Iván Llamazares

Patterns in Contingencies: The Interlocking of Formal and Informal Political Institutions in Contemporary Argentina

This article explores how the interlocking of formal and informal political institutions has affected the dynamics and performance of the Argentine democracy. Key institutional features of the Argentine political system have been a competitive form of federalism, loosely structured and political parties that are not ideologically unified, neopatrimonial practices, and client list exchanges. These features have interacted with the pluralist political landscape resulting from the vertical and horizontal constitutional division of powers. In combination with the distribution of power resulting from electoral results at different levels of government, these features have severely constrained the possibilities for coordination in and across institutional arenas.

Peripheral Identities in Contemporary Spain

This article examines the individual and contextual factors affecting peripheral identifications in Spain. It does so by conducting multilevel statistical analyses on two surveys on regional and national identifications that were carried out by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas in 1996 and 2006, at two very different political conjunctures. At the individual level, these analyses show that peripheral identifications are strongly conditioned by language attributes (in particular by vernacular mother languages), by the place of birth of respondents and by left–right self-placements. At the aggregate level, only geographical distance from the national centre exerts a significant and consistent influence on peripheral identifications. Our analysis reveals also that the effects of language attributes and ideological orientations increased from 1996 to 2006, and suggests that contexts of polarisation regarding political–territorial issues strengthen the influence of linguistic characteristics and ideological orientations on peripheral identities.