Observing Party Discipline at National Congress in Latin American Federal Systems: the Role of Governors in Argentina
| Autor | Alejandro Anibal Coronel - Bernardo Javier Zamichiei |
| Páginas | 107-140 |
Revista Mexicana de Análisis Político y Administración Pública
Departamento de Gestión Pública y Departamento de Estudios Políticos y de Gobierno
Volumen V, número , julio-diciembre
Pp. -
Revista Mexicana de Análisis Político y Administración Pública. Universidad de Guanajuato.
107
Fecha de recepción: de a bril de
Fecha de aceptación: de agosto de
OBSERVING PARTY DISCIPLINE AT NATIONAL CONGRESS
IN LATIN AMERICAN FEDERAL SYSTEMS:
THE ROLE OF GOVERNORS IN ARGENTINA
La disciplina partidista en el Congreso Nacional en sistemas federales
latinoamericanos: el rol de los gobernadores en Argentina
Alejandro Anibal Coronel y Bernardo Javier Zamichiei
Abstract
How do governors aect part y discipline at the
National Congress? In t his article, we e valu-
ate governor’s inuence on national legisla-
tors’ behavior, within the context of a federal
State such as Argentina. rough an analysis
of roll-call data, we determine that governors
do inuence on legislators’ behavior on a way
that when they keep one voice in relation to
their position on a particular issue, the disci-
pline is much stronger than when they have
conicting opinions, even more so among
deputies than senators. Findings reinforce the
under covered importance of c onsidering gov-
ernors a key role player on national Executive -
Legislative relat ion and par ty discipline.
Key words: Governors; Executive-L egisla-
tive relations; (Independence-Territoriality)
Index; Party Discipli ne; Territoriality.
Resumen
¿Cómo afectan los gob ernadores a la disciplina
partidaria en el Congreso Nacional? En este
artículo, eva luamos la inuencia del goberna-
dor en el comportamiento del legisla dor nacio-
nal, en el contexto de un Est ado federal como
la Argentina. Por medio de un análisis de las
votaciones nominales, determinamos que los
gobernadores sí inuyen en el comportamien-
to de los legisladores de tal modo que, c uando
se mantienen unánimes respecto de su postu-
ra en un tema en particular, la disciplina es
más fuerte que cua ndo presentan opiniones en
conicto, más aún entre diputados que entre
senadores. Los hal lazgos refuerzan la impor-
tancia encubierta de considera r a los goberna-
dores como un actor clave en la relación Ejecu-
tivo-Legislat ivo y la disciplina partidaria.
Palabras clave: Gobernadores; Relaciones
Ejecutivo-L egislativo; (Índice de Indepen-
dencia-Territorial idad); Disciplina Par tidaria;
Territorialidad.
Do governors aect party discipline at the National Congress in a Federal System? In
such case, how do they do it? Do they strengthen or weaken it? In modern political sci-
ence, studies about the relationship between Executive and Legislative Powers are very
Revista Mexicana de Análisis Político y Administración Pública. Universid ad de Guanajuato. Volumen V, número 2, ju lio-diciembre 20 16
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common, especially about the relationship between the Executive Power and the votes
from legislators, including in their analysis players such as the political parties.
Regarding the modern Argentine case, a highly important political vote which also
had research purposes was the bill sent by the Executive Power, seeking ratication for
the Ministry of Economy’s Resolution , which deals with rolling tax withholdings
applied to agricultural exports (Bill - to ratify Resolution /).
e importance of this event can be found either on the conict escalation and its
political institutional consequences, or on the background discussion that considered
these withholdings as a method to control prices, income redistribution and
—
what
generated most legal discussions
—
as a tax burden.
In fact, the debate about rolling tax withholdings was disclosed in March,
and the demand of the agricultural sector helped join the four entities representing
it, which at that time were considered antagonizing entities. e level of political and
social concern made some people argue that certain sectors had generated a “destabi-
lization climate” in order to endanger the continuity of the current administration.
In order to avoid a strike from the agricultural sector, which had never occurred in
Argentina before, the president of the Argentine Republic sent to the Congress a bill
ratifying the contested measure, hoping that she would obtain a favorable result as her
administration had majority of votes in both Houses. e most outsta nding moment of
the conict took place early in the morning when the bill was rejected in the Argentine
Senate, when the vice president had to give his nal decision after a tie of votes.
is outcome led to consider dierent questions: what was the criterion taken into
account by legislators (senators and/or representatives) when voting? Did they respond
to their partisan ideology (“cohesion”), their part y discipline or the interest of the terri-
tory in which they were elected? Considering the wide publicity of the governors’ opin-
ion about it, we can add: Did the governors play an important role when determining
the legislators’ vote? And in that case, how did they do that?
On the other hand, and continuing with the essence of what wa s already considered,
is this only applicable for the Resolution vote, or can it be extended to other votes?
Is it possible to observe a behavioral pattern? All t his strengthens the academic interest
in analyzi ng the legislators’ behavior with concepts such as “ideological cohesion”, “part y
discipline” in the Argentine Congress or the level of relevance assigned by legislators to
the territories they represent (what we call territoriality). However, the essential academic
interest consists of empirically adding the inuence of certain players that, until now,
have never received enough attention when researching this subject: the governors.
us, the aim of this research is to detect legislative behavior patterns (if any), con-
sidering if it is an election year, if the proposal is an opposition’s or the Executive’s
initiative, and whether or not there is an agreement among the governors; all th is, meas-
ured through an index that allows us to know the governors’ inuence, which is called
Independence-Territoriality Index () (Coronel and Zamichiei, a), and which was
also used for the complete rst presidential period of Cristina K irchner.
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For that purpose, this article will start with a deep theoretical revision of dierent,
current, approaches that are applied to address the Executive-Le gislative relationship, so
that the methodological strategies used to carry out empirical measurements can then
be addressed.
en, all logical and methodological aspects that enabled reaching the already men-
tioned will be specically developed.
Finally, this new will be applied in the - legislative period in order to ob-
tain new perspectives about theory and already existing measuring methods and, thus,
to allow reaching a new and better understanding of the legislative dynamics in Latin
American federa l systems.
:
ere are many empirical approaches about party cohesion in National Legislators
(Bowler et al., ; Hazan, ) regarding dierent institutional factors, such as:
benets and costs of discipline for party members (Ashworth and Bueno de Mesquita,
), tension between parties’ collective interest and the persona l interest of their ca n-
didates (Fiorina, ; Katz, ; Cox, ; Ames, ; McCubbins and Rosenbluth,
; Reed, ), the bond between “voting as a whole” and party funding (Quinn,
), the absence of party discipline in hegemonic party systems (Díaz Rebolledo,
) and the absence of immediate reelection of legislators as the root cause of party
discipline (Ugalde, ; Magar and Weldon, ; Nacif, ).
In addition, there are dierent academic trends as rega rding the relationship between
party unity and political system. us, some approaches consider that the parties are
often portrayed as being highly cohesive in parliamentary systems, and not so united
in presidential systems, generating issues when the Executive Power establishes the leg-
islative agenda (Linz, ; Diermeier and Feddersen, ; Shugart, ; Hix, Noury
and Roland, ; Persson and Tabellini, ). However, other approaches contradict
these statements when highlightin g in their analyses the role of the Presidents when leg-
islative coalitions that favor them are created (Figueiredo and Limongi, ; Siavelis,
; Amorim Neto, ; Weldon, ; Cheibub, Przeworski and Saiegh, ).
As to what concerns academic studies about party discipline and territorial dimen-
sion specically, these can be grouped in dierent approaches. e rst group deals
with the subject using the Rice Index () or considering it as a tool for measuring
party discipline (Ózbudun, ; Ames, ), whose result in the Argentine case was
of cohesion (Morgenstern, ).
e second group of approaches nds very dierent results when dealing with the
subject in relation to the territorial dimension, specially the bond between party cohe-
sion and ideological and territorial dimensions (Moon, ; McElroy, ), as well
as the relationship between party cohesion and election rules (Sartori, ; Uslaner,
; Jacobson, ; Mainwaring, ; Ames, ; Geddes and Ribeiro Neto, ;
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