Unity through particularism
how electoral reforms influence parties and legislative behavior
- ISBN: 9781009651554
- Editorial: Cambridge University Press
- Fecha de la edición: 2026
- Lugar de la edición: Cambridge. Reino Unido
- Encuadernación: Rústica
- Medidas: 24 cm
- Nº Pág.: 200
- Idiomas: Inglés
Why do supposedly accountability-enhancing electoral reforms often fail in young democracies? How can legislators serve their constituents when parties control the necessary resources? Unity through Particularism sheds light on these questions and more by explaining how parties can use personal vote-seeking incentives in order to decrease intra-party dissent. Studying a unique electoral reform in Mexico, the book provides a detailed description of how institutional incentives can conflict. It draws on a variety of rich, original data sources on legislative behavior and organization in 20 Mexican states to develop a novel explanation of how electoral reforms can amplify competing institutional incentives. In settings where legislative rules and candidate selection procedures favor parties, legislators may lack the resources necessary to build voter support. If this is the case, party leaders can condition access to these resources on loyalty to the party's political agenda.
1 Introduction
1.1 The Argument
1.2 The Case
1.2.1 The 2014 Electoral Reform
1.2.2 Hypotheses
1.2.3 The Data
1.3 Main Findings
1.4 Broad Implications
1.5 The Road Ahead
2 Conflicting Incentives and Legislative Behavior
2.1 Institutional Determinants of Legislative Behavior
2.1.1 Electoral Rules
2.1.2 Candidate Selection Processes
2.1.3 Legislative Procedures
2.1.4 Congruent and Conflicting Incentives 2.2 Types of Legislative Behavior
2.2.1 Party Priorities
2.2.2 Legislator Priorities
2.3 From Institutional Incentives to Legislative Behavior
2.3.1 Conflicting-Personal Incentives
2.3.2 Conflicting-Partisan Incentives
2.4 The Effects of Electoral Reforms
2.4.1 Unity through Particularism
2.5 Is Everything Endogenous?
2.6 Takeaway
3 Unity through Particularism: The Case of Mexico
3.1 The Case: Mexican State Legislatures
3.1.1 Governors and State Legislatures
3.2 Prereform Status Quo
3.2.1 Electoral Rules
3.2.2 Legislative Rules 3.2.3 Candidate Selection Processes
3.2.4 Prereform Legislative Behavior
3.3 Mexico's 2014 Electoral Reform
3.3.1 Why Was Consecutive Reelection Banned?
3.3.2 Why Was the 2014 Electoral Reform Possible?
3.3.3 Reform Specifics
3.4 Testable Implications
3.5 Research Design
3.5.1 Difference-in-Differences Empirical Strategy
3.6 Takeaway
4 The Effect of Reelection on Particularism: Attention to Particularistic Legislation
4.1 How Do Reelection Incentives Increase Particularism?
4.1.1 Legislative Particularism in Mexico 4.2 Estimating Particularism from Legislative Debates
4.2.1 Legislative Discussions
4.2.2 Correlated Topic Model (CTM)
4.2.3 From Topics to Types of Legislation
4.3 Reelection Increases Particularism
4.3.1 Estimates Using Difference-in-Differences
4.3.2 Implications for Legislators from Different Tiers
4.3.3 Implications for Different Types of Legislative Particularism
4.3.4 The Special Case of Sonora
4.4 Takeaway
4.5 Appendix
4.5.1 Collecting Legislative Debates
4.5.2 Text Preprocessing
5 The Effect of Reelection on Constituency Service 5.1 What Constitutes Constituency Service?
5.2 How Do Reelection Incentives Increase Constituency Service?
5.3 Measuring Constituency Service
5.3.1 Legislative Budgets
5.3.2 Reports of Legislative Activities
5.3.3 Correlated Topic Model (CTM)
5.3.4 From Topics to Legislative Activities
5.4 Reelection Increases Constituency Service
5.4.1 Reelection Increases Funds for Constituency Service
5.4.2 Reelection Increases Legislators' Focus on Constituency Service
5.4.3 Estimates Using Difference-in-Differences
5.4.4 Who Provides Constituency Service?
5.5 Takeaway
