that the open list model offers
incentives for candidates to the Chamber of Deputies to cultivate their personal
reputation to the detriment of that of their party. As it is the majority system which
distributes the intralist seats, the members of the same party become competitors
amongst themselves. As such, it is natural that the campaign would be centered on the
candidate, and that they, in their turn, reinforce their personal attributes to distinguish
themselves from their party colleagues. One can affirm that these institutional rules
which stimulate campaigns centered on the candidate and not on the party produce: i)
extremely personalized elections and; ii) weak parties in the electoral arena.
In this sense, one expects a connection between the predominance of personalized
electoral campaigns for the Chamber of Deputies (Ames, 1995a; 1995b), and the
weakness of the party system (Mainwaring, 2001; Ames, 2001), with the formation of
political parochias with limited effect on the electoral base of the legislator (pork barrel
politics). That is to say, our “electoral rules incentivize the parliamentarians to develop
personalized and individual relationships with their electoral base, instead of mediating
them through party politics” (PEREIRA, MUELLER, 2003, p. 736). Still further, as Scott
Mainwaring (1999) points out: “when legislators are elected by personal vote, as is the
case in Brazil, they become indebted to the district that elected them. They have more
incentives for parochial attitudes than the president”. Or, in the words of Cain et al (1987
apud PEREIRA, MUELLER, 2003, p. 736), “if the actions and services oriented for the
benefit of the electoral bases have an important role in the political survival of the
politicians, they will tend to focus their actions and political decisions essentially on their
electoral bases”.
Owing to this analysis, a part of the specialized literature arrives at a negative
evaluation of the conjunction of these characteristics in the political system. In this way,
from this perspective, the combination of proportional vote with the open list would lead
to fragility and party fragmentation, a low degree of accountability, uncertainty in the
electoral process, and corruption in democratic regimes (DEUS; SANDES-FREITAS,
2014, p. 30-34).
3. PRESIDENTIALISM OF COALITIONS AND THE REGIMENTAL
RULES OF THE FEDERAL CHAMBER
One other vision regarding the behavior of the parties in the legislative arena and,
consequently, regarding parliamentary behavior, was presented to the academic
community of Brazilian Political Science in 19991. In this new thesis, the electoral
system would not be the only variable for explaining all the problems of the party
system. The structure of the decision making process, as well as the type of
constitutional power available to the President, should be taken into account in the
analysis.
The concept ‘presidentialism of the coalition’ was formulated by Sérgio Abranches in
1988 to describe the institutional model typical for South America: the president
constructs their support base through the concession of ministries to parties with
representation in the Legislative, and the parliamentarians, in exchange, provide the
necessary votes to pass the Executive’s agenda.
1 See the publication “The Executive and Legislature in the New Constitutional Order”, by Argelina Figueiredo and Fernando Limongi (1999).
With the intention of avoiding the decisional paralysis that culminated, according to the
specialized literature, in the coup of 1964 (SANTOS, 1986), the constitution of 1988
conceded various avenues of power to the Executive, such as budgetary control, a
bureaucracy constituted by commissioned positions, and control mechanisms for the
agenda of the legislature (exclusivity in the initiative of law reform in bills regarding the
organization of federal budget and administration; the possibility of adopting provisional
measures; and power for soliciting urgency in the passing of a determined bill. However,
one combined to this, “a greater capacity for veto, for investigation and for influence in
the formulation of laws of the Legislature” (RENNÓ, 2006, p. 259). In this moment of
transition and redemocratization, the Parliament returns to being the last arena for
political debate and negotiation for passing laws. This signifies that
These pathways allow the Executive to put forward legislative
proposals and formulate public policy. However, the new rules
make clear that the Executive requires the support of the
Legislative to govern (…) The Executive needs to negotiate with the
Legislative to have its agenda passed. The principal point of the
question becomes, therefore, the formation of the majority in the
Congress (RENNÓ, 2006, p. 259).
As has already been previously indicated, our electoral system produces ‘multiparty’
conjunctions in such a way that, after the presidential elections of 1989, no party of the
President alone, obtained a majority in the Congress. In this scenario, the Executive
needs to make coalitions with diverse parties to manage to pass its bills in the
Legislative. This inference finds support in the observation of the post-redemocratization
governments; the presidents exert themselves to form, to a greater or lesser degree,
ministries according to the force and the relative weight of the parties in the parliament
(Abranches, 1988; Meneguello, 1998; Amorim Neto, 2000)2. Even Collor’s government,
with its antiparty posture adopted this strategy at the end of its mandate.
2 According to Meneguello (1998 apud SANTOS, 2006, p. 226) “the necessity of matching the ministerial
formation to the heterogeneity of interests leads the government to modify, with a certain frequency, the organizational structure of the ministerial organs, increasing their number, and taking apart ministries.
Beyond the distribution of ministries, which can be understood as patronage, the
president and the party leaders maintain institutional prerogatives that induce the
cooperation of parliamentarians. Argelina Figueiredo and Fernando Limongi (1999, p.
38) argue that:
The scarce autonomy of the Legislative Power in the formulation of
Public Policy makes participation in government still more important
for the parliamentarians interested in guaranteeing electoral
returns. This being the case, the control of positions offers
mechanisms that allow the maintenance of party discipline. The
parliamentarians can incur costs, voting in favor of measures
contrary to their immediate interests, owing to the gains that they
can obtain as members of the government coalition (FIGUEIREDO;
LIMONGI, 1999, p. 38).
The power of the agenda of the Executive, combined with patronage, provides a stable
base for parliamentary support. Given this, when there is the possibility of the President
strategically manipulating the distribution of preferences of the deputies and controlling
the agenda of the plenary through provisional measures and a demand for urgency, one
has a greater degree of discipline of the parties than belongs to the coalition
government.
The right to demand urgency increases the chances of success of the Executive
because i) it stipulates deadlines for the evaluation of bills, (45 days in each of the
Legislative Houses); ii) modifies the ordinary legislative flow; iii) and diminishes the
Chamber’s time to discuss its own bills (SANTOS, 2006, p. 228). In its turn, the
provisional measures have still more consistent effects over the power of the agenda of
the Executive since it permits the President to govern without consulting the Legislative.
Another factor that contributes to cooperation within the Parliament is the centralization
of the decision making process around party leaders. The Internal Regiment of the
This is a question that takes into account much more the pressure of the diversity of interests than technical criteria properly speaking.
Chamber of Deputies foresees the distribution of parliamentary rights starting from party
criteria: i) the composition of the Directive Body is recognized by the regiment; iii)
beyond this, it is beholden to the leaders to oversee the nomination and destitution of
the members and directors of the commissions and projects. They can also use the
word in sessions for a time proportional to the size of their lobby to participate in the
work of any commission, propose votes in the plenary, register deputies of the party as
candidates for positions on the Council, orient the vote of their lobby in the plenary,
include and withdraw projects from the agenda, determine if the consideration of a bill
will have an urgent character, indicate members for parliamentary communications
before the order of the day and, fundamentally, negotiate, together with the Executive,
the demands of their cohort. (PACHECO; MENDES, 1998 apud SANTOS, 2006, p.
231).
The Executive, through its legal power and owing to its power over the agenda,
manages to bargain political support from the Congress. And, in its turn, it is the party
leaders that mediate this exchange, negotiating the demands of both. Therefore, it is
rational for the parliamentarians to act individually in the Congress, in the same way that
the Executive, owing to the high transitional cost that it sustains, does not negotiate or
bargain the vote of each parliamentarian individually (“the legislative organization was
not arranged to deal with the demands of the parliamentarians individually”
(FIGUEIREDO, LIMONGI, 1999 apud SANTOS, 2006, p. 232). In this way, it is natural
to think that the leader will act as an intermediary for the demands of the members of
his party together with the Executive, if his indication for the vote for a determinate
measure was followed. According to Carlos Pereira and Bernardo Mueller (2003, p.
740) “It is in this moment that parties, fragile links between the representatives and
voters, become Strong actors. Indeed strong, but within the congressional and
governmental space”.
4. SOCIAL BACKGROUND: A NEW LOOK AT PARLIAMENTARY BEHAVIOUR
As has been seen, there are different forms of analysis regarding
parliamentary behaviour, on one hand parliamentarians must attend to the demands of
their respective electorates; on the other hand, they are limited by the will of the leaders
of their parliamentary blocks. The conclusion to which scholars of the theme have
arrived seems to be different and to present certain limitations. As such, as Nicolau
(2000) has shown, more detailed research is necessary to clarify the decision making
process within these parties, as well as the phenomenon of party discipline.
It is in this context that this research constitutes itself by including one more
possible explicatory variable, which would be the social background of the
parliamentarian. By this concept, we understand the life history and trajectory of the
federal deputy. Beyond this, the specific social background of the deputy which here
interests us is that which, in a certain way, is tied to the health care sector.
Data collection was possible through the definition of the following categories:
i) profession; ii) professional activities and public positions; iii) union activities,
representation of classes and associations; iv) and councils. All the federal deputies of
the 54th legislature were considered according to profession, with graduations in
medicine, dentistry, nursing, veterinary medicine, physiotherapy, and physical education
being definitive. With the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th categories, it was possible to select all the
parliamentarians who exercised or participated in, in the period prior to the mandate in
question, any activity referent to health, be it as a leader, or as a member. From this
selection, it was concluded that 106 parliamentarians of the 54th Legislature have a
background in health3, with 46 of them being doctors.
The data presented in the following is preliminary and specifically refers to
the profile of these 106 parliamentarians with a social background in health.
3 The information for the construction of the categories was taken from the site for the Federal Chamber.
Table 1 : Political party versus sex
Source: table elaborated by the author.
The data shows us that, of the 106 parliamentarians with a background in
health, 93 are men, accounting for almost 88% of the total.
We further observe that the PT, PMDB, PSDB, and PSD, are respectively the
parties with the greatest number of parliamentarians with a social background in health.
At the other extreme, the parties with the greatest number of parliamentarians with a
social background in health are : PV, PROS, PRB, and PPR.
Gênero Total
F M
Partido DEM 0 5 5
PCdoB 4 1 5
PDT 1 4 5
PMDB 2 12 14
PP 0 6 6
PPS 1 0 1
PR 1 5 6
PRB 0 2 2
PROS 0 3 3
PSB 1 7 8
PSD 0 10 10
PSDB 0 10 10
PT 1 14 15
PTB 1 5 6
PV 1 3 4
SD 0 6 6
Total 13 93 106
Table 2. Parties and Party Ideologies of the Parliamentarians with a social background
in Health
Classification of Party Ideology Party Total % % by classification
Old Right PP 5,66 16,98
PR 5,66
PTB 5,66
New Right PRB 1,89 21,7
DEM 4,72
SD 5,66
PSD 9,43
Other Parties PPS 0,94 61,32
PROS 2,83
PV 3,77
PCdoB 4,72
PDT 4,72
PSB 7,55
PSDB 9,43
PMDB 13,21
PT 14,15
Total 100 100
Source: Organization of the author, use of classification of ideologies according to
Codato (2015).
Regarding the party ideology of the parliamentarians with a social background in
health, the classification of the Observatory of Social and Political Elites in Brazil
(UFPR), published in Codato (2015) states:
… the old Latin right can be classified via three descriptors: I) a connection with the military dictatorships; ii) radical defense of the non-intervention of the State in the economy; iii) defense of civil morality and the traditional family. The new right, which emerged
as a double response to the old right and the rise of the left can also be summarized in three further descriptors: I) economic liberalism, with limited intervention of the State in the economy to guarantee equality of opportunities; ii) defense of democracy; iii) radical defense of traditional family values … In “other parties” we include all of those organizations which go from the center (PSDB, PPS) to the extreme-left (PCO, PSTU, PSOL). (Codato, 2015, p. 127-128)
It is observed that 21.7% of the parliamentarians with a social background in
health make up part of the New Right, and 16.98% represent the Old Right, with
61.23% fitting into the Other Parties category. They are parties that, in total occupied 13
(New Right), 173 (Old Right), and 327 (Other Parties) chairs in the Lower House,
possessing respectively the following indexes of parliamentary growth: 1.6, 0.04, and -
0.05 (Codato, 2015).
In this manner, the Old and New Right corresponded to 38.68% of the
parliamentarians with a social background in health, as well as for a positive growth
index during the period. However, despite the parliamentary growth index being
negative for the Other Parties, they were still those that most possessed
parliamentarians with a social background in health
Table 3: Political Parties versus professional activities and public positions
Leaders
hip
Leadership;
Associated
Member
Member; Leadership
No Total
Party
PPS 0 0 0 0 1 1
PRB 1 0 0 0 1 2
PROS 1 0 0 0 2 3
PV 0 0 0 1 3 4
DEM 3 0 0 1 1 5
PCdoB 5 0 0 0 0 5
PDT 2 0 1 0 2 5
PP 5 0 0 0 1 6
PR 5 0 0 0 1 6
PTB 2 0 0 0 4 6
SD 3 0 1 0 2 6
PSB 4 0 3 1 0 8
PSD 3 0 1 0 6 10
PSDB 4 0 1 1 4 10
PMDB 3 1 1 1 8 14
PT 11 0 2 0 2 15
Total 52 1 10 5 38 106
Source: Table elaborated by the author.
Table three makes a distinction, by political party, of the role played by the
parliamentarians with a social background in Health, refering to the professional
activities and public positions which they previously occupied, that is to say, this
variable indicates if the deputies were members, leaders, associates, or none of these
categories prior to their mandate. It is observed that practically half of them occupied
leadership roles in health before they became deputies. They were in large part,
presidents of health councils, state and municipal secretaries of health, as well as acting
in leadership positions in hospitals, associations, or corporatist federations. Such data is
being organized in this research.
We also noted that only 10, amongst the total of 106 deputies, were classified as
members, either of teams or of health associations, without having occupied some sort
of leadership role.
In this research currently underway, the types of activities in health and the other
profiles of parliamentarians are still being correlated, with the aim of generating working
hypotheses. The data bank is also currently under construction.
5. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
An explanation for the behaviour of Brazilian parliamentarians is divided into two
large propositions: the first emphasizes the relation between the electoral rules and the
conduct of the legislator, and the second reinforces the importance of the regimental
rules and the power of the Executive to determine the agenda. In the first, lack of
discipline is an act free from party sanction and, owing to this, always available for any
deputy. For the second, disciplined behaviour is the norm, with the undisciplined option
being only for a few parliamentarians.
The proposal of this study was to include the explicatory variable of social
background in the classic literature about parliamentary behaviour. To this end, and
owing to methodological limitations, two selections were made: i) the first was temporal,
limiting the analysis to the 54th legislature; and the second ii) limited to deputies with a
social background in health.
Starting from these parameters, primary data about the profile of
parliamentarians with a social background in health was collected. Beyond this, it was
possible to generate a preliminary intersection between certain data points, such as:
political parties and sex; political parties and the number of parliamentarians with social
background in health; political parties, ideology of the parties, and professional activities
and public positions of the selected deputies.
This study is masters research currently underway at the UFG, also being part of
the Center for Legislative and Health Research for the Health Observatory for the
Analysis of Health Policy. The next steps will be the development of the intersections in
the data on the profiles of parliamentarians, making associations between themes of
health and parliamentary voting. Interviews will also be undertaken with the
parliamentarians selected with social background in health. Qualitative data will be
compared with quantitative data. The ultimate intention of the research, beyond
instigating a discussion with the political science literature, is to verify to what extent
parliamentarians with defined backgrounds in health have positioned themselves either
in favour of the private health sector or in support of the Constitutional, Universal Health
Care System in Brazil.
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