Friends in High Places: Congressional Influence on the Bureaucracy in Chile

Latin American Politics and Society, Summer 2008 by Ferraro, Agustín

To neutralize the constitutional powers of the president, the political influence of Congress must be based on firmly established political practices. In two of his recent contributions on the subject, Siavelis describes three main mechanisms or "avenues" of parliamentary influence in Chile (Siavelis 2002, 2006). The first corresponds to a new ministry created in 1990, soon after democratization, the secretaria General de la Presidencia. The main task assigned to this department is precisely to provide for effective communication between the executive and legislative branches.3 Among other activities, officials at the ministry draft the president's legislative agenda, paying careful attention to legislators' stances on particular issues and changing legislative proposals when necessary, as reported in interviews (Siavelis 2002, 103).

Frequent meetings, both formal and informal, between representatives of the executive and members of Congress are the second mechanism of congressional influence described by Siavelis (2002, 104, 2006, 46). Legislators of the governing coalition often meet with ministers, undersecretaries, and high-level officials to discuss legislative proposals. These meetings create longstanding channels of communication and influence between members of the two branches.

The third avenue of parliamentary influence is based on the reality that governments in Chile, since the transition to democracy, have been formed by political coalitions. Ministerial portfolios are distributed among the coalition parties in such a way that minister and vice minister have different political affiliations. Siavelis notes that this informal rule is known in Chile as cuoteo politico, and that it provides coalition members with a guarantee that their programmatic concerns will be incorporated into the government agenda. The same dynamic extends to the legislative arena; and if presidents attempted to dominate the legislative process, they would be accused of not respecting coalition agreements or not respecting the "spirit" of the coalition (Siavelis 2002, 107).

Siavelis is not the only author who has remarked on the strong political influence of the Congress in Chile. Nef and Galleguillos (1995) were probably the first to observe that the Chilean legislature has been able to circumvent the strict limits imposed on its power by the constitution adopted by the dictatorship in 1980, which remains in force with amendments today. Carey argues that the Chilean Congress could be weak in some regards, but it has developed the tools to be a serious player in the political arena (2000, 138). He emphasizes further the high professional level and policy expertise of legislators, and proposes that this professionalism should be considered a sign of congressional capacity and political autonomy (2002, 253).

Even relatively recently, Londregan has still assumed the executive dominance over the legislative process in Chile (2000, 3D, a thesis he bases simply on the true but very unspecific notion that legislatures in Latin America do not have staff resources and research facilities like those at the disposal of the U.S. Congress. Londregan pays no attention at all to informal channels of influence, and he develops, accordingly, several spatial models assuming a factual agenda monopoly of the president (Londregan 2000, 43). Baldez and Carey (2002, 130) also postulate spatial models of the legislative process in Chile, but they emphasize that Congress regularly incorporates its preferences into executive proposals through informal channels of communication.