consistent analyses of comparative settings. One of the main components of the
explanations for the permanent attempts to get reelected by U.S. House members is the
notion of "electoral connection" (Mayhew 1974). Through the delivery of local policies to
a set of (usually stable) delimited constituents, legislators expect their recognition every
two years and their permanence in the seat. Therefore, the expectation ("the ambition")
is static, which means, they just stay where they are. What happens when those
"conservative" goals are not necessarily the rule? How should we analyze ambition if
the structure of incentives differs from the Mayhewian model?
As mentioned above, Mexican legislators (similar to their Costa Rican colleagues)
do not have static ambition, just because they cannot seek reelection. Nevertheless, it is
false to think that only politicians facing term limits might not try to keep their seat.
What if other positions were more profitable for politicians' political future? What if
patterns of ambition involved multiple positions across political arenas and time? David
Samuels (2004) showed that a substantive proportion of Brazilian Congressmen tend to
look for subnational positions, instead of trying to renew their legislative mandate.
However, as Lodola (2009) pointed out, about a 70% of Brazilian Deputados do pursue a
new appointment in the party tickets. In a similar but also different fashion, Jones & at
(2002) explained that just a 15% of the Argentine legislators look for reelection. Given
that the most of the remaining 85% do stay in politics but not in Congress, the questions
about their future become salient. Here, the main point is not only where do they go, but
also what do they do in order to reach those non-legislative ambitions.
As the specialized literature on Argentina (Benton 2003, Spiller and Tommasi
2007) highlighted, subnational executive positions are forceful references for every
single ambitious politician. The ability of managing resources, sharing jobs, using public