Legislative institutionalization in Chile, 1834--1924

This dissertation focuses on the process of legislative institutionalization of the early Chilean legislature from 1834 to 1924, particularly on the causes of institutionalization of this legislature. This dissertation uses a process-oriented concept of legislative institutionalization to look into the process that a legislature should go through to institutionalize. For this research to take place, this dissertation tests a bivariate directional hypothesis that factors in ideas from several existing theories to make a specific and unique prediction about the decision-making process that underlies the institutionalization of a legislature.;This dissertation tests this hypothesis in the early Chilean legislature through a case study research design that deals most of the time with both houses of this legislature. This is a long-standing legislature that has been able to function for more than a century-and-a-half, notwithstanding interruptions in 1924--1925, 1932, and 1973--1989. It has become a meaningful political actor in the Chilean polity over time, after achieving stability, permanence, and distinctiveness among Chile's political organs.;This research shows how this legislature institutionalized over time and what pushed this legislature through the institutionalization process, for which purpose it compares the early Chilean legislature with other long-standing functioning legislatures and the Chilean aristocratic polity with other major Latin American polities. In so doing, this research highlights the distinctiveness of the Chilean case for comparative legislative studies.