Carol Mershon

Party Switching in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 1996–2001

Almost one-fourth of the members of the lower house in Italy, the Chamber of Deputies, switched parties at least once between 1996 and 2001. Why would a legislator abandon one party and enter another during a legislative term? Starting from the basic assumption that politicians are ambitious, we examine electoral and partisan motivations for members of parliament (MPs) who switch parties. We conclude that party switching most likely is motivated by party labels that provide little information about policy goals and that pit copartisans against each other in the effort to serve constituent needs. Switching is especially frequent when ambitious politicians operate under heightened uncertainty.

Political parties and legislative party switching

Preface List of Tables and Figures PART I:THE IMPORTANCE OF PARTY SWITCHING Introduction: Legislative Party Switching, Parties, and Party Systems W.B.Heller & C.Mershon Integrating Theoretical and Empirical Models of Party Switching W.B.Heller & C.Mershon PART II: PARTY SWITCHING AND REPRESENTATION Switching Equilibria N.Schofield Party Switching and the Procedural Party Agenda in the US House of Representatives T.P.Nokken Party Switching in Brazil: Causes, Effects, and Representation S.Desposato PART THREE: PARTY SWITCHING, PARTY COMPETITION, AND POLICY MAKING Party Group Switching in the European Parliament G.McElroy & K.Benoit Legislator Preferences, Party Desires: Party Switching and the Foundations of Policy Making in Legislatures W.B.Heller & C.Mershon Timing Matters: Incentives for Party Switching and Stages of Parliamentary Cycles C.Mershon & O.Shvetsova PART FOUR: PARTY SWITCHING AND THE DYNAMICS OF PARTY SYSTEMS Competition for Power: Party Switching and Party System Change in Japan J.Kato & K.Yamamoto Party Switching, Party Systems, and Political Representation M.Kreuzer & V.Pettai Conclusions W.B.Heller & C.Mershon Notes References Contributors Index

Party factions and coalition government: portfolio allocation in Italian Christian Democracy ☆

Abstract In this paper I elaborate a recently advanced argument about government formation, and assess it by studying the factions of the Italian Christian Democratic Party (DC). I contend that the costs of making and breaking coalitions depend on political institutions and on the configuration of actors in policy space. Comparisons across parties in Italy and other countries support this argument. So also do comparisons across party factions. The Christian Democratic factions that incurred the lowest office costs to build coalitions were those at or near the left–right median in Italys core party. When electoral rules were rewritten in the DC, internal party competition over portfolio allocation changed as well. The papers conclusion outlines how the argument would guide further research on party factions.

Expectations and Informal Rules in Coalition Formation

Why do informal rules emerge alongside—and at variance with—the formal constitutional constraints that shape bargaining over coalition governments? The presence of informal rules at odds with formal rules appears as an anomaly within both institution-free and institution-focused theories of coalitions. The author argues that politicians create informal rules in order to alter formal institutions that do not function to their benefit. The costs of a formal change in institutions offer incentives to politicians to invent informal rules as alternatives to such change, and repeated interactions teach politicians what to expect and then invent. The authors emphasis on the manipulability of rules echoes long-standing themes in the study and practice of politics.

Diversity in political science: why it matters and how to get it

This symposium responds to a stubborn reality: slow progress both in diversifying political science faculty at all ranks and in redressing bias in the discipline. Why do diversity and bias in political science matter? What persistent obstacles impede the diversification of the profession and contribute to persistent discrimination? And how might political scientists overcome these problems? This set of contributions to PGI offers fresh ways of thinking about, and tackling, these questions by inviting colleagues to apply their research expertise in political science to the discipline and academe. The lack of a diverse faculty in political science is longstanding and significant. In 1980, female faculty comprised an estimated 10.3% of political science faculty nationwide. By 2010, that share had increased only to 28.6%, despite record numbers of women earning advanced degrees in political science (APSA 2011, 41–43; Hesli, Lee, and Mitchell 2012). Female faculty of color remain severely underrepresented. In 2010, African-American women constituted a mere 1.7% of political science faculty (APSA 2011, 41, 42). As a result, many undergraduates complete their degrees without having ever taken a course taught by a woman of color (cf. Evans 2007). Compare the figures from political science to other social sciences such as psychology or sociology, and the underrepresentation of women in our discipline becomes stark (APA Center for Workforce Studies 2014 on 2013 data; ASA 2015 on 2007 data). Moreover, we know that marginalized groups often encounter a difficult environment and obstacles to career advancement in political science and elsewhere in academe (e.g., Anonymous and Anonymous 1999; Ford 2016; Hesli, Fink, and Duffy 2003b; Claypool and Mershon 2016; Smooth 2016; Van Assendelft et al. 2003; but see Ginther 2004). Implicit bias, “old boys” networks, and skewed hiring, promotion, and tenure practices have contributed to these problems (e.g., Monforti and Michelson 2008; Mathews and Andersen 2001; Williams, Alon, and Bornstein 2006; Wolfinger, Mason, and Goulden 2008). Strategies for combating discrimination in academe and in the workplace more broadly have emphasized mentoring, building leadership skills, and encouraging the marginalized to adapt to the status quo (e.g., Hesli, Fink, and Duffy 2003a; Monroe et al. 2008; Sandberg 2013). Despite these strategies, political science remains largely the domain of white men. This dominance likely undermines the goal of advancing knowledge and leads to omissions in research agendas and thus misunderstandings and gaps in the discipline’s scholarship (cf. McClain et al. 2016). Recent research indicates that diversity matters for

Introduction: Legislative Party Switching, Parties, and Party Systems

That political parties are fundamental to the functioning of modern democracies is well known. Politicians build their careers within parties, parties convey information to voters about candidate preferences, and parties provide labels that identify candidates to voters. When voters choose candidates for office, they delegate decision making on public policy to parties and to party-identified representatives. Repeated elections give voters the opportunity to hold parties responsible and accountable for policy decisions and outcomes. Parties thus are indispensable elements of democratic delegation and representation (Cox 1997; Filippov, Ordeshook, and Shvetsova 2004; Powell 2000; Schattschneider 1942; Stokes 1999).

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...

Integrating Theoretical and Empirical Models of Party Switching

Party switching is a relatively common yet little studied phenomenon. Observers have remarked on the presence of switching in various circumstances and settings, but with a very few exceptions (Aldrich and Bianco 1992; Desposato 2006; Heller and Mershon 2005; 2008; Laver and Benoit 2003) scholars have not seen party switching as theoretically interesting. They have instead treated party switching as an idiosyncratic phenomenon, entirely dependent on context, and essentially sui generis in each occurrence. The contributions to this volume represent an attempt to address what we see as a gap between extant empirical accounts of switching and the substantial leverage that a theoretically driven approach to switching can provide. Taken together, the chapters examine the contexts, causes, and consequences of party switching. Although most of the chapters focus on one or a few country cases, and each chapter examines only a piece of a larger set of strategic interactions in which switching occurs, each does so in explicitly theoretical terms.

Change in parliamentary party systems and policy outcomes: Hunting the core

This paper shows that change in party systems within parliaments can lead to major change in policy outcomes. Specifically, we show that policy mobility of parties and fluidity in their parliamentary membership can generate or upset the existence of the policy core as well as determine its location. Our analysis applies to the general case of a multiparty parliament. We then follow up with empirical illustrations that conform to the major types of theoretical dynamics in our analysis, where party change that occurred in parliaments was consistent with attempts to manipulate the policy core.

Legislator Preferences, Party Desires: The Impact of Party Switching on Legislative Party Positions

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-a-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.