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Government and Opposition in Legislative Speechmaking: Using Text-As-Data to Estimate Brazilian Political Parties’ Policy Positions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2021

Mauricio Y. Izumi Open the ORCID record for Mauricio Y. Izumi [Opens in a new window]  and
Danilo B. Medeiros Open the ORCID record for Danilo B. Medeiros [Opens in a new window]
Mauricio Y. Izumi
Affiliation:
Mauricio Yoshida Izumi is an assistant professor at the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), Vitória, Brazil. [email protected].
Danilo B. Medeiros
Affiliation:
Danilo Buscatto Medeiros is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), São Paulo, Brazil. [email protected].
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Abstract

This research note explores whether the government-opposition dimension that emerges from voting records of Brazilian legislatures also arises in legislative speechmaking. Since the earlier stages of the legislative process are innocuous to policy outcomes, party leaders would have fewer incentives to coerce their copartisans’ behavior in speeches than in roll calls. To test this expectation, this study estimates Brazilian political parties’ policy positions, relying on a sentiment analysis approach to classify 64,000 senators’ speeches. The results suggest that the president and the party leadership exert significant influence not only over how legislators vote but also over how they speak. We speculate that these unforeseen findings are backed by the decisiveness of speeches in passing legislation, the importance leadership gives to party brand, and legislators’ need to signal their positions to leaders and the government.

Keywords

Policy positionstext-as-datalegislative speechmakingpolitical parties
Type
Research Notes
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 145 - 164
Copyright
© The Authors, 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the University of Miami

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Footnotes

Conflict of interest: the authors declare no potential conflicts of interest in publishing this paper.

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