The Partisan Foundations of Legislative Particularism in Latin America

Andrés Mejía-Acosta Institute of Development Studies

University of Sussex A.Mejia@ids.ac.uk

Aníbal Pérez Liñán

Department of Political Science University of Pittsburgh

asp27@pitt.edu

Sebastián M. Saiegh Department of Political Science

University of California, San Diego ssaiegh@ucsd.edu

In this paper we argue that organizational practices within parties, more than national electoral rules, shape legislators’ incentives to initiate particularistic (narrow in scope and distributive in nature) legislation. We test this argument using a new dataset which comprises 1,906 bills initiated by the lower chamber in Paraguay (1992-2003) and 5,175 bills initiated by congress in Ecuador (1979-2002). We estimate the propensity of legislators to initiate particularistic bills as a function of district magnitude, the existence of closed lists, seniority, the size of the party, reelection rules, and the internal procedures employed by the party to nominate candidates. Our hypothesis is supported by the analysis. Ecuador, a highly fragmented party system with “amateur” legislators, is usually cited as a case where we should expect most bills to be distributive. However, once we control for strong party leaders, we see that their presence offsets the impact of candidate-centered electoral rules. Paraguay, on the other hand, has a relatively weak president and a closed-list PR system. Thus, it is usually seen as a case where strong parties and few particularistic bills should prevail. However, in practice, the fragmentation of parties into competitive factions has encouraged the proliferation of particularistic bills.

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1. Introduction

What factors shape the link between electoral institutions and the provision of public

goods? Economists and political scientists have argued that the design of electoral

systems can create incentives for legislators to cultivate personal loyalties among voters,

and thus encourage them to pursue particularistic policies in order to serve their parochial

constituencies (Ames 2001; Carey and Shugart 1995; Hallerberg and Marier 2004;

Nielson 2003; Shugart, Valdini, and Suominen 2005; Wallack et al. 2003).

According to this view, national electoral laws that promote intra-party

competition encourage candidates to cultivate personal reputations in their districts, while

laws that preclude intra-party competition strengthen the role of party labels in electoral

contests. Therefore, electoral systems encouraging intra-party competition are also likely

to create two legislative outcomes: particularism, because legislators will seek to advance

their careers by distributing pork in their districts (Ames 2001; Crisp et al. 2004); and

weak party discipline, because legislators will defy party leaders in order to protect their

personal reputation when constituency interests are in conflict with the party line (Ames

2001; Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 1997). These incentives are seen as a source of

inefficient legislation hindering economic development.

We contend that incentives to pursue particularistic legislation originate not only

in national electoral laws, but also in the specific procedures used by political parties to

nominate candidates. Even though electoral laws may discourage intra-party competition

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(for instance, by adopting closed-list proportional representation with large districts),

individual party organizations may still structure the nomination process in different

ways. Competitive primaries may encourage leaders of different party factions to pursue

particularistic benefits for their strongholds, while candidate selection controlled by few

national party leaders may reduce those incentives.

We explore this issue by analyzing the behavior of legislators in two challenging

cases: Ecuador, a country with open lists and relatively low levels of particularistic

legislation (only about 20 percent of the bills initiated by legislators address local issues

or provide constituency service); and Paraguay, a country with closed-list PR and a high

proportion of particularistic bills (64 percent of the bills initiated by congress are local or

oriented towards constituency service) (Araujo et al. 2004; Molinas, Pérez-Liñán, and

Saiegh 2004).

The reminder of the paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we discuss the

common wisdom about incentives to cultivate the personal vote and introduce our

hypotheses. In the third section we compare the electoral rules and patterns of bill

introduction in three settings: Ecuador (1979-95), Paraguay (1993-2003), and Ecuador

after the introduction of open-list PR (1998-2002). We show that legislative behavior in

these cases run against common expectations. In section 4, we address this puzzle by

modeling the propensity of individual legislators to introduce particularistic bills. The

conclusions indicate that organizational procedures for nominations, more than national

electoral rules, are critical to understand legislative behavior at the individual level.

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2. The Conditional Nature of Electoral Rules

According to the conventional wisdom, three institutional factors bolster the role of

national party leaders and reduce the incentives for particularistic legislation: a strong

leadership control over party labels, vote pooling (votes are counted, aggregated, and

translated into legislative seats at the party level and not at the faction or individual

level), and a ballot structure that allows voters to cast only one vote for a party list (Carey

and Shugart 1995; Nielson 2003; Wallack et al. 2003). This tradition has thus

emphasized the effect of macro-institutional variables (electoral rules at the national

level) on legislative incentives operating at the individual level.

However, the effect of aggregate institutions is sometimes hard to anticipate. The

most visible example of this problem is the conflicting expectations generated by first-

past-the-post (FPTP) systems. While Carey and Shugart coded FPTP systems as cases in

which parties present a fixed ballot (ballot=0), Wallack et al. (2003, 137) argued that

candidates’ individual popularity is very important to gain party nominations in single-

member districts (and thus coded ballot=1). Similarly, they questioned Carey and

Shugart’s interpretation of vote pooling at the party level under FPTP (pool=0), arguing

that “candidates do not receive additional electoral support if other candidates from their

party are successful in other districts” (Wallack et al. 2003, 138). They therefore treated

the effect of single-member-districts as akin to pooling at the sub-party level (pool=1).

Finally, while Carey and Shugart treated FPTP systems as cases in which voters cast a

single vote for a party (votes=0), Wallack et al. treated them as cases in which voters cast

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a single vote for an individual (votes=2, equivalent to casting votes at the sub-party

level).1 Thus, while FPTP had the lowest score in the Carey-Shugart classification (an

additive score of zero), for Wallack et al. the system ranked high in the scale of

particularism (an additive score of three, similar to the rank Carey and Shugart gave to

Colombia). At the core of this disagreement seems to be an understanding of FPTP in the

British or in the American mold, which suggests that organizational dynamics (e.g., party

control of nominations) are assumed throughout the discussion (Cain, Ferejohn, and

Fiorina 1987, 12-15).

While we do not question that national electoral rules create particular incentives

for legislators to challenge party leaders and pursue particularistic policies, we contend

that important causal forces operate at lower levels of analysis: the district and the party

organization.

At the district level, leadership control over the party label interacts with district

magnitude to shape electoral incentives: in closed-list systems greater district magnitude

creates fewer incentives to cultivate the personal vote, but the opposite is true under open

lists or faction lists.2 In the first case, large districts make individual legislators harder to

1 The new coding rules adopted by Wallack et al. did not apply when hegemonic parties ruled the entire assembly; it was assumed that in those cases the party leaders held power over legislators’ careers. 2 For reasons of clarity, in this paper we use “closed lists” exclusively to refer to the electoral system in which parties present a fixed ballot, votes are pooled across the whole party, and voters cast a single vote. If leaders do not control access to ballots, pooling takes place at the sub-party level, and voters cast a single vote (e.g., Colombia before 2006) we refer to “faction lists” (even though lists are “closed” and the allocation of seats may follow a Hare procedure). The term “open lists” is reserved for systems in which parties present a single ballot that can be disturbed by voters, pooling takes place at the level of the party, and voters cast multiple votes (if voters cast a single vote, we refer to lists as “unblocked”). Faction lists and unblocked lists are not systematically analyzed in this paper, since they were not employed in Paraguay or Ecuador during the period under

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identify for voters and thus make credit claiming more difficult. Under open lists, in

contrast, large districts cast a greater number of candidates from the same party against

each other, and thus place a stronger premium on personal reputations. Although the

literature has recognized this conditional effect as part of the discussion of national

systems (Carey and Shugart 1995, 431; Crisp and Ingall 2002), acknowledgement of this

pattern suggests that legislators from different districts may face different incentives

under the same national electoral rules.

At the party level, procedures for candidate selection may vary across

organizations. For instance, in some party organizations the founder or top leader may

select all the candidates and rank-order the lists, in other parties a convention or a closed

primary may settle the issue, and yet in other parties an open primary may define the

ranking of the candidates (Alcántara 2004; Siavelis and Morgenstern 2004). As Siavelis

and Morgenstern have pointed out: “Open lists systems are said to provide incentives for

candidates to cultivate a personal vote. However, if magnitude is small and parties wield

a good deal of control over nominations, we may find much higher levels of party loyalty

and less of a tie to constituents, with important consequences for legislative behavior”

(Siavelis and Morgenstern 2004, 5). Conversely, closed lists may not discourage

particularism if competitive primaries require the organization of internal campaigns and

promote particularistic policymaking by legislators interested in building their own

political machines.

study, but we expect them to have properties similar to open lists with regard to the conditional effects discussed below.

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We can summarize the previous discussion in three hypotheses:

1. Other things being equal, legislators elected under closed-list systems (systems in

which parties present a fixed ballot, votes are pooled across the whole party, and

voters cast a single vote) will be less inclined to initiate particularistic bills than those

elected from open lists (ballots that can be disturbed by voters, even though pooling

takes place at the level of the party); however

2. Closed-list electoral systems will be less likely to discourage inefficient policy-making

when legislators are elected in small districts; and

3. Closed-lists electoral systems will be less likely to discourage inefficient policy-

making when parties nominate candidates through competitive primaries.

3. Case Selection

In order to explore those issues, we will compare the behavior of legislators in three

institutional settings: the Ecuadorian legislature between 1979 and 1995, the Paraguayan

lower chamber between 1993 and 2004, and the Ecuadorian congress between 1998 and

2004. Ecuador is treated as two separate cases because the electoral rules, as we show

below, changed significantly between 1996 and 1998. Together, the three settings offer

significant variation in both institutional design and legislative behavior.

Because Ecuador and Paraguay employed proportional representation throughout

the period under study, we focus our discussion on five aspects: the type of lists (open

versus closed), the size of the districts, the rules about reelection, the nature of the party

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system, the frequency and timing of legislative elections (concurrent with presidential

elections or not), and the internal party procedures for nomination.

In order to assess the behavior of legislators under each system (our dependent

variable), we analyzed 1,906 bills initiated by the lower chamber in Paraguay (1992-

2003) and 5,175 bills initiated by the unicameral congress in Ecuador (3,459 between

1979 and 1995, 1,372 between 1998 and 2002; and other 344 introduced in the

transitional period 1996-97). We coded the content of bills following Theodore Lowi’s

classic typology of public policy (classifying projects as distributive, redistributive,

regulatory, or other) and Taylor-Robinson and Diaz’s discussion of policy targets

(classifying the scope of bills as individual, local, sectoral, regional, or national) (Lowi

1964; Taylor-Robinson and Diaz 1999).3 For the purposes of this paper we defined as

particularistic (“pork”) those policies that are distributive in nature and narrow in scope

(individual or local).

3.1. Ecuador I (1979-1995)

Political parties in Ecuador are conventionally described as weakly institutionalized,

lacking stable rules and structures, without solid attachments to organized groups in

society and with highly volatile voters (Mainwaring and Scully 1995, Jones 2005). The

rightist Social Christian Party (PSC) and the caudillo-based Ecuadorian Roldosist Party

3 The main purpose of each bill (generally stated in its title) was used for purposes of classification. Bills were coded as distributive when they allocated public funds (or other assets) to particular groups or individuals, redistributive when they sought to promote transfers of wealth across social sectors, and regulatory when they imposed rules or restrictions for specific activities. For the Taylor-Robinson and Diaz’s (1999) classification, we followed the coding rules described in the appendix to their study. We coded a primary and (if necessary) a secondary target level for each bill.

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(PRE) have traditionally competed for hegemony in the coastal area, whereas the

Christian Democratic Party (DP) and the Social Democratic Party (ID) have disputed

territories of the Andean and Amazonic Region. Despite high levels of party

fragmentation, these four political parties have captured most of the legislative seats and

consolidated electoral bailiwicks over time (Pachano 2004).

During this period, Ecuador had a two-tier unicameral congress formed by 12

legislators elected from a single nationwide district, and provincial legislators elected by

proportional representation according to the population of their provinces (21 districts in

1996). The number of provincial legislators varied from 57 in 1979 to 70 in 1996, for an

average district magnitude of 3.1. Seat allocation was done by closed list PR through a

combined Hare-D’Hondt electoral formula.

In the first democratic election after the transition (1979), all legislators were

elected for a five-year term. This calendar was altered by the 1983 constitutional reform.

After 1984, legislators were elected for two years if they represented a province and for

four years if they represented the national district. In addition, between 1979 and 1996

Ecuador did not allow for immediate legislative reelection. This system truncated

politicians’ incentives to pursue legislative careers: on average only 12 percent of the

legislators returned to congress after one term out of office (Mejía Acosta 1996).

Combined with the midterm legislative elections, term limits determined that congress

renewed over 85 percent of its members every two years.

The closed-list system gave party leaders strong nomination powers over their

party members, since they were able to control candidate selection and the order in which

candidates were placed in the party list (Mainwaring and Shugart 1997, 421; Morgenstern

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1996). Few political parties, such as the Social Democrats (ID) and the Christian

Democrats (DP) allowed provisions for primaries, and in most cases party leaders

influenced candidate nominations even when decisions were made in national

conventions (Freidemberg 2003). However, the "strength" of party leaders was diluted by

the fact that legislators were not able to seek immediate legislative reelection, and thus

they lacked incentives to build congressional careers.4

3. 2. Ecuador II (1998-2004)

A series of institutional reforms altered the nature of the Ecuadorian electoral system

between 1996 and 1998. The possibility of immediate legislative reelection was

proposed and adopted in 1994 by a constitutional plebiscite and implemented in the 1996

election (Mejia Acosta 2003). Reelection rates however remained relatively low.

Between 1998 and 2002, 27 percent of the legislators achieved immediate reelection and

on average about 52 percent of the legislators had some prior legislative experience.

In response to societal demands for greater participation and accountability, the

1998 Constitution introduced further changes to the electoral system. A 1997 plebiscite

adopted open-list proportional representation, forcing individual candidates to compete

for votes against other parties as much as against other members of their own party

(Pachano 1998). Under the current electoral law, voters have as many votes as

representatives are elected in the district, they select individual members from party lists,

and each party pools the votes obtained by its individual candidates. The total sum of

4 Although there is little evidence available, it is possible that legislators may have pursued alternative career paths outside the legislature, running for sub-national (municipal, provincial) offices or seeking appointments in the government bureaucracy (Pachano 1991).

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votes obtained by the parties determines the distribution of seats according to the d´Hondt

formula. In turn, seats are distributed within each party according to the number of votes

obtained by the candidates.

The 1998 Constitution also increased the number of legislators to 100, expanded

the number of national legislators to 20,5 and preserved the existing 21 districts (two

more provinces were added to the electoral map the following year). The average district

magnitude during this period increased to 4.5. Adoption of open-list PR was expected to

increase the legislators’ incentives to cultivate the “personal vote” (Carey and Shugart

1995; Hallerberg and Marier 2002) in a system with a preexisting tradition of strong local

and patronage politics (Conaghan 1995).6

The post-1998 period was characterized by a further territorialization of the electoral

arena. Party leaders strengthened their electoral bailiwicks in particular regions and

faced difficulties to invade other parties’ territories (Pachano 2004). The emergence of

new parties such as Pachakutik and Alvaro Noboa’s PRIAN occurred at the expense of

other organizations (the DP or PRE, respectively) but always within the same geographic

region (the Andes and the Coast). Pachakutik-Nuevo País (MUPP) entered the formal

political arena to represent a highly mobilized sector of indigenous population, mostly

concentrated in the jungle and highlands.

In spite of the adoption of open-list PR, party leaders soon reasserted their power to

control nominations. For a brief period, a 1995 reform allowed the participation of

5 The at-large district was eliminated in the 2002 election. 6 The fact that Ecuador has one of the worst malapportioned legislatures in Latin America, with a significant overrepresentation of rural over urban districts, should reinforce the parochially oriented nature of its legislators (Cox and Morgenstern 2002, Snyder and Samuels 2001).

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independent candidates without party affiliation, but by 1998 this provision had been

abolished. However, the 1998 reform allowed political parties to form electoral alliances

at the provincial level, slightly diluting the power of national party leaders to control

access to the lists.

3. 3. Paraguay (1993-2004)

Two large parties have dominated Paraguayan politics since the nineteenth-century: the

Colorado Party (National Republican Association, ANR) and the Liberals (Authentic

Radical Liberal Party, PLRA). The ANR has controlled the executive branch since 1947

and was one of the main pillars (together with the army) of the dictatorship of Gen.

Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989). When a military coup against Stroessner ignited the

transition to democracy in 1989, the ANR remained the most popular party (winning 67%

of the seats in the lower chamber in 1989, 50% in 1993, 56% in 1998, and 46% in 2003),

but the Liberals were able to re-organize and captured a significant proportion of

legislative seats, as well as the vice-presidency in the 2000 election. Smaller parties (the

Partido Revolucionario Febrerista, Encuentro Nacional, País Solidario, and Patria

Querida) and a Colorado splinter (Unace) have also been able to capture a few seats in

congress.

As part of the democratic transition, the 1992 Constitution established that

Paraguayan deputies (and senators) would be elected in concurrent elections every five

years and that they could be reelected indefinitely (article 187). The 1990 Electoral Code

(Law 1/90, article 273) abandoned the “incomplete list” electoral system employed

during the Stroessner era and adopted closed-list proportional representation (with a

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d'Hondt divisor). Article 118 of the 1992 Constitution explicitly required elections to be

conducted under proportional representation and successive modifications of the electoral

code (Laws 75/92; 834/96, article 258) preserved the d'Hondt procedure.

The Paraguayan Chamber of Deputies has 80 members who are elected to

represent 17 departments (Alto Paraguay, Alto Paraná, Amambay, Boquerón, Caaguazú,

Caazapa, Canindeyu, Central, Concepción, Cordillera, Guairá, Itapúa, Misiones,

Ñeembucú, Paraguarí, Presidente Hayes, and San Pedro) plus the city of Asunción

(Constitution of 1992, article 221). Given the demographic density of the departments,

this arrangement has created ten small districts (of magnitudes between one and three) six

medium-sized districts (magnitudes four to seven) and two large districts (magnitudes

greater than seven). The average district magnitude is 4.4.

The 1990 Electoral Code required political parties to nominate candidates

selected by “the direct vote of the party members” (article 35). The 1992 Constitution in

addition established that all “intermediate organizations” (political parties, trade unions,

and social organizations) should respect the voting rights established in the charter—

including the right to proportional representation (article 119). In practice, this meant that

political parties were required to conduct closed primaries (restricted to party members)

to conform candidate lists (Hernández Sánchez 2003). Given the need to nominate

candidates for municipal, congressional, and presidential elections (in addition to party

authorities), primary elections have been a regular occurrence. Primaries took place in

1989, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001, and 2002 (Barreda and Costafreda 2002,

106). Small parties occasionally circumvented this requirement by agreeing on a

“consensus list” and holding the mandated primary as a legitimizing procedure; but the

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main parties (the ANR and the PLRA) have organized their internal life around

competing factions that clash regularly at primary contests (Molinas, Pérez-Liñán, and

Saiegh 2004).

4. The Puzzle

Table 1 summarizes the main traits of the three electoral systems. Conventional wisdom

indicates that Ecuador II should be the most encouraging setting for the production of

particularistic legislation, followed by Paraguay and Ecuador I. In the first case, the

combination of open lists with medium-sized districts (an average district magnitude of

4.6 and a median magnitude of 5) would be generally expected to promote the

personalization of electoral campaigns. In contrast, the closed-list system employed by

Paraguay and by Ecuador until 1998 normally creates fewer incentives to cultivate the

personal vote. Although district magnitude was somewhat greater in Paraguay than in

Ecuador I (4.4 vs. 3.1), the imposition of strict term limits in Ecuador until 1996 probably

reduced the value of personal reputations, except in those cases in which legislators

intended to run for mayoral positions in their districts.

<Table 1 Here>

The distribution of particularistic policies, however, defies the initial expectations.

Ecuador II is in fact the case with the lowest rate of pork initiation (6 percent of all bills),

followed by Ecuador II (12 percent) and by Paraguay (48 percent). The high

particularism of Paraguayan legislators is puzzling not only from the point of view of the

electoral system, but also from the perspective of the party system: the small Ecuadorian

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parties tend to have clear regional bailiwicks, while the dominant Colorado Party is likely

to internalize the costs of inefficient policymaking at the national level.

The apparent randomness of the policymaking patterns presented in Table 1 may

be explained by the organizational dynamics of the nomination process. In Ecuador,

nominations tend to be dominated by powerful leaders who (even under open-list PR)

control access to party lists, while in Paraguay the electoral laws have imposed a system

of closed primaries. In the following section we explore this problem more systematically

and examine to what extent organizational dynamics alter the legislative incentives

created by closed-list proportional representation at the individual level.

4.1. Individual-Level Analysis

In this section, we estimate a model of bill initiation for a cross-section of individual

Paraguayan and Ecuadorian legislators. The sample consists of 3,273 observations on

1,235 legislators for the periods 1979-2002 (Ecuador) and 1993-2003 (Paraguay). The

response variable, (“Pork”) indicates the number of particularistic bills (local-

distributive) initiated by a given legislator in a particular year.

With respect to the predictors, we consider the following indicators of district

magnitude and of the parties’ organizational dynamics:

1. District Magnitude. This variable indicates the number of legislative seats

assigned to a district. It ranges from single-member districts to districts where the

magnitude is equal to twenty seats. (Sources: Araujo et. al. 2004 and Molinas et.

al. 2004).

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2. Nomination Mechanism. This is an ordinal index that captures the nomination

process in a given legislator’s party. It takes the value of 0 when candidate

selection is in the hands of a national party leader; a value of 1 if candidates’

nominations are controlled by national directorate; a value of 2 if candidacies are

determined by a national convention or a primary with a single list; and a value of

3 if politicians have to compete in a closed primary to secure a candidacy. The

coding of nomination procedures was coded based on several studies of party

organizations (Sources: Freidenberg 2003; Hernández Sánchez 2003).

3. Closed List. This is a dummy variable that take the value of 1 if voters are

presented with a list of candidates and the order of the list of candidates on the

ballot cannot be altered. It takes the value or 0, otherwise. (Source: Araujo et. al.

2004 and Molinas et. al. 2004).

Regarding our empirical findings, and the statistical methods that we use to

generate them, a couple of points are in order. First, as Brambor et. al. (2006) note, the

intuition behind conditional hypothesis is captured quite well by the use of multiplicative

interaction models. Therefore, given the conditional nature of the arguments presented in

the previous section, we need to include as covariates a series of interaction terms. The

two additional variables DM*Closed (District Magnitude * Closed List) and

Nom.*Closed (Nomination Mechanism * Closed List) are thus included in the analysis.

Our second concern has to do with the estimation of the model. The problem is

the following: when a legislator introduces a piece of legislation that is particularistic in

nature, this decision affects the overall number of bills that he/she is willing to introduce.

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Therefore, the number of bills a legislator introduces in a particular year (a proportion of

which will be particularistic) is endogenously determined. The implications of

simultaneity for econometric estimation are well known in the literature.7 For simplicity,

suppose that a legislator’s “pork legislation” function is embedded in a very simple

model of two equations:

P B= + + [1]

and an equilibrium condition

B P NP= + [2]

where P (particularistic legislation) and B (bills) are endogenous variables and NP (non-

particularistic legislation) is an exogenous variable.

The parameters of the “pork legislation” function that must be estimated are

(the intercept) and (the slope, or marginal propensity to introduce pork). Consider

though the problem of estimating this function regressing particularistic legislation on the

total number of legislative initiatives introduced. Suppose the disturbance in the pork

function jumps up. This directly increases the number of particularistic bills, which

through the equilibrium condition increases the total number of bills proposed. But the

total number of proposals is the independent variable in the pork function. Thus, the

disturbance in the pork function and the regressor are positively correlated. An increase

in the disturbance term (directly implying an increase in pork) is accompanied by an

increase in the number of proposed bills (also implying an increase in the number of

particularistic bills).

7 The problem is quite similar to the textbook example of a Keynesian system of a consumption function.

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When estimating the influence of the total number of proposals on particularistic

legislation, however, the OLS technique attributes both of these increases in “pork”

(instead of just the latter) to the accompanying increase in proposed legislation. This

implies that the OLS estimator of the marginal propensity to introduce particularistic

legislation will be biased upward, even asymptotically.

A natural response to this estimating problem is to use an instrumental variable

(IV) approach. This technique is a general estimation procedure applicable to situations

in which the independent variable is not independent of the disturbance. If an appropriate

instrumental variable can be found for the total number of bills a legislator proposes, the

instrumental variable technique provides consistent estimates. The big problem with this

approach, of course, is finding appropriate instrumental variables; exogenous variables in

the system of simultaneous equations are considered the best candidates since they are

correlated with the endogenous variables (through the interaction of the simultaneous

system) and are uncorrelated with the disturbances (by the assumption of exogeneity). In

this case, we will use the number of “policy” proposals (“Non-Pork”) as our instrument.

We recognize that the assumption that the number of policy proposals is

exogenous is an oversimplification. In fact, it is likely to depend on the number of

particularistic bills and the total number of proposals. The assumptions can be made more

realistic by increasing the size of the model, but then its mathematical complexity also

increases. This complexity, in turn, affects the likelihood that the system will be

identified. Therefore we will stick to a two-equation model.

There two additional, and substantively good reasons to keep it simple. First, from

a statistical point of view, the number of “policy” proposals has the properties of a good

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instrument: it is highly correlated (.96) with the total number of bills that legislators

introduce in a given year, but uncorrelated with the number of particularistic bills.

Second, since we are agnostic (an in fact, quite ignorant) about what affects a legislator’s

propensity to introduce “policy” proposals, we can take this variable as an indicator of

those unmeasured factors that make them “tick”.

Finally, for identification purposes (i.e. to avoid overidentification), we will

estimate two separate models: one to assess the effect of conditional effect of district

magnitude and closed lists on a legislator’s marginal propensity to introduce pork; and

another one to estimate the conditional effects of nomination rules and closed lists.8 Table

2 presents our empirical results. The estimated coefficient for the instrumented variable –

total number of bills—can be interpreted as the marginal propensity to introduce

particularistic legislation. It represents the amount of additional particularistic legislation

proposed by a legislator resulting from his/her initiation of an additional bill. As

expected, it lies between 0 and 1, and it is statistically significant.

< Table 2 Here >

Regarding our main variables of interest (District Magnitude, Closed List and

Nomination), the first thing to notice is that, as predicted, they have a conditional effect.

Let’s take a look first at the effect of closed lists on the introduction of particularistic

legislation. In order to make a proper interpretation of the results we have to keep in mind

that the effect of closed list on “pork” depends on a third variable, district magnitude.

Therefore, the coefficient reported on Table 2 is meaningless (i.e. it captures the effect of

closed list when district magnitude is zero!).

8 For a review of the order and rank conditions for identification see Greene (1997), Chapter 16.

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The solid line in Figure 1 illustrates how the marginal effect of closed lists

changes across the observed range of district magnitude. The dotted lines show 95%

confidence intervals around these estimates. Notice that the effect of closed lists on a

legislator’s propensity to introduce particularistic legislation increases as the district

magnitude becomes larger. This finding runs contrary to our second hypothesis.

< Figure 1 Here >

Although the conditional effect is substantively small (legislators elected under

closed lists in extremely large districts are expected to introduce less that one additional

particularistic bill on average), this result is clearly at odds with the conventional wisdom

regarding the role of open lists and personal vote seeking in the production of

particularistic legislation. However, as we argue in this paper, it is perfectly consistent

with the idea that even with closed lists legislators may have to compete with one another

at the primary stage. Moreover, as Table 2 indicates, the conditional effect of district

magnitude on particularism under open lists (closed=0) is null (it is slightly negative, but

statistically indistinguishable from zero). On the other hand, under closed lists, district

magnitude has a small but positive and statistically significant effect on the introduction

of particularistic legislation. In sum, the results show that large districts with closed-list

PR are not inconsistent with the introduction of particularistic bills.

With respect to the interactive effect of closed lists and the nomination process on

a legislator’s behavior, the results presented in Table 2 are consistent with our third

hypothesis. When candidate selection is in the hands of a few national party leaders,

closed lists have no effect on the amount of particularistic legislation that is proposed

(notice the negative but statistically indistinguishable from zero coefficient on table 2).

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However, as figure 2 shows, the effect of closed lists on pork initiation is positive and

statistically significant as the nomination process becomes more competitive. Under

closed lists, a legislator who competed in a closed primary to secure a candidacy would

almost triplicate the amount of particularistic legislation proposed by a legislator selected

by a national directorate.

< Figure 2 Here >

As table 2 shows, the effect of the nomination rules under open lists is also null.

However, under close lists, the marginal effect of the nomination rules is quite important.

For example, we predict that a legislator who was selected by primaries rather than by the

national leadership of his/her party would introduce a full additional particularistic bill.

4.2. Sensitivity and Robustness

The use of simultaneous equations and samples such as the one in this paper, inevitably

raise concerns about the sensitivity of the results. To address these potential problems, we

estimate a series of additional models with different model specifications and with

somewhat different sample sizes.

In this case, the identification strategy involves a different model specification for

the instrumental variable. Namely, we estimate the total number of proposals using the

following predictor variables:

1. Member of Presidents’ Party. This is a categorical variable that takes the value

of 1 if a legislator belongs to the president’s party, and zero otherwise. (Source:

Araujo et. al. 2004 and Molinas et. al. 2004).

21

2. Seniority. This variable indicates the amount of time (in years) spent by a

legislator as a member of his/her respective legislature. (Source: Araujo et. al.

2004 and Molinas et. al. 2004).

3. Electoral Year. This is a dummy variable that takes the value of 1 when there is

an election in that particular country/year, and zero otherwise. (Source: Araujo et.

al. 2004 and Molinas et. al. 2004).

4. Reelection. This is a categorical variable that takes the value of 1 if reelection is

allowed, and zero if its is constitutionally banned. (Source: Araujo et. al. 2004 and

Molinas et. al. 2004)

We estimate the number of particularistic proposals initiated by an individual

legislator as a function of these predictors and our variables of interest (district

magnitude, closed lists, nomination rules). We also take into account the fact that those

legislators who do not propose any bills at all might be different from those who do

propose legislation, and thus have an effect on our results. Finally, we also consider the

opposite case: the possibility that those legislators who propose a disproportionate

amount of bills (more than two standard deviations above the mean) are different.

Therefore, we estimate our full model using four different samples: the full

sample, one excluding those legislators who do not propose a single bill, one excluding

those legislators who propose more than 10 bills per year, and a sample excluding both

the non-productive and the hyper-productive legislators. Table 3 shows the estimates for

the different sample sizes.

< Table 3 Here >

22

Finally, given the nature of the data and the high incidence of legislators who do not

initiate any bills at all, we also estimate the base model using zero-inflated negative

binomial maximum-likelihood regression. 9 In this way, we can also explore the

determinants behind a legislator’s decision to propose no bills in an entire year. For ease

of interpretation, in Table 4, we report coefficients transformed to incidence rate ratios

(and their 95% confidence intervals). So, for example, a coefficient taking a value

between .62-.95 means that an increment in our independent variable of interest is

associated with a 38%-5% decrease in the incidence of bill initiation.

< Table 4 Here >

The results presented in Tables 3 and 4 are quite robust to the different model

specification and to the different sample sizes. Legislators who belong to the president’s

party tend to introduce less pieces of particularistic legislation. For example, the results in

Table 4 suggest that a legislator who is a co-partisan with the president will introduce

between 38% and 5% less particularistic bills compared to a legislator who does not

belong to the president’s party. Another interesting finding is that deputies initiate at least

one piece of legislation, but are less likely to initiate additional legislation when they are

in the campaign trail. They are also more likely to initiate bills (including pork) when

they can seek reelection.

More importantly, the conditional nature of the electoral effects can be clearly

seen. The findings in Table 3 show that neither district magnitude nor closed lists by

themselves have a statistically significant effect on the individual production of

9 The data do not seem to be over-dispersed. Therefore, we also run these models using a Poisson count specification. The results, of course, are very similar.

23

particularistic legislation. It is the interactive effect of these variables and the nomination

process what positively affects “pork” introduction. The results obtained from the zero-

inflated model are very similar. Legislators elected under closed lists are more likely to

introduce at least one piece of particularistic legislation. However neither closed lists nor

nomination by themselves have a statistically significant effect on additional pork

introduction.

Against the conventional wisdom represented by hypotheses 1 and 2, deputies

elected from closed lists are as likely to initiate pork as those legislators elected under

open lists (and legislators elected under closed lists are more likely to initiate pork when

they represent large districts). However, consistent with out third hypothesis, these

legislators are more wiling to initiate pork when they face competitive primaries to

determine the composition of the closed lists.

5. Conclusions

The idea that the organization of a legislative body reflects the electoral incentives

faced by its members is a cornerstone of the American politics literature. In contrast, the

field of comparative politics has been mostly concerned with how national electoral rules

shape legislative incentives elsewhere. In order to make this problem tractable, most

comparativists have made heroic assumptions linking national electoral laws to

legislators’ incentives, and those in turn to actual patterns of policymaking. This strategy

has allowed analysts to use electoral rules as crude but efficient proxies for legislative

24

behavior in cross-national studies (Cox and McCubbins 2001; Hallerberg and Marier

2004; Johnson and Crisp 2003; Nielson 2003).

Our analysis, however, indicates that the organizational control of the nomination

process (which may vary from country to country and even from party to party under the

same electoral system) may be the key determinant of legislative incentives to pursue

particularistic policies. Open-list electoral systems may not encourage credit-claiming

strategies when party leaders filter access to the lists, and closed-list systems may

encourage particularism when party leaders face competitive primaries to determine the

composition of party ballots. As noted by Siavelis and Morgenstern, “centralized or

decentralized patterns of selection are possible with both open and closed lists. (…) We

must uncover how processes of candidate choice interact with the discipline-dampening

incentives of open list systems (…and) we must determine the extent to which the two

variables together elicit effects that neither alone would produce” (Siavelis and

Morgenstern 2004, 5). The analysis of legislative behavior in Paraguay and Ecuador

suggests that more extensive research on the nature of party organizations will be

required to address questions of policymaking and party discipline systematically in the

future.

25

Tables and Figures

Table 1. Institutional Configurations and Policymaking Patterns in Three Cases

Case Ecuador I Paraguay Ecuador II (1979-1995) (1993-2003) (1998-2002)

PR Lists Closed Closed Open Reelection Not allowed Yes Yes Modal Nomination Procedure Party leaders Closed primaries Party leaders District Magnitude:

Average 3.1 4.4 4.5 Median 3 6 5

Policymaking Patterns: Percent Non-local 71% 34% 85% Percent Local 29% 66% 15% Percent Pork (local & distributive) 12% 48% 5% N (bills) 3,459 1,906 1,043

Notes: Average district magnitude is the total number of seats divided by the number of districts. Median district magnitude is the district magnitude corresponding to the median legislator (in the average year for the period). Bills are defined as non-local if they are broad in scope; as local if they are narrow in scope; and “pork” if they are distributive in nature and narrow in scope (affecting individuals or municipalities). The total N corresponds to all bills initiated by the legislature (lower house in the case of Paraguay) during the period.

26

Table 2. OLS and IV Estimates of Bills and Pork Initiation

Response Variable Response Variable Response Variable Total Number of Bills Particularistic Bills Particularistic Bills Policy Proposals 1.112*** (0.006) District Magnitude -0.003 (0.006) Nomination -0.044 (0.055) Closed List 0.146* -0.008 (0.075) (0.072) DM*Closed 0.041*** (0.007) Nom.*Closed 0.274*** (0.058) Bills (Instrumented) 0.096*** 0.106*** (0.005) (0.005) Constant 0.221 -0.103 -0.109 (0.022) 0.067 (0.062) N 3273 3265 3272 R^2 0.91 0.15 0.17 Standard errors are in parentheses. ***p < :001, **p < :01, *p < :05 two-tailed.

27

Figure 1

Marginal Effect of Closed Lists on Pork Introduction as District Magnitude Changes

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

District Magnitude

Ma

rg

ina

l E

ffe

ct o

f C

los

ed

Lis

ts

Mean

Figure 2

Marginal Effect of Closed List on Pork Introduction as Nomination Changes

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

0 1 2 3

Nomination Rules

Po

rk

In

itia

tio

n

28

Table 3. OLS and IV Estimates of Bills and Pork Initiation

Full Sample Sample Excluding Non-Productive Sample Excluding Hyper-Productive Sample Excluding Both Response Variable Total Bills Particularistic Total Bills Particularistic Total Bills Particularistic Total Bills Particularistic Policy Proposals 1.112*** 1.103*** 1.107*** 1.008*** (0.006) (0.007) (0.007) (0.011) President’s Party 0.101**

(0.043) -0.077* (0.039)

0.163** (0.058)

-0.065 (0.053)

0.063* (0.037)

-0.119** (0.035)

0.103* (0.051)

-0.129* (0.049)

Seniority -0.031*** (0.008)

-0.004 (0.007)

-0.041*** (0.011)

-0.005 (0.011)

-0.026*** (0.007)

-0.001 (0.006)

-0.031** (0.009)

0.002 (0.009)

Electoral Year -0.087** (0.037)

-0.126*** (0.032)

-0.112* (0.049)

-0.126** (0.043)

-0.094** (0.032)

-0.135*** (0.029)

-0.138** (0.042)

-0.159*** (0.041)

Reelection

0.258*** (0.038)

0.231*** (0.051)

0.323*** (0.051)

0.285*** (0.065)

0.202*** (0.033)

0.161** (0.047)

0.227*** (0.044)

0.186** (0.061)

District Magnitude -0.003 -0.004 -0.001 -0.001 (0.005) (0.007) (0.004) (0.006) Nomination -0.046 -0.048 -0.022 -0.025 (0.049) (0.067) (0.044) (0.061) Closed List 0.127 0.189 0.129 0.201 (0.101) (0.135) (0.091) (0.124) DM*Closed 0.025*** 0.031*** 0.017** 0.021** (0.006) (0.008) (0.005) (0.007) Nom.*Closed 0.161** 0.194** 0.163** 0.205** (0.054) (0.072) (0.048) (0.067) Bills (Instrumented) 0.104*** 0.095*** 0.059*** 0.015 (0.004) (0.006) (0.006) (0.009) Constant 0.157 -0.215 0.266 -0.278 0.256 -0.107 0.509 -0.037 (0.043) (0.094) (0.059) (0.129) (0.038) (0.085) (0.054) (0.121) N 3272 3265 2447 2445 3167 3165 2342 2340 R^2 0.92 0.35 0.90 0.32 0.85 0.22 0.80 0.15 Standard errors are in parentheses. ***p < :001, **p < :01, *p < :05 two-tailed.

29

Table 4. Zero-Inflated Model of Pork Initiation

No Pork - Logit Estimates (Standard deviations)

Pork Initiation – Risk Ratios (95% confidence intervals)

President’s Party .96 .77* (.69) (.62-.94) Seniority .08 .98 (.09) (.93-1.03) Electoral Year -1.67** .66*** (.58) (.53-.81) Reelection -17.44*** .86 (1.17) (.61-1.21) District Magnitude -.18* .92* (.11) (.85-1.01) Nomination .09 1.11 (.62) (.63-1.95) Closed List -21.01*** .79 (2.48) (.27-2.32) DM*Closed .21 1.12** (.13) (1.03-1.22) Nom*Closed .62 1.13 (.86) (.63-2.02) Constant 19.43 (1.36) Non-zero obs. Zero obs. Wald chi2 Prob > chi2 Log pseudolikelihood

2413 852 124.62 0.000 -2693.723

*** significant at .001, ** significant at .01, *significant at .05 two-tailed.

30

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