Subnational Electoral Choice

Are the policy failures of subnational officials reliably punished by voters, or do subnational elections instead pivot around national trends? This study attempts to shed new light on these questions by exploring subnational elections in the Argentine context. Building on a modified version of the referendum-voting model, our analysis suggests that the fate of candidates in both national and subnational elections is shaped by the performance of the incumbent presidential administration. At the same time, however, we also find evidence that voters respond to the policy choices of subnational governments, albeit in ways that attenuate, rather than strengthen, the nexus between policy responsibility and electoral accountability.