The Subnational Government Landscape in Change: Institutional Reforms and its Effects on the Local Political Settings in Uruguay

Abstract

In a strongly centralist country where institutional changes tend to be gradual, the constitutional reform of 1996 and more recently the adoption of the Political Decentralization and Participation Act of 2010, represents two relevant milestones that resignificate the subnational policy in Uruguay. This article analyzes in comparative perspective the results of the elections of May 2015, both departmental and municipal level, with the aim of describing the evolution of the local political map and the relevance that the national subelections have acquired in the country politics. In turn, certain challenges of this new configuration of local politics are raised, focusing on the importance that the local political actors have gained.