Abstract
In this paper, I claim that considering a political rationality during the law-making process is a useful tool both to reach better statutes and to evaluate them. After a short introduction in which I explain why I think this subject is being misjudged among theories of legislation (which overrationalize lawmaking), I present some notes about the idea of politics, its presence in law-making and its importance to practical and theoretical interests in bills. Then, I clarify the ambiguity related to political rationality and I define it for the purposes of this paper. I also discuss how it may play an important role in the evaluation of legislative decisions, especially to undercover sinister interests. In this contribution, I suggest some critical questions needed to recognize political rationality in concrete cases by using an argumentative approach. I also propose to take these questions into account in order to guide parliamentary debates and to reach better legislative decisions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Zapatero (2009, p. 114).
- 2.
See Arendt (1975).
- 3.
For collective action, see Olson (1965).
- 4.
See Dahl (1957).
- 5.
See Tsebelis (2002).
- 6.
Black (1948). In his own words: ‘[…] in a committee m motions are put forward, that each member carries out an evaluation of each motion in regard to every other, that in the voting each motion is put against every other, and that the committee adopts as its decision (‘resolution’) that motion, if any, which is able to get a simple majority over every other’ (p. 26).
- 7.
This point takes us into another vein, which is the relations between negotiation and deliberation in lawmaking. These types of discourse are studied in argumentation literature, and thanks to this, it is possible to analyse arguers’ strategies in order to reach the objective in lawmaking: to get the bill approved.
- 8.
Charaudeau (2017) refers to the strategies of political discourse in consideration of some variables, such as the social identity of the parliamentarian, the way he perceives public opinion, the position of other political actors. For the author, from these elements, the decision to defend or attack people, ideas or actions can be understood. Charaudeau also analyzes what is needed to build a political discourse and achieve persuasion in this field.
- 9.
I wrote about this in the work ‘Quando calar é melhor que falar. Treze táticas parlamentares para aprovação das leis’ (in press).
- 10.
I use a different notion than that of Bentham. According to Bentham (1991), the idea of parliamentary tactics is associated with a set of internal corporate rules that regulate the organization and functioning of parliaments. In addition to organizing the work of parliamentarians in Bentham’s sense, the point is that parliamentary tactics offer a rich source for tactical action (in the ordinary sense), based on the concrete application of the rules of procedure, which also needs to be studied.
- 11.
See Buchanan and Tullock (1962).
- 12.
For an overview about it, see Ehrlich and Posner (1974).
- 13.
See Tullock (1993).
- 14.
See McChesney (1987).
- 15.
For another vision, see La Spina (1989), pp. 220–232.
- 16.
See Buchanan and Tullock (1962).
- 17.
See Dahl (1957).
- 18.
On the subject of political representation, see Shapiro et al. (2012).
- 19.
See Ritchie and You (2019), pp. 65–95.
- 20.
Rawls (1999). In his own words: ‘The nature of the decision made by the ideal legislator is not, therefore, materially different from that of an entrepreneur deciding how to maximize his profit by producing this or that commodity, or that of a consumer deciding how to maximize his satisfaction by the purchase of this or that collection of goods. In each case there is a single person whose system of desires determines the best allocation of limited means. The correct decision is essentially a question of efficient administration’ (p. 24).
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
See Sun stein (1996), pp. 35–61.
- 24.
On the legislative capture, see Meßerschmidt (2019), pp. 243–272.
- 25.
On this kind of political argument, see Barry (1965), pp. 119–135.
- 26.
See Arendt (1997), pp. 49–59.
- 27.
Godden and Walton (2007), pp. 267–292.
- 28.
On political hypocrisy, see Runciman (2008), pp. 194–238.
- 29.
See Nascimento (2019).
References
Arendt H (1975) The human condition. UCP, Chicago
Arendt H (1997) ¿Qué es política? Paidós, Barcelona
Atienza M (1997) Contribución a una teoría de la legislación. Civitas, Madrid
Atienza M (2004) Argumentación y legislación. In: Menéndez Menéndez A (ed) La proliferación legislativa: un desafío para el Estado de Derecho. Civitas, Madrid, pp 89–112
Barry B (1965) Political argument. Routledge & Kegan Paul, New York
Bentham J (1991) Tácticas parlamentarias. Congreso de los Diputados, Madrid
Black D (1948) On the rationale of group decision–making. J Polit Econ 56:23–34
Buchanan J, Tullock G (1962) The calculus of consent: logical foundations of constitutional democracy. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor
Charaudeau P (2017) Discurso político. Contexto, São Paulo
Dahl R (1957) The concept of power. Behav Sci 2:201–215
Diesing P (1976) Reason in society. Five types of decisions and their social conditions. Greenwood Press, Westport
Ehrlich I, Posner RA (1974) An economic analysis of legal rulemaking. J Leg Stud 3:257–286
García Pelayo M (1983) Idea de la política y otros escritos. CEPC, Madrid
Gianturco A (2018) A ciência da política: uma introdução. Forense, Rio de Janeiro
Godden D, Walton D (2007) Advances in the theory of argumentation schemes and critical questions. Informal Logic 27:267–292
La Spina A (1989) La decisione legislativa. Lineamenti di uma teoria. Giuffrè, Milano
McChesney FS (1987) Rent extraction and rent creation in the economic theory of regulation. J Leg Stud 16:101–118
Meßerschmidt K (2019) Special interest legislation and legislative capture. In: Oliver-Lalana AD (ed) Conceptions and misconceptions of legislation. Springer, Cham, pp 243–272
Nascimento RS (2019) Teoria da legislação e argumentação legislativa: Brasil e Espanha em perspectiva comparada. Alteridade, Florianópolis
Nascimento RS. Quando calar é melhor que falar. Treze táticas parlamentares para aprovação das leis (in press)
Oliver-Lalana D (2018) Migliori e peggiori argomentazioni legislative – Come valutare la giustificazione parlamentare dele leggi. In: Ferraro F, Zorzetto S (eds) La motivazione delle leggi. Giappichelli, Torino, pp 67–125
Olson M (1965) The logic of collective action. Public goods and the theory of groups. HUP, Cambridge
Rawls J (1999) A theory of justice. Revised edn. HUP, Cambridge
Ritchie MN, You HY (2019) Legislators as lobbyists. Legis Stud Q 44:65–95
Runciman D (2008) Political hypocrisy. Princeton, PUP
Schmitt C (2009) O conceito do político. Del Rey, Belo Horizonte
Shapiro I et al (2012) Political representation. CUP, New York
Simon H (1947) Administrative behavior: a study of decision-making processes in administrative organization. Macmillan, New York
Simon H (1985) Human nature in politics: the dialogue of psychology with political science. Am Polit Sci Rev 79:293–304
Stern S (2007) Cognitive consistency: theory maintenance and administrative rulemaking. Univ Pittsburgh Law Rev 63:589–644
Sun stein CR (1996) Legal reasoning and policial conflict. OUP, New York
Tsebelis G (2002) Veto players: how political institutions work. Princeton, PUP
Tullock G (1993) Rent seeking. Edward Elgar, London
Waldron J (1999) Law and disagreement. OUP, New York
Zapatero V (2009) El arte de legislar. Aranzadi, Cizur Menor
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nascimento, R.S. (2022). Political Rationality and the Argumentative Approach in Lawmaking. How to Deal with Them?. In: Ferraro, F., Zorzetto, S. (eds) Exploring the Province of Legislation. Legisprudence Library, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87262-5_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87262-5_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-87261-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-87262-5
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)