Ideology versus Self-Interest: Mobile Politicians
نویسندگان
چکیده
In a closed-list proportional-representation system, where votes are cast for a given political party, not for any particular candidate, the seat distribution in the parliament is highly sensitive to small changes in the vote distribution among political parties. This creates randomness in who gets elected as a Member of the Parliament (MP). Using a detailed data set of the MPs in Turkish Parliament who served between 1991 and 2011, we find that those MPs who are marginally elected have a higher probability of switching parties before the next election. Individual attributes, such as age, tenure in the Parliament, having received a college degree outside the country also impact the probability of party switching. We also show that in subsequent elections, party switchers are nominated at ranks and/or in electoral districts that are more favorable for their re-election. Since, in this system, candidates are elected to represent the ideology of the party they are affiliated with, party jumping in pursuit of their self-interest constitutes evidence for an additional dimension of principal-agent problem involving politicians. a Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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