The Chamber of Deputies Under Influence: Interest Groups, Lobby and Legislative Behavior in Brazil

Manoel Leonardo Santos1

Centro de Estudos Legislativos Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - UFMG

Enivaldo Rocha

Universidade Federal de Pernambuco- UFPE

Dalson Figueiredo Filho Universidade Federal de Pernambuco- UFPE

Abstract: This paper seeks to test the power of lobbying in determining the political outcomes in the Chamber of Deputies. More specifically, we measured the intervention by the NCI (corporate lobbying) and the production sector (pluralistic lobbying) as independent variables in an attempt to explain the approval of the Legislative Agenda of Industry during the period of 1996/2010. As control variables we considered the legislative initiative by the Executive, the rules governing the handling of proposals and the type of change required by the proposition. The Binary Logistic Regression models have as the dependent variable success rate in passing the Legislative Agenda of the NCI, measurement that replicates the methodology developed by Mancuso (2007). The results indicate a conditional influence of lobbying on policy outcomes, as supported by literature. Lobbying is a good predictor of political outcomes, but does not exercise this power indiscriminately. The industry lobbying is more effective within the committees and is more effective particularly in creating an entry barrier for new legislation. In this sense, lobbying is more effective in maintaining the status quo than in converting the demands into new legislation. When it comes to new legislation, that is, a change in the status quo, the success of the lobbying is also effective, but greatly depends on its alignment with the Executive branch. Confirming the notion that the government's alignment with the productive sector is fairly consistent throughout the period, the results show that the industry's legislative success was not significantly altered by the change in the ideological matrix of the government in 2003. In short, the legislative success of the productive sector is not affected by the ideological matrix, and the explanation for this is that economic development is, for all governments, a goal to be pursued. Since as a general rule this goal is shared with the productive sector, this congruence and synergy, although not always taking place in a peaceful way, has been the rule across the studied period.

Keywords: interest groups, lobbying and influence, pressure groups, Executive-Legislative relations, new institutionalism, the industry's legislative agenda; NCI.

The Chamber of Deputies Under Influence: Interest Groups, Lobby and Legislative Behavior in Brazil

Introduction

Political decisions in democratic systems are the result of processes in which many relevants factors interact in a complex way. One of the factors that present itself as an important element to Political Science is the performance of organized interests within the institutions of power on the State. Therefore, at least four relevant questions have been occupying theoriticians of this field: (i) what is the role of organized interests in the decision-making process? (ii) From which characteristics of a given country (and its political system in particular) stem different types, quantity, extension and strength of special interests groups? (iii) What happens when a great number of groups with

1 The authors thank to IPESPE (Instituto de Pesquisa Social e Econômica) for technical and financial support that made this work possible. It is important to register that the ongoing dialogue between UFMG and UFPE researchers and technicians of IPESPE has been constituted as a rich academic experience.

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different goals compete for influence? (iv) What determines the influence of these groups and makes them able to affect the political outcomes?2 In this paper, I try to contribute to the clarification of this latter question, trying to answer a question that falls within this context, that is, to what extent the lobbying influence political outcomes in the House of Representatives (Chamber of Deputies) in Brazil? I intend to face this challenge focusing especifically in the performance of the industrial lobbying in Congress, from 1996 to 2010.

With a rare work in the area, Mancuso (2007) showed that industrialists have played and important part in the decision-making process that involved an entire change in the Brazilian political and economic scenario. The industrialists, acting through the NCI (National Confederation of Industry) and also as individual political actors, were responsible for part of the success and adaptation of the productive sector face to the deep economic changes promoted by the market-oriented reforms. These were initiated in the nineties, but crossed the entire decade and are still responsible for issues in the the political agenda. This performance of the productive sector relates to its interaction with the Executive branch, of course, but occurred mainly through the adoption of a legislative agenda in the Congress. Such an agenda was required to create a more favorable economic environment for domestic companies facing the new competitive challenges raised by trade globalization and the opening of the Brazilian market. This legislative agenda focused, from the nineties onward, especially in the decrease of what is conventially known by the productive sector as Brazil Cost.

Another important recent work shows that those same industrialists acted in a context of changes, not only of economic but of political transfomation, in which the system of representation of interests is inserted. Diniz and Boschi (2004) argue that the business community had to adapt to the reality of the new constitutional order, overturning its pattern of relationship with the state and its form of organization. These changes were nothing more than a rational adaptation to coexist with a system of interest representation that now assumes a hybrid nature in Brazil. That is, it combines elements of corporativism with pluralism (rather typically American).

This work follows the path of those two recent studies and aims to broaden the knowledge of the area by proposing to answer a question that persists: to what extent can pressure groups, and in this particular case the industrial lobbying, be considered responsible for the political success of the productive sector in this period? This is a relevant question because, even though the strength and success of the business community is clear in this period, it is not possible to say if this success is due to the influence (lobbying) of the industry on the state institutions. More especifically, my objective here is to investigate the power of the industrial lobbying in the Chamber of Deputies, and it is explantion is due to the fact that one of the most important political changes after 1988 was the recovery of the Legislative branch as a relevant decision-making arena in the Brazilian politics (Diniz and Boschi, 2004).

In a recent study, Santos (2011) submited conclusions on the influence of industrial lobbying on parliamentary conduct in the Chamber of Deputies. The results point to a conditional but not negligible influence of the lobbying activity over the behavior of federal representatives in the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies. The industrial lobbying matters and, along with the ideology and orientation of the party leader, is an important predictor of the parlamentarian behavior (Santos, 2011). But

2 Lapalombara (1972) lists these questions, among other relevant factors to study the action of interest groups. A comprehensive list is not intended here, just the four most studied issues according to the author.

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varying the level of analysis is important because “advocates of strict methodological individualism will probably prefer to use data on individual policymakers” (Potters e Sloff, 1996). But this approach has a limitation: it is never possible to know if the influence on an individual level was sufficient to determine the aggregated results.

In truth, deriving political outcomes exclusively from the result of the aggregation of individual decisions (preference aggregation), on the part of individual legislators, usually leaves the question unanswered. After all, the political outcome is not simply the equilibrium created from the aggregation of individual preferences of actors in strategic interaction, as behaviorists advocated. If neo-institucionalists are correct, and I believe they are, the final result is strongly determined by the institutions that regulate the decision-making process. In this sense, the fundamental question here is: even if interest groups do influence the actions of individual politicians, it remains important to answer if this influence is detectable in the final outcome of the political process.

Accordingly, Potters and Sloof are precisely intuitive, (...)to influence individual political actors is just a goal derived for interest groups. Ultimately, they are interested in the final results of the political process. (Potters and Sloff, 1996)

On the other hand, this variation in the level of analysis proposed here can also be useful when it is unclear whether the activity of individual legislators is being influenced by interest group. That is, besides a roll call vote, with the presence of lobbying among legislators, the groups may be working and causing changes in other levels. That's because interest groups have an influence on many activities and this may be determining the final outcome. Gauging the aggregate results

While determining the aggregate results of the proposals concerning the Legislative Agenda of the Industry 3, it is possible to see that the results of the Chamber of Deputies as a whole are very favorable to the productive sector. No less than 63% of success in the legislative agenda of the industry sector. However, before analyzing the determinants of the success of the political agenda of the industry, it is important to note in a descriptive way the overall result for the propositions whose procedure was finished in the analyzed period. And here are considered only the proposals that had completed its course because considering proposals in progress would intail great instability in the results 4. This means that the propositions considered in this analysis were either 3 The Legislative Agenda of the Industry is in its 15th edition, and is today a fundamental device for the industry to stablish a systematic dialogue with the National Congress and civil society. The document 0lists proposals that are vital to ensure national competitiveness in the industrial park and consolidate a regulatory environment favorable to business (NCI, 2010). In the context of the legislative agenda, the tool that draws the most attention for its efficiency and its modernity is the Legisdata, "System Legisdata Web aims to enable the understanding and monitoring of legislative proposals of interest to industry presented in Congress. This monitoring is accomplished by recording the evolution of these proposals, of occurrences related to them and the positioning of NCI. This system also allows full interaction of associates who can register their position and suggestion for each proposition at each step of his progress. To feed this system, the NCI maintains a team of experts monitoring the daily activities of the National Congress, so whenever a proposal is submitted or has changed its course, it is updated in the System” (NCI, 2009) 4 Here we follow the same strategy taken by Mancuso (2008) which thus justifies the decision not to

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converted into legal rules or archived (impaired, rejected and withdrawn), or returned or vetoed. A first fact that stands out is the large number of proposals filed. Table 1 shows that they represent 62%, which include those filed by the end of term, withdrawn or rejected by the author. Interesting to think that among those, there are many proposals that had effectively been decided on the merits (rejected), but also brings an important aspect: not decision. That is, a set of proposals that was never really assessed (archived at the end of the legislature or removed by the author). These propositions are part of a certain gray area for analysis. It may be that the lobbying has some responsibility for the fact that these proposals have not continued in the process, although we can not state this categorically. Likewise, it is possible that the lobbying might have some influence over 13.3% of the proposals declared impaired, since declared that, the proposal comes out of the agenda. It is believed, however, that it is less likely, since impairment has much more technical arguments than ones 5. Finally, the proposals that have been converted to legal rules are easier to analyze, accounting for only 23.5%; this already indicates that the initial findings suggest that much of the success of the industry agenda is through the veto, and not by the adoption of new legislation. Finally, regarding returned proposals (0.8%), these constitute a minority who are excluded from the analysis. President Vetoes (0.2%), likewise, will not be in focus here.

Table 1 – Final status of proposals of interest to industry (1996/2010)

Final status Frequency %

Archived (end of term, removed by the author, rejected) 304 62,2

Legal rules (converted to a legal norm) 115 23,5

ImpairedArt. 164- RICD) 65 13,3

Vetoed by the Executive branch (partially or totally) 4 0,8

Returned (Art. 137 and 125 – RICD)6 1 0,2

include proposals pending before the analysis. “The choice not to focus on the pending proposals may seem questionable. After all, the absence of final decision on a legislative proposal could be seen as an indicator of success or failure for the organized interest. On the one hand, postponing the final decision would indicate success as that would prevent the expected loss with the compliance of the proposal rejected, or allow time for political action in order to make the proposition acceptable or at least minimize the losses. On the other hand, postponing the final decision would indicate failure as it prevented the realization of potential gains from the adoption of a friendly overture. The plausibility of this interpretation is acceptable, but the classification of pending proposals as successes or failures of the industry is too unstable, given the dynamic nature of the political process.” (Mancuso (2008). 5 Art. 164. The President of the Chamber of Deputies or Committee, ex officio or at the initiative of any Member, will declare impaired the pending proposal: I - for having lost the opportunity; II - due to aprejudgment by the Plenary or Committee or, in another resolution. § In any case, the statement of impairment will be made before the House or Committee, and the decision published in the Official Gazette of the Chamber of Deputies. § 2º From the statement of impairment can the author of the proposal, within five sessions after the publication of the order, or immediately in the event of the subsequent paragraph, appeal to the Plenary of the House, who will decide, after consultation with the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship Committee. (Paragraph with wording adapted to Resolution No. 20 of 2004) § 3º If the impairment, declared in the course of voting, concerns the amendment or device of matter under consideration, the opinion of the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship Committee will be delivered orally(Paragraph with wording adapted to Resolution No. 20 of 2004) § 4º The proposal considered impaired will be archived by the President of the House. 6 Art. 137Any proposal received by the Board shall be numbered, dated, dispatched to the concerned Committees and published in Official Gazette of the Chamber of Deputies and in single issues, to be distributed to the Members, the party leaders and Committees. § 1º Besides what was established in the

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Final status Frequency %

Archived (end of term, removed by the author, rejected) 304 62,2

Legal rules (converted to a legal norm) 115 23,5

ImpairedArt. 164- RICD) 65 13,3

Vetoed by the Executive branch (partially or totally) 4 0,8

Returned (Art. 137 and 125 – RICD)6 1 0,2

Total 489 100,0 Source: NCI/2010

These same results, when related to the position of the NCI on the proposals of interest to the productive sector, can show relevant aspects of the mechanisms that ensure the success of industry in the legislative Chamber of Deputies. Through the Legislative Agenda for Industry and the Legisdata, NCI sends its position on the proposals of interest in four categories: Convergent, Convergent with reservations, Divergent with reservations and Divergent. Thus ended its procedure, it is possible to infer the final legislative outcome for these proposals in relation to the interests of the sector.

This method of analysis of the legislative success of the industry was developed by Mancuso (2008) and the criteria to consider the success (or failure) of the industry that will be used here are exactly the same ones used by the author7. Chart 1, reproduced in its entirety, provides the criteria set out in his recent work, and summarizes the idea.

art. 125, the President will return to the Author any proposal that: I - is not properly standardized and in terms II - relate to matters: a) from outside the jurisdiction of the the House, b) clearly unconstitutional; c) anti-regimental. § 2º In the event of the preceding paragraph, the author of the proposition will appeal to the Plenary, within five sessions of the publication of the decision, hearing Constitution, Justice and Citizenship Committee in the same period. If the appeal is provided, the proposal will return to the the Presidency to follow the appropriate procedure. (Paragraph with wording adapted to Resolution No. 20 of 2004) 7 We avoid here the full reproduction of the formalizationd of the method. The more interested reader can see the detail in Mancuso (2008) O lobby da indústria no Congresso Nacional: empresariado e política no Brasil contemporâneo. Anexo II – Critérios para classificar o sucesso legislativo da indústria.

Final status of the procedure Industry position Outcome

Converted to a legal norm

Convergent SUCCESSFUL

Convergent with reservations

Divergent with reservations UNSUCCESSFUL

Divergent

Impaired by a new legal rule

Convergent SUCCESSFUL

Convergent with reservations

Divergent with reservations UNSUCCESSFUL

Divergent

Rejected Divergent SUCCESSFUL

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Chart 1 - Criteria to classify decisions as industry success

Source: Reproduced from Mancuso (2008)

Considering the criteria listed in Chart 1, the results in terms of legislative

success for the productive sector are the following.

The legislative success of the industry in numbers From the 4828 proposals analyzed between 1996 and 2010, the industry was successful in 63% (304 proposals). A success rate quite compatible with 66.7% of the positive result achieved in the roll-call votes in Plenary 9, and this number reinforces the thesis of the legislative success of the industry. However, the mechanisms that determine the overall results in the Chamber are very different from those confined to the Plenary. It’s important to note, in the table below, only 29.3% of success was of propositions that were conveted to legal norms (83 proposals) and only 13.8% were through explicit rejection of matter (42 proposals). That is, only 43.1% of success is verified in proposals that actually got to be deliberated. The remaining 56.9% success was achieved by the archiving by the end of term, the proposal being impaired or by being removed by the author. How to interpret this data? Table 2 - Legislative success in the industry by the final decision (1996/2010)

Result of the procedure Unsuccessful Successful Total

Archived 80 121 201

(44,9) (39,8) (41,7)

Legal norm 26 89 115

(14,6) (29,3) (23,9)

Impaired 32 33 65

(18,0) (10,9) (13,5)

8 The difference from 7 propositions to 489 listed in Table 1 is due to the fact that here were suppressed the proposals that have been returned(1), vetoed (4) and 2 more propositions for which there is no data on the position of NCI in relation to its content. 9 This result is available in SANTOS, M. L. (2011) O parlamento sob influência: o lobby da indústria na Câmara dos Deputados. Doctoral thesis – Universidade Federal de Pernambuco.

Divergent with reservations

Divergent with reservations UNSUCCESSFUL

Convergent

Removed by the author

Divergent SUCCESSFUL

Divergent with reservations

Divergent with reservations UNSUCCESSFUL

Convergent

Archived by the end of term

Divergent SUCCESSFUL

Divergent with reservations

Divergent with reservations UNSUCCESSFUL

Convergent

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Removed by the author 19 19 38

(10,7) (6,3) (7,9)

Rejected 21 42 63

(11,8) (13,8) (13,1)

Total* 178 304 482

(100) (100) (100)

* Vetoed and returned ones were excluded. Source: NCI/Legisdata.

It is worth noting at the outset that much of the industry's success is related to

the maintainance of the status quo. That is, much of the industry's success lies in not changing reality, in preventing the spread of ideas contrary to their interests in Parliament. And this is clear when a significant part of success is by archiving. This is precisely the reason why it is important to study not only the plenary, but the legislative process that precedes it, because it is where substantive part of the propositions has its destination set. Another point that emerges from these results is that even among the proposals that had effectively undergone a judgement, namely, were either rejected or approved, only a small part had been decided in the plenary and by roll call vote. It’s relevant to point out that during the period covered, only 34 proposals went effectively to roll call vote. That is, the vast majority of decisions are taken or by symbolic vote in the plenary or remain restricted to the committees, since they have full legislative powers.

This information is important because determining the results in plenary is not easy for the lobbyists. Its success, almost as a rule, effectively depends on its alignment with the Executive branch. Whereas in the committees the situation is quite different. First, because for a good portion of proposals that are in committees, the Executive can be indifferent, and therefore can not mobilize forces to make these proposals enter the political agenda of the Chamber. I affirm this because we know that, to get a proposal on the agenda of the Chamber and then to make it follow its course with a certain speed, a focused effort is needed to solve nontrivial collective action problems. And the literature shows that only the Executive branch (through the party leaders) has the necessary resources and the ability to distribute selective incentives to do so. In my perspective, this explains the 201 archived proposals (see table 3) and the fact that 121 of these filings are seen as success for the industry.

Second, for the same reason of the Executive branch’s indifference, it is known that it becomes easier to defeat a proposal within the committees, as they draw less attention for both the public opinions and other groups of stakeholders that could generate opposition to such rejection. It’s necessary to consider, of course, that industrialists form a group that has differentiated resources compared to the others, making it easier for them to exert their influence on these collegiate bodies rather than in plenary. Thus, whether by shelving (archival) or by veto (rejection), it seems clear that it is within the committee that a considerable part of the success of the industry is more effective.

One fact that can helps us understand this mechanism is the origin of the proposals in focus. The table below shows the legislative success of the industry based on the origin of the propositions. Here is repeated the industry's success in proposals whose origin is in the Executive (64.2%), reiterating the idea that much of this success is related to the convergence of agendas between government and the productive sector.

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Table 3 – Industry’s legislative success based on the origin of the proposals (1996/2010)

Iniciative Insuccess Success Total

Legislative branch 137 229 366

(37,4) (62,6) (100)

Executive branch 43 77 120

(35,8) (64,2) (100)

total 180 306 486

(37,0) (63,0) (100) Source: NCI/Legisdata

But another important fact appears here as well. Note that the success of the industry is 62.6% in proposals that originate in the Legislature. This data, combined with the fact that most of this success is by archiving, and that it is more effective in propositions originated in Parliament, originates very interesting results. The outcome suggests that within the committees the struggle and success of the industry are highly defined by their firm intention of barring innovations that might contradict their interests. This is because it is through the parliament, and not the Executive, that the plural interests are manifested. Whether by the submission of a particular legislative proposal by a Deputy, or for its amendment. It is clear that much of the large number of proposals originated in Parliament have only the political role of credit claiming 10. That is, the Deputy has only to take the credits for submitting the proposal, since he knows that it will be very difficult to approve it. But even so, this does not invalidate the fact that it is through these legislators that the plural interests manifest themselves, and hold those interests against the ones belonging to the industry is also an important and nontrivial task for their representatives and lobbyists.

Finally, an also important finding is failure. It is easy to understand the unsuccessful outcome of industry when it is opposed to the Executive (35.8%), after all, as already shown, the tendency of the legislative process in Brazil favors the Executive branch. Therefore, proposals from such origin are much more likely to succeed. On the other hand, understanding the industry’s failure on the proposals originated in the Legislature is not so trivial. An alternative route to understandd such fact suggestes that this failure is the result of filing the proposals submitted by legislators, those who had the support of NCI. If not, legislative proposals and amendments are presented as the result of previous convergence between legislature and the productive sector. In this sense, a limitation on the strength of lobbying appears quite clear. Barring is easy for lobbying, but to innovate, on their behalf, via legislation (through their representatives) is an activitity that is as difficult for them as it is for their opponents. And it reinforces the idea that the success of the lobbying is strongly related to its alignment with the Executive, especially when it comes to innovation. Yet when it comes to maintaining the status quo, the situation is more favorable to the productive sector.

10 The term comes from the American literature that assumes that the demand for credit is the key to convert the actions of allocation of state resources in electoral benefits. Most notably, the claim for credit is at the center of the analysis of Mayhew (1974), on the incentives of members of Parliament to seek particularized benefits for their constituents. With the clear objective of increasing their chances of reelection "claiming the credit of the action is very important for the congressmen, with the result that much of the life of the Congress is a relentless pursuit of opportunities for allocative policies pork barrel-type " (Mayhew, 1974: 53). However, given the controversy over the past few years, is not entirely clear that the policy operators will always have a right for credit in general and throughout his district, but only in some cases.“We can no longer assume that the claim for credit is universal for all things that go into an election district.” (Bickers; Evans e Wrinkle, 2007).

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All these speculations informed by descriptive data lead us to ask more emphatically, what is, effectively, the impact of lobbying on decisions that are not subject to roll-call vote in the plenary? How much of that success can be credited to the lobbying? That's the question that the analytical model that follows tries to answer. A model to measure the impact of lobbying on legislative results As seen, the success of legislative lobbying of the industry is, in general terms, a fact. But what determines this success? Does it go beyond alignment with the executive? Does the lobbying within the committees have the same characteristics of the lobbying in plenary? These objects are the focus from now on, starting with the dependent variable. The legislative success as the dependent variable

Here we propose a binary logistic regression model. In this sense, as we want to explain the determinants of legislative success of industry, the dependent variable could not be other than the success of the industry in legislative proposals contained in the Legislative Agenda of Industry during this period. The dependent variable is operationalized in exactly the same way as explained in the previous section (Chart 1). Thus, the industry's legislative success is measured by a dummy variable that takes values from 0 (failure) and 1 (success). The latter receives this value for being the phenomenon of interest, that is, the event to be explained by the independent variables. It is expected, accordingly, a positive association between the determinants of decision-making process (such as lobbying, for example) and the dependent variable. Important to notice that success here is measuring the overall success, that is, considering completed proposals. This implies considering the propositions converted in law, but also a large number of archived ones. This means that the industry's legislative success indicator captures not only the most relevant propositions which contain a high degree of conflict, but almost all the legislative activity that, in one way or another, interests the productive sector. Lobbying, the Executive branch and the parliamentary rules of the game as independent variables

The industrial lobbying in two dimensions

As conceived in this work, lobbying is, in a straightforward definition, the strategy of the use of information by interest groups and politicians. Since groups generally develop greater expertise in their field that many politicians, there are in fact several situations where cooperation is the dominant strategy. That is, the interaction between politicians and groups takes place mainly in order to produce relevant information, for mutual support and as a bargaining chip. The well informed policymaker can gain from it and as well as the stakeholder group. This is because the interaction maximizes the chances of the group influencing decision-making and at the same time benefiting the politician (the agent). On the other hand, the group has incentives to share the information it produces as a public good, without diminishing its value, because its members can share the costs of production and delivery of information (Grossman and Helpman, 2006).

According to the authors, the study of lobbying can be done as a progression of

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models ranging from soft-information models starting with cheap information - cheap talk - and advancing to face costly information models – costly signaling. In the sequel, the cycle is completed with studies of the process of educating the public in an election. Cheap talk and costly signaling models belong to the action in order to influence government agencies and the Parliament (to government in office), while models of public education in the election belongs to the process of electing governments. The last question is left to political financing.

This work captures only the relationship between lawmakers and lobbying, and assumes that the lobbying, in parliament, can be measured from efforts undertaken in two ways: from pressure groups towards the mobilization of their counterparts through the exchange of information, but also from the lawmakers own interest in raising information to their parliamentary action. In particular, we seek to measure the number of lobbying actions around a specific legislative proposal. Thus, the lobby here was operationalized from a factor analysis involving a set of indicators consisting of both the direct action of groups and the particular action of its representatives (Deputies) around the legislative proposals of interest to industry

Therefore, it is proposed here, from a factor analysis with an exploratory purpose of the NCI data and the Chamber of Deputies, for the lobbying to be measured from two dimensions, the corporate lobby and the pluralistic lobby11.

The first dimension concerns the corporate lobbying of NCI, and the data show that it is the first and most important dimension of the lobbying. This dimension is formed by the intensity of activities performed by NCI in the parliament. And here are considered four activities: (i) actions and contacts made with parliamentarians, (ii) opinions issued, (iii) suggested amendments and (iv) technical notes produced. The actions taken by the representatives of NCI in parliament represent contacts with parliamentarians, the participation of technicians from NCI in meetings, participation in public hearings, among others. These actions are related to each legislative proposal, specifically.

Technical notes are small technical reports issued by the NCI on the legislative proposals of interest to make explicit the position of the NCI in relation to the proposal, as well as the fundamentals of his position. In general, these notes are delivered to Deputies in a key position to decide on a proposition, the rapporteurs or members of a relevant committee. However, not infrequently they may also be strategically distributed to a larger number of parliamentarians. The suggested amendments are the result of a convergence of views between the NCI and the parliamentarian that proposes them. These amendments are drawn up by parliamentarians but in general can contain suggestions given by the NCI, which maintains ongoing dialogue with legislators more attuned to their purposes. Finally, the number of opinions issued. These opinions prepared by the NCI are more specialized legal or technical documents guiding the NCI's own views regarding the impact of a certain proposition for the industry. They are usually internal documents, but is based on these opinions that the NCI stands convergent or contrary to a certain proposition. It is believed that the number of the opinions issued around a proposition well expresses the degree of relevance and call that the organization has in relation to a particular proposition. Thus, all together, these activities depict the weight that a particular proposal has for the sector, as well as their 11 There is a large inductive component in the way of operationalizing the lobbying variable built in two dimensions. This is because the lobbying activities of the NCI are multiple, and therefore they contain a high degree of association (covariance), which would make impracticable its use in the model with isolated variables. Therefore, in an exploratory way, from the factor analysis two dimensions that combine different lobbying activities and that are explained in statistical detail in Annex 1.

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degree of political mobilization around it. This set of lobbying activities conducted by NCI explained (35.8%) of the variation and, as would be expected, this factor is termed as corporate lobbying.

Independent variable: corporate lobbying

Operationalization: factor 1 (35.8%) of the variance of all lobbying activities conducted by both the NCI and pluralistic/extra corporate activities. Type: numerical Value: varies depending on the number of standard deviations from the average (see Annex 1)

Hypothesis: The increase in terms of standard deviation in the intensity of lobbying increases the likelihood of legislative success of the industry.

The second dimension relates to pluralistic lobbying. It emerges from the same factor analysis and concerns lobbying activities in general, which are not necessarily concentrated and motivated by the actions of NCI, although expected to be derived from them. Here the measurement is given by two variables: amendments suggested by Deputies associated with the industry and opinions issued, votos em separado and the final draft offered by the representatives involved with the industry 12. It is called pluralistic lobbying because it is not restricted to the activities of NCI and therefore not necessarily emerge from the activities of an entity from the corporate system, ending atomised actions, typical of pluralism (multiple extra corporate organizations, representing organized interests). This indicator also captures the parliamentarian’s own interest in gathering information about a certain proposal, as well as his interest in obtaining political gains arising from the advocacy of certain organized interests.

Independent variable: pluralistic lobbying.

Operationalization: factor 2 (18.5%) of the variance of all lobbying activities conducted by both the NCI and the activities pluralist / extra corporate Type: numerical Value: varies depending on the number of standard deviations from the average (see Annex 1)

Hypothesis: The increase in terms of standard deviation in the intensity of the lobbying enhances the probability of the industry legislative success.

Finally, it is expected that with the two dimensions, it is possible to measure the lobbying relations which involve, on one side, the action of the corporate groups toward the representatives and at the same time, the interest of these on the representation of plural interests of the productive sector.

The opposition groups The theory suggests that the influence of lobbying can be strong "when there is

no opposition - and preferably without active support - of the public, other organized interests and state officials” (Fowler and Shaiko, 1987; Schlozman and Tierny, 1986). In this sense, it seems important to verify the context in which the political dispute takes 12 The criterion for considering a representative "related to the industry” is his/her backgound. That is, the main economic activity declared by the parliament. Important to record here our thanks to the NECON / IUPERJ. In particular to Professors Santos Fabiano and Renato Boschi, for the availability of data on parliamentary careers in Brazil. It is no exaggeration to say that this contribution was decisive for the model to be operationalized.

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place inside the parliament. To capture this context, the model considered a variable called opposition groups, which refers to the effort made by other pressure groups (other than the industrial one) to influence the results. This effort is checked by the intensity of the amendment by the other interested parties in a particular legislative proposal. Independent variable: other groups.

Indicator: degree of mobilization of other organized interests that present themselves in a particular issue as a competitor to the lobbying of the productive sector. Operationalization: the percentage of amendments submitted by other groups, i.e., proportion of amendments submitted by deputies not linked to industry, in relation to all amendments submitted to the legislative proposal Type: numerical.

Hypothesis: The greater the number of other groups interested in legislative proposals, the lower the probability of the success of the industry.

The rules of the game

A relevant aspect in determining the legislative outcome is the time that a group has to act on behalf of their interests. This amount of time and resources devoted to lobbying by a group can make a big difference in the outcome. One way to incorporate this variable in the analysis is to consider the regime under which a proposition is being processed. According to the Federal Constitution and House Rules, there are three types of conduct: ordinary, urgent (regimental or constitutional) and priority.

Recent studies of Figueiredo and Limongi point to the importance of urgency in the decision making process. It speeds up the procedure and shortens the period of assessment, and in this sense it is expected that being processed under the regime of urgency lowers the possibility of interfering in the proposition. In reverse, if a proposition is processing ordinarily, lawmakers and lobbyists have more time and greater opportunities to interfere with the process. Thus, rules of the game can make all the difference. The operationalization of the variable is used here under the regime conduct under which the proposal proceeded. But since no propositions proceeded under priority regime (and even if they were, this type of procedure does not actually change the outcome), here the variable was dichotomized between ordinary and urgent.

Another relevant aspect in the rules of the parliamentary game is the type of proposition. For example, amendments to the constitution have special handling, as well as bills and provisional measures have their own rules and different quorums for its approval. However, under constitutional and regimental most of them go to plenary, which means they are out of the approach proposed here. Independent variable: procedure

Indicator: indicates the procedure by which a proposition was assessed. Operationalization: procedure scheme. Type: categorical. Values: 0 = urgency 1 = ordinary procedure

Hypothesis: if a proposition is processing ordinarily, the probability of legislative success of the industry is larger than in relation to proposals that proceed through as urgent. Change vs. status quo as a control variable

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An important variable in the analysis of legislative success of the industry relates to the type of decision generated by the completion of the processing of the proposition. Changing the status quo is generally more difficult than maintaining it. This because for it to be turned into law, a mobilization around the proposition is necessary to overcome all the legislative steps needed to its enactment or sanction. On the other hand, the huge amount of proposals in progress in the Chamber turns out to select those that are subjected to more pressure, at the same time pushing the other ones to the common grave of the archive. As with most of the proposals initiated by the Legislative, for example.

Since changing the status quo is more difficult, it is expected that there is a difference between propositions whose final result was the maintenance of the status quo. Independent variable: status quo

Indicator: indicates the end result of the legislative proposal. If it was converted into law, it changes the status quo. If it was filed, it maintains the status quo. Operationalization: the final result of the proposition. Type: categorical. Values: 0 = filed / rejected (maintain the status quo), 1= turned into law (amending the status quo).

The Executive as a control variable

Obviously, one can not ignore the power of the Executive in determining legislative outcomes. This fact has been amply proven in several studies and any analysis that ignores the Executive as a relevant actor in the legislative process is doomed, at least to incompleteness. The influence of the Executive on the results here is measured in terms of legislative initiative, based on the propositions of its own initiative. In this sense, it is expected that the projects initiated by the government have much more chance of being approved than those of legislative initiative. However, in terms of legislative success of the industry, it would be relevant only to expect that the initiative of the Executive determines this success if the rate of convergence of the Executive with the sector is high. In it you can see the government's position on each vote. Here this is not possible Although the position of the Executive is known for proposals of its authorship (favorable, of course), is not possible to know the position of the Executive for those authored by the Legislature, because we are talking about proposals that do not go to plenary and in, general are filed or get stuck in the committees. For these proposals, the Executive is almost never clearly positioned.

As there is no way to measure the position of the Executive on all proposals and as the Executive is a key element in the decision process, we use here the legislative initiative of the Executive as a control variable.

Control variable: iniciative Indicator: indicates that the Executive is highly in favor of this proposition, because the proposal was initiated by the Executive. Operationalization: authorship of the proposition. Type: categorical.Values: 0 = initiative of the Legislature (Members or committees), 1 = Executive initiative.

The impact of lobbying on the aggregate results

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The results of the analytical model evaluating the determinants of legislative success of the industry point to a positive outcome for the lobbying as an explanatory variable, but suggests that the effect is mediated by other constraints. The conclusions here are the following.

Table 4 - Determinants of legislative success in the industry - Binary logistic regression

Independent variables Coeficient P value odds Lobbying

Corporate lobbying (factor 1) 0,621 0,038 1,862 Pluralistic lobbying (factor 2) 0,154 0,373 1,167 Other groups 0,001 0,875 1,001

Other determinants Procedure (ordinary) 0,578 0,090 1,782

Control variables Turned into law (change in the status quo) -2,467 0,002 0,085 Iniciative (Executive) -1,452 0,019 0,234

Constant 2,705 0,001 14,947 N = 226 Nagelkerke R Square = ,192 Cox & Snell R Square = ,140

Dependent variable: legislative success of the industry..

The analysis of Table 5 shows, first, that is more effective the lobby exercised by corporate entities - lobbying headed by the NCI. While we can not state categorically that the pluralistic lobbying - certainly more atomized and less coordinated - has explanatory power because the significance leads us to accept the null hypothesis. The same happens with the variable of opposition groups.

Furthermore, other determinants of legislative success draw attention and appear as relevant independent variables that contribute to the explanation. The first relates to the type of procedure, which points towards the acceptance of the hypothesis that the more time to act around a proposal, the more the group can succeed. This is because, when the proposal is processing under the ordinary regime, the probability of success increases when compared to other forms of procedure (urgency, special priority).

The second concerns the type of decision that comes from the conclusion of the legislative proposal. The result here points to a highly limited success when the final decision was to change the status quo, i.e., when a proposal effectively seeks to change the situation through legal norm. This confirms the idea already previously noted that the success of the industry is much more related to maintaining the status quo than to promote its change. Finally, a third variable helps to understand the limits of influence of the lobbying: the presence of the Executive in the process.

The model shows that when the proposition is initiated by the Executive the likelihood of success diminishes significantly. And indeed, it summarizes a little the other variables of the model beyond the lobbying. The reasoning is relatively simple: success increases when the procedure is common and decreases when the end result is to change the status quo. Now, these two conditions are closely linked to the presence of the Executive in the decision process, since are precisely the propositions of the Executive that proceed through as an urgent regime and at the same time, they are more effectively turned into law, thus changing the status quo. In reverse, and this has been effectively demonstrated, legislative proposals proceed under the ordinary regime (for parliamentary approval for a request for an urgency is very difficult) and are those who

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end up in the same mass grave of archival, since it is more exception than rule to see legislative proposals turning into law, thus changing the status quo.

Having presented the results summarized in terms, the sections that follow bring a breakdown in terms of the statistical weight of each of these determinants, looking to further elucidate the mechanisms by which they interact. The corporate lobbying and the pluralistic lobbying The effect of the lobbying carried out by corporate entities is indeed very important in determining the results favorable to industry. The model shows that the increase of a standard deviation in the variable corporate lobbying increases in 1.862 the chance of the industry to succeed in a proposal of interest. It is important to remember that it is not possible to interpret the coefficient of logistic regression in the same way we interpret the regression coefficient in a model of ordinary least squares (OLS). For example, in the model above, the standardized value of the coefficient associated with the variable corporate lobby (factor 1) was 0.621. In a linear model, the interpretation would be: the increase of one standard deviation in the lobbying variable amounts, on average, 0.621 the dependent variable, controlling for other variables. However, in the logistic model this value has no direct interpretation. To overcome this problem, SPSS provides the exponential coefficient, i.e., the odds (reported as exp (β) in the SPSS output). Based on the exponential you can therefore calculate the odds ratio of the increase in the independent variable to influence the dependent variable.

With regard to the corporate lobbying, we saw in the model that the odds were 1.862. Thus, the interpretation is that: the increase of a standard deviation in the independent variable increases corporate lobbying, on average, in 1.862 the chance of occurrence of the event taking value 1 (legislative success of the industry) in relation to take value 0 (failure), controlling for other variables. As the odds ratio is not a very intuitive concept you can turn it into a percentage. Thus, the procedure is as follows: (odds - 1) * 100, in this case (1.862 to 1) * 100 = 86.2%. The intuitive interpretation is that at every increase of one unit (in this case a standard deviation) in the independent variable (corporate lobbying) is expected, on average, an increase of 86.2% in the probability of the event coded as 1 (legislative success of the industry), controlling for other variables.

In short, in percentage terms, the probability of success of the industry increased by 86.2% with a standard deviation increase in the variable corporate lobbying. But the so-called pluralistic lobbying here has no statistical significance (p = 0.373), although one should not ignore that the effect of variation in the values of the coefficient (0.154) and odds (1.167) show consistency with earlier results, since there is a positive association between them. Also consistent is the fact that the probability here is small, not reaching 17% of probability of influence. This is an important point because the pluralistic lobbying had interesting explanatory power in the parliamentary behavior in plenary (Santos, 2011), but here there is no way to say that it influenced the result. This result helps us to understand that in the phase of the procedure prior to the plenary, when many decisions are made and much of the industry's success is realized, lobbying activities are different.

This result leads to some interesting conclusions about the importance of lobbying in the Chamber of Deputies. Important to note that are exactly the activities coordinated and implemented by the NCI that strongly influence the results. It is worth remembering that these activities grouped by factor analysis activities are predominantly in the moments preceding the plenary. Moments in which the proposals

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often come to an end. Contacts with committee members for the delivery of technical notes, participation in public hearings, the suggestion of public hearings, contacts with parliamentarians to adjust the possibility of contributing with ideas for amendments, opinions issued to support the sector's own position on a given proposition, contacts to try to influence the agenda and rapporteurs in committees with relevant information for decision-makers are activities that together have a very significant explanatory power for the final result.

This result, as we have seen, also confirms the thesis that it is easier to influence a decision when it does not present very sharp cleavages and when the decision is given under the scrutiny limited by the other parties affected by decisions. Shaiko and Fowler (1987) and Schlozman Tierny (1986) report that it is easier to lobby to influence the results “when there is no opposition, and preferably when there is no active support from the public, other organized interests and government officials”. And it almost never occurs in decisions that go to plenary and that are taken by roll call vote. In this type of decision, both the conflict and the political repercussions of the decision are the rule. In the scope of the committees, such decisions are often subjected to situations far milder in terms of electoral accountability and horizontal control.

O Executivo e as regras do jogo e o importam?

As stated earlier, there is no way to ignore the effects of the Executive in the decision-making process in the Chamber of Deputies. The national literature has amply demonstrated its importance, especially when considering the results of the Plenary, which are strongly determined by the presence of the government in decision-making. On the other hand, the literature also points to the fact that much of the strength of the the Executive is related to its institutional design and, therefore, here too the rules of the game matter. In the results presented here, this fact repeats itself. However, the analysis of legislative success has some interesting nuances. A first point refers to the effect of the rules of the game on the outcome. The model presents a very high coefficient for the variable that controls the type of procedure a proposition undergoes (odds of 0.578 and 1.782). In short, the proposals that are assessed under the ordinary procedure increase in 78.2% the probability of legislative success of the industry. And this data is supported in the literature, which indicates that the influence increases especially "when the group has enough time to develop its activities and carry out their lobbying strategies (Smith, 1984), and" when the interest group possesses and devotes sufficient resources to perform their lobbying strategies and take advantage of its comparative advantages over their opponents "(Smith, 1984). Thus, with respect to time, it should be effectively expected that, in relation to proposals that proceed through a special system (such as the constitutional urgency, regimental urgency, regimental priority and provisional measures), the probability of lobbying influencing the outcome is lower . Regarding the availability of resources, it is worth remembering that we are talking about the lobbying of the productive sector, the most powerful group in terms of resources if compared to others. Controlling for change vs. maintaining the status quo

Another relevant point concerns the type of decision that is taken at the end of the assessment of a proposition. For propositions in which the final outcome was the change of the status quo, i.e., the propositions that have been converted into law, the

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probability of success of the industry falls. Fa0lls exactly 91.5%. And that for whatever the reason for the filing, because filing means maintaining the status quo. This result has been duly noted in Table 3. There we see that much of the industry's success occurs through the maintenance of the status quo.

The role of the Executive

Likewise, when a proposal is initiated by the the Executive, the likelihood of success of the industry drops by 76% compared to the proposals that were initiated in the legislature (either by Deputies or by committees). This finding is relevant because, as already mentioned, when the industry's interests diverge from the interests of the Executive the chance to win in plenary is minimal. What is shown here, therefore, is a finding that is consistent, although slightly different. Important to note on table 4 that the legislative success of the industry in proposals initiated by the Executive and the Legislature is very similar: 64.2% and 62.6% respectively. Obviously, this data could be a result incompatible with the model output. However, if one considers the success in quantitative terms, the data starts to make sense. The same Table 3 shows that while the industry was successful in only 77 proposals initiated by the the Executive, it was successful in 229 proposals initiated by the Legislature. So it makes sense that the probability of succeeding in proposals presented by the Executive decreases as the number here is quite disparate. In short, the success rate of the industry does not vary according to the initiative of the proposition, but the probability of success increases when two conditions are present: (a) when the proposition is originated in the Legislature and (ii) when the outcome is the maintenance the status quo. In the opposite direction, the adverse industry conditions are exactly when the lobbying is competing with the Executive, and even though the convergence between the Executive and the productive sector is present, in cases of disagreement the productive sector is severely punished by the strength of the Executive decision-making.

Important to notice that both the variable that controls the type of proposition and the other two that control the type of initiative and decision are closely linked. This is exactly why the proposals initiated by the the Executive are the ones that proceed through special regime (usually urgency). This consistency helps us to conclude that the strong lobbying of the productive sector is very efficient as an entry barrier for the propositions initiated by the Legislature, but when the Executive enters the game again here the success depends on the degree of congruence established with the Palácio do Planalto (the Brazilian presidential palace). As this congruence is generally high, the productive sector has been obtaining over the years a success rate around 63%, which seems a very positive result for the sector and points to the efficiency of the lobbying in defense of their interests in the Chamber of Deputies.

But as this result can not be credited exclusively to lobbying in the Legislative, in this case it would be important to verify how the influence of the productive sector within the the Executive occurs. Just before sending the proposal to the legislature. Probably this influence is quite strong, since it is believed there is a strong synergy between the Executive and the industrial sector. After all, economic development is a goal pursued by both. But this is a task for another study.

Considering the ideology variable

A final point that deserves consideration is the fact that on the time series studied here the country was ruled by groups quite distinct ideologically. In 2003, with

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the beginning of the Lula administration, the coalition government has moved from center-right to center-left, and, as already seen, the ideology matters in deciding whether a certain proposition is of interest to the industry (Santos, 2011). To what extent this shift in context interfered with the legislative success of the productive sector?

The table below shows that the industrialists had more success during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) administration than under President Lula’s. The success rate in the Cardoso period was 75.6%, while in the Lula administration it was 61.7%.

Table 5. Legislative success of the industry (Cardoso vs Lula 1996/2010)

Government Failure Success Total

FHC (1996/2002) 11 34 45

(24,4) (75,6) (100)

Lula (2003/2010) 59 95 154

(38,3) (61,7) (100)

Total 70 129 199

(35,2) (64,8) (100) Source: NCI/Legisdata and Chamber of Deputies

The first hypothesis that arises when one considers this fact is that ideology does matter and if the Executive has a key role in the political outcome of the Chamber of Deputies, then a leftist government should impose limits on the influence of the lobbying of the productive sector and this should decrease their legislative success. On the other hand, it is fair to expect to be present in the political agenda of a leftist government policies with more of a social and distributional nature, which would be, par excellence, contrary to liberal principles, since they impose a greater share of the state in the economy. So, if this picture is really true, the hypothesis must be formulated in order to point out that the period in which to expect less legislative success of the industry is between 2003 and 2010. Period in which the command of the country was under the responsibility of President Lula.

In this sense, the central hypothesis could be formulated as follows: a change in the ideological matrix of the government towards the left implies in a decrease of the legislative success of the industry. Notwithstanding the above table confirming this (in descriptive terms), graph 1 shows that the variation is not so clear between the different governments. Here we can see that the legislative success of the industry varies little around the mean (63%) for almost the entire period.

Important to note, however, that some periods suggest a more careful analysis. The first one goes from 1996 to 2003. The Cardoso administration was marked by a coalition of center-right and in that sense, it seems coherent to suppose (as it appears in the early years) that is broad success of the productive sector. However, since 1998 the situation changes with the deepening of market-oriented reforms and the deepening of economic institutions reform, generating costs and uncertainties to a large number of industry sectors. These changes, even though they were broadly aligned with the interests of industry, imposed costs and the regulatory environment has significantly changed its relationship with the government. The process of modernization of ports ....... almost nothing has been pacific or consensual in this context ... The graph shows that the line that plots the rate of convergence between the FCH government and the productive sector drops significantly and "pull" the line of success in this period down.

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Of course, success is generally higher in the FHC government, but probably the first years are pulling the average up for success.

Graph 1 – Legislative success of the industry and aligment with the Executive branch (1996/2010).

A second aspect concerns the transition of government. Note that the year 2003

is a unique moment. Throughout the entire series, this is where the industry's success was lower than the failure (48%). The interpretation of this fact may be that the year 2003 it is just the first year of the Lula government, and so it was a year marked by profound changes in the correlation of forces, both in the President's Office and in the National Congress. This change in the correlation of forces makes room for the entry of new leaders and new demands on the political agenda who come to fight for space with the interests of the productive sector, that when their interests are not exactly contrary. On the other hand, it is also reasonable to believe that this drop in the success of the industry lobby may be associated with the need to initiate contacts with new partners in Congress, which at that time shall have their key positions (committees, leadership, Board, etc.) occupied by actors who were not part of the universe of communication and influence of the previous period.

But in subsequent years, the pattern returns, and this probably because the Lula administration was marked by the formation of a coalition determined by leftist parties (PT, PCdoB, PSB, among others), but carried in its DNA parties of the center and right (as the PTB, the PL and PP). And this leads us to the interpretation of the third period, which runs from 2005 to 2010. It is not startling that the legislative success of the industry returns to previous levels and that this success in subsequent years follows the pattern around the average. It is feasible to believe that this happens for two reasons: first is the aforementioned ideological heterogeneity that characterizes the legislative coalition of the Lula government. This heterogeneity makes room for the manifestation of multiple interests, including those in the productive sector, of liberal nature.

The second relates probably to the broad development agenda that has surfaced during this period, led by the Federal Government and especially marked by the provisional measures and bills relating to the PAC. Note that, in particular from 2008, the congruence between the government and the productive sector grows back, and as a

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consequence, also grows the approval of the legislative agenda of the industry. Here, then, are plotted the bills mostly aimed at economic development, which are generally compatible with the interests of the productive sector.

But to answer effectively if there is significant difference between the success of the legislative lobbying between the two governments, the strategy used here has to be different. As already demonstrated, the industry's success does not take place only in relation to the proposals authored by the Executive. Instead, much of this success lies in the propositions that prevent the change of status quo, and these propositions belong, exactly to that vast majority of proposals of Legislative initiative that eventually end up discarded or archived. In this sense, it is necessary to see the legislative process as a whole. To that end, we reproduced the model previously used to explain the legislative success of the industry, but now in a way to incorporate a control variable that accounts for the two periods of government (Lula vs. FHC).

The table below shows that the introduction of the variable government (in lieu of variable initiative on the previous model) has no statistical significance. Regarding the behavior of other variables, the variation of the coefficients of P values and odds are also very subtle. Thus, in general, the results do not change substantially, but in terms of decimal places.

Table 6 – The industry success in different administrations – Binary logistic regression

Independent variables Coeficient P value odds

Lobbying Corporate lobbying (factor 1) 0,573 0,053 1,773 Pluralistic lobbying (factor 2) 0,142 0,390 1,153 Other groups -0,002 0,757 0,998

Other determinants Procedure (ordinary) 0,896 0,016 2,451 Turned into law (change the status quo) -2,467 0,002 0,085

Control variable Government (FHC) 0,562 0,169 1,755

Constant 1,631 0,022 5,109 N = 199 Nagelkerke R Square = ,158 Cox & Snell R Square = ,115

Dependent variable: legislative success of the industry.

Graph 1 already pointed to such result, helping to better understand the problem. Note that there is a substantially uniform congruence throughout the period between the industry’s legislative success and its alignment with the Executive. As stated previously, the strength of the lobbying is much more associated with its ability to block initiatives and contain multiple expressions of interest in the Legislative branch than actually approve propositions. The approval of proposals of interest to industry, as shown left, is strongly associated with the initiatives of the Executive.

As already demonstrated and also widely supported in the national literature, the protagonist of the legislative process in Brazil is the Executive. Thus, it seems that the industry's success is not confined to his ideological alignment with the government in office. Although the legislative success of the productive sector has been higher in the FHC period, as already shown, we can not establish a causal relationship between the FHC government and the success of the industry. As seen in the previous model, the alignment with the Executive branch has explanatory power, not for being an

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ideological alignment, but mainly because economic development is a common goal between the productive sector and government, and to achieve these goals we all know that the participation and synergy of both are key variables. One does not happen without the other, and everything indicates that this explains much of the ongoing success of the industry's legislative agenda over the period studied.

Conclusions

This study aimed to test the strength of lobbying in determining the political outcomes in the Chamber of Deputies. More specifically, we measured the intervention by the NCI (corporate lobbying) and the productive sector (pluralistic lobbying) on the approval of the Legislative Agenda for Industry. The results point to a conditional effect, as supported by literature.

The analysis shows that lobbying is a good predictor of political outcomes, but does not exercise this power indiscriminately. The industrial lobbying is more effective within the committees and is more effective especially in creating an entry barrier for new legislation, innovations of course, that are not of their interest. In this sense, lobbying is more effective in maintaining the status quo than in converting their claims into new legislation. When it comes to new legislation, or a change in the status quo, the success of the lobbying is also effective, but greatly depends on its alignment with the Executive branch. The approval of the agenda, in substantive terms, therefore depends on their degree of congruence with the government. This result confirms what is already strongly established in the national literature: the main actor with agenda power in the Brazilian political system is the Executive branch. However, as has been shown that there is a fairly regular congruence throughout the studied period between the interests of the Executive and the interests of the productive sector, the adoption of the agenda of interest to the productive sector is quite significant and also stable over time.

Finally, confirming the thesis that the government's alignment with the productive sector is fairly consistent throughout the period, the result shows that the industry's legislative success was not significantly altered by changing the ideological matrix of the government. The change of government altered it, but only slightly, and it was limited to the period that included the transition. Overall, the legislative success of the industry during the period 1996/2010 was not, therefore, confined to its ideological alignment with the government on duty. Although the legislative success of the productive sector has been higher in the FHC administration, as already shown, we can not establish a deterministic relation between the ideological matrix of the government and the legislative success of the industry. As seen in the suggested model, the alignment with the Executive branch (regardless of the head of the government in office) is what has explanatory power.

In short, the legislative success of the productive sector is not affected by its ideological matrix. The fact is that economic development is, for all governments, a goal to be pursued and is generally shared with the productive sector. It is known, ultimately, that to achieve of economic development the effective participation of the two actors is necessary. And this synergy, although it did not always occur in a totally peaceful way, has been the rule throughout the study period.

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Annex 1 – Factor analysis of the variables in the lobbying decision-making process (two dimensions). Factor analysis shows that there is a convergence between the multiple lobbying activities developed in Congress. The two main dimensions drawn together explain 54.4% of the variance (see table below).

Componentes Initial Eigenvalues Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings

Total % of Variance Cumulative % Total % of Variance Cumulative % 1 2,149 35,812 35,812 2,077 34,623 34,623 2 1,116 18,593 54,405 1,187 19,782 54,405 3 ,963 16,055 70,460 4 ,867 14,451 84,912 5 ,728 12,133 97,045 6 ,177 2,955 100,000

The graph below plots the dimensions that reflect the dual character of lobbying activities and their importance in the influence context. The well-defined clusters seem fairly consistent with the meaning of the variables assembled into each of two dimensions.

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FACTOR 1 – The corporate lobbying/NCI - The first and most important dimension of the lobbying is composed of activities conducted by NCI. Here are four activities considered: actions, opinions issued, suggested amendments and technical notes prepared. The actions taken by the representatives of NCI in parliament represent contacts with parliamentarians, the participation of technicians from NCI meetings, participation in public hearings, among others. These actions are related to each legislative proposal. Technical notes issued by the NCI on the legislative proposals of interest are short reports that explain the position of the NCI in relation to the proposition, as well as the fundamentals its position. In general, these notes are delivered to representatives in a key position to decide on a proposition, as a rapporteur, or members of a relevant committee. The amendments suggested by Deputies are the result of a convergence of views between the NCI and the parliamentarian who submits them. These amendments drafted by lawmakers generally consider suggestions made by the NCI, which maintains ongoing dialogue with the parliamentarian. Finally, the number of the opinions issued, such as opinions, issued by the NCI, are more specialized or technical legal documents guiding NCI's opinions regarding the impacts of a particular proposition for the industry. It is based on these opinions that the NCI stands CONVERGENT or contrary to a certain proposition and the number of the opinions issued around a proposition expresses well the relevance of this proposition is for the sector. All together, these activities depict the weight that a particular proposition has for the sector. This set of lobbying activities conducted by NCI explains 35.8% of the variation and, as it would be, that lobbying is termed as corporate lobbying. FACTOR 2 – The pluralistic lobbying– The second dimension emerging from factor analysis regards lobbying activities in general, that are not necessarily concentrated in the actions of NCI, although expected to be directly derived from them. Here the measurement is by means of two variables: amendments suggested by Deputies linked to the industry, opinions issued, votos em separado and the final draft submitted by parlamentarians connected to the industrial sector. IMPORTANT: It does not go in this second operation, for obvious reasons, the variable that verifies the presence of industry-related members who defended the proposals in plenary. This is because it involves analyzing the propositions that have NOT been in plenary. NOTE: The matrix components and their contributions to the formation of the factors are in the table below.

Components in the rotation matrixa

Variables Components

1 2 Actions made ,918 ,143 Technical notes issued ,769 -,053 Suggested amendments ,598 ,063 Opinions issued by the NCI ,510 ,085 Opinions issued – pro-industry -,025 ,806 (%) of amendments pro-industry ,156 ,709

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Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. a. Rotation converged in 3 iterations