Party Systems and Legislative Cohesion in Post-Communist Ukraine

Abstract

Much of the literature on legislative party cohesion argues that parties are essential exist in order to help individual legislators achieve their preferred policies. In addition, parties can offer legislators unique electoral resources that help them overcome election challenges. Yet, in systems where parties are weakly institutionalized, would we expect the variation among parties to explain variation in individual legislator cohesion? Using data from the first three post-Communist convocations of the Ukrainian Supreme Rada, I show that even while Ukraine suffered from many of the ills associated with a weakly institutionalized party system, differences in party systems in constituencies led to differences in the levels of individual deputy cohesion. Consequently, there is evidence that even in a weakly institutionalized party system, parties and the party system mattered for legislative behavior.