This project explores whether and how politicians in local governments benefit from their partisan ties to the national incumbents. The empirical analysis will cover local governments in two highly centralized unitary countries – Chile and Turkey. First, local election results (in Chile between 1992 and 2008 and in Turkey between 1984 and 2009) will be analyzed to understand the political and socio-economic factors that shape increases (or possible decreases) in incumbents’ vote share as a result of their ties with a party in national government. Then, local governments’ budgets will be analyzed to see whether national partisan ties provide local politicians with more economic resources in the form of intergovernmental transfers, grants and debt. In addition, the possibility that levels and patterns of local government expenditures are influenced by parties’ incumbency situation in the national government will be explored. While decentralization is favored for more responsiveness on the behalf governments to increasing heterogeneity of local demands, there has been increasing awareness of problems associated with political accountability and responsibility at the sub-national level. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the political and socio-economic factors that shape financial policies of local governments. This is especially true for Turkey that has been and will be going through major administrative changes, partly as a result of the regional policy of the EU. The project is substantively important for also a second reason: The quality of democracy is likely to be hurt by any disproportionate advantages that incumbents may enjoy and this is especially problematic for relatively young democracies such as Chile and Turkey. Analyzing the nature of financial and (related) electoral advantages that the simultaneous control of local and national governments may present to parties would help improve our understanding of democratic representation.