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In most contemporary democracies governments play a dominant role in the law-making process, as they introduce a significant proportion of bills to the legislature. However, the probability of success of these bills varies considerably. For example, in Argentina, the number of government bills approved as a percentage of all government-sponsored bills introduced in the Chamber of Deputies from 1983 to 1996 amounts to an average 64 percent(including and a minimum of 49% in 1986 and a maximum of 80% in the previous year). This paper studies how cross-voting affect governments' legislative success. I argue that uncertainty about legislators' support for government bills and limited governmental resources to engage in "vote buying" explain why defeats occur. The paper shows that Argentine presidents' overall legislative success has not been very different from other presidential regimes. However, by looking at the content of those bills that never made it through congress, I identify a peculiar policymaking pattern that may account for Argentine governments’ poor performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes several key advantages and disadvantages of measuring regimes through the judgment of experts. Using results from the Survey of Experts on Provincial Politics carried out by the author to assess levels of democracy in the 24 provinces of Argentina, the paper discusses the following advantages: 1) the possibility to assess many and diverse dimensions of democracy, 2) the particular aptitude of the method to identify hybrid regimes, a regime type of increasing prominence that poses special measurement challenges, and 3) the possibility to estimate measurement reliability through inter-rater (or inter-expert) agreement statistics. Two disadvantages are discussed: 1) the problems of comparability brought about by relying on unit-specific (i.e., provincespecific): there may be systematic inter-provincial differences among the experts in terms of knowledge, neutrality, and evaluative standards, and 2) the inevitable inter-unit differences in levels of measurement error. Finally, the dimensions of democracy measured by the expert survey are compared to objective indicators of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we utilize theories originally developed to explain US congressional organization to analyze legislative organization in Argentina [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the role of the president and Congress in the politics of redistribution in developing democracies? This paper presents a study on the politico-economic factors that affect the allocation of interregional redistributive federal funds in three highly unequal countries: two federations, Argentina and Brazil, and a unitary nation, Colombia. Using original data from 1999-2011 on federal redistributive investment for all sub-national units, this study demonstrates that redistributive politics is a matter of presidential decision. It shows that in federal countries with strong governors, presidents use redistributive transfers as a tool to compensate governors for sizeable and secure territorial political support. Governors are not relevant in the unitary case. We also found variation in the relevance of Congress, legislative overrepresentation, and programmatic criteria across cases. We discuss possible reasons for these results and their implications for the comparative debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party candidates have information about voters' political preferences and their likelihood of turning out to vote, and are able to target clientelistic inducements and monitor voter participation in exchange for voters' electoral support. However, candidates may also use the clientelistic inducements they receive from mayors to pursue their personal enrichment, at the cost of lost votes for their party. Drawing on an original dataset that traces the political careers of 137 municipal candidates in Argentina, I show how mayors combine information from voter turnout at rallies and elections. By comparing a candidate's ability to mobilize voters, mayors are able to make inferences about reliable candidates who will distribute party goods to voters, and unreliable candidates who will use party goods to pad their own pockets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a critical response to two main theoretical frameworks. First, the one that have linked democratic stability with development and economic growth; and second, to the literature that linked presidentialism with instability and regime breakdown. This work reacts to these frameworks showing that economic debacle does not necessarily mean regime breakdown, although it may lead, under certain circumstances, to government collapse. Second, it shows that presidential regimes can be reconstructed after periods of profound turmoil. The key lies in the political parties and the party system. I attempt to support these arguments through a case study: Argentina during 1995 and 2003. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Argentina's gender regime. Due to its commitment to a traditional family form and the lack of reproductive rights, the regime has been characterized as conservative. Despite this conservative nature, however, international debates and women's actions posed important challenges for the old gender regime by framing public discourses on reproductive policies in a new way.