Abstract:Prior to the military regime of 1973-90, Chile's Congress was widely regarded as among the strongest legislatures in Latin America, largely because of the nature of its party system. In the wake of the transition back to democracy, the role of both Congress and the nature of the legislative party system are open to question. This paper examines the nature of legislative careers, the leadership institutions of Congress (committees and mesas directivas), and patterns of floor voting in the Chamber of Deputies to evaluate the relative importance of Chile's traditional parties and the two new main coalitions in structuring legislative behavior. I conclude that the coalitions are more important institutional actors than has been recognized by most of the literature on the post-transition Chilean Congress.

No abstract

No abstract

Las colecciones de Documentos de Trabajo del CIDE representan un medio para difundir los avances de la labor de investigación, y para permitir que los autores reciban comentarios antes de su publicación definitiva. Se agradecerá que los comentarios se hagan llegar directamente al (los) autor(es).

Canadá) y que dirige un jurista, pensador y politólogo que cada vez es más conocido en España, el noruego Bjarne Melkevik.