Transcript Does Party Switching Affect the Quality of Democracy? Evidence from Brazil

Does Party Switching Affect the
Quality of Democracy?
Evidence from Brazil
Background
• Why does party switching matter?
• Scholarly work assumes that party switching
has a negative effect on democracy
• Party switching as an independent variable
Why Brazil?
• Rampant party switching
• Fragmented party system
• Recent law provides advantages for testing
hypotheses about party switching
Party Fidelity Law
• Recent law made policy switching punishable by
loss of mandate
• Applies to all elected officials
• Will significantly reduce party switching
• Justifications for law mirror scholarly
assumptions about party switching
Hypotheses
• H1: Party switching has a negative effect on
parties’ legislative strength
• H2: Party switching has a negative effect on
parties’ electoral strength
• H3: Party switching weakens parties’ roots in
society
Research Design
• Independent variable
– Rate of party switching
• Different treatment levels
• Dependent variables
– Party cohesion
– Incidence of party voting
– Party affiliation levels / Voters’ opinions of parties
• Multiple pretests and posttests
Questions and Problems
• Any ideas about these or other dependent
variables?
• What about control groups?
• Anticipation effects
• Lack of literature examining party switching as an
independent variable