The Nationalization of Legislative Collaboration: Territory, Partisanship, and Policymaking in Argentina

Abstract

1. This paper analyzes the nationalization of collaborative policy efforts among lawmakers in Argentina. In doing so, we distinguish the nationalization of electoral competition and the nationalization of a legislator's policy intent. To measure the nationalization of legislative efforts, we assess the degree to which legislators collaborate with members of their party and members of their district in the drafting of legislative initiatives. We interpret the density of cosponsorship networks as indicative of legislative collaboration among legislators and estimate exponential random graph models (ERGM) to explain the partisan and territorial determinants of collaboration over a 25-year period. A study of 130,000 legislative initiatives proposed to the Argentine Congress from 1984 to 2007 shows district and partisan effects becoming more prominent over time. We also show that district and partisan effects are more pronounced at higher thresholds of cosponsorship collaboration.

Spreading Influence Through Weak Ties: Cosponsorship, Legislative Networks, and Bill Success in Fragmented Congresses

“…Novel, well‐developed theories have seldom been tested in disparate environments. In spite of recent efforts to correct this problem (Alemán et al ; Alemán and Calvo ; Calvo ; Calvo and Leiras ; Crisp et al ; Micozzi ; Palanza, Scartascini, and Tommasi ; Palanza and Sin ), the challenge of applying theories beyond the United States persists.…”

“…Multiple contributions show how important the decisions of cosigning bills are to achieve diverse goals. extant literature highlights that coauthoring does not follow a random pattern but is instead heavily influenced by shared features, such as party affiliation (Koger 2003), state or province precedence (Calvo and Leiras 2012;Micozzi 2014), ambition (Crisp, Kanthak, and Leijonhufvud 2004;Micozzi 2013Micozzi , 2014, seniority (Campbell 1982), ethnicity (Bratton and rouse 2011;rocca and sanchez 2008), gender (Barnes 2014(Barnes , 2016swers 2005;Wojcik and Mullenax 2017), committee membership and religion (gross 2008), chamber size (Kirkland 2014), and levels of education (Caldeira and Patterson 1987), among others. if, as academics agree, legislators are strategic actors who claim credit for the consequences of their actions, coauthoring may be considered a carefully thought-out activity attempting to signal political positions.…”

Relación entre ambición política y producción legislativa: Ecuador 1979- 2010

“…Se infiere además que existe una relación basada en el interés por permanecer en el cargo con el nivel de efectividad que refleja. Desde este punto de vista gran parte de los trabajos que evalúan la producción legislativa sostienen que los políticos que hacen carrera legislativa presentan leyes de mayor calidad e impacto (Micozzi, 2009Calvo y Leiras, 2012).…”

Sistema de partidos, fragmentación de la competencia y tasas de reforma estatal. Una aproximación ilustrativa desde el caso argentino

“…Los autores concluyen que en Argentina «el cambio electoral fue territorial y temporalmente efímero, en parte debido al sesgo mayoritario de las instituciones electorales y, en parte, a la distribución homogénea de los partidos políticos y su flexibilidad y capacidad adaptativa al cambio» (Malamud y De Luca, 2005: 13). Otro trabajo en esta clave es el que realizan Calvo y Leiras (2012), en el que se proponen distinguir entre la nacionalización electoral y la legislativa. Precisamente postulan la independencia del grado de nacionalización partidaria -medida como distribución de los electorales a través de los distritos-y el de nacionalización de los legisladores -medido mediante el modo en que los legisladores colaboran entre sí: la cofirma de proyectos legislativos.…”