ABSTRACT
The Electoral Connection in Multi-Level Systems with Non-Static Ambition:
Linking Political Careers and Legislative Performance in Argentina
by
Juan Pablo Micozzi
Legislators who do not expect to be permanently reelected are not necessarily
non-ambitious politicians. Whenever current legislators have different office
goals in mind, it is likely that they try to use their available resources to further
those aims. Thus, it can be expected that they bias the content of the bills they
draft towards their prospective constituents. Through the analysis of 180,000 bills
and an original database of candidacies in Argentina, I demonstrate that
legislators who have subnational executive ambitions tend to submit more
municipality-based legislation. This finding is substantive for the literature on
electoral systems, political careers and representation in federal regimes; as well
as the keystone towards the creation of a general theory of legislative
performance in multilevel systems.