Political Decentralization and Electoral Accountability: The Argentine Experience, 1983–2001

Abstract

To what extent does public support for subnational officials fluctuate in response to local rather than national performance? Are the policy failures of subnational officials reliably punished by voters? Drawing upon both individual and aggregate level data, this article attempts to shed new light on these questions about the politics of decentralization by exploring electoral outcomes and public opinion at the subnational level in Argentina. Consistent with referendum voting models, this analysis suggests that the fate of candidates in both national and subnational elections is shaped by the performance of the incumbent presidential administration. Moreover, to the extent that subnational performance has an electoral impact, voters do not necessarily respond in ways that enhance electoral accountability. Voters not only blame and reward subnational officials for national performance, but also attribute responsibility for subnational performance to national authorities. The implications with respect to the impact of decentralized decision making on democratic accountability are decidedly mixed and anything but consistent with the argument that decentralization results in a closer match between citizen preferences and the allocation of public resources.2 Jonathan Rodden, 'The Dilemma of Fiscal Federalism: Grants and Fiscal Performance around the World',

Partisan Targeting of Inter-Governmental Transfers & State Interference in Local Elections: Evidence from Spain

“…Similar interactions are found for Argentina by Gélineau and Remmer (2006). In a comparative study of Argentina, Canada, Germany and the US, Rodden and Wibbels (2011) show that the interaction between federal and state or provincial elections becomes more apparent the more centralized the parties are.…”

Electoral Accountability in the Midst of Criminal Violence: Evidence from Mexico

“…However, getting informed is costly and difficult (Berinsky 2005), particularly when various parties provide different and opposing explanations for the same issue and even blame one another. There is wide evidence that in such situations, voters' ability to make causal associations and attribute responsibility is limited (Norpoth 2001;Javeline 2003;Gélineau and Remmer 2006).…”

Benchmarking across Borders: Electoral Accountability and the Necessity of Comparison

“…Properly functioning accountability demands voters who consistently, if not always perfectly, identify and punish poorly performing elected officials. Yet researchers have frequently depicted voters as "blindly retrospective" judges of governmental performance who punish subnational politicians for national outcomes (Gelineau and Remmer 2006;Hansen 1999) or other incumbents for acts of God beyond their control such as drought, floods, shark attacks (Achen and Bartels 2002), or even the outcomes of local athletic contests (Healy, Malhotra, and Mo 2010).…”