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mixed incentives emerge from the Structiires of electoral federalism and the patterns of
political progression.
Towards and Integrated Understanding of Ambition and Legislative Performance in
Argentina
As mentioned, the most influential pieces on Argentine legislative politics have
used a particular theoretical approach: cartel party theory14. Both Jones and Hwang
(2005) and Calvo (2007) have demonstrated how the majority coalition and the
governors use negative agenda controls to prevent any potentially harmful bill from
reaching the floor. Therefore, the majority coalition's preferred policies should never be
rolled on the floor. Their empirical evidence is conclusive and their findings have
become standard knowledge. Therefore, at some point, their statements might work
against my theoretical speculations. How would a cartelized, leadership-controlled
behavior in Congress interact with the personalization requirements by rank-and-file
members?
Following Cox & McCubbins, party enforcement and individual careerism are
not contradictory in any way; in fact, collective action is performed to solve collective
action problems for every member's benefit. This is true in an environment like the U.S.
House, where individual legislators are the basic sources of power and have to renew
their mandates every two years. However, would that be the case in a party-based
system with closed lists and provincial control of candidacies? Following Carey &
Shugart (1995), Heitshusen, Yoxmg & Wood (2005) and Crisp et al (2005), the answer
would surely be "no": institutional rules that concentrate power in the hands of party
14 See Cox and McCubbins (1993, 2005).