Electoral Rules and Party Switching: How Legislators Prioritize Their Goals

• Published date: 01 August 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12128
• Date: 01 August 2016
• Author: Elad Klein

ELAD KLEIN

University of Vienna

Electoral Rules and Party

Switching: How Legislators

Prioritize Their Goals

Stemming from ambition theory, a vast body of studies has demonstrated how

politicians’ pursuits of different goals can explain their behavi ors. Among other goals,

politicians strive for re-election or to attain a better office. However, little is known

about the way politicians prioritize these goals. This article uses the phenomenon of leg-

islative party switching to address this void and examines how hierarchy between goals

determines legislator strategies. The study exploits the 2008 Romanian electoral reform,

which rendered the electoral system more candidate centered. Drawing on data from

more than 3,900 individual-level observations over the period from 1996 to 2012, this

article shows how vote incentives alter the trade-offs between re-election and office

motivations. The findings suggest that politicians will pursue office goals only if the

goal of re-election is to be achieved.

The assumption that politicians’ behavior can be explained by the

goals they pursue is the core of legislative studies (e.g., M€

uller and Strøm

1999; Schlesinger 1966). One of the most conspicuous theses concerning

legislators’ ambitions argues that these objectives are not equally pursued

and that politicians prioritize one goal over the others. Thus, the hierar-

chy among legislators’ ambitions might have considerable consequences

for their behavioral patterns (e.g., Mayhew 1974; Strøm 1997). Given its

eminent inf‌luence on legislative studies, it is puzzling that the thesis of

hierarchy among ambitions has never been tested.

In order to test whether legislators do prioritize their goals, this arti-

cle focuses on one of the strategies politicians employ to fulf‌ill their

ambitions: defecting from their parties and switching to another. Numer-

ous studies have examined the motivations of incumbents to switch,

derived from the desire to maximize their benef‌its. Scholars focusing on

the electoral benef‌its of party switching have demonstrated that legisla-

tors tend to change party aff‌iliation in order to increase their chances of

being re-elected (Aldrich and Bianco 1992). Thus, incumbents might

switch to parties that have gained greater popularity in the polls

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 41, 3, August 2016 715

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12128

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C2016 Washington University in St. Louis

(McMenamin and Gwiazda 2011) or that have experienced past electoral

success (Desposato and Scheiner 2008; Desposato 2006; Reed and

Scheiner 2003; Thames 2007). Other scholars have suggested that

incumbents tend to choose their parties according to the benef‌its the

party provides (Desposato 2006), switching to bigger parties (Heller and

Mershon 2005; McLaughlin 2011; Thames 2007), or to the most domi-

nant party in the legislature (Kato 1998; Laver and Benoit 2003) in order

to increase the likelihood of obtaining parliamentary off‌ice. Yet, none

of these studies consider switching to be a strategy that stems from a

hierarchy or a trade-off between motivations, since switching that aims

to maximize one goal may dampen another.

In this article, I look at two types

1

of goals that drive party

switching—off‌ice and re-election

2

motivations—and examine how poli-

ticians prioritize them. I argue that off‌ice-driven switching will occur

only if it does not jeopardize politicians’ re-election prospects. My asser-

tions are tested by examining interparty legislative movement in

Romania during the last four parliamentary terms. The Romanian Cham-

ber of Deputies offers an ideal case for studying legislator strategies due

to (1) the prevalence of party switching in Romania (every f‌ifth legislator

has defected from her party between 1996 and 2012) and (2) the 2008

electoral reform. The reform shifted Romania from a closed-list propor-

tional representation (PR) electoral system to a system where candidates

run in single-member districts. Compared to the PR system, the new

electoral system encourages the incumbents to cultivate a personal vote

in order to be re-elected. As the f‌indings of this study demonstrate, the

reform has altered politicians’ behaviors. Before the reform, politicians

defected from failed parties in order to improve their chances of re-elec-

tion. The new electoral system erodes vote-driven switching and

enhances off‌ice-driven switching. Since politicians no longer consider

switching to be a mechanism for re-election, they can fulf‌ill their off‌ice

goals without jeopardizing their re-election prospects. The article

provides additional evidence about the way members of parliament

(MPs) prioritize their goals by examining how looming elections

undermine off‌ice-driven switching. As politicians prioritize re-election

goals over off‌ice objectives, they will be willing to defect from a future

coalition party if this party diminishes their re-election prospects.

Party switching is consequential for legislative policymaking.

Defectors can alter parties’ bargaining weights and thus maneuver policy

outcomes. Any change of party aff‌iliation thus has the potential to

shift the policy core of the legislature (Mershon and Shvetsova 2013b).

Party switching might have further implications for the normative

understanding of political representation. In most cases, voters cast their

716 Elad Klein