Como votam os legisladores latino-americanos em temas de política externa? Essa pergunta é norteada por um longo debate na literatura especializada acerca da especificidade da política externa em relação às demais políticas públicas e sua influência no comportamento legislativo. Por um lado, argumenta-se uma tendência a um comportamento unificado entre os partidos políticos nos temas internacionais, revelando baixa politização da política externa na arena legislativa. O elevado custo eleitoral de se opor à política externa presidencial, o baixo retorno eleitoral dos temas internacionais e a maior capacidade institucional do Poder Executivo conduzir a política externa do país são alguns dos principais argumentos desta perspectiva analítica. Por outro lado, enfatiza-se a importância dos arranjos e coalizões domésticas na formulação da política externa, apontando semelhança entre os comportamentos legislativos nas arenas doméstica e internacional. A diluição entre a fronteira que divide os assuntos domésticos e internacionais, assim como o crescente efeito distributivo advindo da política externa em economias cada vez mais interdependentes são alguns dos fatores explicativos desta perspectiva teórica. Embora haja grande profusão de estudos acerca do comportamento legislativo na política externa cujo objeto é o caso norte-americano, para o caso dos países latino-americanos ainda há um baixo número de trabalhos empíricos, especialmente aqueles que incluem mais de um caso na análise. Assim, a presente tese analisa as votações nominais em temas de política externa em seis países latino-americanos: Argentina, Brasil, Chie, México, Paraguai e Peru. São dois os principais objetivos. Primeiro, comparar o comportamento legislativo em temas de política externa e doméstica a fim determinar semelhanças e diferenças em alguns aspectos centrais: o nível de unidade partidária, a dimensionalidade dos votos e o nível de conflito interpartidário. Segundo, encontrar os fatores determinantes do voto do legislador latino-americano em temas de política externa. Para tanto, calculamos os índices de Rice dos principais partidos políticos dos seis países, comparando-os com os scores da arena doméstica. Fazemos o uso de técnicas de estimação dos pontos ideais dos legisladores latino-americanos em temas de política externa para determinar o nível de conflito interpartidário e a dimensionalidade das votações. Adicionalmente, analisamos o voto do legislador latino-americano em temas de política comercial por meio de regressão logística, incluindo nos modelos explicativos variáveis correspondentes às características socioeconômicas do distrito eleitoral do legislador. Nossos resultados indicam baixa diferenciação entre os níveis de unidade partidária dos partidos 5 políticos nas arenas doméstica e internacional, além de níveis similares de conflito interpartidário, ainda que haja algumas variações importantes entre os casos. Verificou-se baixa dimensionalidade nas votações de política externa em todos os países, interpretada como a disposição dos partidos políticos no contínuo ideológico direita - esquerda e a dicotomia entre governo e oposição. Finalmente, a análise dos modelos logísticos indica, para o caso específico da política comercial, similaridade nos fatores estruturadores do voto do legislador, mais notadamente a dicotomia entre governo e oposição e a ideologia dos partidos políticos. Concluímos a baixa relevância da especificidade da política externa na influência do comportamento legislativo em plenário, comportamento este muito similar às demais políticas públicas. / How do Latin-American legislators vote in foreign policy issues? The question addresses a long debate in the specialized literature regarding foreign policy specificity among other public policies and its influence on legislative behavior. On one hand, unified behavior among political parties on international issues is argued to be the standard behavior, revealing low polarization in legislative foreign policy decisions. The high costs of opposing presidents foreign policy, the low electoral gains obtained from foreign policy activism and the greater capacity of Executive to conduct international issues are among the main arguments of this perspective. On the other hand, the importance of domestic institutions and coalitions are emphasized as important features of the foreign policy decision-making process, pointing out similarity between legislative behaviors in both arenas. The dilution between domestic and foreign boundaries, as well as the distributive effect from increasing internationalized economies derived from foreign policy choices are some of explanatory features from this theoretical perspective. Although there is a great amount of studies focusing on legislative behavior in foreign policy at the US Congress, there is a lack of empirical research regarding Latin-American countries, especially across cases. The present thesis investigates foreign policy roll call votes of six Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru. The main goals are two. First, to compare the legislative behavior in domestic and foreign policies regarding the level of party unity, dimensionality of voting and the level of inter-party conflict. Second, explaining legislative votes in foreign policy. We calculate the rice index for the major political parties of the six countries mentioned above, comparing the scores in both domestic and international arenas. We also apply technics of estimating legislator\'s ideal points to assess the level of inter-party polarization and the dimensionality of foreign policy votes. We argue that there is no significant difference between legislative behaviors regarding the domestic and foreign arenas. Party unity, the level of inter-party polarization and the dimensionality of policy are all quite similar in both domestic and international issues. Our findings also indicate low dimensionality in foreign policy votes interpreted as the ideological position of political parties and the government opposition dichotomy. Finally, the logistic models also indicate ideology and coalition as the main explanatory variables of legislators votes in trade policy. The specific nature of foreign policy does not impact significantly legislative behavior in Latin America.

My research project is a break from the current trend in the literature that focuses on the conflict associated with roll call voting—party polarization and institutional friction. I am interested in determining how policy characteristics of roll call decisions can affect legislators' vote choices. Bills not only differ according to issue content—agricultural policy versus social welfare policy—but also according to how ambiguous they are—a collection of disparate issues versus one specific issue. Using a dataset of House roll calls from 1985-2004 and the Policy Agendas Project content coding scheme, I show that variation in both policy area and policy ambiguity of a given bill is associated with variation in the accuracy of ideology in predicting roll call vote choice. / text

Como votam os legisladores latino-americanos em temas de política externa? Essa pergunta é norteada por um longo debate na literatura especializada acerca da especificidade da política externa em relação às demais políticas públicas e sua influência no comportamento legislativo. Por um lado, argumenta-se uma tendência a um comportamento unificado entre os partidos políticos nos temas internacionais, revelando baixa politização da política externa na arena legislativa. O elevado custo eleitoral de se opor à política externa presidencial, o baixo retorno eleitoral dos temas internacionais e a maior capacidade institucional do Poder Executivo conduzir a política externa do país são alguns dos principais argumentos desta perspectiva analítica. Por outro lado, enfatiza-se a importância dos arranjos e coalizões domésticas na formulação da política externa, apontando semelhança entre os comportamentos legislativos nas arenas doméstica e internacional. A diluição entre a fronteira que divide os assuntos domésticos e internacionais, assim como o crescente efeito distributivo advindo da política externa em economias cada vez mais interdependentes são alguns dos fatores explicativos desta perspectiva teórica. Embora haja grande profusão de estudos acerca do comportamento legislativo na política externa cujo objeto é o caso norte-americano, para o caso dos países latino-americanos ainda há um baixo número de trabalhos empíricos, especialmente aqueles que incluem mais de um caso na análise. Assim, a presente tese analisa as votações nominais em temas de política externa em seis países latino-americanos: Argentina, Brasil, Chie, México, Paraguai e Peru. São dois os principais objetivos. Primeiro, comparar o comportamento legislativo em temas de política externa e doméstica a fim determinar semelhanças e diferenças em alguns aspectos centrais: o nível de unidade partidária, a dimensionalidade dos votos e o nível de conflito interpartidário. Segundo, encontrar os fatores determinantes do voto do legislador latino-americano em temas de política externa. Para tanto, calculamos os índices de Rice dos principais partidos políticos dos seis países, comparando-os com os scores da arena doméstica. Fazemos o uso de técnicas de estimação dos pontos ideais dos legisladores latino-americanos em temas de política externa para determinar o nível de conflito interpartidário e a dimensionalidade das votações. Adicionalmente, analisamos o voto do legislador latino-americano em temas de política comercial por meio de regressão logística, incluindo nos modelos explicativos variáveis correspondentes às características socioeconômicas do distrito eleitoral do legislador. Nossos resultados indicam baixa diferenciação entre os níveis de unidade partidária dos partidos 5 políticos nas arenas doméstica e internacional, além de níveis similares de conflito interpartidário, ainda que haja algumas variações importantes entre os casos. Verificou-se baixa dimensionalidade nas votações de política externa em todos os países, interpretada como a disposição dos partidos políticos no contínuo ideológico direita - esquerda e a dicotomia entre governo e oposição. Finalmente, a análise dos modelos logísticos indica, para o caso específico da política comercial, similaridade nos fatores estruturadores do voto do legislador, mais notadamente a dicotomia entre governo e oposição e a ideologia dos partidos políticos. Concluímos a baixa relevância da especificidade da política externa na influência do comportamento legislativo em plenário, comportamento este muito similar às demais políticas públicas. / How do Latin-American legislators vote in foreign policy issues? The question addresses a long debate in the specialized literature regarding foreign policy specificity among other public policies and its influence on legislative behavior. On one hand, unified behavior among political parties on international issues is argued to be the standard behavior, revealing low polarization in legislative foreign policy decisions. The high costs of opposing presidents foreign policy, the low electoral gains obtained from foreign policy activism and the greater capacity of Executive to conduct international issues are among the main arguments of this perspective. On the other hand, the importance of domestic institutions and coalitions are emphasized as important features of the foreign policy decision-making process, pointing out similarity between legislative behaviors in both arenas. The dilution between domestic and foreign boundaries, as well as the distributive effect from increasing internationalized economies derived from foreign policy choices are some of explanatory features from this theoretical perspective. Although there is a great amount of studies focusing on legislative behavior in foreign policy at the US Congress, there is a lack of empirical research regarding Latin-American countries, especially across cases. The present thesis investigates foreign policy roll call votes of six Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru. The main goals are two. First, to compare the legislative behavior in domestic and foreign policies regarding the level of party unity, dimensionality of voting and the level of inter-party conflict. Second, explaining legislative votes in foreign policy. We calculate the rice index for the major political parties of the six countries mentioned above, comparing the scores in both domestic and international arenas. We also apply technics of estimating legislator\'s ideal points to assess the level of inter-party polarization and the dimensionality of foreign policy votes. We argue that there is no significant difference between legislative behaviors regarding the domestic and foreign arenas. Party unity, the level of inter-party polarization and the dimensionality of policy are all quite similar in both domestic and international issues. Our findings also indicate low dimensionality in foreign policy votes interpreted as the ideological position of political parties and the government opposition dichotomy. Finally, the logistic models also indicate ideology and coalition as the main explanatory variables of legislators votes in trade policy. The specific nature of foreign policy does not impact significantly legislative behavior in Latin America.

Conflict among legislators has been an ever-present component of the legislative process in the U.S. Congress. However, most political scientists have treated all dissension within the legislature as the result of partisan disagreement over various policy options. I propose in this thesis that a second dimension of conflict exists within Congress, one caused by personal rivalries unrelated to the discussion of issues. This category, which I have termed "personality conflict," or "incivility," can take the form of actions between legislators such as name-calling and fist-fights. In my research, I have created a measure of these incivilities and studied the movement in the levels of personality conflict within Congress from 1851 through 2004. In addition, I compare these trends to a conventional measure of party polarization or partisan conflict. The analysis suggests that the two types of conflict are distinct, but also that levels of one type of congressional conflict can have important effects on the absolute level of the other.

This dissertation builds on existing scholarship in political science and political sociology to explore the influence of interest groups in legislative action networks. The primary theoretical insight is that as the number of interest group affiliations between two members of Congress increases, so does the frequency with which they forge other sorts of social ties necessary to advance the interests of their interest group constituencies. In particular, the analysis looks at interest group donation strategies, legislative co-sponsorships, and roll-call votes during the 111th Congress (2009-2010). The analysis uses social network analysis methods to create network models of 19 different policy domains, as well as an aggregate model, for both the House and Senate. Legislator ideology, state, committee assignments, and experience have a generally significant impact on the number of interest group affiliations shared by each pair of legislators, whereas gender, race/ethnicity, office location and occupational history do not. The results show that interest groups do have consistent impact over co-sponsorships in the House, but somewhat more mixed influence in the Senate. In some instances, groups in the policy domain encourage policy change, and in other instances, status quo protection. The theory did not anticipate the latter effect, though it does make sense in context of other research findings. For roll-call votes, interest groups have a significant influence over some House policy domains but not many Senate policy domains. The increased polarization of the Senate, necessity of minority party discipline to maximize their leverage through use of the filibuster, and staggered nature of Senate elections makes interest group influence tougher to muster in the upper chamber of Congress.

Cette thèse propose une analyse de l'incapacité du gouvernement des Etats-Unis à modifier en profondeur sa politique d'immigration. Elle montre que son principal facteur explicatif est institutionnel : la résilience du régime d'immigration, entendu comme mode de régulation de l'admission d'immigrants, s'explique par sa capacité à s'appuyer sur une structuration de l'économie politique de l'immigration favorable au blocage des réformes. Pour démontrer cette proposition, notre étude est donc articulée en deux blocs : les facteurs engendrant une crise du régime, et ceux permettant son statu quo. Dans un premier temps, les facteurs structurels et conjoncturels de la crise du régime sont étudiés. Une analyse empirique de la régulation de l'immigration met en évidence ses deux dysfonctionnements structurels : d'une part un déséquilibre croissant entre le nombre de candidats à l'immigration et l'offre de visas et, d'autre part, la formation d'un stock de résidents en situation irrégulière. Néanmoins, l'analyse des représentations de la population américaine concernant cette régulation démontre que la volonté de réformer les conditions d'admission de l'immigration relève aussi de facteurs subjectifs. Une conjoncture économique dégradée intensifie la perception d'une crise du régime, et la préférence pour sa fermeture. Dans un second temps, les facteurs explicatifs de l'absence de fermeture du régime sont analysés. La validité de deux hypothèses explicatives de sa résilience est démontrée par une analyse des épisodes de réforme de 1994 à 2010. En premier lieu, la mise en œuvre politique d'une réforme donne la primauté aux préférences des groupes d'intérêts organisés (communautés immigrées, employeurs, syndicats, nativistes) par rapport à celles de l'opinion publique. En second lieu, les préférences antagonistes de ces groupes d'intérêts les rendent incapables de coopérer : malgré sa non-optimalité, le régime d'immigration correspond donc à une issue stable des négociations législatives, car il limite les pertes de l'ensemble des acteurs en présence. / This PhD dissertation deals with the inability of the United States government to adopt an overhaul of its immigration policy. We show that the main factor accounting for this situation is institutional: the structure of the political economy of immigration explains why reforms attempts fail, and therefore helps to stabilize the regulation of immigrant admissions in the United States. To demonstrate this proposal, we firstly review the roots of the immigration crisis and then analyze why it is not overcome. The immigration crisis in the United States is produced by a set of trends. Some of them are structural. As a fact, the immigration system in the United States is deeply dysfunctional for two reasons. It is firstly very inefficient at properly organizing legal immigration by balancing an increasing demand for immigration visas with an offer bound through quotas. It is secondly unable to dissuade the settlement of a growing undocumented immigrant population. Still, the perception of this immigration crisis and the demand for reform are linked to cyclical factors. Nativist demands for a tightening of immigration legislation are notably greater during times of economic recession. We then explain the absence of immigration restriction in the United States through the demonstration of two complementary factors. Firstly, the political process through which immigration reform is defined give more influence to organized interest groups (such as immigrant communities, employers, unions and nativists) than to public opinion. Secondly, these groups are unable to cooperate for an immigration reform compromise, due to their competing preferences. In another words, the current statu quo prevailing in immigration reform may be suboptimal in terms of regulation of immigrant admissions. It is nevertheless stable, because it allows losses which would inevitably result from a successful immigration reform.