Unidade partidária e política externa na América latina

Abstract

The paper compares 25 Latin American political parties' unity scores in domestic and foreign issues. Its main goal is to test the hypothesis of the specificity of foreign policy in structuring legislative behavior in six Latin American countries. The results show a strong similarity between the levels of party unity in domestic and foreign issues, indicating that foreign policy does not generate specific incentives influencing legislative behavior. As it occurs on domestic issues, the high levels of party unity observed on international themes suggest that the political parties and their respective leaderships are relevant actors in determining the votes of the Latin American legislator on the issues of international affairs.