Explaining How Subnational Politics Shapes Committee Assignment in a Federal Country: The Case of Argentina

Abstract

As in many federal countries, subnational politics is the cornerstone of Argentine political careers and the Congress is a central point for multilevel politics. Although existing literature shows that local politics influence the behavior of congressmen, their effect on committee appointments has been scarcely studied. This article examines the committee assignments of former mayors and governors in the Argentine Congress from 2011 to 2019. We find that being a first-time legislator with prior experience as a mayor and coming from provinces with large public sectors, competitive party systems, and small district magnitudes positively influence the chances of being appointed to distributive committees, i.e., those whose benefits can be more easily disaggregated into specific geographic constituencies. Our findings enhance the understanding of the connections between the federal legislative branch and local executives, and they highlight the importance of distributional theory in analyzing committee membership.