Selected Publications
Abstract: Previous research has that proportional-representation systems produce higher levels of government spending than do majoritarian systems. In some studies, scholars use district magnitude to reach this conclusion, showing a positive relationship between it and government expenditure. Yet, Carey and Shugart (1995) argue that the effect of district magnitude on government expenditure is, in reality, conditioned on the level of incentives for personal voting in the electoral system. We find support for this hypothesis with an empirical analysis of government expenditure in 77 democracies between 1970 and 2000.
Studies of legislative behavior almost universally begin with the assumption
that legislators desire reelection. For scholars who study the Ukrainian Verkhovna
Rada, this assumption is perhaps tenuous, given the weaknesses of political parties
and the significant party switching. Yet an analysis of party switching between 1998
and 2002 using a new method that controls for selection bias demonstrates that,
although turnover among parties was high, this turnover followed an electoral logic:
deputies changed parties, in part, to secure reelection. Thus, the electoral connection,
assumed in so much of the legislative behavior literature, existed even in the
chaotic Rada.
Abstract: Fearing that weak or poorly institutionalized party systems may undermine democratic consolidation, scholars have examined party systems in a myriad of contexts. The vast majority of these studies utilize aggregate measures of party system institutionalization to assess the relative merits of individual systems. While laudable, relying on aggregate measures may obscure the effects of the variation in party institutionalization in different systems. This article examines legislative politics in post-Communist Russia and Ukraine to determine whether variation in party institutionalization, even in weakly institutionalized party systems, has significant effects. The empirical results show that variation in party institutionalization creates variation in levels of parliamentary party discipline in both contexts. This raises the possibility that systemic level analyses of party system institutionalization are ignoring the effects of within system variation.
Abstract: Initial studies of legislative behavior in post-communist Ukraine suggest that party affiliation plays a significant role in legislator voting decisions. Yet, the intense debate in the US Congress literature on party effects suggests that finding effects can be problematic. The article contends that there was evidence of party effects in the mixed-member Verkhovna Rada (1998-2002). An analysis of party switching demonstrates that those parliamentary parties linked to powerful political and economic elites were able to affect substantively the preferences of party switchers. While this analysis establishes the existence of party effects, the ability of a party to affect deputies does not depend on the strength of the party label as it does in the US case.
Abstract: Mixed-member electoral systems embrace two views of representation by electing some legislators in single-member district elections and others in a proportional representation election. This can potentially create a “mandate divide” in legislatures, since single-member district legislators have an incentive to embrace parochial issues and proportional representation legislators have an incentive to center on national issues. Previous studies of this question have only found limited evidence of its existence. I argue that the level of party system institutionalization will fundamentally determine whether a mandate divide will exist in a mixed-member legislature. Using roll-call voting data from, the Hungarian National Assembly, the Russian Duma, and the Ukrainian Rada, I analyze patterns of party discipline in each legislature. The empirical results show that a mandate divide only existed in the legislature with the most weakly institutionalized party system, the Russian Duma.
Abstract: Previous studies of the legislative behavior of post-Soviet states have acknowledged the important roles of party, electoral incentives, and personal policy preferences in impacting legislator decision-making. While these studies have created a solid foundation for further work, they have used measures of personal preferences that have not allowed us to separate the impact of personal preferences from those of party or constituency factors. This paper uses a new method to measure personal preferences of deputies in the first mixed-member legislatures in Ukraine (1998-2002) and Russia (1994-1995). Using this method, the paper identifies the important impact of not only party, but also of personal preferences and of constituency factors on individual deputy voting behavior on budget and veto legislation in both legislatures.
Abstract: Several countries have recently adopted mixed electoral systems that elect one portion of the legislature in single-member district elections and another portion in a proportional representation election. While this surge has spawned a number of works that examine the effects of mixed systems on party systems, only a handful of studies have examined their effects on legislative voting behavior. This dearth of research on mixed systems is surprising given the multitude of works arguing that legislators who are elected in single-member district elections have different voting incentives than those legislators elected in proportional representation elections. This article seeks to expand our knowledge of legislative voting in mixed electoral systems by analyzing roll-call voting in the Russian State Duma between 1994 and 1998. This article argues that a voting divide along mandate lines does exist across all policy areas as well as in budgetary policy.
Abstract: This article seeks to determine whether a political business cycle existed during Yeltsin’s tenure in the Second Russian Republic. While Yeltsin certainly had the power and desire to increase his electoral chances, the lack of state resources and doubts about their appeal to voters presents an inconclusive picture concerning the existence of a political business cycle during this period. Statistical analysis, however, demonstrates that the level of real wage arrears decreased during electoral periods. Other measures, such as federal budget spending or the average monthly pension, only show weak indications of electoral period manipulation. Finally, the usefulness of buying votes in the Russian case, however, is questioned, considering Yeltsin’s failures in various Duma elections.
Abstract: The relative merits of presidential systems are but one debate in the growing literature on the importance of institutional choice in comparative politics. Some argue that presidential systems suffer from periods of policy deadlock that can lead to the failure of the democracy itself. In this vein, several scholars have suggested that the new Russian presidential system, created by the December 1993 constitution, maybe undermining the nascent democracy. Conversely, this article argues that Yeltsin built and maintained a consistent Duma coalition able to overcome policy deadlocks. The basis of this coalition was a common constituency of patronage interests to which both Yeltsin and the Duma were beholden. Without strong political parties able to mobilize and structure popular participation, patron-client networks formed the most important executive and legislative constituents. This finding not only questions our common understanding of the Russian presidential system, but of the effects of presidentialism in comparative politics as well. Furthermore, the article points out the difficulties associated with generalizing institutional effects across divergent social contexts.