Searching for the Electoral Connection: Parliamentary Party Switching In the Ukrainian Rada, 1998–2002

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.