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Abstract
This dissertation explores the use of ordinary legislation to delegate policy authority to the executive in Brazil. The core argument is that within an institutional context that endows the executive branch with strong policy-making prerogatives, legislators choose between delegating and making policy via the legislative process such that their chances of political success are maximized. The institutions and practices of the federal budget process create uncertainty and generate incentives for legislators to delegate. Electoral incentives and inter-temporal preferences also play a role in determining legislators' delegation strategies. Because legislators in Brazil have on average short tenures in Congress and are beholden to sub-national political actors to advance their political careers, legislators choose to invest in statutory policy-making when policy benefits are attainable in the short-term and affect state-wide constituencies.
A sample of ten legislative statutes was selected for the study. The cases are first analyzed from a static point of view, correlating the delegation content of statutes with policy features associated with legislators' political ambitions and policy-making opportunities. The trajectory of the statutes through Congress is also examined to confirm that the variation in delegation content is indeed related to the policy issues in question and the purposeful actions of legislators and other political actors.
