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Fluid Party Systems, Electoral Rules and Accountability of Legislators in Emerging Democracies

The Case of Ukraine

Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, 190 North Oval Mall, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA, slomczynski.1{at}sociology.osu.edu

Goldie Shabad

Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University, 154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA, shabad.1{at}osu.edu

Jakub Zielinski

Boston Consulting Group, Exchange Place, 31st floor, Boston, MA 02109, USA, zielinski.kuba{at}bcg.com

Does the system of repeated parliamentary elections function as a mechanism of political control in new democracies with fluid party systems? Moreover, does electoral format affect the degree to which voters are able to hold legislators accountable for their performance in office? In addressing these questions, we use a new database on all legislative incumbents and all parliamentary elections that have taken place in Ukraine since 1994. Our findings indicate that, even in a flawed `electoralist' democracy such as Ukraine, repeated parliamentary elections do serve as a mechanism of accountability with respect to economic performance. Disregarding electoral format, political control tends to work through political parties/partisan blocs. Only in the case of single-member district elections, however, is there a statistically significant relationship between economic performance and chances of winning, i.e. when economic performance is poor, voters punish legislators from a pro-presidential group and reward legislators from the opposition.

Key Words: electoral accountability • electoral format • new party systems • political control

Party Politics, Vol. 14, No. 1, 91-112 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1354068807083824


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