State secretariats and party coalitions issues management at the State of São Paulo legislature

Abstract

Does the relation between the executive and legislative branches of the state reproduce the dynamics found at the federal level? In what the literature has agreed to call "Coalition presidentialism", the president has several tools (Provisional Measure, Power of Urgency, initiating new legislation, the exclusivity of initiating budget legislation, etc.) and non-legislative (naming its Ministry, discretion in budget execution, executive positions, etc.) that empowers him with the ability to build coalitions to support the government and dominate the legislative agenda (Figueiredo and Limongi, 2000 and 2002, Raile, Pereira and Power, 2011, Santos 2003). Could it be that at the state level we would have observed the reproduction of the same interaction between the executive and the legislature at the federal level? A good indication that states would function in a similar way is the great capacity of governors of to form post-electoral majority coalitions. Rare are the cases in the Brazil in which the governor is in the minority (Santos, 2001). That is, thanks to the potential benefits controlled by governors, various parties and parliamentarians are motivated to give political support to the state executive in the expectation of having access to such resources. (AU)