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level structures can also involve supra-national designs such as the European Union.
Nevertheless, all that said, federal systems have specific characteristics that make
analyses of multi-level political careers extremely interesting. The maintenance of
separate yet interdependent arenas can lead to a variety of structures of incentives and
opportunities that can also shape career paths. Coexistence of executive and legislative
political positions at the federal, state, and municipal levels create a rich dynamic that
must be carefully understood in order to unfold political actors' behavior. In particular,
especially after all the decentralization process of the nineties (Haggard and Kaufman,
1992), subnational governments became actors with enormous relevance for central
issues like the performance of the economy (Wibbels 2000), the provision of public
goods (Qian and Roland 1998), the quality of government (Treisman 2002) and the
balance of budgets (Rodden 2002). Governorships and mayoral positions have become,
hence, offices with enormous responsibilities, but also extremely profitable political
positions. Subnational executives of federal regimes (assuming that federalism is
decently respected) execute budgets, appoint and remove bureaucrats and lower-level
employees, enact public works, have a privileged access to media and collect some taxes,
among other duties. AU these activities can also become interesting tokens for
campaigning and pushing for more power, vis-à-vis either voters or party mates. If this
was the case, shouldn't politicians have those executive positions as career goals? Why
not think that gubernatorial and mayoral positions might be the real locus of career
ambition in multilevel systems?
The forceful reference for contradicting the aforementioned statement is quite
intuitive: "look at the U.S., it doesn't work!" This is true...as true as the recognition of
the central role of the U.S. House in the policymaking process. It should not be forgotten