The name is absent

20

subnational races made governorships very attractive positions in order to obtain
political power, backed by budgets that can foster the development of a successful career
(Langston and Diaz-Cayeros 2007). Variation in institutional rules and patterns of
competition have also shaped the different structures of opportunity for staying in the
state or jumping to the national arena (Gonzalez 2009), thereby creating multiple sets of
incentives to develop a multilevel career path. Given that one-period term limits are in
effect in the Mexican House, legislators have to look for alternatives to continue their
political careers. As Langston and Aparicio (2008) show, patterns of multilevel ambition
are easily recognized in the Mexican setting, with politicians moving forth and back
among municipal, provincial and federal arenas. Of course, term limits force non-
discrete ambitious politicians to anticipate the end of their mandates and overcome the
consequences of the "zero reelection rate". Hence, the pursuit of subnational positions in
such environment is one of the typical movements any single legislator might consider.

Argentina is an intermediate case. Term limits are absent at the federal legislative
level, but, indeed, the rate of incumbents seeking reelection is just about a 20%³. This is
explained by the structures of opportunities and incentives, which make legislative
office a not extremely valuable political position. However, as Jones et al. (2002)
demonstrate, Argentine politicians are not amateurs. Instead, they continuously pursue
other positions in different tiers and branches of government. Thus, ambition is clearly
progressive in Argentina. As the data in Table 3.1 shows, about 23% of all legislators
who have ever occupied a seat in the House have run for a subnational executive
position at some point in their careers. Also, some politicians have served more than one

³ As Jones and Samuels (2004) show, only countries with term limits like Mexico and Costa Rica have
lower reelection rates in Latin America.

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