MA thesis · 2013
The Decision-Making Process in the National Constituent Assembly
Rodrigo Martins. O Processo Decisório na Assembleia Nacional Constituinte 1987-88: a Escolha do Sistema de Governo. University of São Paulo.
- Type
- MA thesis
- Year
- 2013
- Topic
- 1987-88 Constituent Assembly and system of government
- Approach
- Historical analysis, debates and votes
- Institution
- University of São Paulo
Executive Summary
Problem and purpose
The thesis analyzes how Brazil's 1987-88 National Constituent Assembly decided to preserve presidentialism despite the relevance of parliamentary government at the time. Its goal is to reconstruct the decision-making process around the choice of the system of government, identifying actors, preferences, proposals and strategies.
Approach and data
The work combines historical review, analysis of debates and votes, and reconstruction of the political forces active in the Constituent Assembly. It examines speeches, floor statements, opinion polls, party positions, the Humberto Lucena Amendment and divisions among political and cross-party groups.
Main findings
The choice of presidentialism was not merely the result of an abstract preference for one institutional model. It emerged from political calculations, concessions, party alignments, internal divisions and the strategies of actors disputing the institutional design of the new democracy.
Contribution
The thesis contributes to understanding the Constituent Assembly as an arena of institutional choice and shows how constitutional decisions result from concrete political interactions, not only from normative debates about systems of government.