The selection of committee leadership in the Brazilian chamber of deputies

This article contributes to the study of legislative organisation by contrasting the process of committee chair selection in two distinct institutional environments. The goal is to verify how party loyalty affects the distribution of committee chairmanship in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, focusing on two distinct historical periods. The main hypotheses are tested using a data set that contains information about federal deputies' career characteristics, both inside and outside the Chamber, measured on an annual basis, in two distinct democratic periods – 1946 to 1964 and 1989 to 1998. The article's main conclusions are: first, in a situation where parties are oriented by a factional logic and where power distribution between party leaders and committee chairs is more equal, party loyalty is a crucial factor in the allocation of committee chairmanships. Second, in a broader perspective, the interaction between committees and parties cannot only be explained by incentives emanating from the electoral connection, for it also suffers from the influence of executive–legislative relations.