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Abstract: Since the Alma Ata World Health Organization Conference in 1978, countries around the world have adopted institutions that promote the participation of citizens in their public health systems. The main objectives of this article are two-fold. First, we describe the origins and implementation of a national-level civic participatory program that was in place in Argentina in the mid-2000s: the Local Participatory Projects (Proyectos Locales Participativos). Second, we analyze the 201 local participatory projects that were carried out in Argentina between 2007 and 2008. We study health and environmental problems that prompt people's participation in the program and the social dynamics through which such participation is executed.

Why and how do institutions strengthen? This article offers an explanation of institutional strength based on the study of participatory institutions. Combining the insights of historical institutionalism and participatory democracy literatures, the authors propose an endogenous theory of participation and argue that the strength of participatory institutions depends on the historic process of their creation and the subsequent political incorporation of the mobilized groups that bring them about. The authors comparatively study prior consultation in Bolivia and Ecuador since its inception in the 1990s. This institution is highly relevant in Latin America, particularly as countries in the region intensify the extraction of nonrenewable resources. The article shows that different paths of political incorporation of the groups mobilized for institutional adoption were consequential to the resulting institutional strength. The findings shed light on the tensions between participatory democracy and resource extraction in Latin America and have important implications for the study of participatory and political institutions worldwide.

Political scientists largely agree that causal mechanisms are crucial to understanding causation. Recent advances in qualitative and quantitative methodology suggest that causal explanations must be contextually bounded. Yet the relationship between context and mechanisms and this relationship's importance for causation are not well understood. This study defines causal mechanisms as portable concepts that explain how and why a hypothesized cause, in a given context, contributes to a particular outcome. In turn, it defines context as the relevant aspects of a setting in which an array of initial conditions leads to an outcome of a defined scope and meaning via causal mechanisms. Drawing from these definitions is the argument that credible causal explanation can occur if and only if researchers are attentive to the interaction between causal mechanisms and context, regardless of whether the methods employed are small-sample, formal, statistical, or interpretive.

Three outcomes & their causes in the creation of federalism are distinguished: the causes of national unification, the adoption of a federal regime, & the degree of centralization in the regime, with reference to William H. Riker's (1964, 1987) theory on federalism. This framework & a regional conflict perspective are used to study the evolution of federalism in the 19th century in Argentina. Interregional conflicts affected the balance of power between the national & provincial government, because coalitions of provinces weaker than Buenos Aires supported a strong central government to hold the Buenos Aires province in check. A centralized plural federalism emerged between 1853-1880. This case shows that federalism is driven more by internal dynamics than external threats as Riker surmised. The value of studying federalism within the framework of the three development outcomes is discussed. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 20 References. M. Pflum

Federal countries & the federal institutions in these countries are characterized by asymmetries. One common asymmetrical feature is the overrepresentation of subnational territorial units like states & provinces in national legislatures. The hypothesis that this asymmetry affects the territorial distribution of federally-funded public spending is examined with economic data from the US, Brazil, Mexico, & Argentina. The US & Mexico have a more proportional allotment of legislative seats to population vs. brazil & Argentina, where several provinces are significantly overrepresented. The latter situation yields a greater impact of disproportionate public spending than other variables like senate overrepresentation, per statistical analysis. The implications of reallocative federalism in Brazil & Argentina are contrasted with the proportional federalism of the US & Mexico. The particular case of the political economy in Argentina's metropolitan vs. non-metropolitan regions is analyzed, contrasting public spending policy during different regimes. These results contrast with William H. Riker's (1964) popular theory on federalism's impacts. 10 Tables, 27 References. M. Pflum

Este artigo trata da economia política do federalismo e a questão básica examinada é se a sobre-representação de territórios (estados e províncias) nas legislaturas nacionais dos sistemas federais afeta a distribuição territorial dos gastos públicos dos governos federais. A hipótese testada é que afeta e a sobre-representação territorial produz uma distorção dos gastos federais que beneficia as populações que vivem em territórios sobre-representados. Para captar essa conexão entre sobre-representação territorial e a distribuição não-proporcional de fundos públicos foi introduzida uma distinção conceitual: os países em que essa conexão existe são identificados como casos de federalismo realocativo, enquanto que os países com padrões territoriais de gastos públicos que são proporcionais à população são identificados como casos de federalismo proporcional. Os argumentos baseiam-se em dados subnacionais dos quatro maiores países federais do hemisfério ocidental: Estados Unidos, Brasil, México e Argentina.