IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sad/wpaper/31.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Amateur Legislators-Professional Politicians: The Argentine Congress

Author

Listed:
  • Mariano Tommasi

    (Department of Economics, Universidad de San Andres & Center of Studies for Institutional Development)

  • Mark P. Jones

    (Michigan State University & Center of Studies for Institutional Development)

  • Sebastian M. Saiegh

    (New York University & Center of Studies for Institutional Development)

  • Pablo T. Spiller

    (University of California at Berkeley & Center of Studies for Institutional Development)

Abstract

The Argentine Congress plays a limited role in the production of public policy and is a relatively ineffective check on the Argentine Executive Branch. We argue this is the combined result of incentives created by several features of Argentine political institutions. In this article we emphasize the role of the country’s electoral rules, which place the legislator reelection decision not in the hands of the voters, but rather in the hands of the provincial governor/party boss(es). These rules limit legislators’ ability to develop a professional legislative career and reduce their incentives to specialize and to develop strong legislative institutions. We provide empirical evidence of the short duration of congressional careers, the province-based nature of Argentine political careers, and the lack of specialization among legislators resulting from the abovementioned institutional incentives.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariano Tommasi & Mark P. Jones & Sebastian M. Saiegh & Pablo T. Spiller, 2002. "Amateur Legislators-Professional Politicians: The Argentine Congress," Working Papers 31, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Jul 2002.
    • Handle: RePEc:sad:wpaper:31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Theocharis N. Grigoriadis & Benno Torgler, 2006. "Energy Regulation, Roll Call Votes and Regional Resources: Evidence from Russia," CREMA Working Paper Series 2006-25, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    2. Mattozzi, Andrea & Merlo, Antonio, 2008. "Political careers or career politicians?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 597-608, April.
    3. Enikolopov, Ruben & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2007. "Decentralization and political institutions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2261-2290, December.
    4. Mariano Tommasi, 2002. "Federalism in Argentina and the Reforms of the 1990s," Working Papers 48, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised May 2002.
    5. Molinas, José R. & Pérez-Liñán, Aníbal & Saiegh, Sebastián & Montero, Marcela, 2006. "Political Institutions, Policymaking Processes and Policy Outcomes in Paraguay, 1954-2003," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3359, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Sebastian Saiegh & Marcela Montero & Anibal Pérez-Liñán & José Molinas, 2006. "Instituciones políticas, procesos de diseño de políticas y resultados de políticas en Paraguay, 1954-2003," Research Department Publications 3195, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    7. Mejía Acosta, Andrés & Araujo, María Caridad & Pérez-Liñán, Aníbal & Saiegh, Sebastián, 2006. "Veto Players, Fickle Institutions and Low-Quality Policies: The Policymaking Process in Ecuador," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3342, Inter-American Development Bank.
    8. José Bercoff & Osvaldo Meloni, 2009. "Federal budget allocation in an emergent democracy: evidence from Argentina," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 65-83, January.
    9. Gerald A. McDermott, 2003. "Institutional Change and Firm Creation in East-Central Europe: An Embedded Politics Approach," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-590, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    10. Rafael Di Tella & Juan Dubra, 2010. "Peronist Beliefs and Interventionist Policies," NBER Working Papers 16621, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Mariano Tommasi & Miguel Braun, 2002. "Fiscal Rules for Subnational Governments. Some Organizing Principles and Latin American Experiences," Working Papers 44, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Mar 2002.
    12. Mariano Tommasi, 2002. "Crisis, Political Institutions and Policy Reform: It Is Not the Policy, It Is the Polity, Stupid," Working Papers 49, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Jun 2004.
    13. Andrés Mejía Acosta & María Caridad Araujo & Anibal Pérez-Liñán & Sebastian Saiegh, 2006. "Actores con veto, instituciones caprichosas y políticas de mala calidad: el proceso de diseño de políticas de Ecuador," Research Department Publications 3227, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    14. Sebastian Saiegh & Marcela Montero & Anibal Pérez-Liñán & José Molinas, 2006. "Political Institutions, Policymaking Processes and Policy Outcomes in Paraguay, 1954-2003," Research Department Publications 3194, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    15. Mariano Tommasi, 2003. "Crises, institutions politiques et réformes politiques : le bon, le mauvais et l'affreux," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 11(2), pages 49-81.
    16. Mariano Tommasi & Pablo T. Spiller & Ernesto Stein, 2003. "Political Institutions, Policymaking Processes, and Policy Outcomes. An Intertemporal Transactions Framework," Working Papers 59, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Jul 2003.
    17. Alston, Lee J. & Gallo, Andrés A., 2010. "Electoral fraud, the rise of Peron and demise of checks and balances in Argentina," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 179-197, April.
    18. Emmanuel Abuelafia & Sergio Berensztein & Miguel Braun & Luciano di Gresia, 2005. "Who Decides on Public Expenditures? A Political Economy Analysis of the Budget Process: The Case of Argentina," Public Economics 0511004, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sad:wpaper:31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Maria Amelia Gibbons (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desanar.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.