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11. The Institutional Presidency from a Comparative Perspective: Argentina and Brazil since the 1980s

Author:
Mariana Llanos and Magna Inácio
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This paper focuses on the evolution of the institutional presidency – meaning the cluster of agencies that directly support the chief of the executive – in Argentina and Brazil since their redemocratization in the 1980s. It investigates what explains the changes that have come about regarding the size of the institutional presidency and the types of agency that form it. Following the specialized literature, we argue that the growth of the institutional presidency is connected to developments occurring in the larger political system – that is, to the political challenges that the various presidents of the two countries have faced. Presidents adjust the format and mandate of the different agencies under their authority so as to better manage their relations with the political environment. In particular, we argue that the type of government (coalition or single-party) has had consequences for the structure of the presidency or, in other words, that different cabinet structures pose different challenges to presidents. This factor has not played a significant role in presidency-related studies until now, which have hitherto mostly been based on the case of the United States. Our empirical references, the presidencies of Argentina and Brazil, and typical cases of coalitional as well as single-party presidentialism respectively all allow us to show the impact of the type of government on the number and type of presidential agencies.
Political Geography:
United States, Brazil, and Argentina

12. I Want It All, and I Want It Now: The Political Manipulation of Argentina's Provincial High Courts

Author:
Andrea Castagnola
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Provincial supreme courts are important players in local politics because justices can affect the interest of the ruling governors; however, no research has addressed the factors that affect judicial turnover in provincial high courts in new democracies. This research attempts to fill this gap by using original data on the 525 departures of all provincial high court justices in Argentina from 1983 to 2009. My guiding hypothesis is that the stability of a justice on the bench depends on the political proximity of the justice to the ruling governor rather than on the executive's institutional capacity to impeach. This study reveals that being aligned with the faction of the ruling governor is a major factor in accounting for judicial turnover not only in single-party provinces, as expected, but also in multi-party provinces. Because provincial politics have proven to be a major source of power for national politicians, governors would prefer to have a friendly court during their administration.
Political Geography:
Argentina

13. Making Sense of an Unstable Legislature: Committee Assignments in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, 1946 – 2001

Author:
Silvina Danesi and Ludovic Rheault
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Latin American legislatures have gone largely unstudied, with the functioning of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies prior to the 1980s being an entirely unexplored subject. This paper fills that gap by examining the organization of the Chamber, with particular focus on its standing committee system from 1946 to 2001. We assess the portability of two U.S.-based theoretical approaches to legislative organization by applying them to committee assignments. An original data set of Argentine deputies was constructed and a way of measuring political power in committees was devised for this study. Despite weak democratic governments, military interventions, and changes to the electoral system, we find that ruling parties have consistently influenced the committee system, shaping its structure and securing an over-proportion of their deputies in key committee positions. These results support the applicability of the U.S. originated Cartel Theory of legislative organization to understanding and studying legislatures outside that country.
Political Geography:
United States, Argentina, and Latin America

14. Measuring Legislative Input on Presidential Agendas (Argentina, 1999– 2007)

Author:
Alejandro Bonvecchi and Javier Zelaznik
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Presidential agenda success is usually accounted for through measures of interbranch cooperation, such as bill approval rates, participation rates, and roll-call data of support from presidential initiatives. These measures do not provide an accurate picture of presidential agenda success because they cannot capture the ability of presidents or Congress to shape the substance of legislation. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes a combination of two measures of influence on legislative outcomes: the Legislative Input Score for partisan involvement in lawmaking, and the Barrett and Eshbaugh-Soha Scale for legislative substance. To illustrate the potential of these measures, it puts them to work in analyzing the ability of presidents to control the substance of their proposed legislation in Argentina between 1999 and 2007. Preliminary results show that when agenda success is measured with these scores, presidents can consistently shape legislative substance regardless of popularity, coalition size, and honeymoon periods.
Political Geography:
Argentina

15. From Top To Bottom (and Back To The Top Again): Federal Spending, Sub-national Coalitions, and Protests in Argentina, 2002 – 2006

Author:
Lorena Moscovich
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Can federal-state relations affect popular protests? Using an extensive dataset measuring local protests in the Argentine provinces (2002– 2006), I assess the effects of the president's and governors' tactical allocations on the persistence of contentious events. I analyze how the delivery of federal resources, to both provincial governments and local social organizations, affects the chances of protests occurrence and the nature of its demands. Results show that federal spending increases the frequency of protests in the Argentine provinces, particularly when provincial governments are not involved in its delivery. In addition, protest demands are sensitive to president's discretional expenditure, suggesting a different dynamics in which protests became a legitimate channel to obtain federal monies.
Political Geography:
Argentina

16. In Defense of Oral History: Evidence from the Mercosur Case

Author:
Gian Luca Gardini
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article makes a case in defense of oral history in the study of political science and international relations. The existing literature has scrutinized the technical aspects and appropriate use of oral material. This article focuses on the circumstances under which oral history may be an indispensable method of scholarly investigation: first, when written primary sources are not readily available; second, when an investigation targets complex and secret high-level negotiations; and third, when the main research concern is the human agent's perspective and ideational factors. The article first addresses the issue of the reliability and rigor of oral history as compared to written sources and then concentrates on the creation of Mercosur as an example of the validity of oral history under the three circumstances identified. The conclusion proposes a revival of a more historical approach to political studies.
Political Geography:
Brazil and Argentina

17. How Neopatrimonialism Affects Tax Administration: A Comparative Study of Three World Regions

Author:
Christian von Soest, Karsten Bechle, and Nina Korte
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Neopatrimonialism is a concept that has predominately been applied to describe governance in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, though, it has also been used to describe states from other world regions. However, scholars have rarely attempted to systematically compare neopatrimonial rule in different regional settings. This paper aims to narrow this gap by examining the effect of neopatrimonialism on the tax administration as a core state function in six countries from three different world regions: Argentina, Venezuela, Indonesia, the Philippines, Kenya and Zambia. We conclude that neopatrimonialism is a valuable concept for comparative area studies with the potential to foster dialogue on the "state in operation" across the regional divide. However, several indicators are more valid for some world regions than for others. We find that there is no systematic relationship between neopatrimonial trajectories and the strength of tax administration. Individual actor decisions influence the outcomes of neopatrimonialism substantially.
Topic:
Post Colonialism and Governance
Political Geography:
Kenya, Indonesia, Asia, Argentina, Philippines, Latin America, Venezuela, and Zambia

18. Measuring Variance in Subnational Regimes: Results from an Expert-Based Operationalization of Democracy in the Argentine Provinces

Author:
Carlos Gervasoni
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This paper presents an expert-based operationalization strategy to measure the degree of democracy in the Argentine provinces. Starting with a mainstream and “thick” definition of regime type, I assess each of its aspects using a subjective or perception-based approach that taps the knowledge of experts on the politics of each province. I present and justify the methodological design of the resulting Survey of Experts on Provincial Politics (SEPP) and conduct a preliminary analysis of its results. Some aspects of the provincial regimes appear to be clearly democratic, while others are mixed or even leaning towards authoritarianism. Moreover, some show little interprovincial variance, while others vary considerably from province to province. An analysis of the central tendency and dispersion of the survey items allows for a general description of the Argentine provincial regimes. Inclusion is the most democratic dimension, while the effectiveness of institutional constraints on the power of the Executive is the most deficient. Electoral contestation is generally free of traditional forms of fraud, but incumbents often command far more campaign resources and media attention than do their challengers. Physical repression is rare, but opponents in some provinces face subtler forms of punishment. While the survey does not uncover any clear cases of subnational authoritarianism, stricto sensu, provincial regimes do vary significantly from basically democratic to clearly hybrid.
Political Geography:
Argentina

19. The Politics of Subnational Undemocratic Regime Reproduction in Argentina and 60

Author:
Agustina Giraudy
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article studies the continued existence of subnational undemocratic regimes in Argentina and Mexico, two countries that have recently experienced national democratization. The first part of the article offers a conceptualization of subnational democracy and measures its territorial extension across all subnational units. The second part explores a common, albeit not systematically tested explanation about subnational undemocratic regime continuity, namely, that these regimes persist because they meet national incumbents' strategic political needs. This claim is tested using statistical analyses to contrast patterns of spending across undemocratic subnational units during the presidencies of Menem (1989-1999), De la Rúa (2000-2001), Duhalde (2002), and Kirchner (2003-2007) in Argentina, and Fox (2000-2006) in Mexico. Contradicting conventional wisdom, the results show that presidents only reproduce a handful of subnational undemocratic regimes, as not all of them can meet presidential needs. In addition, the results reveal that the strategic calculation of presidents regarding this reproduction is dictated by factors that have been largely overlooked by the literature.
Political Geography:
Argentina and Mexico

20. The Institutional Feasibility of National-Local Policy Collaboration: Insights from Brazil and Argentina

Author:
Tracy Beck Fenwick
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The goal of this paper is to suggest that municipalities can facilitate the central government's ability to carry out its desired policy goals. Using three institutional variables that provide internal evidence for each case, I will argue that within some institutional configurations the center may seek uniformity of outcome by trying to circumvent governors and/or regional intermediation and forge a direct relationship with municipalities. Based on research from the area of social protection policy in Brazil and Argentina, I suggest that direct national-local collaboration contributed to the ability of the Brazilian central government to bypass governors and evenly spread non-contributory welfare goods across its territory and alleviate poverty. I argue that such policy collaboration is less likely to be institutionally feasible in a federal system like Argentina's, where such equivalent collaboration is impeded by the ability of its provinces to directly capture local units of government and undermine national policy outcomes and executive preferences.
Political Geography:
Brazil and Argentina