Who delivers? Partisan clients in the Argentine electoral market

Why do some parties fail to benefit from patronage in pork-ridden political systems? This article analyzes the interaction between patronage and partisanship to explain why some incumbents are more likely to benefit from pork politics than others. We explain such differences by focusing on political parties ’ access to resources (supply side) and voters ’ dependence on fiscal largesse (demand side). We show how these differences affect the patron’s choice of public sector wages and employment. We use subnational level data to show different electoral returns from patronage for the two major political coalitions in Argentina—Peronism and the UCR-Alianza—and their effect on preferences over public sector wages and employment. Why do some political parties fail to benefitfrom patronage in pork-ridden political sys-tems? This article analyzes the interaction be-tween patronage and partisanship to explain why some incumbents are more likely to benefit from pork politics than others. We explain returns to patronage by highlight-ing differences in the political parties ’ access to resources (supply side) and the voter’s dependence on public sec-tor jobs (demand side). We propose that, just as political parties cater their policies to particular groups of vot-ers, they pursue different strategies when allocating por