Bypassing Congress: The Strategic Use of Selective Law Implementation by Brazilian Presidents

This article advances a comprehensive framework for understanding the strategic role of Brazilian presidents in the law-making process, focusing on the critical but often overlooked phase of selective law implementation. By linking legislative and administrative strategies, we highlight how presidents navigate institutional constraints and leverage their executive authority to shape policy outcomes. While vetoes are traditionally seen as the final presidential action in legislative processes, our analysis reveals that the real power lies in the administrative phase. Presidents wield the authority to issue decrees that define how laws are implemented, exercising discretion over whether to regulate the entire statute or only selected provisions. This strategic use of administrative decrees allows presidents to alter the practical effects of congressional decisions as they transition from the legislative to the executive domain. The constitutional basis for these law-implementing decrees is relatively vague, providing presidents with significant latitude to reinterpret and adapt laws to their governing priorities. We argue that inter-branch divergences in policy preferences, combined with the transaction costs of implementing complex laws, incentivize presidents to adopt selective and partial regulatory strategies. These strategies are particularly salient in contexts of political fragmentation, where cooperation with Congress is limited, or cabinet cohesion is weak. Drawing on an original dataset encompassing 7,000 laws and 30,000 administrative decrees issued by Brazilian presidents between 1985 and 2024, our empirical analysis examines variations in the extent to which laws are implemented. By exploring the number of articles regulated within each law and their correlation with inter-branch preference divergence, we demonstrate how presidents adapt their strategies to maximize executive influence in constrained political environments. This study not only sheds new light on the interplay between legislative and administrative arenas but also reframes our understanding of executive authority as a dynamic and adaptive process.