Carreras legislativas discretas en contextos de débil institucionalización partidista: Propuesta teórica y evidencia empírica aplicada a la legislatura de Ecuador, 1979-2007

Abstract

This article analyzes the professional careers of legislators who conclude their terms and retire from electoral politics. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, drawing on data from interviews, media reports, secondary source material, and an original database of Ecuadorian legislators’ political careers between 1979 and 2007. Counterintuitively, the findings suggest that nearly half of Ecuadorian deputies have what Schlesinger (1966) termed discreet legislative careers. In addition, the article argues that weak political party institutionalization, understood as the monopolization of candidate selection mechanisms by party leaders, explains this type of political behavior. Following this theoretical argument, which contradicts the theories of electoral connection and political ambition, discreet political careers appear to constitute a pattern of systematic political behavior in some Latin American legislatures.