Re-Election and Political Career Paths in the Uruguayan Congress, 1985–99 DAVID ALTMAN and DANIEL CHASQUETTI Given the presumed marginal – or at best the ‘rubber-stamp legitimising’ – character of Latin American legislatures, they ‘have escaped careful scrutiny’. Even in cases where legislatures are supposed to play a much more significant role than the continental average, such as Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, knowledge of legislative politics is still far from conclusive. This article studies re-election patterns of legislators in Uruguay during the four post-authoritarian elections. During these elections in Uruguay, we observed a decreasing but still high rate of turnover of legislators. These high rates of legislative turnover are affected by a significant number of legislators who do not seek re-election. While inter-party electoral volatility strongly influences the rates of incumbent re-election, intra-party volatility does not seem to have an impact on this phenomenon. Lastly, the closed and blocked lists in conjunction with the Uruguayan multiple simultaneous vote, and the fact that a legislator belongs to the Senate, are additional institutional features that help to explain the turnover and incumbent re-election in the legislature. URUGUAY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE This paper analyses legislators’ re-election rates in Uruguay during the legislative elections of 1989, 1994 and 1999. Even in cases where legislatures are supposed to play a much more significant role than the continental average, such as Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, knowledge of legislative politics is still far from conclusive. During these elections in Uruguay, we observed a decreasing but still high rate of legislative turnover. These high rates of legislative turnover are affected by a significant number of legislators who do not seek re-election. While inter-party electoral volatility strongly influ- ences the rates of incumbent re-election, intra-party volatility does not seem David Altman is Assistant Professor in the Instituto de Ciencia Polı´tica at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile, while Daniel Chasquetti is Assistant Professor in the Instituto de Ciencia Polı´tica at the Universidad de la Repu´blica, Uruguay. We are grateful to Daniel Buquet, Rossana Castiglioni, Brian Crisp, Mark Jones, Paul Mueller, Rafael Pin˜eyro, Peter Siavelis, and the anonymous referees of the Journal of Legislative Studies for their helpful comments. We are extremely indebted to Santiago Lopez and Ximena Machado for their fine research assistance in building the database for this article. This research was funded by the KONCECYT Project No. 1040920. The Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol.11, No.2, Summer 2005, pp.235–253 ISSN 1357-2334 print=1743-9337 online DOI: 10.1080=13572330500158656 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd 236 THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES to have an impact on this phenomenon. Lastly, closed and blocked lists in con- junction with the size of electoral districts are additional institutional features that help to explain the turnover and incumbents’ re-election in the legislature. From a comparative perspective, Uruguayan rates of legislative turnover fall somewhere in the middle (middle–low) of those of its neighbours. Latin American legislatures show a great variety in terms of incumbent re- election, and in Table 1 Uruguay is compared with other American countries. While Mexican and Costa Rican legislators cannot run for immediate re-election,1 their Chilean counterparts show a very high rate of incumbent re-election.2 Of course, even Chilean legislators fall far below the high regis- tries of the US legislators. Panamanian legislators are an interesting case given that they seek re-election almost at the same rate as US legislators but they barely succeed in this endeavour.3 Argentina shows exceptionally low re- election rates for incumbents.4 Although re-election is allowed in Argentina, its legislative patterns of re-election are more similar to those of Mexico and Costa Rica than to those of Chile. ‘Since 1983, the overall stability of member- ship in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies has been fairly low. The average legislator has served only one four-year term in office. The percentage of “newcomers” has always exceeded 40 per cent, while only 20 per cent of incumbents obtained immediate re-election.’5 In Colombia re-election rates have been reported as moderate. Archer and Shugart show that around 48 per cent of legislators in both chambers are re-elected,6 a very similar percentage to that of Uruguayan legislators TABLE 1 RE-ELECTION RATES IN SOME COUNTRIES OF THE AMERICAS Percentage Percentage Percentage Length of Seeking Winning Returning to Country Term Re-election (of those seeking) Office United States (1996) 2 88 94 83 Panama (1999) 4 87.5 49.2 43 Chile (1993) 4 76 78 59 Colombia (1990) 4 n.a. n.a. 48 Uruguay (1999) 5 72.3 64.9 47 Brazil (1995) 4 70 62 43 Venezuela (1993) 5 n.a. n.a. 32Ã Bolivia (2002) 4 n.a n.a. 22Ã Argentina (1997) 4 26 67 17 Costa Rica (2001) 4 0 0 0 Mexico (1997) 3 0 0 0 Notes: ÃRepresents the average of both chambers (40.28 per cent Deputies, 24.20 per cent Senate). Sources: For Uruguay and Bolivia authors’ calculations, United States, Chile, Brazil and Argen- tina, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama. POLITICAL CAREER PATHS IN THE URUGUAYAN CONGRESS 237 in the elections of 1999. In Venezuela during the 1988–93 legislature only 38 per cent of legislators were freshmen.7 Legislative turnover in Brazil is also moderate or moderate–low. Samuels and Mainwaring note that political decisions account for about half of the turnover because a significant share of incumbents decide to run for executive offices, such as governor or vice-governor. Nonetheless, as in Uruguay, ‘the proportion of successful re- election-seeking legislators in Brazil has been increasing since 1986’.8 If these data are correct and one considers the percentage of those legis- lators returning to office, Uruguay falls exactly in the middle of these eight countries in the sample. More specifically, it falls between Colombia and Brazil. But of course, if we do not consider those countries where legislative re-election is not permitted, Uruguayan scores look quite different. Why is it so important to study the patterns of legislative turnover and re-election? It is well known that re-election rates have important conse- quences for the quality of the democracy. Very low re-election rates not only generate deficiencies in legislative expertise, but they can also increase the dedication costs of policy making and promote unwanted behaviour in the internal life of political parties. First, high legislative turnover may impede legislators from gaining expertise and seniority and therefore can reduce the quality of parliamentary work. During the last years, Latin American legislatures have dealt with complex reforms, such as the reform of the state, the opening of the economies and the processes of regional integration. The importance of those decisions requires individuals with high qualifications. Second, high legislative turnover rates can cause great instability in the trajectories of political leaders. Individ- uals who decide to enter the ‘legislative career’ must have, as the Constitution demands, a full-time dedication to that job. The risk of not being re-elected generates personal costs difficult to quantify. In addition, this phenomenon can lead to some sort of elitisation of political cadres where only those who have a guaranteed economic sustenance will predominate in the legislative arena. Third, high legislative turnover rates can generate detrimental behaviour for the parties’ internal life. As we will explain later, during the last 15 years some legislators from the very same sector, with the objective of guaranteeing their re-election, unleashed true fratricide-wars with the simple objective of improving their position on their ballots.9 Of course, this behaviour is contingent upon the type of relationship the legislator maintains with his or her leader, who is the person that holds the power to make the list, and is also dependent on the voting perspectives of his or her political sector. For the aforementioned reasons, it seems that a moderate rate of legislator turnover is the suitable dose for the health of Congress and political parties. In this way, it is possible to avoid the ‘petrifaction’ of political leaders. It also 238 THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES allows the entrance of new representatives without sweeping out the main core of legislators. One of the simplest yet strongest assumptions within the literature that deals with legislatures and legislator behaviour is Mayhew’s assumption that, when permitted, Congressmen are interested in nothing but being re-elected, and it is this main and indisputable motivation which generates predictable behaviour patterns. As Navia argues, ‘seeking re-election does not automatically result in being re-elected, but being an incumbent helps a great deal to secure a seat in the Chamber of Deputies’.10 Nonetheless, in a brand new volume on Latin American legislatures, Morgenstern claims that ‘Latin American legislators (a) are not homogeneous re-election seekers, (b) follow different strategies into office, (c) are restrained by different constitutional arrangements, and (d) operate within a vastly different party alignment. As a result, the Latin American legislatures do not look or act like the U.S. Congress’.11 Uruguay defies, as do its fellow Latin American countries, the assumption that legislators are only re-election seekers. Given the great variation in the number of incumbents seeking re-election in Latin American countries, several scholars question Mayhew’s assumption regarding re-election. For instance, Mainwaring is reticent to extrapolate Mayhew’s assumption to the Brazilian Congress, claiming that it is too restrictive. He says ‘this assumption has the advantage of parsimony, and it is reasonable to assume that winning elections is a major motivating force for most politicians.