Suchergebnisse

When legislators switch parties between elections this may be viewed as undemocratic since, bypassing voters, they are changing the outcomes of elections. Do electoral institutions affect the likelihood of party switching? I argue that legislators are less likely to switch in candidate-centered electoral systems where, because of personal voting, parties cannot insulate defectors from voter retribution. When they switch though, legislators do so early in the term to exploit voters' short retrospective time horizon. These expectations are tested using a quasi experimental research design that estimates the effect of the 2008 Romanian electoral reform on party switching. In 2008 Romania changed its electoral system from a closed-list PR to a candidate-centered electoral system, where all candidates compete in single-member districts. Both hypotheses are supported by empirics. This helps weed out competing explanations which now have to account for both the decrease in and the different timing of party switching.

Existing research on when legislators switch parties reports inconsistent results about motivations for switching (e.g. office, ideology, and votes). I treat the motivations for party switching as substitutes and argue that many of the inconsistencies that persist can be explained by modelling the interactive effects between these motivations. For example, scholars differ in terms of whether they find that electoral considerations are an important determinant of party switching. The conflicting findings on the independent effects of electoral considerations are explained here by demonstrating that these effects are conditional on the level of office benefits a legislator enjoys, as well as the ideological distance between the legislator and party. More generally, the empirical analysis provides strong support for the substitution effect hypothesis. Thus, modelling interactive effects increases our understanding of party switching.

We examine how popular dissent affects the likelihood that political leaders lose power, distinguishing between types of dissent in terms of nonviolent/violent primary tactics as well as the level of individual participation. We posit that protests threaten leaders both directly through the governance costs of citizen non-compliance, and indirectly through the increased risk of elite defections in the ruling coalition. In a series of propositions we detail how the type of dissent and the magnitude of participation influence the odds of leaders surviving in office. We argue that mass nonviolent challenges tend to be more threatening to a leader's rule than violent dissent, given the characteristics of movements likely to choose nonviolent tactics. Moreover, the effectiveness of the challenge increases in the scale and size of the dissident campaign, and movements that can mobilize larger numbers have a comparative advantage in nonviolent tactics. Employing data on political leaders' tenure and dissident campaign characteristics, we provide evidence consistent with our expectations.

We examine how popular dissent affects the likelihood that political leaders lose power, distinguishing between types of dissent in terms of nonviolent/violent primary tactics as well as the level of individual participation. We posit that protests threaten leaders both directly through the governance costs of citizen non-compliance, and indirectly through the increased risk of elite defections in the ruling coalition. In a series of propositions we detail how the type of dissent and the magnitude of participation influence the odds of leaders surviving in office. We argue that mass nonviolent challenges tend to be more threatening to a leader's rule than violent dissent, given the characteristics of movements likely to choose nonviolent tactics. Moreover, the effectiveness of the challenge increases in the scale and size of the dissident campaign, and movements that can mobilize larger numbers have a comparative advantage in nonviolent tactics. Employing data on political leaders' tenure and dissident campaign characteristics, we provide evidence consistent with our expectations.