The Value of a Vote: Malapportionment in Comparative Perspective

Samuels, David; Snyder, Richard

doi:10.1017/s0007123401000254

Cited by 307 publications

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“…The motivation for this institutional arrangement was to ensure diverse representation. Note that while this electoral rule made the electoral system malapportioned (Samuels and Snyder, 2001) in the sense that less populated municipalities would occupy a disproportional share of seats, it did not affect the degree of proportionality in terms of party representation. In 2003, the seat quota was abolished.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Local favoritism in at-large proportional representation systems

Fiva

Halse

2016

Journal of Public Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Pork barrel spending is typically attributed to the strategic behavior of political elites hoping to be electorally rewarded by voters residing in their districts. Such behavior is expected to depend on the incentives imposed by the electoral system. We estimate the causal effect of local representation in a closed list proportional representation system where individual candidates have no clear electoral incentive to favor their hometown. Using data from Norwegian regional governments, we still find a hometown bias. We document that municipalities with a representative on the regional council from the same party as the governor tend to obtain more funding for local investments. In an extension we show that citizens also tend to vote more often for parties with a governor candidate from their own hometown, consistent with an expectation of particularistic benefits. Both effects are driven by municipalities with below median population size. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Code: D720, H720, H770.

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Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Local favoritism in at-large proportional representation systems

Fiva

Halse

2016

Journal of Public Economics

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“…For example, according to Samuels and Snyder (2001), the Argentine Senate ranked highest on a scale of territorial overrepresentation among the world's upper chambers, and out of a total of 78 lower chambers, the Chamber of Deputies was one of the 20 most malapportioned legislative arenas. Figure 1 compares levels of 21 In line with this interpretation, De Luca, Jones and Tula (2002) find that contested primaries are less frequent when incumbent governors are able to run for reelection and more frequent in parties that are in the opposition at the provincial level.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Federalism in Argentina: Implications for Governance and Accountability

2012

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. 1 Abstract * This paper contributes to an agenda that views the effects of policies and institutional reforms as dependent on the structure of political incentives for national and subnational political actors. The paper studies political incentive structures at the subnational level and the mechanisms whereby they affect national-level politics and policymaking at the national level in Argentina, a highly decentralized middle-income democracy, Argentina. The Argentine political system makes subnational political power structures very influential in national politics. Moreover, most Argentine provinces are local bastions of power dominated by entrenched elites, characterized by scarce political competition, weak division of powers, and clientelistic political linkages. Political dominance in the provinces and political importance at the national level reinforce each other, dragging the Argentine political and policymaking system towards the practices and features of its most politically backward regions. Terms of use: Documents inJEL classifications: H11, H70, H77, D72, D73, D78

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“…In equilibrium, a strongly malapportioned legislature contributes to a more fragmented party system, which enhances the voice of territories at the expense of citizens (Samuels and Snyder 2001). Strong parties attenuate regions' role in national politics by altering the cost-benefit calculations of regional leaders.…”

Section: From Preferences To Outcomes: Inequality Representation Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Barriers to Egalitarianism: Distributive Tensions in Latin American Federations

Beramendi

Rogers

Díaz-Cayeros

2022

Lat. American Res. Rev.

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Latin America's largest federations have significantly reduced their levels of income inequality in recent years, perhaps reflecting a structural change toward egalitarianism. However, we argue that the political geography of federalism in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico strongly shapes preferences against centralized redistribution likely to promote equity in the long term. While federalism does not necessary lead to lower redistribution in theory, the geographic spread of income and malapportioned political institutions limit egalitarianism in these nations. These dynamics help explain why fiscal structures are distinct in Latin American federations as compared to federations in high-income countries. First, we show that the territorial structure of inequality and malapportionment are associated with lower redistributive effort in the global context and that the Latin American federations have extreme values for both variables. Second, using a new data set of income distributions within and across Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico over time, we demonstrate that the conditions that favor fiscal transfers from the national to subnational governments are consistently strong, but conditions are rarely favorable for centralized policies to equilibrate national income. Unequal income patterns are reinforced by legislative malapportionment, which encourages interregional transfers to regions and limits the political voice of more populated and unequal regions that would benefit from centralized redistribution.Las federaciones más grandes de América Latina han reducido significativamente sus niveles de desigualdad de ingresos en los últimos años, lo que quizás refleja un cambio estructural hacia el igualitarismo. Sin embargo, este estudio argumenta que la geografía política del federalismo en Argentina, Brasil y México moldea fuertemente las preferencias en contra de la redistribución centralizada que promueve la equidad a largo plazo. Aunque, en teoría, el federalismo no necesariamente reduce la redistribución, la distribución geográfica de los ingresos y la representación desproporcionada de las instituciones políticas limitan el igualitarismo en eses países. Estas dinámicas ayudan a explicar las estructuras fiscales son distintas en las federaciones de América Latina en comparación con las federaciones de países desarrollados. Primero, se muestra que una estructura territorial de desigualdad y la inadecuada distribución política están asociadas con un menor esfuerzo redistributivo en un contexto global y que las federaciones de América Latina tienen valores extremos de ambas variables. Segundo, utilizando una nueva base de datos sobre la distribución dentro y a través de las regiones de Argentina, Brasil y México a lo largo del tiempo, se demuestra que las condiciones que favorecen las transferencias fiscales desde el nivel nacional a los gobiernos subnacionales son consistentemente propicias, pero las condiciones son raramente favorables para que las políticas centralizadas equilibren los ingresos nacionales. Patrones d...

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The Value of a Vote: Malapportionment in Comparative Perspective

Cited by 307 publications

References 0 publications

Local favoritism in at-large proportional representation systems

Local favoritism in at-large proportional representation systems

The Politics of Federalism in Argentina: Implications for Governance and Accountability

Barriers to Egalitarianism: Distributive Tensions in Latin American Federations

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