PLACA Brown Bag Series presents: Lorena Vinuela Ortega

Fiscal Decentralization and Political Parties in Argentina 1983-2009 Policies involving transfers of resources and policy interventions to lower levels of government have been widely adopted by federal, unitary, developed and developing countries alike throughout Latin America. In Argentina, the introduction of fiscal federalism, or revenue-sharing arrangements among national and sub-national levels of government, has affected the quantitative and qualitative composition of national party systems, which in turn complicated executive-legislative relations and policy formulation. The goal of the fieldwork carried out during the second part of the summer and fall 2009 was to preliminary assess the information available on the decision to decentralize and how this process has reconfigured the national and sub-national political arenas, in particular executive-legislative relations and the structure of the party system. The work included archival research in the Library of Congress of Argentina and in the provincial legislatures of Córdoba, Mendoza, and Santa Fe, as well as a small number exploratory interviews with representatives to these bodies and the Ministry of Interior (Directorate of Coordination with Provinces and the Directorate of Political and Electoral Affairs). Refreshments will be served.