OPPS

Lithuania: A collective switch towards a formation of a new party

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Ten MPs from the party group of the Peasants and Greens Union, the largest opposition party group in Lithuanian Seimas, declared on the 7th of September that they are creating a new parliamentary group “Democrats – For Lithuania”. The new group is led by former Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis. It was joined by further three MPs from the “mixed” parliamentary group including another former Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius.

The former members of the Peasants and Greens Union parliamentary group have accused the leader of the party, Ramūnas Karbauskis, for excluding them from the decision-making in the parliamentary group and party and pursuing the course of unnecessary polarisation with the centre-right government. The faction includes some of the more liberal Peasant and Green MPs who have recently challenged Karbauskis’ conservative positions on single-sex partnership legislation.

Skvernelis was not a member of the Peasants and Greens Union but played a key role in its electoral victory in the 2016 parliamentary election and served as its prime minister in 2016-2020. The departure of Skvernelis and his supporters weakens the parliamentary influence of the Peasants and Greens, leaving them with only 22 out of 67 opposition MPs, and may also be related to its drop in public opinion polls from 15 to 10 percent. The split also signals party’s definite shift from the catch-all appeal – most prominent in the 2016 election – to the socially conservative ideological positions and populist rhetoric.

Initially stating that it is too early to discuss the creation of a new party, on the 18th of October representatives of the new parliamentary faction declared the intention to create a new political party. In the meantime, the split of the Peasants and Greens Union seems to have been most beneficial for the opposition Social Democrats which, after electoral defeats in 2016 and 2020, are leading in the polls again.

Photo credits: Darius Janutis. Source: infolex.lt.

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Work with us: Research Assistant positions at University College London

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The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) is seeking to appoint two part-time (50% FTE) Research Assistants with Polish or Romanian language expertise. This is an excellent opportunity to work with an international team of three renowned experts of party politics: Raimondas Ibenskas (lead investigator, University of Bergen), Sona Golder (Penn State University, PSU) and Allan Sikk (UCL SSEES). The Research Assistants will help the team with database creation and data collection on Romania and Italy, or Poland and collaborate with the team on research. 

We are looking for applicants with a Master’s degree in political science or related disciplines, especially (part time) PhD students. You will need some experience with social science research, data collection or analysis, and Excel skills (R desirable). Bulk of the work can be done remotely, but you are expected to visit UCL SSEES regularly. Note that if you are coming to the UK from abroad and are fully vaccinated, you would not need to self-isolate on your arrival.  

Closing date for applications: 31 October 2021

Start: 1 January 2022 or promptly thereafter

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We are hiring: PhD position for 4 years at the University of Bergen

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The Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen is advertising a 4 years PhD position to work on the project INSTAPARTY: Party Instability in Parliaments funded by the Norwegian Research Council. The successful applicant will work with an exciting international team of three renowned experts of party politics: Raimondas Ibenskas (lead investigator, University of Bergen), Sona Golder (Penn State University, PSU) and Allan Sikk (University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies).

The duration of the PhD position is 4 years, of which 25 per cent of the time comprises obligatory duties associated with research, teaching and dissemination of results. The employment period for the successful candidate may be reduced if he or she previously has been employed in a PhD position.

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INSTAPARTY: Party Instability in Parliaments

INSTAPARTY is funded by the Norwegian Research Council, project no 325141

Elected representatives are widely expected to remain affiliated with the political parties that got them elected. However, party switching in parliaments is common, if not endemic, in many established and young democracies. By changing their affiliation, elected representatives create party instability: new parties form, existing parties dissolve, and the size of parties in parliament changes. Party instability may have important effects on election and government formation outcomes, public policy and voter representation.

This project examines party instability in parliaments in European democracies. It has three objectives: to map out diverse forms of instability, to explain why instability occurs, and to understand whether and how instability affects voter support of parties.

A key idea in the project is that party switching can happen in different ways. For example, elected representatives may act individually or in coordination with current co-partisans, legislators from other parties or independents; they can leave or be expelled from their current parties; and may enter existing parties, form new parties, or become independents. Clear definitions and careful analyses of different forms of instability will therefore constitute an important focus of the project. Moreover, the project will examine whether and how external shocks and events (for example, economic crises) lead to party instability.

The project aims to provide detailed information about each instance of party switching in three North-Western European countries (Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands) since the 1960s and five countries in Central and Eastern and Southern Europe (Estonia, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and Romania) since the 1990s. The project will also establish the Observatory of Parliamentary Party Switches (OPPS) that records ongoing instability in the same set of eight countries as well as five additional Western European countries.

The INSTAPARTY research team is led by PI Raimondas Ibenskas (Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen) and co-PIs Sona Golder (Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University) and Allan Sikk (School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London).