Category Archives: research

general, research

Article in Legislative Studies Quarterly

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Independents in Parliament: Temporary Status or Final Destination?

Raimondas Ibenskas, Paulina Sałek-Lipcean, Sona N. Golder, Allan Sikk

Abstract
Political parties are essential for structuring parliamentary decision-making in democracies. However, in some countries, as many as 10% of legislators experience spells outside of parliamentary party groups. This paper sheds light on this important group of independent politicians by analyzing whether and when they join existing or new party groups. We argue that the electoral motivations of members of parliament (MPs) affect their incentives for reaffiliation. We capture electoral motivations with two factors: the personal vote of legislators and membership in minor parties that do not have their own parliamentary groups. We test this argument using a novel dataset covering over 800 spells of independence and 500 entries into party groups in three Central and Eastern European countries (Lithuania, Poland, and Romania) since the early 2000s. We find that independents affiliated with a minor party are more likely to form a new party group, while MPs with a significant personal vote or those not affiliated with a minor party are more prone to join an existing party group.

Link to full text: https://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.70015

general, research

Independence versus Affiliation: What Determines Entry into Parliamentary Party Groups?

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Our paper prepared for the APSA 2023 Annual Meeting, Los Angeles

Abstract.

Political parties are often considered essential for structuring parliamentary decision-making in democracies. However, many MPs experience spells of being non-affiliated with any parliamentary party group (PPG), either because they were elected as independent candidates or left their PPGs earlier in the legislative term. Whether such non-affiliation periods end with an entry to a PPG, which PPG the legislator enters and how long they remain independent before the entry, as well as the reasons for these patterns, remains relatively unknown. This paper addresses these under-researched questions by examining PPG entry in three Central and Eastern European countries (Lithuania, Poland, and Romania) in the last two decades. We build and test an argument that electoral, office and policy concerns of both the MPs considering the entry and the potential receiving parties play an important role in driving entry. Our findings suggest that legislators’ electoral incentives as a key explanation for their PPG affiliation decisions.

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general, research

Does switching pay off? The impact of parliamentary party instability on individual electoral performance

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Our paper prepared for the APSA 2023 Annual Meeting

Abstract. Members of parliament who change their parliamentary party group (PPG) affiliation can be motivated by a variety of factors but the desire to improve their electoral prospects is often argued to be the among the most important. But does switching PPG affiliation improve or damage the electoral performance of those involved? We study the changes in electoral performance of Polish MPs involved in parliamentary party instability since mid-1990s using an original dataset on all instances of switching compiled by the INSTAPARTY (Party Instability in Parliaments) project. In addition to analyzing whether the MPs run for the parliament again in the following election, we zoom in on their electoral performance in terms of personal preference votes. We consider the electoral dividends of different types of switching and find that the effect of switching on personal electoral performance depends on the type of switching MPs were involved in.

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research

Understanding the Complexity of Party Instability in Parliaments

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Download our paper prepared for the APSA 2022 Annual Meeting that proposes a new typology of parliamentary party switches.

Abstract. We propose a new typology of parliamentary party switches (switching events) that focuses on three dimensions: (1) the number of MPs and the degree of coordination, (2) the origin of switchers and (3) the destination of switchers – a parliamentary party group (PPG) or independent status. We further distinguish between switches with single and multiple destinations. Our approach sheds new light to party instability in various ways. We elucidate types of party instability to emphasize the complexity of party instability that have eluded the conceptual toolset available thus far. For example, “collective defection” (coordinated movement from one PPG to another), “collective exit” (MPs exiting their parliamentary group to become independent MPs) and “multi-PPG split” (coordinated moves from several PPGs to form a new PPG). Using preliminary data compiled for Instaparty (Party Instability in Parliaments) project from (mostly) Poland and Ireland, we find rich diversity in the forms of parliamentary party instability. While individual defections are much more common than group defections, they are clearly more dominant in Ireland than in Poland; furthermore, switches between PPGs (rather than between PPGs and independent status) have been more common in Poland. Our typology is illustrated by the analysis of the 8th Polish Sejm that provides examples of nearly all single-origin switching events and of most multi-origin ones. The new typology presents the first step of our inquiry into the patterns, causes and consequences of party switching in eight democracies (Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania) from 1960s/1990s to early 2020s.

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