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Council Of Elders? The Senate and Its Members in the Southern Cone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Mariana Llanos  and
Francisco Sánchez
Mariana Llanos
Affiliation:
Institut für Iberoamerika-Kunde
Francisco Sánchez
Affiliation:
University of Salamanca
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Abstract

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This research note contributes to the comparative studies on legislative careers. It sheds light on the scarcely researched members of four Latin American upper houses, the Senates of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. It examines both the basic social features of the parliamentary elite—age, gender, level of education, and university careers—and the legislators' political careers. The goal is to find out whether the upper houses are composed of a larger proportion of senior members than the respective lower chambers, that is, of members who not only are older, wealthier, and more educated, but that also have greater political experience. As a result of this research, the Senates of Chile and Uruguay stood out for having the largest share of senior members. The Brazilian Senate followed them with a considerable level of seniority. As a consequence of a series of institutional reforms based on the 1994 constitution, the Argentine Senate differed from the other three cases as being a much junior chamber.

Resumen:

Resumen:

Esta nota de investigacion intenta contribuir a los estudios comparativossobrecarreras legislativas, a traves del estudiode los miembros, hasta ahora poco investigados, de cuatro carnaras altas de America Latina: los Senadosde Argentina, Brasil, Chiley Uruguay. La presentenotaexamina tanto los rasgos sociales basicos de la elite parlamentaria -edad, genero, nivel de educacion y carreras universitarias-como las carreras politicas de los legisladores. Elobjetivoquepersiguees comprobarsi las mencionadascamaras altas estan compuestas por un mayor mimero de miembros seniorque las respectivas camaras bajas, es decir, por miembros que no solamente son mas viejos, masadinerados y mas educados, sino quecuentancon una experiencia politica mayor. Como resultado, los Senados de Chile y Uruguay se destacan por tener la proporcion mas alta de miembros senior, a los que les sigue el Senado brasileno con un nivel bastante considerable. En cambio, como consecuencia de una serie de reformas institucionales basadas en la Constitución de 1994, el Senado argentino difiere de los tres anteriores por tener una cámara alta mucho más jóven.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , February 2006 , pp. 133 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

∗

The authors wish to thank Mark Jones, Fabrice Lehoucq, Detlef Nolte, and the two anonymous reviews for their helpful comments. This research note presents some of the results obtained in a research project on the functions and functioning of the Senates in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. This project was carried out between 2001 and 2004 at the Institut für Iberoamerika-Kunde (IIK) in Hamburg, Germany, with the financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

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