Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 8/5/2007
Patronage-Preserving Federalism? Legislative Malapportionment and Subnational Fiscal Policies in Argentina
2007 June
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract
This paper builds on institutional analysis to generate new conclusions about the economic viability of federalism. It does so by suggesting that Weingast´s seminal model of market-preserving federalism falls short of accounting for the poor fiscal performance of multitiered systems in the developing world. This theoretical deficiency stems to a large extent from the insufficient attention paid by this model to the institutional complexity of federal systems, particularly the public policy effects of legislative malapportionment. Subsequent to an analytical discussion of the potential public spending and distributive politics distortions resulting from overrepresentation, we offer preliminary empirical evidence from Argentina, a federation exhibiting one of the most decentralized fiscal systems in the world and severe imbalances in the territorial distribution of legislative and economic resources. The findings show not only that said imbalances lead to sub‐optimal fiscal results but also that they have a mutually‐reinforcing relationship with regionalized patronage.
