This is a significant work which should be of interest not only to students of contemporary Latin America but also to students of the legislative process in general. The work introduces new approaches to the study of, and thus offers new interpretations of, Latin American legislatures. Rejecting out-of-hand the “rubber stamp” theory, “the primary objective of the vast majority of the papers in the book is an exploratory description and analysis of the decisional (or influence) function of the respective legislatures, although a few papers also examine other functions (e.g., representation) and two discuss possible dysfunctions of the legislative institutions. . ..” The book consists of an introduction and eleven studies which focus upon aspects of legislative politics in Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Argentina (two studies), Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia (two studies), and Venezuela. The studies are organized into three categories: (1) the deviant cases—“relatively influential on a world scale”—i.e., Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay; (2) the transitional cases—“increasing decisional influence or closed down since 1960”—i.e., Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, and Peru; and (3) the modal cases-“weak decisional influence”—i.e., Colombia and Venezuela. Thus, even though all Latin American legislatures are not examined in the book, examples of all relevant types are presented.
While all of the studies in the book are of high quality, several are worthy of note, primarily because they contain sections of special theoretical and/or methodological interest. These include Weston H. Agor’s treatment of decisional authority and institutionalization in the Chilean Senate, Ronald H. McDonald’s treatment of cultural, institutional, and party controls over the Uruguayan legislature, Robert Packenham’s treatment of the legitimation function of the Brazilian National Congress, and Gary W. Hoskins treatment of representation as purpose and activity and as decision-making and focus in the Colombian National Legislature. These treatments in particular indicate that creative scholars possessing sound knowledge of Latin America can generate valuable findings about Latin American legislatures by modifying and applying theory and method developed for use in other cultural contexts.
The message of this seminal work, therefore, is two-fold: first, Latin American legislatures are really a lot more important than heretofore generally assumed, and, second, if today’s theory and method of political research can be applied profitably to the study of Latin American legislatures, perhaps it can be applied profitably to other Latin American political institutions.
