Parliamentary Group and Individual Voting Behaviour in the Finnish Parliament in Year 2003: A Group Cohesion and Voting Simila

Although group cohesion studies are rather common elsewhere, the last analyses of the Finnish parliament Eduskunta were published in the 1960s. This article provides, firstly, a fresh group cohesion analysis using the Agreement Index, which is a modified version of the classic Rice index. Secondly, two advanced voting similarity analyses, together with a new easy-to-understand way of illustrating the results, are provided. Where the Agreement Index operates at the parliamentary party group level, the voting similarity analyses are able to analyse and illustrate the individual MP level. The article is partly methodological in testing the voting similarity methods, however, it also provides insight into the recent voting behaviour within Eduskunta.