Political ambition and party ambiguity: the dilemma of representation in Latin America

Abstract

Studies on styles of representation have highlighted the relevance of political ambition. In the case of conflict between party and district interests, legislators who plan to continue in national politics are likely to follow the party line, while those legislators who want to move to the regional or local level will be more district-oriented. However, we do not know if this still holds true when a party's line is ambiguous. Using data on parliamentarians from 16 countries and 59 Latin American parties, we find that party ambiguity moderates the effects of ambition on representation styles. We demonstrate that the propensity of being district-oriented among legislators with regional and local ambitions becomes stronger when they belong to ambiguous parties, and that leaders with national ambition can follow the party line despite party ambiguity.