Parliamentary Elite Preferences Toward International System Actors: The South American Case

Abstract

In South American countries, foreign policy is developed, directed and implemented by the executive powers of each country, this being a characteristic feature of presidential systems. Legislatures, on the other hand, have ex-post control functions over the actions of their governments and the participation of legislators in international parliamentary organizations. For these reasons, most studies have focused on the actions of the executive. Using data from the Parliamentary Elites project of the University of Salamanca, this work aims to identify the foreign policy preferences of South American parliamentarians (parliamentary elite), and which variables are most related to said preference based on a factor analysis. The variables used for this work are the preference of parliamentarians towards actors of the international system (dependent variable), and as independent variables, ideological location, membership in a political party, party discipline and the role of the State are analyzed.