Become a Legislator: Biographies and Political Careers of Buenos Aires Province MPs

ABSTRACT

Introduction

This paper aims to know the how some political actors became legislators, asking about the key factors to their success. The article analyzes one specific political cast: national MPs of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It describes two complementary dimensions: their biographies and their political careers. The main objective is to know if there are typical ways to combine both dimensions in this political district. The central assumption is that not only political parties-or their leaders-are who choose candidates. Also-and above all-politician collaborating in unstable networks of cooperation and competence shapes party structures and / or electoral alliances for successive contests.

Methods

Data proceed from an original database of biographies and political trajectories of national MPs from Buenos Aires Province (1999-2015).

Results

Results shows two typical ways of combination between biographies and career. On one hand, becoming MP is a frequent way of access for those who want to be included in political casts according to their social bonds and educational credentials, or those whom had accumulated enough resources in different provincial spaces of participation. On the other hand, represents an arrival point for actors who had developed a long political participation, accumulating skills and establishing multilevel governmental scales bonds.

Discussion

The way in which biographies and career articulate within this group shows actors with relative autonomy degrees, based on an active, long and sustained work in different scenarios of participation. Owning their resources enable them to form their legislative cast relatively independent of the logic of leadership strictly. Contrary, their own participation contributes to shapes parties and/or alliances, shaping political competition at different government levels. MPs are actors who anchor their legitimacy at local level, representing to a province, to develop their role at national level. Their analysis allows to know about the imbrication of political levels in Argentina. These results open as a research agenda the analysis of other subnational districts, to compare different ways to construct MP casts.

KEYWORDS:
political path; subnational political career; national MPs; political representatives; Buenos Aires Province