Federalized party systems and subnational party competitions: Theory and an empirical application to Argentina

Comparative Politics

Volumn 43, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 21-39

  Gibson, Edward L ^a   Suarez Cao, Julieta ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77958549620     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5129/001041510X12911363510312     Document Type: Review

References (48)

1. V.O. Key, Southern Politics in State and Nation (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1949).
2. See, among others, Richard Snyder, Politics after Neoliberalism: Reregulation in Mexico (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001);
3. David Samuels, Ambition, Federalism, and Legislative Politics in Brazil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003);
4. Richard Snyder and David Samuels, "Legislative Malapportionment in Latin America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives," in Edward L. Gibson, ed., Federalism and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004);
5. Jonathan Fox, "Latin America's Emerging Local Politics," Journal of Democracy, 5 (April 1994), 105-16;
6. Edward L. Gibson, "Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Democratic Countries," Wbrld Politics, 58 (October 2005), 101-32;
7. R. Mickey, "Paths Out of Dixie: The Decay of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2005);
8. Kelly McMann, Economic Autonomy and Democracy: Hybrid Regimes in Russia and Kyrgyzstan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
9. In systems theory "subsystems" are the analytical equivalent of "systems," except that they are units of a larger system and thus interact with the other units (subsystems) of the larger system.
10. Austin Ranney and Willmoore Kendall, Democracy and the American Party System (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1956).
11. David R. Mayhew, Placing Parties in American Politics: Organization, Electoral Settings, and Government Activity in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
12. Joseph A. Schlesinger, Political Parties and the Winning of Office (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991).
13. Alan Ware, Political Parties and Party Systems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 183.
14. Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
15. Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis, 1976, Ibid., 83.
16. Ibid., 83.
17. Ibid., 83.
18. Ibid., 84-85.
19. This tendency has naturally spilled into the realms of operationalization and measurement. For instance, in assessing how "nationalized" or "localized" a party system is, different authors measure the extent to which patterns of party competition spread uniformly across national territory. See, among others, E. E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People: A Realists view of Democracy in America (Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, 1960);
20. Mark Jones and Scott Mainwaring, "The Nationalization of Parties and Party Systems: An Empirical Measure and an Application to the Americas," Party Politics, 9 (March 2003), 139-66;
21. Daniele Caramani, The Nationalization of Politics: The Formation of National Electorates and Party Systems in Western Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004);
22. Pradeep Chhibber and Ken Kollman, The Formation of National Party Systems: Federalism and Party Competition in Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).
23. The problem is that all measures used in these studies are based on competition for national offices or seats. The one important exception is Lori Thorlakson, who incorporates subnational electoral results along with national results in her measures of party and party system integration across jurisdictions. However, the scope of our article differs theoretically from Thorlakson's in its development of the systemic dynamics of federalized party systems, and in measurement in that it captures these dynamics in our summary measure of congruence between national and subnational party systems. Thorlakson, "An Institutional Explanation of Party System Congruence: Evidence from Six Federations," European Journal of Political Research, 46 (January 2007), 69-95.
24. Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 6.
25. See David Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis (London: Prentice-Hall, 1965), 62.
26. See, for example, Peter Mair, Party System Change: Approaches and interpretations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 51;
27. and Ware, Political Parties, 7.
28. Sartori, Parties and Party Systems, 44-45.
29. This follows Sartori's transformation rules for party systems (Ibid., 291), with a modification in item (iii), which in Sartori's words reads as "the degree of international autonomy." Our modification adjusts for Sartori's national bias without violating to the spirit of the condition.
30. i stands for the quotient of votes of each party in a certain district. Markuu Laakso and Rein Taagepera, "The Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe," Comparative Political Studies, 12 (April 1979), 3-27.
31. See Rein Taagepera and Matthew Shugart, "Predicting the Number of Parties: A Quantitative Model of Duverger's Mechanical Effect," American Political Science Review, 87 (June 1993), 455-64.
32. We develop a measure of mean squared divergence (MSD). The formula is MSD = [1/N * Σ(si-n)]2 + 1/(N-1) * Σ([si - average(s)]2); where si stands for the effective number of parties in each of the subnational party systems, n for the effective number of parties at the national party systems, and N for the total number of subnational party systems in each case. Our measure thus captures the interactive dynamics within and between party systems at both jurisdictional levels. In Thorlakson's case, the measure of congruence of effective number of parties is calculated as the standard deviations of effective number of parties across all jurisdictional levels, without differentiating whether these are national or subnational (Thorlakson, "Party System Congruence," 78).
33. Ernesto Calvo and Juan Pablo Micozzi, "The Governor's Backyard: A Seat-Vote Model of Electoral Reform for Subnational Multi-Party Races," The Journal of Politics, 67 (November 2005), 1050-74.
34. For an analysis of the power of provincial party bosses in Argentina, see Mark Jones and Wonjae Hwang, "Provincial Party Bosses: Keystone of the Argentine Congress," in Steven Levitsky and Maria Victoria Murillo, eds., Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2005).
35. In four of these provinces the vote totals gathered by the first place party exceeded 76 percent. Furthermore, 63 percent of Argentina's provinces between 1983 and 2007 experienced one or no turnovers in gubernatorial elections. Figures calculated from the Ministry of the Interior.
36. Sartori, Parties and Party Systems, 230-33. However, we are running afoul of Sartori's theoretical view of such systems, which by definition and logic must be national in scope.
37. Julieta Suarez-Cao, "Arquitectura del legislativo provincial: los casos de San Luis y Tucumán," paper presented at the XXIII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, DC, September 6-8, 2001.
38. Flavio Fuertes, "Ni mayoritario ni proporcional: nuevos sistemas electorales, los casos de Santa Cruz, Río Negro y Santiago del Estero," paper presented at the XXIII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, DC, September 6-8, 2001, 39.
39. The way in which the majoritarian bias was strengthened is twofold: by adding these plurality-elected deputies in single member districts and by reducing the district magnitude from twenty-four to ten in the single district.
40. Based on calculations using the Loosemore and Hanby Index of malapportionment, as developed by Snyder and Samuels.
41. La Nación, September 9, 2004.
42. The Chamber of Deputies was composed of thirty-three members elected in a single district with an electoral system that provided 60 percent of the seats to the party with most votes and 40 percent to the second place party.
43. The electoral system for the constitutional convention was extremely complicated and explicitly designed to prejudice opposition parties. See Leandro Carrera, "Procesos de reforma electoral en las provincias de Catamarca y Jujuy: 1983-1999," paper presented at the XXIII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, DC, September 6-8, 2001.
44. The system's details laid bare its anti-opposition party biases. For parties surpassing the 3 percent threshold, the conversion of seats into votes was 60 percent to the first place party, and 40 percent divided as follows: five to the second party, three to the third, and one to fourth.
45. Carrera, "Procesos de reforma," 5.
46. La Nación, May 4, 2006.
47. The three individuals were also the main contenders in the 2003 presidential elections, which Kirchner won.
48. Mair, Party System Change, 205-06.