The name is absent

29

answer is conclusive: a single backbencher has very limited resources during her
mandate. Her budget does not exceed several airline tickets to travel to her home
province, the salaries of staff members and advisors (no more than four or five), some
pensions and grants and, of course, a salary and some additional economic benefits.
Nothing very impressive for creating, maintaining or increasing support networks in the
provinces. This is probably one of the sources of the relatively poor role of Congress as a
career step; and it may also partially explain the low reelection rates in Argentina. In
contrast, occupying a subnational executive provides a more favorable set of incentives.
Specifically, governorships- rather than representatives or senators- are considered the
second most powerful position after the presidency (Benton 2003; Jones, Saiegh, Spiller
and Tommasi 2007)¹⁰. With a higher degree of variation, something similar can be said
about mayors. Even though they are far from being as powerful as province-level
executives, municipal mayors may also handle more and better resources than a mere
backbencher in the legislature. Compared to being the mayor of a district that has a
budget for public works, services, health and transportation!¹, an ordinary seat in
Congress seems to be just a small prize. Thus, it is a perfectly rational strategy for
ambitious politicians to use Congress as a platform to become a municipal mayor¹².

¹⁰ See also Samuels (2003) for the same depiction of the Brazilian case.

" Actually, there is an enormous degree of variation across provinces in terms of the municipal regime.
This variation entails the number of municipalities, the degrees of autonomy, the population involved, the
hierarchies, the powers for managing resources and the ability to design institutions, among others. Fora
good description of that variation, see Escolar and Calcagno (2003).

² Of course, not every municipality is as big or has as many resources as described. Nevertheless,
municipal executives can be very influential actors for provincial politics, with high chances of having a
national projection.

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