Congressional Institutionalization: A Cross‐National Comparison

• Date: 01 February 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12104
• Author: Valeria Palanza,Mariano Tommasi,Carlos Scartascini
• Published date: 01 February 2016

VALERIA PALANZA

Pontif‌icia Universidad Cat

olica de Chile

CARLOS SCARTASCINI

Inter-American Development Bank

MARIANO TOMMASI

Universidad de San Andr

es in Argentina

Congressional Institutionalization:

A Cross-National Comparison

This article explains variations in levels of institutionalization across legislatures

of the world. It construes institutionalization as an equilibrium outcome that emerges

from beliefs and investments made by political actors. Drawing insights from work on

US congressional institutionalization and congressional organization, and on compara-

tive party system institutionalization, it provides an index to measure congressional

institutionalization. Using this index, it explores the constitutional factors that affect

levels of congressional institutionalization. The empirical results raise a warning with

respect to building comparative implications from an excessive focus on one particular

case.

Introduction

Legislatures play a key role in policymaking and hence affect

societal outcomes, yet their role varies greatly across countries. In part

determined by constitutions, the role of congresses is linked to character-

istics such as how they are organized, how much legislators work, how

professionalized legislators’ jobs become, how long legislators remain in

congress, how effective they are at their job. These traits help explain the

quality of policy emerging in different countries. We claim that distinct

conf‌igurations of specif‌ic congressional traits are indicators of levels of

congressional institutionalization and ultimately lead to different out-

comes in terms of the quality of policies.

This article provides an empirical exploration of the level of institu-

tionalization of legislatures around the world and of its determinants. In

so doing, it draws from an important literature on the institutionalization

of the US Congress and a few other legislatures, a literature on the

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 41, 1, February 2016 7

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12104

V

C2016 Washington University in St. Louis

organization of the US Congress, and a literature on the institutionaliza-

tion of political party systems. Even as these existing theories and

empirical approaches provide useful inputs for our exploration, the arti-

cle proposes its own theoretical focus and empirical angle, which we

believe is well suited for international comparisons.

We complement prior notions of institutionalization with a game-

theoretic approach drawn from Scartascini and Tommasi (2012). A

game-theoretic equilibrium is a consistent and self-conf‌irming conf‌igura-

tion of actions and beliefs. Our notion of institutionalization views it as

the result of actions and investments that actors undertake over time.

These actions and investments, in turn, depend on what actors believe

about the beliefs and actions of other players. We claim that if Congress

is considered a key arena for the political and policymaking game, that

is, if it is considered the place where political careers are made and the

arena where the main policy negotiations and decisions take place, then

actors have the incentive to (individually and collectively) invest in Con-

gress. It turns out that these very investments contribute to turn Congress

into such a place, so that the logic is self-fulf‌illing. On the contrary, if

Congress is undervalued, most people imagine that the President (or

Prime Minister) will side-step Congress, and aspiring politicians prefer

other career moves to being a legislator, investments in Congress are not

undertaken, and its weakness is reinforced.

This article takes steps in the analysis of the factors that make

congressional institutionalization more likely. It emphasizes the role of

basic constitutional factors, as well as other institutional dynamics, which

we explain in the next section. Our results suggest that countries with the

presidential form of government, with proportional representation (PR)

electoral systems, and with bicameral legislatures, tend to present lower

levels of congressional institutionalization and that institutionalization

increases with the age of democracy. We also advance the notion that

countries with stronger congresses tend to produce better public policies.

Institutionalization

The term is generally used to denote the process through which

social roles, particular values and norms, or modes of behavior become

embedded within organizations, social systems, or societies as estab-

lished customs or norms. According to Huntington, “it is the process by

which organizations and procedures acquire value and stability” (1968,

12). Angelo Panebianco refers to institutionalization as a process of

“consolidation of the organization, the passage from an initial, structur-

ally f‌luid phase when a new-born organization is still forming, to a phase

8 Valeria Palanza, Carlos Scartascini, and Mariano Tommasi