Political Careers, Corruption, and Impunity: Panama's Assembly, 1984-2009

3. Formal Institutional Incentives to Behavior

Chapter 3 Formal Institutional Incentives to Behavior Chapter 1 alluded to the role of institutions in shaping political behavior. This notion is captured by the New Institutionalist argument that “politics is structured by institutions”: The organization of political life makes a difference, and institutions affect the flow of history . . . Actions taken within and by political institutions change the distribution of political interests, resources, and rules by creating new actors and identities, by providing actors with criteria of success and failure, by constructing rules for appropriate behavior, and by endowing some individuals, rather than others, with authority and other types of resources. Institutions affect the ways in which individuals and groups become activated within and outside established institutions, the level of trust among citizens and leaders, the common aspirations of political community, the shared language, understanding, and norms of the community, and the meaning of concepts like democracy, justice, liberty, and equality. (March and Olsen, qtd. in Putnam 1993, 17) Following this institutionalist rationale, the literature on legislators’ behavior posits that members of deliberative chambers calculate and pursue the appropriate means to achieve their objectives—essentially career 65 66 | Institutions advancement—on the basis of self-interest and the institutional framework within which they operate. According to Katz (1980, 13), the formal institutional environment in which assembly members function consists of two basic elements: the electoral system and the distribution of politically mobilizable resources. Other authors identify additional aspects , such as the party system and relations between the executive and the assembly, as influential in determining the behavior of representatives (Mainwaring 1999; Shugart and Carey 1992). Several formal institutional features facilitate the achievement of Panamanian deputies’ goals by permitting or encouraging them to enact certain behaviors. For instance, the fact that Panama, like all other American republics (except Costa Rica and Mexico),1 permits the reelection of representatives without restriction gives assembly members an automatic incentive to pursue additional terms in office. Article 157 of the Panamanian constitution states that members’ emoluments are determined by law, thus requiring approval by the assembly and providing a setting for rent seeking (although pay raises may only take effect in the ensuing term). Likewise, the fact that the constitutional text establishes special procedures for the prosecution of deputies (article 155)— provisions further developed in the assembly’s own Rules of Procedure and the Judicial Code— creates a scenario that allows some members to pursue exemption from prosecution (República de Panamá 2004, 2010a). The behaviors identified in this book are not attributable, in their entirety, to these formal institutional features. Codified standards interact in various ways with informal institutions (the topic of chapter 4) to produce outcomes such as vote buying to procure reelection, selling votes to become rich, or expanding immunity provisions to avoid prose cution . This chapter focuses on three formal institutional arrangements that promote personalistic politics and, as a result, reinforce Panama’s clientelistic political tradition: rules for the allocation of chamber seats, the size of electoral constituencies, and the balance of power between the executive and the assembly. By promoting personalism and strengthening clientelism, these institutional arrangements contribute to creating an environment in which incumbents seek political and personal advancement through reelection, personal enrichment, and exemption from prosecution, among other behaviors. Seat Allocation Formulas and Their Effects on Members’ Behavior Various authors have examined the behavioral implications of formulas for the assignment of assembly seats. At the highest level of generality, these formulas fall within two types: plurality and proportional representation (PR) systems (Lijphart 1999, 143–44). Plurality systems normally operate in single-member constituencies and use the majority rule to allocate seats. PR operates in multimember constituencies, that is, those electing more than one representative. Individual winners are selected from a list of candidates submitted by the party, according to the proportion of votes received by each political organization. In his distinction between campaigning under PR and plurality systems , Katz holds that PR generally encourages ideological campaigning while plurality systems promote personalistic, localistic candidatures: In PR systems, voters choose parties rather than individuals. Because candidates are obliged to say “Vote for my party” rather than “Vote for me,” it is more difficult for candidates of the same party to take different political lines. The importance of the corporate identity of the party is increased , and particularly the importance of the sense that its issue stands represent a unified program...