Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T10:56:18.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Distributive Politics of Emergency Employment Programs in Argentina (1993–2002)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Agustina Giraudy
Agustina Giraudy*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

During the 1990s, the Argentine federal government dramatically increased the number of workfare programs targeted to the unemployed. The distribution of employment programs, however, varied across provinces. Previous studies suggest that this uneven distribution has taken place because politicians have not distributed programs according to formal eligibility criteria, but rather, in a clientelistic manner to entice voters' support.

I conduct a balanced pooled time series analysis for twenty-four provinces for the period 1993–2002 and find that partisanship, institutional features of the Argentine federal system, social mobilization, and economic factors strongly determine the way in which presidents have distributed employment programs. The results challenge the assumption that these programs have been exclusively used as clientelistic handouts to buy people's votes, and point to the necessity of looking at institutional, social, and economic variables to better understand the criteria used by federal politicians to distribute means-tested programs.

Resumo

Resumo

Durante los años noventa, el gobierno nacional argentino ha incrementado en forma dramática el número de programas destinado a la población desempleada. Sin embargo, la distribución de estos programas ha variado de provincia en provincia. Diversos estudios señalan que esta distribución desigual ha sido posible debido a que los funcionarios no han distribuido los programas de acuerdo a criterios formales de idoneidad, sino más bien, de forma clientelar para obtener el respaldo de los votantes. Utilizando una serie temporal para 24 provincias durante el período 1993–2002, este artículo demuestra que el color partidario, los aspectos institucionales del federalismo argentino, la movilización social, y ciertos factores económicos han determinado la forma en que los presidentes han distribuido dichos programas de empleo. Los resultados que se presentan cuestionan el presupuesto según el cual estos programas se han utilizado exclusivamente como moneda de cambio para comprar votos, y señalan la importancia de incorporar variables institucionales, sociales y económicas para entender de forma más acabada el criterio con el cual los funcionarios nacionales distribuyen programas focalizados.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 2007 , pp. 33 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

1.

I thank Jonathan Hartlyn, Evelyne Huber, and John Stephens for their support and advice during different stages of this paper. I am also grateful to Ryan Bakker, Ernesto Calvo, Mireya Dávila, Juan Pablo Luna, Jennifer Pribble, Inés Valdez, and three anonymous reviewers, all of whom provided excellent comments to earlier versions of this article.

References

Achen, Christopher H. 2000 “Why Lagged Dependent Variables Can Suppress the Explanatory Power of Other Independent Variables.” Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Political Methodology Section of the American Political Science Association, UCLA, July 20–22.Google Scholar
Auyero, Javier 2001 Poor People's Politics: Peronist Survival Networks and the Legacy of Evita. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel, and Katz, Jonathan 1995 “What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data.” American Political Science Review 89 (3): 634–647.Google Scholar
Brusco, Valeria, Nazareno, Marcelo, and Stokes, Susan 2001 “Clientelism and Democracy. An Analysis of Ecological Data from Argentina.” Paper presented at the Annual Congress of the American Political Science Association. San Francisco, California.Google Scholar
Brusco, Valeria, Nazareno, Marcelo, and Stokes, Susan 2003 “Selective Incentives and Electoral Mobilization. Evidence from Argentina.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Brusco, Valeria, Nazareno, Marcelo, and Stokes, Susan 2004 “Vote Buying in Argentina.” Latin American Research Review 39 (2): 66–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calvo, Ernesto, and Murillo, María Victoria 2004 “Who Delivers? Partisan Clients in the Argentine Electoral Market.” American Journal of Political Science 48 (4): 742–57.Google Scholar
Calvo, Ernesto, and Murillo, María Victoria 2005 “A New Iron Law of Argentine Politics? Partisanship, Clientelism, and Governability in Contemporary Argentina.” In Argentine Democracy. The Politics of Institutional Weakness, edited by Levitsky, Steven and Murillo, María Victoria. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Canton, Dario, and Jorrat, Raúl 2002 “Economic Evaluations, Partisanship, and Social Bases of Presidential Voting in Argentina, 1995 and 1999.” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 4:413–427 (Winter).Google Scholar
Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS) 2003 El estado frente a la protesta social. 1996–2002. Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores.Google Scholar
Delamata, Gabriela 2004 The Organizations of Unemployed Workers in Greater Buenos Aires. Paper No. 8. Policy Papers Series. Center for Latin American Studies. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Fachelli, Sandra, Ronconi, Lucas, and Sanguinetti, Juan 2004 Poverty and Employability Effects of Workfare Programs in Argentina. Poverty and Economic Policy (PEP) Research Network.Google Scholar
Fox, Jonathan 1994 “The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico.” World Politics 46 (2): 151–84.Google Scholar
Franceschelli, Ignacio, and Ronconi, Lucas 2005 “Clientelism, Workfare and the Emergence of the Piqueteros in Argentina.” Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Institucional. Manuscript.Google Scholar
Galasso, Emanuela, and Rovallion, Martín 2003 Social Protection in a Crisis: Argentina's Plan Jefes y Jefas. Development Research Group. The World Bank.Google Scholar
Gervasoni, Carlos 1998 El impacto de las reformas económicas en la coalición electoral justicialista (1989–1995).“ Boletín de la SAAP. Año 4, Número 6.Google Scholar
Gibson, Edward L. 1997 “The Populist Road to Market Reform: Policy and Electoral Coalitions in Mexico and Argentina.” World Politics 49 (3): 309–39.Google Scholar
Gibson, Edward L., and Calvo, Ernesto 2000 “Federalism and Low-maintenance Constituencies: Territorial Dimensions of Economic Reform in Argentina.” Studies in Comparative International Development 35 (3): 32–55.Google Scholar
Gibson, Edward, Calvo, Ernesto and Falleti, Tulia 2004 “Rellocative Federalism: Legislative Overrepresentation and Public Spending in the Western Hemisphere.” In Federalism and Democracy in Latin America, edited by Gibson, Edward L. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Golbert, Laura 2000 “The Social Agenda in Argentina: A Review of Retirement and Employment Policies.” In Social Development in Latin America, Joseph Tulchin and Allison Garland, eds. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Golbert, Laura 2004 ¿Derecho a la inclusion o paz social? Plan Jefas y Jefes de Hogar Desocupados. División Desarrollo Social. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL.Google Scholar
Huber, Evelyne, and Stephens, John 2001 Development and Crisis of the Welfare State. Parties and Policies in Global Market. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INDEC) Various years Anuario Estadístico de la República Argentina.Google Scholar
Jones, Mark P., and Hwang, Wonjae 2005 “Provincial Party Bosses: Keystone of the Argentine Congress.” In Argentine Democracy. The Politics of Institutional Weakness, Steven Levitsky and María Victoria Murillo, eds. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Levitsky, Steven 2001 “Transforming Labor Parties in Latin America: The Argentine Justicialista Party in Comparative Perspective.” Kellogg Institute, University of Notre Dame. Working Paper # 288.Google Scholar
Levtisky, Steven, and Murillo, María Victoria 2003 “Argentina Weathers the Storm.” Journal of Democracy 14 (4): 152–66.Google Scholar
Lodola, Germán 2002 “Social Protests under Industrial Restructuring: Argentina in the Nineties.” Paper prepared for delivery at the 2002 Congress of the Canadian Association for Latin America and Caribbean Studies, “Latin America: Between Representation and Realities.” Montreal, October 24–26.Google Scholar
Lodola, Germán 2005 “Protesta popular y redes clientelares en la Argentina: El reparto federal del Plan Trabajar (1996–2001).” Desarrollo Económico 44 (176): 515–35.Google Scholar
Long, J. Scott, and Ervin, Laurie H. 2000 “Using Heteroskedasticity Consistent Standard Errors in Linear Regression Model.” The American Statistician 54 (3): 217–24.Google Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz, Díaz-Cayeros, Alberto, and Estévez, Federico 2006 “Clientelism and Portfolio Diversification: A Model of Electoral Investment with Applications to Mexico.” In Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition, edited by Kitschelt, Herbert and Wilkinson, Steven. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, Adriana 1997 “State Labor Market Intervention in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay: Common Model, Different Versions.” Employment and Training Papers 10. Employment and Training Department. ILO. Geneva.Google Scholar
Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social 1998 Panorama de la Seguridad Social. 2° Semestre. República Argentina.Google Scholar
Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social 2000 Panorama de la Seguridad Social. República ArgentinaGoogle Scholar
Mora y Araujo, Manuel 1980 “Las bases estructurales del peronismo.” In El voto peronista. Ensayos de sociología electoral argentina, edited by Mora, Manuel y Araujo, and Llorente, Ignacio. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana.Google Scholar
Murillo, María Victoria 2001 Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oviedo, Luis 2001 Una historia del movimiento piquetero. De las primeras coordinadoras a las asambleas nacionales. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Rumbo.Google Scholar
Pautassi, Laura 2002 “Políticas sociales ¿Fin de un modelo?” In CELS: Derechos humanos en Argentina, Informe 2002. Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores.Google Scholar
Plümper, Thomas, Manow, Philip, and Troeger, Vera 2005 “Panel Data Analysis in the Comparative Politics: Linking Method to Theory.” European Journal of Political Research 44:327–54.Google Scholar
Ronconi, Lucas 2002 “El Programa Trabajar.” Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Institucional-Fundación Gobierno y Sociedad, Documento 63.Google Scholar
Rovallion, Martín 1998 Reaching Poor Areas in a Federal System. The World Bank. Development Research Group.Google Scholar
Rovallion, Martín 1999 Is More Targeting Consistent with Less Spending? The World Bank. Development Research Group.Google Scholar
Samuels, David J. 2000 “The Gubernatorial Coattails Effect: Federalism and Congressional Elections in Brazil.” Journal of Politics 62 (1): 240–53.Google Scholar
Schady, Norbert 2000 “The Political Economy of Expenditures by the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES), 1991–95.” American Political Science Review 94 (2): 289–304.Google Scholar
Schamis, Hector 2002 “Argentina: Crisis and Democratic Consolidation.” Journal of Democracy 13 (2): 81–94.Google Scholar
Snyder, Richard, and Samuels, David 2001 “Devaluing the Vote in Latin America.” Journal of Democracy 12 (1): 146–59.Google Scholar
Svampa, Maristella, and Pereyra, Sebastián 2003 Entre la ruta y el barrio: La experiencia de las organizaciones piqueteras. Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos.Google Scholar
Szwarcberg, Mariela 2004 “Bringing the Stones Back In: Illegal Protests in New Democracies.” Paper presented at the Latin American History Workshop, University of Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Teichman, Judith 2001 The Politics of Freeing Markets in Latin America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Villalon, Roberta 2002 Piquetes, Cacerolazos y Asambleas Vecinales: Social Protests in Argentina, 1993–2002. MA Thesis, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Vinocur, Pablo, and Halperín, Leopoldo 2004 Pobreza y políticas sociales en Argentina de los años noventa. División Desarrollo Social. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL.Google Scholar
World Bank 2000 Argentina: Poor People in a Rich Country. Report No. 19992–AR.Google Scholar
World Bank 2003a Argentina—Crisis and Poverty 2003. A Poverty Assessment. Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, Latin America and the Caribbean Region.Google Scholar
World Bank 2003b Report No. 26134–AR.Google Scholar