Cover -- Half-title -- Series-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Tables and Figures -- Tables -- Figures -- Contributors -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Party Names and Other Acronyms and Abbreviations -- Party Names -- Other Acronyms and Abbreviations -- 1 Towards a Model of Latin American Legislatures -- The Questions and Dependent Variables -- Questions About Executive-Legislative Relations -- Questions About Parliamentary Parties and Legislative Organization -- Questions for the Policy Studies -- Assumptions and/or Independent Variables: Goals, Strategies, Parties, and Power -- Summary -- PART I Executive-Legislative Relations -- 2 Oscillating Relations: President and Congress in Argentina -- The Framework: A Potential for Gridlock -- Divided Government -- Veto Gates, Institutional Mechanisms -- Party's Decentralized Organization -- Avoiding Gridlock -- A Strong Executive Veto Power and "Necessity and Urgency Decrees" -- Partisan Resources -- Crisis Situations -- Executive-Legislative Relations in Argentina -- Conclusiones -- 3 Presidential Cabinets, Electoral Cycles, and Coalition Discipline in Brazil -- Introduction -- The Degree of Coalescence of Presidential Cabinets -- Cabinet Change -- The Institutional Structure of Presidentialism in Brazil -- Multipartism -- The Impact of Presidential Cabinets on Legislative Voting -- Data -- The Dependent Variable: Coalition Discipline of the Cabinet Parties -- The Key Independent Variable: Cabinet Coalescence -- Other Relevant Independent Variables: The Elapsing of the President's Term and the Ideological Range of the Cabinet -- Results -- Party-Specific Tests of Support to the President -- Results -- Conclusion -- 4 Exaggerated Presidentialism and Moderate Presidents: Executive-Legislative Relations in Chile -- Introduction.

The Transformation of Executive-Assembly Relations in Chile: The 1980 Constitution -- Legislative Success: Who Gets What Passed, and How Fast? -- Powerful Presidents and an Influential Congress: The Transitory Politics of Consensus -- Urgency Provisions: A Powerful Presidential Tool? A Matter of Time or Influence? -- Presidential Budgetary Dominance? -- Presidential Decree Authority -- The Legislature as an Influential Actor -- Party Politics, Presidential Power, and the Future Executive-Legislative Relations -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- 5 Executive-Legislative Relations: The Case of Mexico (1946-1997) -- Congress and the Executive in the Period of the PRI Hegemony: An Unbalanced Relation -- The Congress and the Constitution -- The "Classic" Legislature in Operation -- Explaining Congressional Weakness -- Factors that Determine the Interbranch Balance of Power -- The President's Legislative Powers -- The Legislature's Oversight Powers -- Conclusions -- Appendix: Congress' Constitutional Powers -- Economic -- Political-Administrative -- Social -- Judicial -- Oversight and Appointment -- PART II Political Parties and Legislative Structure -- 6 Explaining the High Level of Party Discipline in the Argentine Congress -- Argentine Political Institutions -- The Argentine Party System -- Roll-Call Votes in Argentina -- Party Discipline in the Argentine Chamber -- Explaining the High Levels of Party Discipline -- Legislator Access to the Ballot and PJ and UCR Intraparty Politics -- Political Careers in Argentina -- Expulsion/Defection -- Internal Legislative Organization -- The Personal/Historical Factor -- Conclusion -- 7 Party Discipline in the Chamber of Deputies -- Do Presidents Dominate? -- The Concept of the Legislative Party -- A Model of Cooperation and Defection from Party Majorities -- Motivation to Defect -- Party Strength and Encaminhamentos.

Are All Votes Created Equal? -- Absentee Deputies -- Analysis -- Why Do Deputies Cooperate or Defect? -- Do Leadership Recommendations Matter? -- Electoral Strength, Constituency, Ideology, and Career Background -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- 8 Parties, Coalitions, and the Chilean Congress in the 1990s -- The Transition and the Two-Member District Reform -- Initial Evaluations of the Post-Transition Party System: Fragmentation and Polarization -- Fragmentation -- Polarization -- Legislative Careers -- The Organization of Congress -- Mesas -- Committees -- Legislative Voting -- The Unity Index -- Unity Among Cross-Partisan Blocs -- Discipline, Agenda Control, and Bicameralism -- Conclusion -- 9 Understanding Party Discipline in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies: The Centralized Party Model -- Electoral Institutions and the Political Strategies of Legislators -- The Parliamentary Fractions of Political Parties -- Parliamentary Parties as Procedural Coalitions -- Delegation to Committees -- Agenda Control and Floor Voting Coalitions -- Conclusions -- PART III Legislatures and the Policy Process -- 10 Fiscal Policy Making in the Argentine Legislature -- Argentina's Fiscal Structure Before Reform -- Narrow Tax Bases, Special Tax Rates, and Poor Tax Collection -- Tax Revenue Sharing Between the Federal and Provincial Governments -- The Proposal Stage: Menem as Tax Policy Entrepreneur -- Fiscal Policy Making in Congressional Committees -- The Economic Emergency Law -- Legislating the Solidarity Tax -- Distributing Revenues from Excise Taxes -- Fiscal Policy Making on the Chamber Floor -- Exempting Cargo Transport from the VAT -- Increasing the Tax on Minimum Assets -- Raising the VAT Rate to 21% Without Sharing the Proceeds -- Conclusion -- 11 Progressive Ambition, Federalism, and Pork-Barreling in Brazil.

Why Deputies Have Moved to Favor Subnational Interests in the Budget Process -- Structure: State "Representation" on the Budget Committee -- Process: How and Where Congress Targets Pork -- Evolution of the Amendment Process -- The Sources of State-Based Pressures -- Submission and Approval of State Delegation Amendments -- Pork and Progressive Ambition (1): Running for Statewide Office -- Hypotheses: The Links Between Pork and State-Level Progressive Ambition -- Summary -- Pork and Progressive Ambition (2): Running for Mayor -- Conclusion -- 12 Appointment, Reelection, and Autonomy in the Senate of Chile -- Introduction -- Data and Methods -- Descriptive Statistics -- A Spatial Model of Voting -- What Roll-Call Votes Can Tell Us -- Do We Really Need All of This Math? -- Parameter Estimates -- Normalizations -- Results -- Testing the Hypotheses -- Proposal Parameters -- Comparing the Parameter Estimates with the Descriptive Statistics -- Heterogeneous Policy Goals on the Right -- One-Shot vs. Repeat Screening: The Institutional Senators -- Conclusions -- 13 The Legal and Partisan Framework of the Legislative Delegation of the Budget in Mexico -- Sources of the Metaconstitutional Powers of the Mexican President -- The Budget Process -- Introduction of the Budget -- Approval of Appropriations by the Chamber of Deputies -- Amendments to Appropriations in Committee -- Amendments to Appropriations on the Floor -- Presidential Veto of the Appropriations Bill -- Reversion Point -- The Influence of the Chamber of Deputies over Appropriations -- Relationship Between the Explanatory Variables -- Data -- Hypotheses and Evidence -- Conclusions -- PART IV Conclusions -- 14 Explaining Legislative Politics in Latin America -- Static vs. Progressive Ambition and the Reelection Goal -- Electoral Strategies and Party (or Coalition) Unity.

Other Variables Affecting Unity -- Determinants of Unity -- The Party System -- Summarizing the Impacts of Party and Electoral Systems in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico -- Constitutional Powers -- Defining the Legislatures' Types -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- 15 Epilogue: Latin America's Reactive Assemblies and Proactive Presidents -- Anticipated Reactions and the Influence of Latin American Legislatures -- Reactive Legislatures and Proactive Presidents: Latin American Variations on the Theme -- The Central Oscillation -- The Amplitude of Oscillation -- Coalitional Presidents and Workable Assemblies -- Conclusion -- References -- Author Index -- General Index.