Explaining congressional reform: electoral laws, congressional organization, and the balance of power between party leaders and backbenchers in Latin American national legislatures

摘要

This research addresses the question under what conditions will rank and filelegislators favor or oppose changes in a legislature?s internal rules of order. The studydeviates from previous approaches to the study of legislatures in four primary ways: 1) thestudy moves from advanced democratized cases of the U.S. Congress and British House ofCommons to cases of neo-democracies; 2) the study considers the interaction between thedesign of the electoral system and its impact on legislature organization; 3) in addition tochamber level factors, party and individual level factors are considered; and 4) the theoryconsiders when legislators will rebel against attempts by party leadership to alter the internalrules of order.The central question focused on is what factors influence legislators? willingness tospeak out or vote against changes in the internal rules of order following a change in theelectoral system design. The theory proposed that when it comes to changing the internalrules of order of a legislative chamber, the effective number of parties in the chamber, the effect of proposed changes in the rules of order on legislator behavior, party discipline, andthe nature of legislator ambition affect the probability that change occurs.Experimental and statistical methodologies are used to test the hypotheses derivedfrom the theory. Original data were collected from experiments conducted onundergraduate pupils at Texas A&M University. For the statistical analyses, a data set ofproposed changes in the rules of order were compiled using archived data from theColombian Senate and Peruvian Congress. This multi-method approach was used becauseof the nature of the question under examination and to minimize limitations of theindividual methodologies.The experimental analyses demonstrate that the operations of the theory aresupported in the controlled environment of the experiment. The results from the statisticalanalyses were, within the restrictions imposed by the data, consistent with both theoreticalexpectations and the experimental findings. The most consistent factor influencing changein the rules of order is the effect of the proposal followed by party discipline.