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Re-Election and Political Career Paths in theUruguayan Congress, 1985–99
DAVID ALTMAN and DANIEL CHASQUETTI
Given the presumed marginal – or at best the ‘rubber-stamp legitimising’ – characterof Latin American legislatures, they ‘have escaped careful scrutiny’. Even in caseswhere legislatures are supposed to play a much more significant role than thecontinental average, such as Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, knowledge of legislativepolitics is still far fromconclusive. This article studies re-election patterns of legislatorsin Uruguay during the four post-authoritarian elections. During these elections inUruguay, 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 stronglyinfluences the rates of incumbent re-election, intra-party volatility does not seem tohave an impact on this phenomenon. Lastly, the closed and blocked lists in conjunctionwith the Uruguayan multiple simultaneous vote, and the fact that a legislator belongs tothe Senate, are additional institutional features that help to explain the turnover andincumbent re-election in the legislature.
URUGUAY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
This paper analyses legislators’ re-election rates in Uruguay during thelegislative elections of 1989, 1994 and 1999. Even in cases where legislaturesare supposed toplay a muchmore significant role than the continental average,such as Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, knowledge of legislative politics isstill far from conclusive. During these elections in Uruguay, we observed adecreasing but still high rate of legislative turnover. These high rates of legislative turnover are affected by a significant number of legislators whodo 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 UniversidadCatolica de Chile, Chile, while Daniel Chasquetti is Assistant Professor in the Instituto de CienciaPolı´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 LegislativeStudies
for their helpful comments. We are extremely indebted to Santiago Lopez and XimenaMachado for their fine research assistance in building the database for this article. This researchwas funded by the KONCECYT Project No. 1040920.The Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol.11, No.2, Summer 2005, pp.235–253ISSN 1357-2334 print
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1743-9337 onlineDOI: 10.1080
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13572330500158656
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2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
 
to have an impact on this phenomenon. Lastly, closed and blocked lists in con- junction with the size of electoral districts are additional institutional featuresthat help to explain the turnover and incumbents’ re-election in the legislature.From a comparative perspective, Uruguayan rates of legislative turnoverfall 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 immediatere-election,
1
their Chilean counterparts show a very high rate of incumbentre-election.
2
Of course, even Chilean legislators fall far below the high regis-tries of the US legislators. Panamanian legislators are an interesting case giventhat they seek re-election almost at the same rate as US legislators but theybarely 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 andCostaRica than tothose of Chile. ‘Since 1983, the overall stability of member-ship in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies has been fairly low. The averagelegislator 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. Archerand Shugart show that around 48 per cent of legislators in both chambersare re-elected,
6
a very similar percentage to that of Uruguayan legislators
TABLE 1RE-ELECTION RATES IN SOME COUNTRIES OF THE AMERICAS
CountryLength of TermPercentageSeekingRe-electionPercentageWinning(of those seeking)PercentageReturning toOffice
United States (1996) 2 88 94 83Panama (1999) 4 87.5 49.2 43Chile (1993) 4 76 78 59Colombia (1990) 4 n.a. n.a. 48
Uruguay (1999) 5 72.3 64.9 47 
Brazil (1995) 4 70 62 43Venezuela (1993) 5 n.a. n.a. 32
Ã
Bolivia (2002) 4 n.a n.a. 22
Ã
Argentina (1997) 4 26 67 17Costa Rica (2001) 4 0 0 0Mexico (1997) 3 0 0 0
 Notes
:
Ã
Represents 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.
236
THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES
 
in the elections of 1999. In Venezuela during the 1988–93 legislature only 38per cent of legislators were freshmen.
7
Legislative turnover in Brazil is alsomoderate or moderate–low. Samuels and Mainwaring note that politicaldecisions account for about half of the turnover because a significantshare of incumbents decide to run for executive offices, such as governor orvice-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 eightcountries in the sample. More specifically, it falls between Colombia andBrazil. But of course, if we do not consider those countries where legislativere-election is not permitted, Uruguayan scores look quite different.Why is it so important to study the patterns of legislative turnover andre-election? It is well known that re-election rates have important conse-quences for the quality of the democracy. Very low re-election rates notonly generate deficiencies in legislative expertise, but they can also increasethe dedication costs of policy making and promote unwanted behaviour inthe internal life of political parties.First, high legislative turnover may impede legislators from gainingexpertise and seniority and therefore can reduce the quality of parliamentarywork. During the last years, Latin American legislatures have dealt withcomplex reforms, such as the reform of the state, the opening of the economiesand the processes of regional integration. The importance of those decisionsrequires individuals with high qualifications. Second, high legislative turnoverrates can cause great instability in the trajectories of political leaders. Individ-uals who decide to enter the ‘legislative career’ must have, as the Constitutiondemands, a full-time dedication to that job. The risk of not being re-electedgenerates personal costs difficult to quantify. In addition, this phenomenoncan lead to some sort of 
elitisation
of political cadres where only those whohave a guaranteed economic sustenance will predominate in the legislativearena. Third, high legislative turnover rates can generate detrimentalbehaviour for the parties’ internal life. As we will explain later, during thelast 15 years some legislators from the very same sector, with the objectiveof guaranteeing their re-election, unleashed true fratricide-wars with thesimple objective of improving their position on their ballots.
9
Of course,this behaviour is contingent upon the type of relationship the legislatormaintains with his or her leader, who is the person that holds the power tomake the list, and is also dependent on the voting perspectives of his or herpolitical sector.For the aforementioned reasons, it seems that a moderate rate of legislatorturnover is the suitable dose for the health of Congress and political parties. Inthis way, it is possible to avoid the ‘petrifaction’ of political leaders. It also
POLITICAL CAREER PATHS IN THE URUGUAYAN CONGRESS
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