Who Distributes? Presidents, Congress, Governors, and the Politics of Distribution in Argentina and Brazil

What is the role of presidents in the politics of distribution in developing democracies? To what extent do other political actors, such as legislators and governors, influence federal distribution? This paper studies the main factors that affect distributive politics in Argentina and Brazil, two highly unequal presidential federations in Latin America. The focus is on funds with high redistributive impact and over which the central government has large discretion: those for public infrastructure. Using original data on federal infrastructure spending for the 24 provinces in Argentina and the 27 states in Brazil for the period 1999-2011, we show that the distribution of infrastructure funds is fundamentally determined by executive politics. Despite this, our empirical findings indicate there is large variation between the two cases in the relevance of the partisan links between presidents and governors and the influence of congress and its committees. Furthermore, we observe that elections are not relevant in explaining distribution in either of the two cases and that presidents are mostly motivated by political considerations and that programmatic factors, such as equity and efficiency criteria, play a secondary role, especially in Argentina. We discuss some possible reasons for these results and their implications for the broader comparative debate on distributive politics.Fil: Gonzalez, Lucas Isaac. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Política y Gobierno; Argentina. Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina "Santa María de los Buenos Aires". Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Políticas y de la Comunicación. Instituto de Ciencias Políticas; ArgentinaFil: Mamone, Miguel Ignacio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina "Santa María de los Buenos Aires". Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Políticas y de la Comunicación. Instituto de Ciencias Políticas; Argentin

Distributive Politics in Developing Federal Democracies: Compensating Governors for Their Territorial Support

Using original data from the period 1999–2011 on federal infrastructure investment for all subnational units in two federations, Argentina and Brazil, and a unitary nation, Colombia, this study shows that in developing federal countries with strong governors, presidents use nonearmarked transfers as a tool to compensate governors for sizable and secure territorial political support. The study argues that in these cases, resources do not make electoral power but chase it. In the unitary case, conversely, governors do not influence distributive politics. Variation also was found in the relevance of Congress, legislative overrepresentation, and programmatic criteria across cases. The article discusses possible reasons for these results and their implications for the comparative debate on distributive politics.Fil: Gonzalez, Lucas Isaac. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Política y Gobierno; Argentina. Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina "Santa María de los Buenos Aires". Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Políticas y de la Comunicación. Instituto de Ciencias Políticas; ArgentinaFil: Mamone, Miguel Ignacio. Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina "Santa María de los Buenos Aires". Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Políticas y de la Comunicación. Instituto de Ciencias Políticas; Argentina. University of Pittsburgh; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

La economía política de la distribución federal de obra pública en Argentina

Resumen: El Estado puede redistribuir fondos públicos para compensar los efectos de una distribución desigual de la riqueza entre individuos, grupos económicos, grupos sociales o entre regiones de un país. En la mayoría de los países, y en especial en los federales, los gobiernos centrales transfieren grandes cantidades de dinero entre regiones. Algunas veces, esas transferencias son reguladas por instituciones específicamente diseñadas para tal fin. Esas instituciones suelen ser relativamente estables, y por ello, las cantidades y los porcentajes totales de esas transferencias tienden a modificarse sólo marginalmente en el tiempo, sin registrar grandes variaciones interanuales. Este es el caso de los regímenes de coparticipación de recursos en la mayoría de los países federales, y en algunos unitarios. Otras veces, las transferencias entre regiones aparecen como resultado de políticas y programas generales de gobierno (Persson y Tabellini, 1996, p. 980). Los mecanismos para reasignar riquezas entre grupos o regiones van desde subsidios a determinadas industrias hasta los proyectos de obra pública (Dixit y Londregan, 1996, p. 1133). La discrecionalidad del gobierno central tiende a ser mayor en algunos esquemas más que en otros (Bonvecchi y Lodola, 2011); éste es el caso de la asignación territorial de la inversión en obra pública: es más sencillo reasignar fondos para rutas de una región a otra que redistribuir riqueza a través del gasto social y las políticas de empleo (SolléOllé, 2010, p. 297)

Fiscal Pressures and Political Conflict in Argentina: Intensifying the Struggle between a Primus and her Pares

Durante el 2013, el gobierno central y sobre todo las provincias en Argentina enfrentaron crecientes presiones fiscales. Si bien el contexto económico repercutió en los votos recibidos por el oficialismo en las elecciones legislativas, esto no alteró sustancialmente la composición de fuerzas en el Congreso. Con apoyo legislativo, la presidenta pudo avanzar su agenda legislativa. Con presiones fiscales crecientes, los gobernadores han profundizado los esfuerzos de coordinación frente al gobierno central. Esto hace que una de las características centrales de la política argentina durante 2013 haya sido la intensificación del conflicto del presidente (un primus) contra los gobernadores (sus pares).In 2013, both the central government and the provinces faced growing fiscal pressures. Although the relative worsening of some economic indicators affected the votes received by the ruling party in the legislative elections, this did not substantially alter the composition of seats in Congress. The President could put forward her legislative agenda with this legislative support. However, the positive image of the president eroded in public opinion polls. Facing fiscal pressures and a relatively weakened president, governors deepened their coordination efforts against the central government. As a result, one of the central features of Argentine politics in 2013 was the intensification of the conflict between the president (a primus) and the governors (her peers).Fil: Gonzalez, Lucas Isaac. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina "Santa María de los Buenos Aires"; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín; ArgentinaFil: Mamone, Miguel Ignacio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina "Santa María de los Buenos Aires"; Argentin

The political economy of redistribution in developing federal democracies : empirical results and comparative implications

Resumen: What is the role of presidents in the politics of redistribution in developing democracies? Do other political actors, such as legislators and governors, influence redistribution? Is redistribution shaped by political (that is, partisan) factors or do programmatic criteria play also a part? Redistribution in very unequal developing countries is a divisive issue. Most researchers recognize a crucial role of the state in redistributive politics. Despite this, there is little we know about the factors that shape government redistribution. This paper studies political and economic factors that affect the allocation of interregional redistributive transfers in Argentina and Brazil, two highly unequal countries in Latin America (the world’s most unequal region). The focus is on funds with high redistributive impact and over which the central government may have large discretion: public infrastructure. Using original data on federal infrastructure spending for the 24 provinces in Argentina and the 27 states in Brazil (for the period 1999-2011), this paper shows that redistributive politics (in particular, the distribution of infrastructure funds) in developing federations is fundamentally determined by executive politics. The main claim is that presidents use redistributive transfers as a tool to build up sizeable and secure political support. We also found large variation in the relevance of Congress and programmatic criteria across cases, and that legislative overrepresentation is not always a relevant factor to explain redistribution, contrary to findings in the literature on the US and the European Union. We discuss some possible reasons for these results and the implications of these results for the broader comparative debate