THROUGH THICK AND THIN: GROUP LOYALTIES AND THE PERSISTENCE OF PARTY SWITCHING. Peter J. Tunkis 1

Size: px
Start display at page:

Download "THROUGH THICK AND THIN: GROUP LOYALTIES AND THE PERSISTENCE OF PARTY SWITCHING. Peter J. Tunkis 1"

Transcription

1 THROUGH THICK AND THIN: GROUP LOYALTIES AND THE PERSISTENCE OF PARTY SWITCHING Peter J. Tunkis 1 Ph.D. Candidate Department of Political Science The Ohio State University Tunkis.1@osu.edu This paper was prepared for the 24 th Annual International Political Science Association World Congress of Political Science, July, 2016, Poznań Poland. Please do not circulate or cite without permission. 1 The research in this paper was funded by a grant from the Ohio State Polish Studies Initiative as well as a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (Award P022A ). I thank Petra Guasti, Herbert Kitschelt, Lukáš Linek, Zdenka Mansfeldová, Carolyn Morgan, Anthony Mughan, Thomas E. Nelson, Mehdi Razzaghi, Andrzej Rychard, Goldie Shabad, Kazimierz M. Słomczyński, Sara Watson, and participants in the Čtvrteční sociologické semináře at the Sociologický ůstav AV ČR, v.v.i. for feedback and suggestions through the various stages of this project. All errors are my own. Please direct all correspondence to Peter J. Tunkis, Department of Political Science, Ohio State University, 2140 Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH tunkis.1@osu.edu.

2 The increasing frequency and persistence of legislative party switching, or the incidence of elected officials changing party affiliations while in office, raises normative, empirical, and theoretical concerns, especially in new democracies. Defection not only signals a lack of accountability and representation to the electorate, but also indicates weak party labels, government instability, and disloyalty (Desposato 2006; Heller and Mershon 2009a; Mainwaring 1999). Why do some members of parliament (MPs) risk their careers, prestige, and chances of reelection for oftentimes uncertain payoffs in these relatively unstable systems? Extant research on the nature and effects of party switching approaches this behaviour as an individual, rational choice reflecting electoral, career, and/or policy ambitions (Heller and Mershon 2009b). Yet I find that party switching is most frequently a group-based event, something that remains largely unaddressed in extant scholarship. 2 Many MPs may be putting group-based incentives or considerations ahead of their rational and individual ones but why? This paper addresses this gap in the literature by presenting a novel group-based theory of party switching. I argue that nonpartisan social ties between individual MPs have a substantial effect on their behaviour by conditioning or overshadowing the individual ambition-based calculi involved in the decision whether or not to defect. In many new democracies, political parties often lack robust, pluralist traditions and focus on pluralism and top-down politics (see for example Mainwaring 1999; Van Biezen 2005; Zuba 2012). The post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are no exception: these countries lack a crystallised system of differing political party labels and early on, political elites movements reflected seeking political identity through a break with their political past (Nalewajko 1992: 88). Thus, the 2 Kreuzer and Pettai (2003) discuss defections in the context of party fusions, fissions, dissolutions, and start-ups, which are inherently social, group activities although not discussed as such. Others argue that party switching is a consequence of factionalism (e.g., Cox, Rosenbluth, and Thies 2000; Kato and Yamamoto 2009), yet the phenomenon is explained using an individual incentive-based model. 1

3 identities and objectives of MPs in these contexts were not, and continue not to be defined solely by party labels. I investigate the relationship between nonpartisan social ties, based on shared identities defined by past political biographies, social backgrounds, and personal characteristics with legislative behaviour, namely the decision to switch political parties using two contrasting cases from post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE): Poland and the Czech Republic. Since embracing democracy twenty five years ago, Poland s democracy remains quasiinstitutionalised at best (Gwiazda 2009) and the party system remains fluid (Markowski 2008; Millard 2009; Zieliński et al. 2005). In contrast, after an initial bout of fluidity, the Czech political landscape enjoyed a decade of relative stability (Bakke and Sitter 2005; Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2010; Linek and Mansfeldová 2007), yet in recent years it has begun to destabilise (Mansfeldová 2013). The implications of the findings for political and party system development are easily generalisable to other young democracies in the region, given that the structure and organisation of Polish and Czech political parties is not unique (see Innes 2002; Van Biezen 2005) 3 and rates of electoral turnover are characteristic of new democracies around the world (see Dix 1984; Shabad and Słomczyński 2002; Uppal 2009). I use a multi-method approach to test the argument that nonpartisan group linkages shape the decision to switch parties or remain loyal. Evidence for a group-basis of legislative behaviour is drawn from interviews with Polish and Czech MPs conducted in , and these patterns are tested quantitatively using data on the biographies and legislative activities of politicians in 3 Previous studies have shown nuanced differences between the party systems of post-communist Europe (e.g., Casal Bértoa 2014). However, these studies are focused on the political cleavages that define the party systems visà-vis electorates rather than on party structure (internal/cartel; see Katz and Mair 2002; Zuba 2012) or on the characteristics of MPs, per se (see Tunkis 2016). 2

4 both contexts. I find support for the argument that nonpartisan group associations have a significant effect on the decisions and likelihood of MPs whether or not to switch parties. TOWARDS A THEORY OF GROUP-BASED PARTY SWITCHING A growing body of literature investigates the phenomenon of legislative party switching theoretically and empirically across contexts (see Heller and Mershon 2009a). 4 Much of this research rests on two major assumptions. First, MPs decisions are based on a rational calculus aimed at achieving electoral, career, or policy goals (e.g., Heller and Mershon 2005; Gwiazda and McMenamin 2011) following the logic of political ambition theory (Schlesinger 1966). Politicians are self-interested, and political parties are means to achieving their ends (Aldrich 1995; Downs 1957). Second, party labels and membership matter (see Laver and Benoit 2003). MPs are more likely to join or remain in parties that are more attractive to voters to increase chances of reelection (Desposato 2006; Gwiazda and McMenamin 2011); policy agendas are achieved through parties, and used by them to achieve office (Downs 1957). Thus, the decision-making process underlying party switching is modeled as an interactive game involving a rationalisation of costs versus benefits; party switching is considered optimal only if it maximises the chances of reelection, advancing to higher office, or achieving policy goals on an individual basis (Heller and Mershon 2009b). For example, defection may be optimal to escape responsibility for poor lawmaking or scandal, to advance one s career by switching to a more popular party for re-election, or to acquire higher office such 4 Party switching in this paper refers to the notion of defection between parties in parliament, represented by parliamentary party groups (PPG); this paper is agnostic towards the personal partisanship of MPs outside of parliament. I acknowledge that there is a difference between changing personal partisanship and switching PPGs as a MP oftentimes the latter may be formed by MPs who are registered members of the PPG s namesake, but in coordination or coalition with partisans from other groups or non-aligned MPs (see Semenova 2015). 3

5 as a committee chairmanship or ministerial position. Elected officials also do not operate in a vacuum decisions are conditioned by institutional and electoral rules, timing during parliamentary terms, and electoral prospects (Mershon and Shvetsova 2008; Shabad and Słomczyński 2004; Zieliński et al. 2005). Moreover, the gradual consolidation and institutionalisation of party systems puts further constraints on MPs mobility through a crystallisation of well-defined party labels, leading to a decline in the frequency of party switching or the appearance and disappearance of political parties (Kreuzer and Pettai 2003). However, these assumptions do not lend themselves cleanly to the developing or fluid party systems found in new democracies. A broad examination of patterns of party switching in CEE reveals that not only has defection not declined in frequency since the collapse of Communism in 1989, but that it has even been on the rise in systems once assumed to have stabilised. As Table 1 shows, the number of party switches per Kadencja 5 in Poland has not declined with some MPs switching more than five times per term and it appears to be on the rise in the Czech Republic in recent years. Additionally, treating party switching as an individual phenomenon does little to explain the fact that most defections are not individual hops. Rather, the majority of switches take place as a group-event. 6 Whether these events correspond with Kreuzer and Pettai s (2003) institutional framework or involve a close-knit group of colleagues moving from one place to another, a choice is made by each individual MP in question to defect with a specific group rather than with others (or alone) at some other point. [ Table 1 about here] 5 To ensure clear differentiation between parliamentary terms for reference to both contexts respectively, I hereafter use the native terminology: Kadencja in Polish and Volební období in Czech. 6 Group switches may be defined as defections that generally satisfy two conditions: (1) a group of MPs switch affiliations together on the same day or two of each other, and (2) they move together towards the same destinationaffiliation. 4

6 Frequent and persistent defection implicates the weakness of party labels and organisation in these contexts. Party systems in CEE lack robust pluralist traditions, tend to focus on personalism, and are essentially products of top-down or cartel party systems (Jarmara 2013; Kitschelt et al. 1999; Van Biezen 2005; Zuba 2012). In the early stages of democratisation, political parties may be more easily defined by personalities, personal relationships, and/or reputation, rather than by ideologies or policy programs as political elites determine their places in the new order (Nalewajko, 1992). Legislative behaviour in these contexts may thus appear relatively chaotic when compared to that found in established democracies, but this impression fades when nonpartisan group associations (social ties between individuals irrespective of party lines) are taken into account. Borrowing from social psychology, group membership provides a sense of identity and belonging based on shared attributes that characterise the group (Tajfel and Turner 1986). Since group members identify each other in these terms, there is a perceptual enhancement of their mutual similarity which should increase intragroup attraction (Turner 1982: 26). In the context of new democracies, this form of reinforced mutual loyalty is not the domain of party labels or ideologies alone. Which group identities or linkages are salient to MPs besides party labels may depend on a variety of factors or contexts, particularly who was elected to parliament for a given term. Camaraderie may develop from shared occupational histories, personal characteristics, educational backgrounds, past associations, or even legislative committee membership, which then have an effect on a variety of legislative activities and behaviour (Gallagher 1985; Tunkis 2016). In making decisions about party affiliation, instead of only asking what are the costs/benefits for me to switch parties or to stay where I am, many MPs may also be asking, 5

7 what are the costs/benefits of my defection for my group? If nonpartisan identities are important to MPs, then one may surmise that it is in the interest of parties (and their leaders) to harness or co-opt these identities to either strengthen cohesion and loyalty, or to attract potential new party members from other less-cohesive party members. Figure 1 illustrates the decision to switch political parties if group associations are taken into account. Even if, at the end of the day, party switching is fundamentally an individual phenomenon (Heller and Mershon 2009b: 30), defection must be understood as a dynamic process not solely based on individual perceptions of gains or losses; perceptions of gains or losses influenced by social interactions matter as well. The conventional decision-making approach should hold assuming a given MP has no group associations (as an independent or a social pariah). However, if the MP is associated with one or more groups (partisan or not), then these associations will affect the decision to defect (to remain with or join co-members), and as such also moderate how they perceive the individual costs and benefits in the process of making a rational decision. The interaction between group associations that correspond with or cut across party lines thus shape the decision to move or stick together with others for the purpose of achieving goals like winning votes or enacting policy, or individual ambitions such as the pursuit of higher office, that otherwise would not be possible alone. [ Figure 1 here ] Three hypotheses emerge from this discussion. First, this paper tests whether or not nonpartisan group associations affect the decision to switch parties at all. Referring to Figure 1, having nonpartisan social ties (or being part of such a group) should on the one hand affect the decision to defect directly, but on the other hand shape, or moderate, the effect of individual incentives or ambitions on the final decision. 6

8 H1: Having nonpartisan social ties will directly affect the decision to switch political parties. H2: Having nonpartisan social ties will moderate the effect of individual incentives or ambitions on the decision to switch political parties. The relationship between nonpartisan group associations and party labels may also be a directional one. First, when the majority of individuals sharing the same social bonds happen to be in the same political party, or that their nonpartisan group association corresponds with affiliation to a political party, we might intuitively expect a reduced likelihood of party switching. That is, the importance of sticking together with peers with whom much is shared in common reduces the likelihood of defection. Conversely, in the event that strong nonpartisan group linkages cross party lines, the likelihood of defection may instead increase as a result of a given MP wishing to cross the floor in order to join his or her compatriots. These hypotheses are dependent upon Hypotheses 1 and 2 not being rejected. H3a: the likelihood of party switching is lower when salient nonpartisan group identities correspond with party labels. H3b: the likelihood of party switching is higher when salient nonpartisan group identities crosscut party lines. 7

9 GROUP LINKAGES AND LEGISLATIVE BEHAVIOUR: POLAND AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC Despite expectations of stabilisation over time, the persistent volatility of the party system and the electorate in Poland raises the question as to whether or not MPs are pursuing defection as a beneficial course of action out of personal political ambition alone, given a heightened level of uncertainty vis-à-vis a lack of distinct or stable party labels. On the one hand, many of the groupbased defections that have occurred correspond with Kreuzer and Pettai s (2003) parties-asinstitutions approach. For example, in IV Kadencja, the ex-communist successor Alliance of the Democratic Left (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, SLD) split to form Social Democracy Poland (Socjaldemokracja Polska, SDPL); the current party of government, Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS), is the product of a set of fusions and fissions that occurred since the transition to democracy. However, as the number of such institutional shifts has declined (relatively), MPs continue to move between extant party labels together, in groups. The V Kadencja, for example, saw MPs B. Kowalski, G. Masłowska, and A. Sobecka switch affiliations together five times, leaving the governing coalition and jumping between marginal party groups. Notably, many of these group-based movements seemed to not only ignore ideological lines, but also forgo access to the perks of office by moving away from parties in government (see Gwiazda and McMenamin 2011: 845). A similar story may be told of the Czech Republic. The formation of the Civic Democratic Alliance (Občanská demokratická alliance, ODA) was the result of personal rivalries with members of the larger (and still-existing) Civic Democratic Party (Občanská demokratická strana, ODS), which both emerged from the original anti-communist Civic Forum (Občanské fórum, OF) with similar liberal-conservative platforms (see Kopecký 1995). Personal 8

10 and leadership conflicts would later lead to a split in the Christian Democratic Union - Czechoslovak People s Party (Křesťanská a demokratická unie Československá strana lidová, KDU-ČSL), which resulted in the formation of the TOP 09 (Tradice Odpovědnost Prosperita 09) after the 5. Volební období. Group defections across existing parties also followed suit to the Polish experience at times when party switching has been prevalent. Although ejected from the far right-wing Coalition for Republic Republican Party of Czechoslovakia (Sdružení pro Republiku - Republikánská strana Československa, SPR-RSČ), MPs Z. Vlček and L. Nedorost voluntarily moved together between independent status and membership in the Movement for Autonomous Democracy Party for Moravia and Silesia (Hnutí za samosprávnou demokracii Společnost pro Moravu a Slezsko, HSD-SMS) before settling across the aisle in left-wing parliamentary groups by the end of the 1. Volební období. As seen from Polish MPs point of view, defections are personal conflicts not ideological, but personal [45_C_V_PiS] 7. Group-based switching in Poland is thus no accident. Beyond whatever programmatic ideals tie MPs together, nonpartisan social ties also matter, sometimes more so. Once in parliament, one newcomer MP explained that we start to form clusters, and into these clusters deputies join from other groups, because this is above partisanship... whether we form clusters, or ephemeral associations, or non-partisan groups, we are able to solve specific issues in life [32_C_N_ PSL]. A fellow partisan further elaborated that everything that connects us, is in fact this, that in the beginning we got to know each other, we understood one another, we agreed on things, we found our common language within this group... and it turned out that we could count on one another. It may be a little funny, but all for one and one for all [17_C_N_PSL]. Over time, these ties remain salient and continue to develop, affecting legislative decisions and activities including the decision to switch parties. 7 See Table A1 in Appendix A for an explanation of the interview citation scheme. 9

11 As such, commitments to party membership in new democracies with weak parties rely on encouragement from familiar people, comrades, colleagues, and so on [33_E_V_NA]. Early on, many MPs realised the first divisions often time not on a programmatic basis, but on the basis of camaraderie. If a colleague is starting something with others, then you go with them. You do not necessarily need to have similar views [36_E_V_NA]. The result in the Polish case is that defections of any sort are viewed as a natural thing, that switches occur, that there s a rotation, that people move from one group to another [9_E_N_NA]. As one MP put it, a party is not a wife; that I signed a declaration at some point doesn t mean that I took a vow until death [7_C_V_ZP]. Interviews with Czech MPs yielded similar responses, despite this context s different path of party system (de)stabilisation. As in Poland, some Czech MPs felt that a person has the right to be transient to pursue their views [64_C_V_KSČM], and that at times this pursuit ignored formal ideological lines. Referring to past examples of defection, one MP noted that such individuals voted on various issues with parties with which they were never elected, and voted in favour of an alternate government... at night they went to bed as social democrats, and in the morning they awoke as civic democrats [63_C_V_ČSSD]. The prevalence of group-switches in the Czech Republic shortly after the Velvet Divorce and its rise in recent years suggests that, as in Poland, personal ambitions are not alone in guiding MPs decisions. For progress to be made in parliament, MPs suggested that one must separate from ideologies. That we say we have different ideals is one thing, but it is another that this is a person whom I know and who is fine, such that it doesn t matter if he is from a different party [60_C_N_Úsvit]. Likewise, a Christian Democrat explained that there are people from different parties who, for some reason, are for me very easy-going, and they might even be from 10

12 the Communist party!... So basically, personal contacts and even actually friendships play a huge role [59_C_N_KDU]. In sum, given that group-based party switching is prevalent in both contexts, it is not surprising that MPs would emphasise the importance of their non-ideological associations with colleagues both within and outside of their party affiliations. This lends support to the first and second hypotheses, prima facie: if personal contacts and friendships play an important role in legislative behaviour writ large, then the decision to switch parties should be no exception. DATA AND METHODS The above discussion, as well as recent research on party-based and nonpartisan roll-call vote loyalties (Tunkis 2016), shows that nonpartisan group associations or social ties matter for MPs legislative behaviour and decisions, including whether or not to převlékat kabaty or change coats [54_C_V_ODS], in new democracies like Poland and the Czech Republic. Thus, we can expect these group linkages to shape the effect of personal ambitions and also directly affect the decision to switch parties. This paper and the evidence presented herein also provides the opportunity to additionally test the intuition that strong ties among nonpartisan group associations that correspond with party affiliations should in these ways reduce the likelihood of defection, and vice-versa when taking into account group associations that cross-cut party lines. Data Sources To quantitatively test the argument and hypotheses laid out above, I draw upon a variety of data sources. For the Polish analysis, spanning , the MPAD-Poland and EAST PaC datasets in combination cover Polish MPs biographical, electoral, and parliamentary activity 11

13 information, while roll-call votes used to measure party/ideological and nonpartisan loyalties associations are drawn from prior data collected by Hug and Wüest (2012). 8 For the Czech analysis, spanning , the MPAD-Czech dataset contains all equivalent biographical, electoral, and parliamentary information as the Polish case, as well as all roll-call votes that were electronically recorded over this time. 9 In both cases, the data are structured such that the unit of analysis is each individual MP, whereas the unit of observation is the set of static or dynamic associations (partisan or otherwise) and positions held by the individual according to the date from which these associations or positions began until the date they ended for each unique individual. Thus any change in party affiliation, committee assignment, or government position requires a new observation for the MP in question in the given parliamentary term, as this represents a change in the MP s unique position and/or interactions vis-à-vis his or her peers. Variables and Operationalisation The dependent variable is the binary outcome of whether or not a MP switched parties or not at the end of each observation. For example, if the MP switched party affiliation, the given observation would end, and the dependent variable would be marked 1. Alternatively, if a MP found him or herself moving from one legislative committee to another, then the dependent variable would be marked 0, and a new observation would begin given the new committee assignment. For some cases, not all changes in listed affiliation are necessarily party switches a 8 Polish roll-call votes were not archived electronically until See Appendix B for a more complete description of the datasets used. Notably, variables derived from roll-call votes in both the Polish and Czech cases are free from selection-bias given the practice of recording all votes as such (see Hug 2010). 12

14 party that changes its name or its status 10 without changing its roster would not constitute party switching. The independent variables reflect individuals incentives or personal political ambitions and whether or not they share nonpartisan ties with other MPs that either correspond with or cross-cut party affiliations. Personal political ambition is difficult to measure directly, but may be captured using institutional, electoral, or personal information that reflect and condition vote-, office-, and policy-seeking behaviour. First, Party in government reflects whether or not a MP is affiliated with a party that is in the governing coalition. Independently, membership in a governing party should reduce the likelihood of party switching, given that such a position implies better access to office and state goods. Even more influential along these same lines should be holding a Government position, which implies that office-seeking goals have, to some extent, been achieved. In kind, Committee position reflects whether or not a MP holds an officer position on a legislative committee. Because committee assignments are distributed proportionately across political parties (and are doled out by party higher-ups), defection could also result in the loss of such posts, lowering the likelihood of party switching among MPs with officer positions. 11 The next two variables, List position and Logged pref. votes, are used to proxy voteseeking ambitions. A higher list position implies party favour, higher placement within the party 10 Status refers to, in part, the size and organization of the party in parliament. In the Polish Sejm, 3 members are required to form a Deputy s Caucus, while 15 are required to form a Deputy s Club, which, along with whether or not the group has a presence in the upper house, result in different perks such as campaign financing, agenda-setting powers, and so on. In the Czech Republic, 10 MPs are required at a minimum to initially form a party group (although they will continue to exist if they lose members later in the term), which likewise carries with it the benefits of agenda-setting and financial subsidisation based on size. 11 These variables are accounted for independently of one another in statistical analysis, as MPs with government positions do not hold committee assignments (with the exception of the Czech Republic, in which the President and Vice-Presidents of the Poslanecká sněmovna are also officers in the Organisational Committee, but resign all other assignments if appointed to these higher offices). 13

15 hierarchy, or both, which should discourage party switching. 12 Conversely, a larger number of preferential votes has been shown to encourage MPs to defy their co-partisans vis-à-vis claims of personal popularity and individual/direct mandates (see Karvonen 2011); if the ultimate show of defiance is outright defection (as opposed to solely voting incorrectly during roll-calls), we may expect that being a superstar should increase the likelihood of party switching. Because the number of preferential votes received by MPs ranges from several hundred to tens of thousands in the Czech case, or hundreds of thousands in the Polish case, a natural log-linear scale allows for more meaningful (standard) interpretation of the effect of this indicator. Incumbent, Tenure, and Age also reflect office- and policy-seeking ambitions. The first indicates whether or not a given MP has any prior experience in parliament. Newcomers should be more likely to switch parties, given that they may not be socialised into their roles in the parliament or their parties (see Heller and Mershon 2005). Conversely, veterans may have a better grasp of how to achieve goals, and staying with a party may help foster electoral support as well as advancement up the party list/hierarchy. Similarly, those with a longer Tenure history, or the number of previous terms served, should be less likely to switch parties as a consequence of these personal developments. Age also plays a role in individuals political ambitions (see Schlesinger 1966): older MPs should be less likely to switch political parties given the risks to career status and reputation, and a more proximate prospect of retirement should serve to dampen career ambitions. Party roll-call loyalty measures ideological and programmatic proximity between copartisans and legislative loyalty to the political platforms with which MPs are affiliated. This measure is calculated as the proportion of votes over the span of the given observation in which a 12 Noting also that the electorate in open-list proportional representation systems like Poland and the Czech Republic tend to utilise party labels as heuristics and choose the top name(s) on their lists regardless of the individual, per se (cf. Marsh 1985). 14

16 given MP votes with the modal decision of their political party. 13 That is, if more than half of a MP s co-partisans vote in favour of a particular issue and that MP followed suit, he or she would be considered loyal. Because a large number of votes recorded in both Poland and the Czech Republic tend to be unanimous (e.g., procedural) with little differentiation across ideological lines or government vs. opposition, roll-call vote loyalty scores are calculated across contentious votes, based on a 75 percent modal criterion a vote in which more than 75 percent of voting MPs vote the same way is considered unanimous, and vice-versa (see Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 1997; Tunkis 2016). Furthermore, loyalty scores take into account yea, nay, and abstain as relevant vote-choices, which retains information about which MPs vote together and how often (Hix 2004). Finally, these scores are agnostic to specific issues and thus speak to average tendencies of loyalty across votes and across time. Finally, to capture the effect of nonpartisan group associations on the decision to switch parties, as well as how these linkages shape the effect of individual incentives or personal ambitions, two dummy variables were calculated to capture whether or not MPs social ties Correspond with partisanship, or whether they Cross-cut party lines. The former records whether or not a given MP has at least one set of nonpartisan social ties that on average correspond with party affiliation. Conversely, the latter records whether or not a given MP has at least one set of nonpartisan social ties that on average extend beyond party label. Both are determined using party-based roll-call voting loyalty in relation to roll-call voting loyalty scores based on nonpartisan associations previously found to affect legislative behaviour, including linkages based on gender, level of education, social class, regional-ties, alma mater, past political 13 This scheme is dependent on the unit of observation, per se, rather than the unit of analysis alone. Roll-call loyalty scores are calculated based on any number of roll-call votes recorded over a given time-span until dynamic affiliations such as party or committee assignments change, or the acquisition or relinquishing of a higher office, resulting in a new observation for the given MP and a new roll-call loyalty score based on the MP s new unique position and/or interactions. 15

17 biographies/associations (prior to democratisation), and legislative committee assignments (see Tunkis 2016). If for a given observation a MP s partisan loyalty is above their party membership s average and he or she is loyal to colleagues sharing at least one particular group association above the average rate of loyalty for that group (e.g., level of education or a history with a particular political organisation prior to 1989 or so), then Correspond is 1. If for a given observation a MP s partisan loyalty is instead below their party membership s average but his or her nonpartisan group loyalty is above the average for at least one of these groups in parliament, then Cross-cut is 1. Independent significance for these variables will indicate a direct effect of group associations on the decision to switch parties. To determine how these linkages shape personal ambitions and incentives, these dummies are interacted with each of the aforementioned independent variables. Descriptive Statistics Revisiting Table 1 above, a substantial portion of MPs have switched parties at least once each Kadencja in Poland, with a lower number of defections in V Kadencja seemingly due to the fact that the term ended prematurely following the collapse of the governing coalition of PiS, the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin, LPR), and Defense of the Republic (Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, Samoobrona). By the same token, over a third of parliamentarians defected at least once between , following failed party-coalition experiments between the agrarian Polish People s Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL) and the Polish People s Bloc (Polski Blok Ludowe, PBL), as well as fallout in the governing partycoalition of SLD with the Labour United party (Unia Pracy, UP) following scandal. Meanwhile, party switching in the Czech Republic declined significantly by the 3. Volební období, 16

18 suggesting that the party system had frozen and stabilised; yet the last ten years have seen growing destabilisation with the entry of new political parties following divisions in the KDU- ČSL in 5. Volební období (and its failure to enter parliament the following term), along with the entry of new parties TOP09 and the populist Public Affairs (Věci veřejné, VV) in With this in mind, we should expect the average likelihood of defection ceteris paribus to be higher across time in Poland than in the Czech Republic given the different levels of frequency and persistence. Regardless, I argue that MPs decisions are affected by nonpartisan camaraderie, and these group linkages should affect the likelihood of party switching. If MPs generally do not share strong nonpartisan group linkages, then a fundamentally individual-oriented explanation of legislative behaviour should hold, and we should not observe much in the way of meaningful corresponding or cross-cutting associations among MPs. However, Tables 2 and 3 show that the proportions of MPs per parliamentary term in both Poland and the Czech Republic that share at least one corresponding or cross-cutting group association are substantial. In top-down cartelised party systems, we should expect a higher proportion of MPs whose nonpartisan groups and party labels correspond and a lower proportion of those whose associations cross-cut party lines, assuming that it is in the interest of party leaders to harness these loyalties to strengthen the organization. [ Table 2 about here ] [ Table 3 about here ] Based on these numbers, we should expect these group configurations to have some impact on the likelihood of switching political parties. Figures 2 and 3 show the relative impacts of having corresponding and cross-cutting group associations on estimated predicted values for 17

19 party switching in Poland and the Czech Republic (respectively). At first glance, the baseline predictions for defection (dotted lines) are generally lower in the Czech Republic than in Poland (noting also the higher value in IV Kadencja in the Sejm and the rise in the Poslanecká sněmovna after 2006). Where party switching has been frequent (i.e., with the exception of in the Czech Republic), predicted probabilities of switching parties differ substantially from the baseline when considering either MPs having nonpartisan group linkages that correspond (dashed lines) with or cross-cut (solid lines) party lines, providing initial support for Hypothesis 1. [ Figure 2 about here ] [ Figure 3 about here ] Support for Hypotheses 3a and 3b at this point, however, is mixed. In the Polish context, MPs with corresponding nonpartisan group ties and party membership were less likely to switch than those without, and vice-versa for those with cross-cutting linkages and party membership, as intuitively expected. Findings for the Czech Republic do not clearly reflect intuition. Where there is a substantial difference between those with meaningful corresponding group/party associations and those without, the effect is (directionally) negative (in 1. and 5. Volební období). The effect of having cross-cutting associations only makes intuitive sense in 6. Volební období; in all other cases where there is a visible effect (1., 2., and 5. Volební období), it is also counter-intuitively negative. This might suggest two things: on the one hand, only group associations that correspond with party labels may shape the decision to switch parties in the same way, if at all; on the other hand the fact that party switching occurred relatively less often in the Czech Republic than in Poland (even during the initial period of post-transition chaos) 18

20 may suggest that MPs whose social ties cut across party lines did not act on these associations in the form of defection. Explanatory models To test the argument and hypotheses concerning the relationship between group associations and the incentives to switch parties or stay put, I estimate one model for each country case with a specifications for corresponding and cross-cutting group associations for comparison with a baseline specification. The baseline (Specification I) tests the conventional individual-rational determinants of party switching reflecting vote-, office-, and policy-seeking ambitions as well as ideological/partisan loyalty. Specifications II and III determine whether or not MPs nonpartisan group linkages correspond with their party affiliation; III takes into account committee assignments, which rules out MPs with government positions (or who were not assigned for whatever reason), and so is estimated separately given a constrained sample of MP-observations. Specifications IV and V determine whether or not MPs nonpartisan group linkages cross-cut their party lines; as with Specification III, V takes into account committee assignments. Because the dependent variable is binary (switch or not) and the analysis spans multiple parliamentary terms, binomial logistic mixed effects Generalised Linear Models are used to estimate the effects of individual incentives and group associations on the likelihood of party switching. This is an optimal method in its robust and flexible ability to model longitudinal data in which there are multiple observations clustered around individuals, who are nested within discrete groups, which are nested in time-period (see Breslow and Clayton 1993). The variables described above constitute the fixed effects, whereas random intercepts are determined by individuals (specified by a unique ID for each MP), who are nested within parties (controlling for 19

21 internal party structures, organisation, discipline, and ideology, much like dummy variables found in other studies), which are then nested in parliamentary terms (which control for the changing circumstances and exogenous factors or events associated with each time period). Robust standard errors are estimated in order to reliably control for heteroscedasticity, given that random intercepts according to individual ID and parliamentary term already control for some degree of serial correlation of errors across observations for the same individual across time. RESULTS Across specifications for both models (Tables 4 and 5 below), results at first blush suggest that nonpartisan group associations affect the likelihood of defection by shaping the impact of personal ambitions and incentives. Assessment statistics for each model specification are also strong despite the addition of parameters (baseline versus groups/interactions) and sub-sample constraints (those with versus without committee assignments). Models estimating the likelihood of defection in each country also share similar random intercept variances across the three specified levels: Term > Party > ID. The extremely low variation induced by clustering observations around individual MPs suggests that after controlling for serial correlation across each MP s observations, the fixed effects parameters do not vary significantly from person to person. In both countries, there is unsurprisingly a comparatively greater amount of variance for MPs observations when categorised according to political party affiliations, nested within parliamentary term this is much the same as including party dummy variables in a simple fixed-effects model. The advantage here is that assigning random intercepts according to parties rather than using dummies is that over time there are many feu de paille groups coexisting with parties that otherwise persist across terms. Interestingly, controlling for time (via parliamentary 20

22 terms) has differing effects between Poland and the Czech Republic. The variance of fixed effects parameters intercepts is very low across Kadencja in Poland, and it is much larger in the Czech Republic this reflects the relative distribution of the dependent variable, in which for two terms Czech MPs virtually did not switch parties at all compared to a regular frequency of defection in Poland over time. The fixed effects of individual incentives and group association on party switching diverge substantively between Polish and Czech MPs, but the overall impression from the findings is that group associations do indeed have a significant effect on the decision to switch parties, despite differences across contexts. Table 4 presents results for Polish MPs, Following the conventional rationalindividual model, the baseline specification (Specification I) shows that members of governing parties and MPs with prior experience in parliament were more likely to defect; party loyalty in contrast reduced the odds of switching substantially. Although a positive Party in government finding is counter-intuitive at first glance, government turnover was frequent between parties of the ex-communist left and post-solidarność right, and in some cases governing parties suffered from mass defections (as in the case of SLD in IV Kadencja) or piecemeal defections (as in the case of Electoral Action Solidarity [Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność, AWS] in III Kadencja). Thus, interpretation of this indicator must be made with the consideration that MPs are not switching out of governing parties exclusively; rather, they may be calculating that they are instead switching out of an inevitably sinking ship and into the next (prospective) government. With respect to the effect of being a veteran versus a newcomer, the early signs of professionalisation in the Polish political elite (see Shabad and Słomczyński 2002) led to the establishment of career politicians, and given that a majority of MPs had some experience in the Sejm since 1989 by the 21

23 onset of III Kadencja, many of the switchers out of governing parties were more than likely veterans (and perhaps more aware of impending electoral turnovers). [Table 4 about here] The results in Specifications II-V provide strong support for Hypotheses 1 and 2 although support for Hypotheses 3a and 3b is mixed in light of coefficients directions. Specifications in which MPs group associations that correspond with party identity are taken into account (II and III) show that having at least one such association independently increased the likelihood of defection greatly. Conversely, when cross-cutting associations are considered (Specifications IV and V), these independently reduced the likelihood of switching. As with the consistent findings for Party in government, it is possible that major fissions in AWS in III Kadencja and SLD in IV Kadencja, in which members shared a past in the pre-transition Solidarność movement and the Polish United Workers Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR), respectively, may be driving the result. Likewise, the likelihood of those with cross-cutting associations to switch was much lower in the face of the large number of defections experienced in the first half of the timeline analysed here, whereas in the latter Kadencja (after 2005), the right had polarised itself between the national-conservative PiS and liberal-conservative PO (Civic Platform, Platforma Obywatelska), most of whose members shared a pre-transition anti-regime history. How these associations shape the effect of individual ambitions makes somewhat more intuitive sense. Furthermore, the inclusion of the corresponding/cross-cutting group variables and interactions also affect the interpretation of the baseline terms, which may be interpreted as these factors impact on the likelihood of defection, assuming no corresponding (Specifications II and III) or cross-cutting (Specifications IV and V) associations. Those with corresponding group associations and party affiliation (Specification II) are less likely to switch if they received a 22

24 greater number of preferential votes than those without corresponding associations; the effect is similar among those with longer tenure, with a huge decrease in likelihood of defection among party loyalists. The effect of accounting for committee memberships (Specification III) is similar, with the addition of incumbency having a significant effect on this subsample of MPs (following findings in Specification I). Accounting for cross-cutting associations also strongly supports Hypothesis 2, with significant interaction terms supporting Hypothesis 3b with the exception of those holding government positions and incumbents (see Specification III), although this would rather support the conventional wisdom that holding such high office should discourage defection, whereas the finding for incumbents suggests that those with cross-cutting social ties more often opted not to defect relative to peers without such ties. Accounting for committee membership yielded similar results in Specification IV, although among those with cross-cutting group linkages, holding a committee officer position increased the likelihood of defection (whereas it was not significant when accounting for corresponding group associations). Following the intuition implied by Hypothesis 3b, one may speculate that officers who defected in light of their cross-cutting group linkages did so in the hopes that this experience and expertise would be recognised by colleagues in their destination-party and they would retain their position. The substantive findings for the Czech Republic are strikingly different from those in Poland as shown in Table 5. Although there is prima facie less support for Hypotheses 1 and 2, they cannot be outright rejected. Keeping in mind that party switching in the Czech Republic overall has been relatively very low until recently, the lack of any significant or substantive results in the baseline, conventional approach (Specification I) is notable with the exception of holding government office, which intuitively discourages defection. While the significant findings are similarly sparse when taking into account group associations across specifications, 23

25 those with corresponding social and partisan ties (Specifications II and III) are less likely to switch parties than those without such linkages if they held lower electoral list positions. When including MPs committee memberships (Specification III), however, party loyalty appears to have a substantial effect on the decision to switch parties. Those without corresponding group linkages are less likely to defect the more loyal they are, yet those with such ties are substantively more likely to defect if they are party loyalists the cumulative effect of this factor on the likelihood of defection is indeed positive, which would suggest a rejection of Hypothesis 3a. [ Table 5 about here ] The influence of group linkages that cross-cut party lines, meanwhile, appears weak. Across all MPs (Specification IV), Hypothesis 1, 2, or 3b cannot be supported findings are not substantially or significantly different from the baseline. Partial support for the first two hypotheses, however, can be found when the model is analysed among MPs with committee memberships. MPs with veterancy and cross-cutting group associations are less likely to switch than newcomers, while party loyalists with cross-cutting social ties are much less likely to switch than those without, although these MPs are generally less likely to defect than those who are less loyal to their party platforms and ideologies, which runs counter to Hypothesis 3b. In sum, the results presented here provide support for the argument that MPs nonpartisan group-linkages have an effect directly (Hypothesis 1) and indirectly by shaping the effect of individual incentives or personal ambitions (Hypothesis 2) on the decision to switch political parties, albeit to different extents across contexts. Specific statistical relationships, noting the direction of baseline (Specification I) and interacted (Specifications II-V) terms, appear to run counter to the intuition and theory underlying conventional understandings of MPs decisions to 24

26 party switch. As such, support for Hypotheses 3a and 3b are mixed, although hints for why this is the case may be drawn from an understanding of national and institutional contexts. DISCUSSION Party switching has conventionally been understood as an individual phenomenon across established and nascent democracies alike (Heller and Mershon 2009b), constrained by political institutions as well as timing (Heller and Mershon 2005; Mershon and Shvetsova 2008; Shabad and Słomczyński 2004; Zieliński et al. 2005). As institutions develop and democracy consolidates, the practice of defection is also expected to decline in frequency (Kreuzer and Pettai 2003, 2009). Yet in many new democracies such as those in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe, party switching has not been on the decline after a few decades of democratisation. In Poland, institutionalisation is weak (Gwiazda 2009; Markowski 2008; Millard 2009), and the Czech party system has appeared to destabilise despite initial patterns of consolidation (Linek and Mansfeldová 2007; Mansfeldová 2013). This paper aims to shed light on why this form of elite volatility persists by returning to the observation that party systems in many new democracies tend to be cartelised and top-down in nature, lacking mass-memberships or pluralist traditions (Jarmara 2013; Mainwaring 1999; Van Biezen 2005; Zuba 2012). The implication of weak party labels suggests that we should not be surprised by high levels of defections, especially early on in the democratic transition process. Yet this does not speak to the persistence of party switching, per se: if party labels are weak and party identity lacks salience among elected representatives in parliaments, then what binds MPs together and influences their legislative decisions? 25

27 A re-examination of the patterns of party switching among individual MPs reveals that the vast majority of defections are group-based events. On the one hand, especially early on when political cleavages have yet to crystallise (e.g., Nalewajko 1992), many group switches are reflections of party fissions, fusions, dissolutions or start-ups. However, as the number of effective parties has reduced over time, defection in Poland remains consistent and has been on the rise in the Czech Republic, coinciding with the entry of new parties to the political scene. Using Poland and the Czech Republic as illustrative case studies, I have argued that individual MPs group associations and social ties beyond party labels matter. While the conventional wisdom of ambition-driven party switching holds to an extent, this approach is incomplete when explaining what sometimes may appear irrational or counterintuitive. When nonpartisan groups and how they shape legislative decision-making are taken into account, a clearer picture is drawn as to why some MPs make apparently irrational decisions: bounded by their social as well as institutional constraints and opportunities, party switching may indeed be rational after considering the impact of social pressures from co-partisans as well as colleagues across party lines. The takeaway is that these relationships may improve our understanding of the patterns of party switching across contexts, and especially the roots of party system fluidity in new democracies. The findings from this paper also provide insight into a chicken-and-egg question concerning new democracies: does persistent party switching, especially among groups of MPs, drive instability, or is it one of its symptoms (cf. Semenova 2015)? On the one hand, the significance of MPs nonpartisan group ties in party systems with weak party labels may provide a better explanation of the patterns and persistence of party switching that are prima facie symptoms of political volatility. On the other hand, a group-based explanation of party switching 26

28 may help explain patterns of party system institutionalisation (or a lack thereof) over time, especially where institutional or ideological boundaries are not crystallised. Which group identities are salient depends on the composition of parliament from one term to the next (meaning the biographies of those sitting in parliament at the time), such that particular identities salience may be ephemeral. However, if party labels are weak and political elites are looking to other identities to form legislative coalitions, then party system stabilisation may be dependent upon party labels capturing these nonpartisan identities, and this may take time reflecting the professionalisation of a new political elite and the development of pluralistic civil society where before there was virtually none. In effect, our timelines and expectations of democratisation may indeed be too short. In lieu of distinct party labels, persistent group-based party switching could be evidence of political sorting in action (e.g., Levendusky 2009). Some additional questions that beg further research are also raised by the findings. The most obvious relates to how well the findings presented here will translate to other contexts. Although the findings support a group-based theoretical argument underlying party switching in two countries with differing institutions and political landscapes, these are both new democracies in a particular (European) setting. What of new democracies in Asia or Latin America, for example? To what extent do group linkages affect legislator behaviour in established democracies with stable party systems, in which defection is indeed rare and party cohesion is (on average) high? Additionally, if political elites group linkages matter, which group(s) matter more than others? While this may be a context-specific issue reflecting who is in office for any given parliamentary term, or national history and traditions, it may also be that elites rely on their different group associations for different purposes and at different times. 27

29 To conclude, considering the nature of interpersonal relationships and their effects on political behaviour at the elite level improves our understanding of party system evolution in new democracies. Recognising party switching as a phenomenon that is not only singular and individual but also group-based provides much clearer insight into one of the processes that, although appearing to be a symptom of political instability, may in fact be evidence of democratic consolidation in action and a precursor to stable governance even if there are a few hiccups along the way. APPENDIX A [Table A1 here] APPENDIX B This appendix briefly describes the data sources used in this paper. Data for replication omit all roll-call votes, although these data are archived (coming soon...) or available upon request for Poland from either Simon Hug or Reto Wüest (see Hug and Wüest 2012). MPAD-Poland and MPAD-Czech The MPs Affiliations Data (MPAD) record biographical, electoral, and parliamentary activity records for individual MPs in the Polish Sejm and the Czech Poslanecká sněmovna. An individual MP may have more than one observation in a given term: for example, if he or she switched parties twice and changed committees three times, this individual would have six observations one for the original affiliation/assignments at the beginning of the term, and a new observation following each change in affiliation/assignment. 28

30 The Polish data provide information about party affiliations, legislative committee assignments, government and committee-level positions (if any), and the exact date on which these affiliations or assignments may have changed in any way throughout any given parliamentary term for which data is available. These data also feature static information about MPs, namely level of education (prior to the term), alma mater, political history (association/affiliation prior to 1989), the absolute number of preferential votes received, and incumbency and tenure in the Sejm prior to a given Kadencja. The Czech data contain the same information, with the addition of electoral list position, self-reported occupation outside of politics (if any), social class (as determined using the Czech- SCO), constituency/region, year of birth/age, and all roll-call votes for the given term because of this, the original data is separated into sets for each Volební období. EAST PaC Poland The EAST PaC data 14 provide additional biographical information about MPs in the Sejm in order to supplement the Polish MPAD (and to provide data equivalent in quality and breadth as that found in the Czech MPAD). In addition to MPs, these data feature information about all candidates to the Sejm and the Senat (Poland s upper legislative chamber) between 1985 and MPAD-Poland is supplemented with MPs age, gender, social class (based on listed occupations and defined using the Polish SCO-2009 scale), electoral list position, and constituency as found in EAST PaC. These data were merged with MPAD using EAST PaC s unique IDs for individuals. 14 East European Parliamentarian and Cadidate Data (EAST PaC), Version 1.0. Funded by Poland s National Science Centre (decision number 2012/05/E/HS6/03556). 29

31 Roll-call votes Roll-call votes for Poland were sourced from Hug and Wüest s (2012) cited paper and are available upon request by contacting these authors. These were also merged with MPAD after EAST PaC IDs were assigned to MPs accordingly. Roll-call votes for the Czech Republic were drawn directly from the digital/on-line archives of the Poslanecká sněmovna and are here considered part of MPAD-Czech. REFERENCES Aldrich, John H Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bakke, Elisabeth, and Nick Sitter Patterns of Stability: Party Competition and Strategy in Central Europe since Party Politics 11(2): Breslow, N. E., and D. G. Clayton Approximate Inference in Generalized Linear Mixed Models. Journal of the American Statistical Association 88(421): Casal Bértoa, Fernando Party Systems and Cleavage Structures Revisited: A Sociological Explanation of Party System Institutionalization in East Central Europe. Party Politics 20(1): Cox, Gary W., Frances McCall Rosenbluth, and Michael F. Thies Electoral Rules, Career Ambitions, and Party Structure: Comparing Factions in Japan s Upper and Lower Houses. American Journal of Political Science 44(1): Deegan-Krause, Kevin, and Tim Haughton A Fragile Stability: The Institutional Roots of Low Party System Volatility in the Czech Republic, Politologický časopis - Czech Journal of Political Science 3:

32 Desposato, Scott W Parties for Rent? Careerism, Ideology, and Party Switching in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies. American Journal of Political Science 50(1): Dix, Robert H Incumbency and Electoral Turnover in Latin America. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 26(4): Downs, Anthony An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper. Gallagher, Michael Social Backgrounds and Local Orientations of Members of the Irish Dail. Legislative Studies Quarterly 10(3): Gwiazda, Anna Poland's Quasi-Institutionalized Party System: The Importance of Elites and Institutions. Perspectives on European Politics and Society 10(3): Gwiazda, Anna, and Iain McMenamin Three Roads to Institutionalisation: Vote-, Office-, and Policy-seeking Explanations of Party Switching in Poland. European Journal of Political Research 50(6): Heller, William B., and Carol Mershon Party Switching in the Italian Chamber of Deputies. The Journal of Politics 67(2): (Eds). 2009a. Political Parties and Legislative Party Switching. New York: Palgrave MacMillan b. Integrating Theoretical and Empirical Models of Party Switching. In Political Parties and Legislative Party Switching, ed. William B. Heller and Carol Mershon, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hix, Simon Electoral Institutions and Legislative Behavior: Explaining Voting Defection in the European Parliament. World Politics 56(2): Hug, Simon Selection Effects in Roll Call Votes. British Journal of Political Science 40(1):

33 Hug, Simon, and Reto Wüest Ideological Positions of Party Switchers. Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, April 12-15, Innes, Abby Party Competition in Postcommunist Europe: The Great Electoral Lottery. Comparative Politics 35(1): Jarmara, Tomáš Politické strany: institucionalizace, univerzalizace, kartelizace (Political parties: institutionalization, universalization, cartelization). Ostrava, CZ: Ostravská univerzita. Karvonen, Lauri Preferential vote in party list. In Personal Representation: The Neglected Dimension of Electoral Systems, ed. Josep Colomer, Colchester: ECPR Press. Kasianiuk, Krzysztof Gra Polityczna w Parlamencie: Anatomia Zjawiska (Political Game in Poland: Anatomy of Events). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe. Kato, Junko, and Kentaro Yamamoto Competition for Power: Party Switching and Party System Change in Japan. In Political Parties and Legislative Party Switching, ed. William B. Heller and Carol Mershon, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Katz, Richard S., and Peter Mair The Ascendancy of the Party in Public Office: Party Organizational Change in Twentieth-Century Democracies. In Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges, ed. Gunther, Montero, and Linz, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kitschelt, Herbert, Zdenka Mansfeldová, Radosław Markowski, and Gábor Tóka. (Eds) Post-Communist party systems: Competition, representation, an inter-party cooperation. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. 32

34 Kopecký, Petr Factionalism in Parliamentary Parties in the Czech Republic: A Concept and Some Empirical Findings. Democratization 2(1): Kreuzer, Marcus, and Vello Pettai Patterns of political instability: Affiliation patterns of politicians and voters in Post-Communist Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Studies in Comparative International Development 38(2): Laver, Michael, and Kenneth Benoit The Evolution of Party Systems between Elections. American Journal of Political Science 47(2): Levendusky, Matthew The Partisan Sort: How Liberals became Democrats and Conservatives became Republicans. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lewis, Paul G Political Institutionalisation and Party Development in Post-Communist Poland. Europe-Asia Studies 46(5): Linek, Lukáš, and Zdenka Mansfeldová The Parliament of the Czech Republic, Journal of Legislative Studies 13(1): Mainwaring, Scott Rethinking party systems in Third Wave democracies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Mainwaring, Scott, and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán Party Discipline in the Brazilian Constitutional Congress. Legislative Studies Quarterly 22(4): Mansfeldová, Zdenka Central European Parliaments over Two Decades Diminishing Stability? Parliaments in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia. In Post- Communist Parliaments: Change and Stability in the Second Decade, ed. David M. Olson and Gabriella Ilonszki, New York: Routledge. Markowski, Radosław The 2007 Polish Parliamentary Election: Some Structuring, Still a Lot of Chaos. West European Politics 31(5):

35 Marsh, Michael The Voters Decide? Preferential Voting in European List Systems. European Journal of Political Research 13, no. 4: Mershon, Carol, and Olga Shvetsova Parliamentary Cycles and Party Switching in Legislatures. Comparative Political Studies 41(1): Migalski, Marek Czeski i Polski System Partyjny: Analiza Porównawcza (Czech and Polish Party System: Comparative Analysis). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe. Millard, Frances Poland: Parties without a Party System, Politics and Policy 37(4): Nalewajko, Ewa Posłowie Sejmu X kadencji. Charakterystyka ogólna (Deputies of the 10th term of the Sejm. General characteristics). In Początki Parlamentarnej Elity: Posłowie Kontraktowego Sejmu (Beginnings of the Parliamentary Elite: Deputies of the Contract Parliament), ed. Jacek Wasilewski and Włodzimierz Wesołowski, Warsaw: IFiS Publishers. Schlesinger, Joseph A Ambition and Politics: Politics in the United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Semenova, Elena Parliamentary Party Switching: A Specific Feature of Post-Communist Parliamentarism? Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 46(2): Shabad, Goldie, and Kazimierz M. Słomczyński The Emergence of Career Politicians in Post-Communist Poland and the Czech Republic. Legislative Studies Quarterly 27(3): Inter-Party Mobility among Parliamentary Candidates in Post-Communist East Central Europe. Party Politics 10(2):

36 Tajfel, Henry, and John C. Turner The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. In Psychology of Intergroup Relations, ed. Stephen Worchel and William G. Austin, Tunkis, Peter J The Ties that Bind: Do Group Associations among Legislators Matter for Political Parties? Problems of Post-Communism. Turner, John C Towards a Cognitive Redefinition of the Social Group. In Social Identity and Intergroup Relations, ed. Henry Tajfel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Uppal, Yogesh The Disadvantaged Incumbents: Estimating Incumbency Effects in Indian State Legislatures. Public Choice 138(1): Van Biezen, Ingrid On the Theory and Practice of Party Formation and Adaptation in New Democracies. European Journal of Political Research 44(1): Zieliński, Jakub, Kazimierz M. Słomczyński, and Goldie Shabad Electoral Control in New Democracies: The Perverse Incentives of Fluid Party Systems. World Politics 57(3): Zuba, Krzysztof Polska Scena Polityczna: Ciągłość i Zmiana (Polish Political Scene: Continuity and Change). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe. 35

37 FIGURE AND TABLES Table 1: Frequency of party switching in Poland Parliamentary term Switches MPs switched 1 Group-based switches 2 A. Sejm of the Republic of Poland III Kadencja ( ) (19.29) 117 (78.52) IV Kadencja ( ) (23.93) 411 (84.22) V Kadencja ( ) (7.74) 77 (77.78) VI Kadencja ( ) (17.31) 136 (80.00) B. Poslanecká sněmovna of the Czech Republic 1. Volební období ( ) (32.35) 79 (58.96) 2. Volební období ( ) (17.76) 34 (82.93) 3. Volební období ( ) 2 2 (0.97) 0 (0.00) 4. Volební období ( ) 3 2 (0.84) 0 (0.00) 5. Volební období ( ) (6.25) 6 (42.86) 6. Volební období ( ) (10.55) 16 (59.26) Note: Figures in parentheses are percentages. 1. Percentages reflect the total number of unique individuals who served in the given session. Note: the Polish Sejm has 460 deputies at any given time whereas the Czech Poslanecká sněmovna has 200; however, the total number of deputies recorded in a given term may exceed these figures due to the termination and swearing in of mandates. 2. Percentages reflect the proportion of group switches to the total number of switches. 36

38 Figure 1. Individual and group-based incentives in the decision to switch parties. Note: Dashed lines denote the conventional rational-individual model (cf. Heller and Mershon 2009b). 37

Do Political Parties Represent Women, the Poor and the Old? Party Images, Party System and Democracy

Do Political Parties Represent Women, the Poor and the Old? Party Images, Party System and Democracy Do Political Parties Represent Women, the Poor and the Old? Party Images, Party System and Democracy Introduction In the course of their political lives, parties acquire policy reputations. These reputations

More information

EXTREMIST RIGHT IN POLAND. Paper by. Nikolay MARINOV. Director François Bafoil CNRS Sciences Po/CERI

EXTREMIST RIGHT IN POLAND. Paper by. Nikolay MARINOV. Director François Bafoil CNRS Sciences Po/CERI COESIONET EUROPEAN COHESION AND TERRITORIES RESEARCH NETWORK EXTREMIST RIGHT IN POLAND Paper by Nikolay MARINOV Director François Bafoil CNRS Sciences Po/CERI Collège Universitaire de Sciences Po Campus

More information

The Latent Path Model for Dynamic Social Networks with an Application to Party Switching in Poland

The Latent Path Model for Dynamic Social Networks with an Application to Party Switching in Poland for Dynamic Social Networks with an Application to Party Switching in Poland September 15, 2015 Abstract High rates of party switching by politicians is often expected to inhibit party system institutionalization

More information

Personalized Parties at Power: Case Study of the Czech Republic

Personalized Parties at Power: Case Study of the Czech Republic Personalized Parties at Power: Case Study of the Czech Republic Petr Just Department of Political Science and Humanities Metropolitan University Prague (CZ) 25 th World Congress of Political Science Brisbane,

More information

Political Economics II Spring Lectures 4-5 Part II Partisan Politics and Political Agency. Torsten Persson, IIES

Political Economics II Spring Lectures 4-5 Part II Partisan Politics and Political Agency. Torsten Persson, IIES Lectures 4-5_190213.pdf Political Economics II Spring 2019 Lectures 4-5 Part II Partisan Politics and Political Agency Torsten Persson, IIES 1 Introduction: Partisan Politics Aims continue exploring policy

More information

Explaining stability and change in legislative party affiliations in the Italian Parliament ( )

Explaining stability and change in legislative party affiliations in the Italian Parliament ( ) Explaining stability and change in legislative party affiliations in the Italian Parliament (1996-2011) Luca Pinto (Università di Bologna) Daniela Giannetti (Università di Bologna) Aldo Di Virgilio (Università

More information

Congruence in Political Parties

Congruence in Political Parties Descriptive Representation of Women and Ideological Congruence in Political Parties Georgia Kernell Northwestern University gkernell@northwestern.edu June 15, 2011 Abstract This paper examines the relationship

More information

Keywords: Voter Policy Emphasis; Electoral Manifesto, Party Position Shift, Comparative Manifesto Project

Keywords: Voter Policy Emphasis; Electoral Manifesto, Party Position Shift, Comparative Manifesto Project Středoevropské politické studie / Central European Political Studies Review www.journals.muni.cz/cepsr Ročník XIX (2017), Číslo 1, s. 25 54 / Volume XIX (2017), Issue 1, pp. 25 54 (c) Mezinárodní politologický

More information

Polish General Election Study (Translation) J1. On the whole do you think that things in our country are going in the right or in the wrong direction?

Polish General Election Study (Translation) J1. On the whole do you think that things in our country are going in the right or in the wrong direction? Deposited by Mikolaj Czesnik Febuary 25, 2003 Polish General Election Study (Translation) J1. On the whole do you think that things in our country are going in the right or in the wrong direction? 1. right

More information

The California Primary and Redistricting

The California Primary and Redistricting The California Primary and Redistricting This study analyzes what is the important impact of changes in the primary voting rules after a Congressional and Legislative Redistricting. Under a citizen s committee,

More information

Unexpected Winners: The Significance of an Open-List System on Women s Representation in Poland

Unexpected Winners: The Significance of an Open-List System on Women s Representation in Poland Southern Methodist University SMU Scholar Sociology Research Sociology 6-1-2012 Unexpected Winners: The Significance of an Open-List System on Women s Representation in Poland Sheri L. Kunovich Southern

More information

Agnieszka Pawlak. Determinants of entrepreneurial intentions of young people a comparative study of Poland and Finland

Agnieszka Pawlak. Determinants of entrepreneurial intentions of young people a comparative study of Poland and Finland Agnieszka Pawlak Determinants of entrepreneurial intentions of young people a comparative study of Poland and Finland Determinanty intencji przedsiębiorczych młodzieży studium porównawcze Polski i Finlandii

More information

Classical papers: Osborbe and Slivinski (1996) and Besley and Coate (1997)

Classical papers: Osborbe and Slivinski (1996) and Besley and Coate (1997) The identity of politicians is endogenized Typical approach: any citizen may enter electoral competition at a cost. There is no pre-commitment on the platforms, and winner implements his or her ideal policy.

More information

Political Integration of Immigrants: Insights from Comparing to Stayers, Not Only to Natives. David Bartram

Political Integration of Immigrants: Insights from Comparing to Stayers, Not Only to Natives. David Bartram Political Integration of Immigrants: Insights from Comparing to Stayers, Not Only to Natives David Bartram Department of Sociology University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH United Kingdom

More information

Invisible Votes: Non-Roll Call Votes in the European Parliament Siim Trumm, University of Exeter

Invisible Votes: Non-Roll Call Votes in the European Parliament Siim Trumm, University of Exeter Invisible Votes: Non-Roll Call Votes in the European Parliament Siim Trumm, University of Exeter Abstract Voting in the EP takes place through several procedures. Our empirical understanding of the MEPs

More information

VOTING BEHAVIOR, DEMOCRACY,

VOTING BEHAVIOR, DEMOCRACY, PART IV: VOTING BEHAVIOR, DEMOCRACY, AND DEMOCRATIC VALUES CHAPTER 15. JOSHUA KJERULF DUBROW VOTING FOR DESCRIPTIVE REPRESENTATION: DEMOGRAPHIC CUES ACROSS MULTIPLE ELECTIONS Why does the demographic

More information

CHAPTER OUTLINE WITH KEYED-IN RESOURCES

CHAPTER OUTLINE WITH KEYED-IN RESOURCES OVERVIEW A political party exists in three arenas: among the voters who psychologically identify with it, as a grassroots organization staffed and led by activists, and as a group of elected officials

More information

1. The Relationship Between Party Control, Latino CVAP and the Passage of Bills Benefitting Immigrants

1. The Relationship Between Party Control, Latino CVAP and the Passage of Bills Benefitting Immigrants The Ideological and Electoral Determinants of Laws Targeting Undocumented Migrants in the U.S. States Online Appendix In this additional methodological appendix I present some alternative model specifications

More information

Following the Leader: The Impact of Presidential Campaign Visits on Legislative Support for the President's Policy Preferences

Following the Leader: The Impact of Presidential Campaign Visits on Legislative Support for the President's Policy Preferences University of Colorado, Boulder CU Scholar Undergraduate Honors Theses Honors Program Spring 2011 Following the Leader: The Impact of Presidential Campaign Visits on Legislative Support for the President's

More information

Modeling Political Information Transmission as a Game of Telephone

Modeling Political Information Transmission as a Game of Telephone Modeling Political Information Transmission as a Game of Telephone Taylor N. Carlson tncarlson@ucsd.edu Department of Political Science University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA

More information

Who Gets into Government? Coalition Formation in European Democracies

Who Gets into Government? Coalition Formation in European Democracies West European Politics ISSN: 0140-2382 (Print) 1743-9655 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fwep20 Who Gets into Government? Coalition Formation in European Democracies Holger Döring

More information

The emerging aversion to inequality. Evidence from Poland

The emerging aversion to inequality. Evidence from Poland The emerging aversion to inequality. Evidence from Poland 1992-2005 Irena Grosfeld and Claudia Senik Paris School of Economics Motivation Common observation: changing mood of the public opinion ( reform

More information

The Effect of Political Trust on the Voter Turnout of the Lower Educated

The Effect of Political Trust on the Voter Turnout of the Lower Educated The Effect of Political Trust on the Voter Turnout of the Lower Educated Jaap Meijer Inge van de Brug June 2013 Jaap Meijer (3412504) & Inge van de Brug (3588408) Bachelor Thesis Sociology Faculty of Social

More information

Political party major parties Republican Democratic

Political party major parties Republican Democratic Political Parties American political parties are election-oriented. Political party - a group of persons who seek to control government by winning elections and holding office. The two major parties in

More information

Wisconsin Economic Scorecard

Wisconsin Economic Scorecard RESEARCH PAPER> May 2012 Wisconsin Economic Scorecard Analysis: Determinants of Individual Opinion about the State Economy Joseph Cera Researcher Survey Center Manager The Wisconsin Economic Scorecard

More information

Amy Tenhouse. Incumbency Surge: Examining the 1996 Margin of Victory for U.S. House Incumbents

Amy Tenhouse. Incumbency Surge: Examining the 1996 Margin of Victory for U.S. House Incumbents Amy Tenhouse Incumbency Surge: Examining the 1996 Margin of Victory for U.S. House Incumbents In 1996, the American public reelected 357 members to the United States House of Representatives; of those

More information

1 Electoral Competition under Certainty

1 Electoral Competition under Certainty 1 Electoral Competition under Certainty We begin with models of electoral competition. This chapter explores electoral competition when voting behavior is deterministic; the following chapter considers

More information

Supplementary/Online Appendix for The Swing Justice

Supplementary/Online Appendix for The Swing Justice Supplementary/Online Appendix for The Peter K. Enns Cornell University pe52@cornell.edu Patrick C. Wohlfarth University of Maryland, College Park patrickw@umd.edu Contents 1 Appendix 1: All Cases Versus

More information

BEING IN GOVERNMENT: A POINT TO

BEING IN GOVERNMENT: A POINT TO BEING IN GOVERNMENT: A POINT TO INSTABILITY? IONUT CIOBANU STUDENT, FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, CHRISTIAN DIMITRIE CANTEMIR UNIVERSITY, BUCHAREST Ionutciobanu2000@yahoo.com A short draft- first version

More information

Kybernetika. František Turnovec Fair majorities in proportional voting. Terms of use: Persistent URL:

Kybernetika. František Turnovec Fair majorities in proportional voting. Terms of use: Persistent URL: Kybernetika František Turnovec Fair majorities in proportional voting Kybernetika, Vol. 49 (2013), No. 3, 498--505 Persistent URL: http://dml.cz/dmlcz/143361 Terms of use: Institute of Information Theory

More information

Chapter 6 Online Appendix. general these issues do not cause significant problems for our analysis in this chapter. One

Chapter 6 Online Appendix. general these issues do not cause significant problems for our analysis in this chapter. One Chapter 6 Online Appendix Potential shortcomings of SF-ratio analysis Using SF-ratios to understand strategic behavior is not without potential problems, but in general these issues do not cause significant

More information

Chapter 14. The Causes and Effects of Rational Abstention

Chapter 14. The Causes and Effects of Rational Abstention Excerpts from Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row, 1957. (pp. 260-274) Introduction Chapter 14. The Causes and Effects of Rational Abstention Citizens who are eligible

More information

PARTY TYPES AND ELECTORAL STABILITY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN STATES. Sergiu GHERGHINA & George JIGLAU

PARTY TYPES AND ELECTORAL STABILITY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN STATES. Sergiu GHERGHINA & George JIGLAU PARTY TYPES AND ELECTORAL STABILITY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN STATES INTRODUCTION The new democratic regimes in developing countries face the severe challenge of constructing and maintaining strong

More information

Central and Eastern European Attitudes inthefaceofunion

Central and Eastern European Attitudes inthefaceofunion Central and Eastern European Attitudes inthefaceofunion Central and Eastern European Attitudes inthefaceofunion Simona Guerra Lecturer, University of Leicester, UK Simona Guerra 2013 Softcover reprint

More information

The effects of party membership decline

The effects of party membership decline The effects of party membership decline - A cross-sectional examination of the implications of membership decline on political trust in Europe Bachelor Thesis in Political Science Spring 2016 Sara Persson

More information

UNIVERSITY OF TARTU. Master s Thesis. Tamta Kupatadze

UNIVERSITY OF TARTU. Master s Thesis. Tamta Kupatadze UNIVERSITY OF TARTU European College European Union-Russian studies Master s Thesis Tamta Kupatadze Coming to terms with communist past: Comparative study of lustration policy in the Czech Republic and

More information

Vote Likelihood and Institutional Trait Questions in the 1997 NES Pilot Study

Vote Likelihood and Institutional Trait Questions in the 1997 NES Pilot Study Vote Likelihood and Institutional Trait Questions in the 1997 NES Pilot Study Barry C. Burden and Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier The Ohio State University Department of Political Science 2140 Derby Hall Columbus,

More information

How will the EU presidency play out during Poland's autumn parliamentary election?

How will the EU presidency play out during Poland's autumn parliamentary election? How will the EU presidency play out during Poland's autumn parliamentary election? Aleks Szczerbiak DISCUSSION PAPERS On July 1 Poland took over the European Union (EU) rotating presidency for the first

More information

connect the people to the government. These institutions include: elections, political parties, interest groups, and the media.

connect the people to the government. These institutions include: elections, political parties, interest groups, and the media. Overriding Questions 1. How has the decline of political parties influenced elections and campaigning? 2. How do political parties positively influence campaigns and elections and how do they negatively

More information

CHAPTER 12 POLITICAL PARTIES. President Bush and the implementations of his party s platform. Party Platforms: Moderate But Different (Table 12.

CHAPTER 12 POLITICAL PARTIES. President Bush and the implementations of his party s platform. Party Platforms: Moderate But Different (Table 12. CHAPTER 12 POLITICAL PARTIES President Bush and the implementations of his party s platform Party Platforms: Moderate But Different (Table 12.1) 2006 midterm election and the political parties What is

More information

Chapter Four: Chamber Competitiveness, Political Polarization, and Political Parties

Chapter Four: Chamber Competitiveness, Political Polarization, and Political Parties Chapter Four: Chamber Competitiveness, Political Polarization, and Political Parties Building off of the previous chapter in this dissertation, this chapter investigates the involvement of political parties

More information

Iowa Voting Series, Paper 4: An Examination of Iowa Turnout Statistics Since 2000 by Party and Age Group

Iowa Voting Series, Paper 4: An Examination of Iowa Turnout Statistics Since 2000 by Party and Age Group Department of Political Science Publications 3-1-2014 Iowa Voting Series, Paper 4: An Examination of Iowa Turnout Statistics Since 2000 by Party and Age Group Timothy M. Hagle University of Iowa 2014 Timothy

More information

91/93 93/ FBV PBV 19.7 WBV FWBV 0.93

91/93 93/ FBV PBV 19.7 WBV FWBV 0.93 Table 1: Aggregate voters volatility in Poland 1991-97 91/93 93/97 TV (general) (citizens) 34.9 22.7 19.34 15.24 FTV (general) (citizens) 18.52 16.01 12.49 12.16 BV FBV 13.54 PBV 19.7 FBV 3.97 PBV 8.91

More information

Modelling Elections in Post-Communist Regimes: Voter Perceptions, Political leaders and Activists

Modelling Elections in Post-Communist Regimes: Voter Perceptions, Political leaders and Activists Modelling Elections in Post-Communist Regimes: Voter Perceptions, Political leaders and Activists N. Schofield M. Gallego J. Jeon U. Ozdemir M. Tavits Washington University American Political Science 2011

More information

Developing Political Preferences: Citizen Self-Interest

Developing Political Preferences: Citizen Self-Interest Developing Political Preferences: Citizen Self-Interest Carlos Algara calgara@ucdavis.edu October 12, 2017 Agenda 1 Revising the Paradox 2 Abstention Incentive: Opinion Instability 3 Heuristics as Short-Cuts:

More information

Issue Importance and Performance Voting. *** Soumis à Political Behavior ***

Issue Importance and Performance Voting. *** Soumis à Political Behavior *** Issue Importance and Performance Voting Patrick Fournier, André Blais, Richard Nadeau, Elisabeth Gidengil, and Neil Nevitte *** Soumis à Political Behavior *** Issue importance mediates the impact of public

More information

Party Responsiveness to Public Opinion in New European Democracies

Party Responsiveness to Public Opinion in New European Democracies CERGU S WORKING PAPER SERIES 2017:2 Party Responsiveness to Public Opinion in New European Democracies Raimondas Ibenskas and Jonathan Polk Centre for European Research (CERGU) University of Gothenburg

More information

What Is A Political Party?

What Is A Political Party? What Is A Political Party? A group of office holders, candidates, activists, and voters who identify with a group label and seek to elect to public office individuals who run under that label. Consist

More information

Poznan July The vulnerability of the European Elite System under a prolonged crisis

Poznan July The vulnerability of the European Elite System under a prolonged crisis Very Very Preliminary Draft IPSA 24 th World Congress of Political Science Poznan 23-28 July 2016 The vulnerability of the European Elite System under a prolonged crisis Maurizio Cotta (CIRCaP- University

More information

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Department of Politics. V COMPARATIVE POLITICS Spring Michael Laver Tel:

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Department of Politics. V COMPARATIVE POLITICS Spring Michael Laver Tel: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Department of Politics V52.0500 COMPARATIVE POLITICS Spring 2007 Michael Laver Tel: 212-998-8534 Email: ml127@nyu.edu COURSE OBJECTIVES We study politics in a comparative context to

More information

Three Essays on Party Competition in. Parliamentary Democracies

Three Essays on Party Competition in. Parliamentary Democracies Three Essays on Party Competition in Parliamentary Democracies by Paulina A. Marek Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Supervised by Professor G. Bingham

More information

Nationalisation of Party Systems in the Baltic States and in Central Europe: A Comparative Perspective

Nationalisation of Party Systems in the Baltic States and in Central Europe: A Comparative Perspective Paper for the ECPR Joint Sessions, 11-16 April, Rennes Workshop: The Nationalization of Party Systems in CEE. Nationalisation of Party Systems in the Baltic States and in Central Europe: A Comparative

More information

The Politics of Emotional Confrontation in New Democracies: The Impact of Economic

The Politics of Emotional Confrontation in New Democracies: The Impact of Economic Paper prepared for presentation at the panel A Return of Class Conflict? Political Polarization among Party Leaders and Followers in the Wake of the Sovereign Debt Crisis The 24 th IPSA Congress Poznan,

More information

Should I stay or should I go? An experimental study on voter responses to pre-electoral coalitions

Should I stay or should I go? An experimental study on voter responses to pre-electoral coalitions 556 European Journal of Political Research 47: 556 577, 2008 doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2008.00787.x Should I stay or should I go? An experimental study on voter responses to pre-electoral coalitions THOMAS

More information

Appendix for: The Electoral Implications. of Coalition Policy-Making

Appendix for: The Electoral Implications. of Coalition Policy-Making Appendix for: The Electoral Implications of Coalition Policy-Making David Fortunato Texas A&M University fortunato@tamu.edu 1 A1: Cabinets evaluated by respondents in sample surveys Table 1: Cabinets included

More information

2. After the election, Number of portfolios (cabinet posts) for each party in cabinet. If one party holds all cabinet posts, simply write all.

2. After the election, Number of portfolios (cabinet posts) for each party in cabinet. If one party holds all cabinet posts, simply write all. 03/21/2001 5:46:17 PM MODULE 2 MACROQUESTIONNAIRE Macro-Level Data Questionnaire Part I: Data Pertinent to the Election at which the Module was Administered 1. Preceding the election, Number of portfolios

More information

Political Science 10: Introduction to American Politics Week 10

Political Science 10: Introduction to American Politics Week 10 Political Science 10: Introduction to American Politics Week 10 Taylor Carlson tfeenstr@ucsd.edu March 17, 2017 Carlson POLI 10-Week 10 March 17, 2017 1 / 22 Plan for the Day Go over learning outcomes

More information

Research Statement. Jeffrey J. Harden. 2 Dissertation Research: The Dimensions of Representation

Research Statement. Jeffrey J. Harden. 2 Dissertation Research: The Dimensions of Representation Research Statement Jeffrey J. Harden 1 Introduction My research agenda includes work in both quantitative methodology and American politics. In methodology I am broadly interested in developing and evaluating

More information

A positive correlation between turnout and plurality does not refute the rational voter model

A positive correlation between turnout and plurality does not refute the rational voter model Quality & Quantity 26: 85-93, 1992. 85 O 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Note A positive correlation between turnout and plurality does not refute the rational voter model

More information

Congressional Incentives & The Textbook Congress : Representation & Getting Re-Elected

Congressional Incentives & The Textbook Congress : Representation & Getting Re-Elected Congressional Incentives & The Textbook Congress : Representation & Getting Re-Elected Carlos Algara calgara@ucdavis.edu November 13, 2017 Agenda 1 Recapping Party Theory in Government 2 District vs. Party

More information

The Centre for European and Asian Studies

The Centre for European and Asian Studies The Centre for European and Asian Studies REPORT 2/2007 ISSN 1500-2683 The Norwegian local election of 2007 Nick Sitter A publication from: Centre for European and Asian Studies at BI Norwegian Business

More information

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Department of Politics V COMPARATIVE POLITICS Spring Michael Laver. Tel:

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Department of Politics V COMPARATIVE POLITICS Spring Michael Laver. Tel: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Department of Politics V52.0510 COMPARATIVE POLITICS Spring 2006 Michael Laver Tel: 212-998-8534 Email: ml127@nyu.edu COURSE OBJECTIVES The central reason for the comparative study

More information

Polimetrics. Mass & Expert Surveys

Polimetrics. Mass & Expert Surveys Polimetrics Mass & Expert Surveys Three things I know about measurement Everything is measurable* Measuring = making a mistake (* true value is intangible and unknowable) Any measurement is better than

More information

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 1 Introduction 1 2 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION This dissertation provides an analysis of some important consequences of multilevel governance. The concept of multilevel governance refers to the dispersion

More information

CASTLES, Francis G. (Edit.). The impact of parties: politics and policies in democratic capitalist states. Sage Publications, 1982.

CASTLES, Francis G. (Edit.). The impact of parties: politics and policies in democratic capitalist states. Sage Publications, 1982. CASTLES, Francis G. (Edit.). The impact of parties: politics and policies in democratic capitalist states. Sage Publications, 1982. Leandro Molhano Ribeiro * This book is based on research completed by

More information

Lee Michael Savage a a Department of Politics and Contemporary European Studies,

Lee Michael Savage a a Department of Politics and Contemporary European Studies, This article was downloaded by: [King's College London] On: 30 July 2013, At: 05:55 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer

More information

The Electoral Connection of Ministerial. Selection in the UK

The Electoral Connection of Ministerial. Selection in the UK Accepted version of the article published in Journal of Legislative Studies, 22(2), 276-294. The Electoral Connection of Ministerial Selection in the UK Elad Klein and Resul Umit * Abstract Many studies

More information

Voting for Parties or for Candidates: Do Electoral Institutions Make a Difference?

Voting for Parties or for Candidates: Do Electoral Institutions Make a Difference? Voting for Parties or for Candidates: Do Electoral Institutions Make a Difference? Elena Llaudet Department of Government Harvard University April 11, 2015 Abstract Little is known about how electoral

More information

IS STARE DECISIS A CONSTRAINT OR A CLOAK?

IS STARE DECISIS A CONSTRAINT OR A CLOAK? Copyright 2007 Ave Maria Law Review IS STARE DECISIS A CONSTRAINT OR A CLOAK? THE POLITICS OF PRECEDENT ON THE U.S. SUPREME COURT. By Thomas G. Hansford & James F. Spriggs II. Princeton University Press.

More information

The Causes of Wage Differentials between Immigrant and Native Physicians

The Causes of Wage Differentials between Immigrant and Native Physicians The Causes of Wage Differentials between Immigrant and Native Physicians I. Introduction Current projections, as indicated by the 2000 Census, suggest that racial and ethnic minorities will outnumber non-hispanic

More information

Coalition Governments and Political Rents

Coalition Governments and Political Rents Coalition Governments and Political Rents Dr. Refik Emre Aytimur Georg-August-Universität Göttingen January 01 Abstract We analyze the impact of coalition governments on the ability of political competition

More information

INTRODUCTION THE MEANING OF PARTY

INTRODUCTION THE MEANING OF PARTY C HAPTER OVERVIEW INTRODUCTION Although political parties may not be highly regarded by all, many observers of politics agree that political parties are central to representative government because they

More information

A COMPARISON BETWEEN TWO DATASETS

A COMPARISON BETWEEN TWO DATASETS A COMPARISON BETWEEN TWO DATASETS Bachelor Thesis by S.F. Simmelink s1143611 sophiesimmelink@live.nl Internationale Betrekkingen en Organisaties Universiteit Leiden 9 June 2016 Prof. dr. G.A. Irwin Word

More information

Immigrant Legalization

Immigrant Legalization Technical Appendices Immigrant Legalization Assessing the Labor Market Effects Laura Hill Magnus Lofstrom Joseph Hayes Contents Appendix A. Data from the 2003 New Immigrant Survey Appendix B. Measuring

More information

Electoral Systems and Judicial Review in Developing Countries*

Electoral Systems and Judicial Review in Developing Countries* Electoral Systems and Judicial Review in Developing Countries* Ernani Carvalho Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil Leon Victor de Queiroz Barbosa Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Brazil (Yadav,

More information

The UK Party System and Party Politics Part II: Governance, Ideology and Policy. Patrick Dunleavy

The UK Party System and Party Politics Part II: Governance, Ideology and Policy. Patrick Dunleavy The UK Party System and Party Politics Part II: Governance, Ideology and Policy Patrick Dunleavy Gv 311: British Politics course, Lecture 10 Michaelmas Term P.J. Dunleavy In governance terms a party system

More information

Res Publica 29. Literature Review

Res Publica 29. Literature Review Res Publica 29 Greg Crowe and Elizabeth Ann Eberspacher Partisanship and Constituency Influences on Congressional Roll-Call Voting Behavior in the US House This research examines the factors that influence

More information

Dynamics of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Labour Markets

Dynamics of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Labour Markets 1 AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LABOUR ECONOMICS VOLUME 20 NUMBER 1 2017 Dynamics of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Labour Markets Boyd Hunter, (Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research,) The Australian National

More information

Partisan Sorting and Niche Parties in Europe

Partisan Sorting and Niche Parties in Europe West European Politics, Vol. 35, No. 6, 1272 1294, November 2012 Partisan Sorting and Niche Parties in Europe JAMES ADAMS, LAWRENCE EZROW and DEBRA LEITER Earlier research has concluded that European citizens

More information

Maintaining Control. Putin s Strategy for Holding Power Past 2008

Maintaining Control. Putin s Strategy for Holding Power Past 2008 Maintaining Control Putin s Strategy for Holding Power Past 2008 PONARS Policy Memo No. 397 Regina Smyth Pennsylvania State University December 2005 There is little question that Vladimir Putin s Kremlin

More information

Arguments for and against electoral system change in Ireland

Arguments for and against electoral system change in Ireland Prof. Gallagher Arguments for and against electoral system change in Ireland Why would we decide to change, or not to change, the current PR-STV electoral system? In this short paper we ll outline some

More information

A-level GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

A-level GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS A-level GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS GOV3A The Politics of the USA Report on the Examination 2150 June 2013 Version: 1.0 Further copies of this Report are available from aqa.org.uk Copyright 2013 AQA and its

More information

Elite Polarization and Mass Political Engagement: Information, Alienation, and Mobilization

Elite Polarization and Mass Political Engagement: Information, Alienation, and Mobilization JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND AREA STUDIES Volume 20, Number 1, 2013, pp.89-109 89 Elite Polarization and Mass Political Engagement: Information, Alienation, and Mobilization Jae Mook Lee Using the cumulative

More information

English Deficiency and the Native-Immigrant Wage Gap

English Deficiency and the Native-Immigrant Wage Gap DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES IZA DP No. 7019 English Deficiency and the Native-Immigrant Wage Gap Alfonso Miranda Yu Zhu November 2012 Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor

More information

Santorum loses ground. Romney has reclaimed Michigan by 7.91 points after the CNN debate.

Santorum loses ground. Romney has reclaimed Michigan by 7.91 points after the CNN debate. Santorum loses ground. Romney has reclaimed Michigan by 7.91 points after the CNN debate. February 25, 2012 Contact: Eric Foster, Foster McCollum White and Associates 313-333-7081 Cell Email: efoster@fostermccollumwhite.com

More information

Appendix 1: Alternative Measures of Government Support

Appendix 1: Alternative Measures of Government Support Appendix 1: Alternative Measures of Government Support The models in Table 3 focus on one specification of feeling represented in the incumbent: having voted for him or her. But there are other ways we

More information

Political Parties CHAPTER. Roles of Political Parties

Political Parties CHAPTER. Roles of Political Parties CHAPTER 9 Political Parties IIN THIS CHAPTERI Summary: Political parties are voluntary associations of people who seek to control the government through common principles based upon peaceful and legal

More information

Parties, Voters and the Environment

Parties, Voters and the Environment CANADA-EUROPE TRANSATLANTIC DIALOGUE: SEEKING TRANSNATIONAL SOLUTIONS TO 21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS Introduction canada-europe-dialogue.ca April 2013 Policy Brief Parties, Voters and the Environment Russell

More information

Resistance to Women s Political Leadership: Problems and Advocated Solutions

Resistance to Women s Political Leadership: Problems and Advocated Solutions By Catherine M. Watuka Executive Director Women United for Social, Economic & Total Empowerment Nairobi, Kenya. Resistance to Women s Political Leadership: Problems and Advocated Solutions Abstract The

More information

THE 2015 REFERENDUM IN POLAND. Maciej Hartliński Institute of Political Science University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

THE 2015 REFERENDUM IN POLAND. Maciej Hartliński Institute of Political Science University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn East European Quarterly Vol. 43, No. 2-3, pp. 235-242, June-September 2015 Central European University 2015 ISSN: 0012-8449 (print) 2469-4827 (online) THE 2015 REFERENDUM IN POLAND Maciej Hartliński Institute

More information

Academic Writing in Political Science: Advice from a Recent Graduate Student. Jeffrey A. Taylor University of Maryland Writing Fellow

Academic Writing in Political Science: Advice from a Recent Graduate Student. Jeffrey A. Taylor University of Maryland Writing Fellow Academic Writing in Political Science: Advice from a Recent Graduate Student Jeffrey A. Taylor University of Maryland Writing Fellow 2013 This guide is designed to serve as a reference for political science

More information

ELITE AND MASS ATTITUDES ON HOW THE UK AND ITS PARTS ARE GOVERNED VOTING AT 16 WHAT NEXT? YEAR OLDS POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND CIVIC EDUCATION

ELITE AND MASS ATTITUDES ON HOW THE UK AND ITS PARTS ARE GOVERNED VOTING AT 16 WHAT NEXT? YEAR OLDS POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND CIVIC EDUCATION BRIEFING ELITE AND MASS ATTITUDES ON HOW THE UK AND ITS PARTS ARE GOVERNED VOTING AT 16 WHAT NEXT? 16-17 YEAR OLDS POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND CIVIC EDUCATION Jan Eichhorn, Daniel Kenealy, Richard Parry, Lindsay

More information

REGIONAL POLICY MAKING AND SME

REGIONAL POLICY MAKING AND SME Ivana Mandysová REGIONAL POLICY MAKING AND SME Univerzita Pardubice, Fakulta ekonomicko-správní, Ústav veřejné správy a práva Abstract: The purpose of this article is to analyse the possibility for SME

More information

Is there a Strategic Selection Bias in Roll Call Votes. in the European Parliament?

Is there a Strategic Selection Bias in Roll Call Votes. in the European Parliament? Is there a Strategic Selection Bias in Roll Call Votes in the European Parliament? Revised. 22 July 2014 Simon Hix London School of Economics and Political Science Abdul Noury New York University Gerard

More information

Appendix 1: FAT Model Topics Diagnostics

Appendix 1: FAT Model Topics Diagnostics Appendix 1: FAT Model Topics Diagnostics Tables 1-3 present the distributions of factor scores and loadings, as well as some descriptive statistics. For 18 of the 21 topics, the distribution of both words

More information

Incumbency Advantages in the Canadian Parliament

Incumbency Advantages in the Canadian Parliament Incumbency Advantages in the Canadian Parliament Chad Kendall Department of Economics University of British Columbia Marie Rekkas* Department of Economics Simon Fraser University mrekkas@sfu.ca 778-782-6793

More information

Shifting parties, constant cleavage

Shifting parties, constant cleavage Shifting parties, constant cleavage Party system formation along the urban-rural cleavage in post-communist Lithuania Master thesis Svenn Arne Lie Department of Comparative Politics University of Bergen

More information

Ohio State University

Ohio State University Fake News Did Have a Significant Impact on the Vote in the 2016 Election: Original Full-Length Version with Methodological Appendix By Richard Gunther, Paul A. Beck, and Erik C. Nisbet Ohio State University

More information

Elections and Voting Behaviour. The Political System of the United Kingdom

Elections and Voting Behaviour. The Political System of the United Kingdom Elections and Behaviour The Political System of the United Kingdom Intro Theories of Behaviour in the UK The Political System of the United Kingdom Elections/ (1/25) Current Events The Political System

More information

Rick Santorum has erased 7.91 point deficit to move into a statistical tie with Mitt Romney the night before voters go to the polls in Michigan.

Rick Santorum has erased 7.91 point deficit to move into a statistical tie with Mitt Romney the night before voters go to the polls in Michigan. Rick Santorum has erased 7.91 point deficit to move into a statistical tie with Mitt Romney the night before voters go to the polls in Michigan. February 27, 2012 Contact: Eric Foster, Foster McCollum

More information