Content uploaded by William B. Heller
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by William B. Heller on Dec 15, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
Legislator Preferences, Party Desires: The Impact of Party Switching on Legislative Party Positions
Abstract
Democratic politics and political parties go hand in hand. Politicians win elections and hold office as members of parties (Epstein 1967). For their part, political parties organize legislatures and manage the passage of policy (Aldrich 1995; Cox and McCubbins 1993; 2005). Legislators’ political identities are tightly linked to their party affiliations, even where parties are seen as relatively weak vis-à-vis individual politicians. In this light, party switches, particularly when executed by sitting legislators, are curious and perhaps even bizarre. As the first chapter in this book emphasized, there is on one hand the motivational question: why would a legislator decide to change his or her party affiliation during a legislative term? As we also highlighted at the outset, there is on the other hand the practical question of policy consequences: what difference does party switching make? We take up the latter issue here by asking how party switching by sitting legislators affects the preferences of legislative parties.
... In order to test our hypotheses, we rely on a unique dataset concerning 611 episodes of defection, involving 2,053 legislators, in 14 Western European democracies, from 1945 to 2015, and we combine it with information on party manifestos retrieved from the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP, Volkens et al., 2017). Covering 70 years of data and 1,131 manifestos of 135 parties, this work represents the largest empirical study on both the effect of valence advantage/disadvantage on party competition (Adams & Merrill, 2009;Clark, 2014) and on the electoral consequences of intra-party disunity and parliamentary switching (a topic that deserves more attention; see Heller & Mershon, 2009b), in terms of electoral strategies that political parties could adopt after a valence loss. ...
... It has been argued that out-switching parties might become ideologically more homogenous (Ceron & Volpi, 2021;Heller & Mershon, 2009b), and in turn this can wield effects on ideological clarity. It is worth mentioning, however, that the concepts of ambiguity and position blurring, considered as the misrepresentation of party positions on a number of issues, are distinct from intraparty heterogeneity (Rovny, 2012). ...
... Empirical studies found that, in the eyes of voters, party ambiguity and intraparty conflict are indeed two unrelated phenomena (Lehrer & Lin, 2020). Nevertheless, to deal with this potential issue, we will evaluate the relationship between switches and clarity, net of ideological shifts that could have been linked with defections (Heller & Mershon, 2009b;Levy, 2004). 7 Another strategy that parties can adopt, which combines the policy content of their manifesto with valence-based concerns, is related to the concept of issue ownership (Petrocik, 1996). ...
Switches produce a lack of credibility and damage a party's image, signaling weakness and an inability to select loyal MPs and preserve unity. Accordingly, we consider party out‐switching as a valence loss for the party. By combining information on party manifestos with a novel database on 2053 episodes of party switching, we investigate which electoral strategies parties adopt to reduce the negative consequences of such valence loss. Analyzing 1131 manifestos related to 135 parties in 14 Western European democracies, from 1945 to 2015, we show that parties try to restore their positive image by investing on valence, in terms of competence, clarity and core issues. An instrumental variable approach corroborates our results. The findings have implications for spatial modeling, valence politics, issue ownership and issue competition. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
... With respect to parliamentary behaviour, some studies analysed how defections produce shifts in the ideological position of switchers, who align their preferences with the ideal points of their new parliamentary group (Desposato, 2009;Hug and Wüest, 2011;Nokken, 2009). The consequences of defections on parties and on MPs who kept their label, however, have been understudied (with few important exceptions: Heller and Mershon, 2009b;Nokken, 2000). These studies suggest that parties affected by outswitching may become less heterogeneous (Heller and Mershon, 2009b) and that, as a result of the defection of a peer, non-switchers stick to the party line even when they are ideologically close to the defectors (Nokken, 2000). ...
... The consequences of defections on parties and on MPs who kept their label, however, have been understudied (with few important exceptions: Heller and Mershon, 2009b;Nokken, 2000). These studies suggest that parties affected by outswitching may become less heterogeneous (Heller and Mershon, 2009b) and that, as a result of the defection of a peer, non-switchers stick to the party line even when they are ideologically close to the defectors (Nokken, 2000). Investigating whether switching affects the internal cohesion of parties is crucial given that intra-party cohesion can influence everyday policymaking and coalition formation (Ceron, 2016). ...
... 1 These studies focus on switchers and their new affiliation, without considering the effect of defections on the party that has been left and more specifically, on MPs who decided to keep their label. Indeed, scholars have devoted less attention to the destiny of the parties and legislators that suffered defections (with a couple of exceptions: Heller and Mershon, 2009b;Nokken, 2000). Nokken (2000) compares the voting behaviour of switchers vis-à-vis non-switchers and records a considerable realignment of preferences among defectors. ...
What are the effects of party defections on the attitudes of politicians who remain loyal to the party? We answer by combining multiple sources of data into a comprehensive novel data set on parliamentary party switching, to estimate how this affects the perceived distance between a politician and his party. Focusing on the theory of cognitive dissonance and the black sheep effect, we hypothesize that politicians perceive themselves closer to their parties when those parties recently suffered defections. The effect should be greater among incumbent politicians as they directly experience divisions, but also among officials dissatisfied with the leadership as their dissonance should be stronger. Statistical analyses of data from two elite surveys, on a sample of 13,256 politicians belonging to 92 parties that ran in 28 elections held between 2005 and 2015 in 14 countries, provide support for our hypotheses and shed light on the consequences of intra-party defections.
... 2. Party cohesion here refers to like-mindedness, as expressed in legislative voting unity, and discipline, to the carrots and sticks that party leaders use to produce voting unity, whatever the underlying preference alignment might be (e.g. Bowler et al., 1999;Heller and Mershon, 2008, 2009a, 2009bcf. Carroll and Nalepa, 2020). ...
The conclusion to the special issue takes stock of both the first and the second generations of research on preferential proportional representation (PR) and electoral personalism. The article uses this appraisal in order to locate this project’s achievements within extant scholarship. It argues that the project not only reevaluates but also challenges the wisdom on preferential PR. In challenging the canon, the project enriches the study of electoral institutions, political parties, legislative politics, comparative politics, and political science more broadly.
... 7. As noted, still another sort of systemic consequence has been investigated: individual legislators' moves from one party to another effect changes in the array of preferences within parties (Heller and Mershon 2009d). 8. Aldrich and Bianco [1992] address switching among non-incumbent and incumbent candidates in electoral competition but assume that sitting legislators do not switch once in office. ...
... 7. As noted, still another sort of systemic consequence has been investigated: individual legislators' moves from one party to another effect changes in the array of preferences within parties (Heller and Mershon 2009d). 8. Aldrich and Bianco [1992] address switching among non-incumbent and incumbent candidates in electoral competition but assume that sitting legislators do not switch once in office. ...
... This makes the Italian case a perfect ground for the study of party switching and of its connection with the dynamics of political competition. Finally, Italy represents one of the most studied cases in this area (Giannetti and Laver 2001;Heller and Mershon 2005, 2008, 2009cMershon and Shvetsova 2008, 2011Mershon 5 2008). Therefore, our results are directly comparable with those of the most relevant studies on party switching, contributing to the general understanding of the phenomenon from an original perspective. ...
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. We focus 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 dataset 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 book provides a comprehensive view on the internal life of parties and investigates the dynamics of intra-party politics in different party environments to explain in which circumstances the party leader is more or less bound by the wills of party factions. Analyzing almost 500 intra-party documents from Italy, Germany and France, it presents a theory of intra-party politics that illuminates internal decision-making processes and sheds light on the outcomes of factional conflicts on the allocation of payoffs within the party, on the risk of a party split and on the survival of the party leader. Using text analysis, the results show that consensual dynamics can allow to preserve party unity and that directly elected leaders can exploit their larger autonomy either to reward followers or to prevent splits. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Party Politics, Political Institutions, European Politics and more broadly to Comparative Politics, Political Theory and Text Analysis.
This article explores the consequences of the Israeli anti-defection law for the rate and timing of party switching in the Knesset. Its central finding is that while the anti-defection law has failed to act as a strong deterrent against party exits and defections, it (i) moved defections to the immediate pre-electoral period and (ii) encouraged collective party switching via the formation of new party groups as opposed to solo defections. While these effects can be directly attributed to the incentives that are generated by the legislation, the Israeli case holds an important implication for the comparative study of anti-defection laws: such laws may not improve legislative party unity if there are other institutions, such as the electoral system and candidate selection practices, that have a countervailing effect and incentivize party exit.
Leaders of political parties often have to choose between conflicting objectives, such as influence on policy, control of the government, and support among the voters. This book examines the behaviour of political parties in situations where they experience conflict between two or more important objectives. The volume contains a theoretical introduction and case studies of party leaders in Germany, Italy, France and Spain as well as six smaller European democracies. Each case focuses on the behaviour of one of several parties in situations of goal conflict, such as the 'historic compromise' in Italy, the 1982 Wende in West Germany, the making of the new Swedish constitution in the 1970s, and the termination of the Austrian 'black-red' grand coalition. In their conclusions, the editors discuss how such leadership decisions can be understood and examine the causes of different choices among party leaders.
Se estima que en cada periodo legislativo cerca del 12% de los diputados se han cambiado de camiseta, sea para afiliarse a otra organización política o quedar como independientes.
Popular elections are at the heart of representative democracy. Thus, understanding the laws and practices that govern such elections is essential to understanding modern democracy. In this book, Cox views electoral laws as posing a variety of coordination problems that political forces must solve. Coordination problems - and with them the necessity of negotiating withdrawals, strategic voting, and other species of strategic coordination - arise in all electoral systems. This book employs a unified game-theoretic model to study strategic coordination worldwide and that relies primarily on constituency-level rather than national aggregate data in testing theoretical propositions about the effects of electoral laws. This book also considers not just what happens when political forces succeed in solving the coordination problems inherent in the electoral system they face but also what happens when they fail.
Lo studio dei gruppi parlamentari non ha mai rivestito grande importanza in Italia, anche per la generale convergenza tra gli studiosi, politologi e giuristi, intorno alla tesi della subordinazione dei gruppi stessi rispetto ai partiti, sin dall'epoca della ricostruzione democratica del dopoguerra.
In January 1994, the Japanese Diet (Parliament) passed two major political reform laws, the first changing the system used to elect its Lower House (the House of Representatives) and the second aimed at cleaning up campaign finance practices. After this, Japanese parties, candidates, and voters were faced with a completely new set of rules for Lower House elections, and the purpose of this chapter is to assess the effects of this electoral system revision. First describes the old electoral system, in which the members of the Lower House were elected by single, non-transferable vote (SNTV) from multi-member districts, and the new one, which is a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system; key changes are pointed out. The following two sections describe the political changes that seem to have followed from the electoral reform, discussing first the interparty dimension (party-system consequences) and second, the intraparty dimension (party organization and personalistic politics), with specific reference to whether or not the MMM system has solved the problems of the SNTV system (intraparty competition and its personalistic consequences) and thereby increased the efficiency of the electoral system. The last part briefly discusses the inadequacy of equilibrium-based analyses for the study of dynamic processes.