Ideological Positions of Party Switchers

Abstract

The phenomenon of party switching has been studied mostly under two angles. First, to assess what motivates the decision to change party, and second, whether party defectors change their ideological positions after changing party. In the present paper we start engaging these two literatures. Hardly any other parliament has seen as many MPs switching their legislative party membership during legislative periods as the Polish Sejm. While we are able to demonstrate that Polish party switchers are often quite different from the average MP of the party they join, our results on the effects of party discipline are mixed.