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The Contours of Party Patronage in Argentina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Gerardo Scherlis
Gerardo Scherlis*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Buenos Aires and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
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Abstract

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Studies on the Argentine public administration have usually underlined the weakness of Argentine state bureaucracies. On the basis of these assertions, scholars have tended to equate the number of state jobs with cases of patronage. By doing so, they have neglected the crucial issue of the scope of appointments effectively controlled by political parties. This article applies an innovative empirical inquiry to measure the extent of party patronage, assessing where, how deeply, and to what extent parties reach into the Argentine federal state structures. While the results by and large confirm the widespread notion of the broad scope of political appointments in Argentina, they refute the conventional hypothesis of a state thoroughly colonized by parties. Overall, the results suggest that parties' distribution of public jobs in the Argentine federal state is oriented less to mass-style patronage than to gaining effective and broad control over state institutions.

Resumo

Resumo

Los estudios sobre la administración pública argentina suelen destacar la debilidad de las burocracias estatales. Sobre esta base, resulta habitual encontrar trabajos académicos en los que el número de empleos públicos se asimila al número de casos de patronazgo. De este modo se ha desatendido la cuestión crucial del alcance de las designaciones efectivamente bajo control de los partidos políticos. Este artículo se vale de una metodología novedosa para medir la extensión del patronazgo partidario, estableciendo dónde, cuán profundamente, y con qué extensión los partidos penetran las estructuras del estado federal argentino. Mientras por un lado los resultados confirman la noción de un amplio alcance de las designaciones políticas en Argentina, ellos también refutan la hipótesis convencional de un estado completamente colonizado por los partidos. Los resultados sugieren finalmente que la asignación de empleos por parte de los partidos en el estado federal argentino está menos orientada a un patronazgo de masas que a lograr un control amplio y efectivo sobre las instituciones estatales.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , 2013 , pp. 63 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

I am grateful to Peter Mair for his inspiration, guidance, and support. I also wish to thank the three anonymous LARR reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

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