Amateur Legislators-Professional Politicians: The Argentine Congress

The Argentine Congress plays a limited role in the production of public policy and is a relatively ineffective check on the Argentine Executive Branch. We argue this is the combined result of incentives created by several features of Argentine political institutions. In this article we emphasize the role of the country’s electoral rules, which place the legislator reelection decision not in the hands of the voters, but rather in the hands of the provincial governor/party boss(es). These rules limit legislators’ ability to develop a professional legislative career and reduce their incentives to specialize and to develop strong legislative institutions. We provide empirical evidence of the short duration of congressional careers, the province-based nature of Argentine political careers, and the lack of specialization among legislators resulting from the abovementioned institutional incentives.