The name is absent

22

The Argentine Case

Argentina is a presidential republic with a federal structure of government. It has
a symmetric bicameral legislature, 24 provinces (more specifically, 23 provinces plus an
autonomous capital city that functions similarly to a province) and about 2200
municipalities. After the discredit of the legalist views highlighting a unitary
performance (Frias 1986, Bidart Campos 1993), it became common knowledge among
scholars that Argentina is among the most federal Coimtries in the world Qones 2002;
Benton, 2003; Saiegh 2005; Calvo and Escolar, 2005). In fact, many relevant political and
economic decisions are made at the provincial level, such as candidate designation and
selection (De Luca 2004; De Luca, Jones and Tula 2002), the design and reform of ⅛
provincial institutions (Calvo and Micozzi, 2005), and the determination of the amount j
and destination of a majority of government spending (Eaton, 2002, 2004; Remmer and
Wibbels, 2000, Remmer and Gelineau, 2003). For example, during the nineteen-nineties
and the early XXI century, almost the same share of the distribution of expenditures was ⅛-
in the hands of the federal government and the provinces (Spiller and Tommasi 2005).
For instance, "a 52% of expenditures were carried out by the national government, 40% by the
provincial governments, and 8% by the municipal governments in 2000" (Tommasi 2002).

At the provincial level, most of these roles are concentrated in the hands of their
principal actors: the governors. Given the aforementioned distribution of political and
economic power, governors are likely to have considerable influence over federal
politics. In the same line, it is a significant fact that almost every elected office is chosen
at the provincial level in Argentina⁴. As Figure 3.1 shows, the territorial division of

⁴ Councilmen, mayors, provincial deputies and senators, federal representatives, federal senators and
governors are chosen either at large or within the boundaries of each province.

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