Paper presented at XX International Congress, Latin American Studies Association

Recent experiences with market reform in democratizing countries have generated interest in how structural and institutional factors contribute to the political viability of the reform process. This article examines the electoral dynamics of market reform in Argentina between 1989 and 1995, and provides insights into the way that regional economic differentiation and the territorial distribution of political resouces in federal polities can shape the design of market reform and the coalitional bases for its political sustainability. The electoral viability of the governing Peronist party during the conflictual reform period was facilitated by regionally segmented patterns of electoral coalition-building, and by the regional phasing of the costs of market reform. Structural reforms were concentrated primarily on economically strategic regions, while public spending and political patronage in economically marginal but politically over-represented regions helped sustain support for the governing party. Statistical analyses contrast patterns of public spending and the social bases of electoral support in "metropolitan " and "peripheral " regions of the country during the reform period. Public sector employment i