Pork‐Barreling without Reelection? Evidence from the Mexican Congress

Abstract

Previous research on term‐limited legislators suggests they have few incentives to engage in pork‐barreling. Using the case of Mexico, where all legislators are term‐limited, I find legislators participate in federal budget negotiations despite the lack of a reelection incentive. I argue term‐limited legislators are progressively ambitious and use interventions into the budget process to further their careers. I find legislators elected in single‐member districts submit more budget amendments than those elected through proportional representation, conditional on where they intend to pursue future office. I also find governors and gubernatorial elections influence the submission of budget amendments, which is related to gubernatorial influence over political careers.

Electoral Institutions and Legislative Particularism

“…I improve on previous research on this topic by studying the effects of districting within a fixed institutional context, using a clear identification strategy, and focusing on legislative outputs, rather than using legislators’ self‐reports or their attempts at securing distributive goods. The results complement other work in US and comparative contexts that studies how SMD and MMD affect legislative behavior (Adams ; Crisp et al ; Heitshusen, Young, and Wood ; Kerevel ; Richardson, Russell, and Cooper ). The results are also quite consistent with those reported in Chen (), who shows that increased electoral fragmentation that occurs when voters are represented by bicameral legislatures results in reductions in distributive benefits.…”

“…The different incentive structures provided by SMD and MMD thus have important implications for how legislators represent their constituents. Consistent with these expectations, previous research has shown that legislators elected under MMD report reduced incentives to engage in constituency service (Heitshusen, Young, and Wood ; Lancaster and Patterson ), initiate less parochial legislation (Crisp and Desposato ; Kerevel ), are held less accountable for their behavior in office (Lancaster ), and engage in higher levels of corruption (e.g., Chang and Golden ; Kunicova and Rose‐Ackerman ).…”

“…Similarly, legislators appear to place decreased priority on attempting to secure particularized benefits under MMD. Kerevel () shows that Mexican legislators elected under SMD filed more budgetary amendments on behalf of their constituents than legislators elected under MMD and Crisp et al () demonstrate that legislators elected under SMD in Latin America initiated more bills with parochial emphases . However, these studies do not measure legislators’ success in securing these provisions.…”

“…First, similar to Hirano (), I study the provision of particularistic goods within a single institutional context. Previous research on the effects of districting compared legislative behavior across multiple countries (e.g., Crisp et al ) or chambers of the same state or country (Adams ; Richardson, Russell, and Cooper ), or has studied cross‐sectional differences in behavior among legislators in the same chamber but elected through different districting rules (Kerevel ). While cross‐country comparisons enable researchers to study the system‐level effects of districting procedures, this approach could generate misleading results if other features of the institutional environment are also correlated with the behavioral outcome in question.…”

Politics of Constituency Representation and Legislative Ambition under the Glare of Camera Lights

“…There is a plethora of research on the importance of constituency‐oriented behavior in legislatures (Denemark ; Kerevel ; Lancaster ; Soroka, Penner, and Blidook ; Strøm ; Tavits ). These studies show that MPs may engage in constituency‐oriented behavior for various reasons.…”