Legislative Party Switching Research Articles

Prawo antydezercyjne jako remedium na parlamentarne transfery międzyfrakcyjne? Przypadek Nowej Zelandii

The article addresses whether the enactment of anti-defection legislation reduces legislative party switching in parliament. This question is pertinent because some researchers cease to analyze cases of legislative party switching when anti-defection legislation is present in a political system. However, the example of New Zealand demonstrates the fallacy of such an assumption. Despite anti-defection legislation being passed twice, it has not effectively deterred parliamentarians from changing party affiliations. Instead, they have strengthened the position of parliamentary group leaders in relation to parliamentarians and the necessity for the latter to rely on loopholes that shield them from the severe consequences of party switching. A dogmatic analysis of the current legislation and a systemic analysis of the selected case lead to this overarching conclusion.

Zmiany afiliacji partyjnych w trakcie kadencji parlamentarnej a partyjne przywództwo populistyczne. Analiza porównawcza przypadków Czech, Litwy i Polski

LEGISLATIVE PARTY SWITCHING AND POPULIST PARTY LEADERSHIP: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CZECH, LITHUANIAN, AND POLISH LEGISLATURES The aim of this article is to empirically demonstrate whether parliamentary groups led by populist leaders are more likely to be affected by party switching than groups without populist leadership. On the basis of the data collected for nine terms of the Czech, Lithuanian and Polish parliaments (n = 2403 seats) it was proved that MPs were more than twice as likely to leave the parliamentary groups with populist leadership than the other groups. In addition, it was evidenced that three out of four MPs affiliated to the groups with populist leadership which found themselves in opposition to the government left their party during the parliamentary term and, in addition, most of these groups were dissolved before the end of the full parliamentary term.

Who Donates to Party Switchers?

What are the causal effects of legislative party switching on campaign fundraising? Using a selection-on-observables strategy (a first in the study of U.S. party switchers), we demonstrate that relative to other similarly situated legislators, party switchers rely more heavily on partisan and ideological, out-of-district individual donors, and direct party contributions. In short, switchers—in trying to alleviate the electoral costs of switching—rely disproportionately on donors motivated to protect vulnerable incumbents of a particular party. We conclude with a discussion of how these dynamics reinforce partisan polarization and raise normative questions about representation and the role of the “surrogate constituency.”

Who Donates to Party Switchers

What are the causal effects of legislative party switching on campaign fundraising? Using a selection-on-observables strategy (a first in the study of U.S. party switchers), we demonstrate that rel...

Short-Term Pain for Long-Term Gain: The Logic of Legislative Party Switching in the Contemporary American South

One of the most important career decisions for a legislator is the decision to switch parties, and it raises a theoretical puzzle: it carries significant risk, yet sometimes legislators do change partisan affiliation. We elucidate this puzzle with the first-ever systematic comparison of the entire careers of state legislative switchers and non-switchers in the American South, where the high prevalence of party switching coincided with rapid realignment toward the Republican Party. Our analysis is the first to evaluate all post-switch career decisions (retiring, running for reelection, running for higher office) simultaneously, and it is the broadest in its scope with two full decades of career data. We demonstrate that converts to the Grand Old Party (GOP) pay a reelection cost. However, they are less likely to retire than Democratic non-switchers and more likely to seek higher office. This latter finding is especially strong during the earlier part of our study—when the Republican bench in the South was not as deep and competition for the party label was not as intense. Our findings suggest that political ambition motivates legislators to trade short-term electoral costs for a more promising long-term electoral career with the ascendant party.

Explaining legislative party switching in advanced and new democracies

The phenomenon of legislative party switching has attracted considerable attention among scholars. Studies show that parties are likely to experience defections if they are unable to offer their legislators electoral, office and policy benefits. While often deemed a symptom of a weakly institutionalized party system, switching may also be frequent in established democracies. Yet, surprisingly, we have no empirical evidence to help us understand whether party benefits that drive switchers are different in established democracies and new democracies. I argue that parties that fail to provide their members with re-election prospects or government access are likely to witness switching only in new democracies. In advanced democracies, switching is likely to be associated with ideological identity and policy motives. The statistical analysis of party switching across 25 European advanced and post-communist democracies confirms my expectations.

Legislative Party Switching and the Changing Nature of the Canadian Party System, 1867–2015

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate the phenomenon of party switchers in the Canadian House of Commons. With the most extensive dataset on party-switching MPs (1867–2015), we answer the following questions: What are the electoral trajectories of party switchers? Have their prospects changed over time? We assess whether the historical dynamics of the Canadian party system explain changes in the incidence and fate of party switchers since 1867, hypothesizing that both the rate of party switching and the electoral fortunes of floor crossers decline over time. The evidence accords with our second hypothesis more strongly than our first. Party switching has become slightly less common, but the electoral consequence has become much more severe.

Balancing Costs of Legislative Party Switching in the Danish Parliament 1953–2015

When elected politicians switch party, it disturbs the electoral connection to voters. Party switching is thus described as a betrayal of democratic representation (Heller and Mershon, 2009, Political Parties and Legislative Party Switching, p. 5). In this article, we argue that party switching results from intra-party conflicts in which individual legislators weigh costs of switching against costs of staying. These costs depend on the legislator’s position in the party as well as the party’s position in the legislature. To explain party switching, we propose two new explanations: personal votes and intra-party balance of power. The study is based on all Danish national legislators elected from 1953 to 2015 (N = 3850) and utilises a mixed methods design including news coverage of each switch to inform the interpretation of the statistical results. We conclude by suggesting that party switching can increase accountability rather than betray representation.

The personal vote and legislative party switching

How do electoral rules affect the occurrence of legislative party switching? Existing research addressing this question is limited and does not reach a consistent conclusion. This article argues that electoral systems that encourage politicians to cultivate a personal vote dampen parties’ ability to retain members. The greater incentives to cultivate a personal vote in candidate-centred electoral systems result in politicians relying more on local supporters and less on party label for their re-election. In such systems, compared to party-centred systems, I expect that only parties that suffer electoral setbacks to be more likely to witness switching, as their candidates are less concerned with party labels, and local supporters might follow them to the new party, thus reducing switching costs. Drawing on data from 17 European democracies over the period 1990–2013, I find support for my hypothesis. While there is no direct effect of electoral rules on switching, the results suggest that this effect hinges upon parties’ ability to deliver seats: losing parties are more likely to witness switching in candidate-centred systems than in party-centred systems. Further findings also demonstrate how this effect is especially significant when district magnitude is large and the next election is approaching.

Electoral Rules and Party Switching: How Legislators Prioritize Their Goals

Stemming from ambition theory, a vast body of studies has demonstrated how politicians' pursuits of different goals can explain their behaviors. Among other goals, politicians strive for re‐election or to attain a better office. However, little is known about the way politicians prioritize these goals. This article uses the phenomenon of legislative party switching to address this void and examines how hierarchy between goals determines legislator strategies. The study exploits the 2008 Romanian electoral reform, which rendered the electoral system more candidate centered. Drawing on data from more than 3,900 individual‐level observations over the period from 1996 to 2012, this article shows how vote incentives alter the trade‐offs between re‐election and office motivations. The findings suggest that politicians will pursue office goals only if the goal of re‐election is to be achieved.

The Time Path of Legislative Party Switching and the Dynamics of Political Competition: The Italian Case (1996–2011)

Political competition is more realistically described as a dynamic process rather than as a series of static stages in which parties compete over policy and government formation. This paper focuses on legislative party switching as the main manifestation of this endogenously evolving process, linking individual switching behaviour to policy and office incentives that are assumed to evolve throughout the life of the entire legislature. Using a new data set tracking the timing of MPs’ changes in party affiliations between 1996 and 2011 in Italy, it is found that switching is mainly motivated by policy reasons and that it is more likely during government formation periods and budget negotiations. These results are a consequence of the interplay between MPs’ ambition and the alternation of key phases in the legislative cycle.

The Microfoundations of Party System Stability in Legislatures

What sustains stability in legislative party systems between elections? This question commands attention given the potential for change highlighted in recent work on legislative party switching. In addressing the question, this article echoes a prominent theme in research on legislatures, parties, and party systems: the importance of the party label. The novelty here is the treatment of the individual legislator’s need for manifest loyalty to the status quo party label as the chief constraint that deters incumbents from switching and underpins stability in legislative party systems. Our theory focuses on the value of stable party affiliations to voters and thus to incumbents as well. We extract testable implications and assess hypotheses against an original cross-national dataset of over 4,300 monthly observations of MP behavior in 116 legislative terms. We find that the temporal proximity to elections deters MPs’ moves. This electoral deterrent acquires particular force under candidate-centered electoral...

Legislative Party Switching and Executive Coalitions

AbstractIn parliamentary systems, legislative parties are the building blocks for executive coalitions. A standard assumption in the large literature on coalition politics is that legislative parties form fixed units from one election to the next. Under some conditions, however, this assumption falls flat. For instance, about one-fourth of legislators in the Italian lower house switched parties between 1996 and 2001. How is legislative party switching linked to the politics of executive coalitions? This paper examines how government composition affects the direction of party switching, and how party switching affects the reallocation of cabinet office. I devote in-depth scrutiny to Italy. Subsidiary country cases, chosen to maximize institutional variation, are Australia, Britain, Canada, France, and Spain.