No Seats, No Paradise: Competitiveness, Integration, and Territorial Dynamics in Argentina’s Multilevel Legislative PASO Elections (2007–2023)

Abstract

This article examines the functioning of Argentina’s open, simultaneous, and mandatory primaries (PASO) from a multilevel perspective, focusing on the selection of national and subnational legislative candidates between 2007 and 2023. Based on a comparative analysis of political groupings that obtained legislative seats, the study distinguishes between internal competition, effective competitiveness, and the integration of defeated candidates, and assesses the conditions under which these dimensions translate into organizational outcomes. The findings show that competition constitutes a necessary but not sufficient condition and that, even when competitiveness and integration are present, their impact depends on minimum levels of party or coalition cohesion. Overall, the evidence suggests that PASO performance depends on the institutional and organizational conditions under which they operate.