1
Introduction
Throughout the Americas, issues of democratic institutional engineering are at the forefront of heated
political debate. In numerous capitals in the hemisphere, one can find lively arguments about how
specific changes in the configuration of formal institutions may lead to lasting improvements in human
welfare. Perhaps none of these debates has attained the level of prominence, nor demonstrated as great
a degree of schizophrenia, as the arguments about the relationship between electoral institutions and
clean government.
The cases of Brazil and Argentina are illustrative examples of this state of affairs. Among political
commentators, social scientists and legislators in Brazil today, few topics are the source of as much
sustained attention as the relative merits of political reform. A central component of the reform propos-
als under consideration consists of the replacement of Brazil’s current electoral system, characterized
by open list proportional representation (OLPR), with a closed list version of the same. Many expo-
nents for reform argue that political financing in Brazil has become irredeemably corrupt, and that
this corruption, in turn, owes it origins to the exigencies of political marketing inherent to an open list
system. Recent revelations of widespread illicit campaign financing involving Brazil’s ruling Worker’s
Party (PT) and its coalition partners, apparently coordinated by individuals in the upper echelons of
the party organizations, have added fuel to the fire for supporters of electoral reform.
And yet the perspective on the other side of the Paraná River is very different. In Argentina, the
issue of political reform is no less salient than it is in Brazil. Nevertheless, the stance of clean government
activists in this country towards electoral reform is exactly opposite that of their Brazilian counterparts.
According to many Argentine reformers, the country’s system of listas sabanas, or closed list proportional
representation (CLPR), is the principle culprit to blame for entrenched political corruption and machine
politics to be found there. Revulsion with corruption schemes in which the public administration has
been used as an illicit source of party financing, principally orchestrated by factions of the ruling Peronist
party (PJ), has made this a hot button issue in Argentina.
In no way is the schizophrenia characterizing the debate about electoral reform limited to Brazil and
Argentina. The depiction of OLPR and other so-called candidate-centric electoral systems as catalysts
for corruption related to the financing of politics can be found in past and present debates in countries
as diverse as Italy, Japan, Colombia and Taiwan. The portrayal of CLPR (and party-centric electoral
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Convention