Mandates, Parties and Dissent

Abstract

Russia's mixed electoral system offers an excellent opportunity to study the effects of electoral rules on party discipline in legislative voting. Under the rules in force from the 1993 to 2003 elections, one half of the Russian Duma's members were elected on party lists, while the remaining half were elected by plurality vote in single-member districts (SMDs). The existing literature has found inconclusive evidence for the direction and magnitude of the effect of such mandate-type differences on the level of party discipline in floor voting. Using a comprehensive database of electronically recorded votes in the Duma in the period between 1994 and 2003 and a panel data structure, we examine the influence of this hybrid system on factional voting cohesion for votes on budget bills. The panel structure permits a more sensitive and rigorous research design than has been employed in previous research. We find modest evidence that SMD representatives defect from the faction position on budget bills more often than proportional representation representatives, even taking into account such intervening factors as party faction, ideology, committee membership and the evolution of the post-communist political system.