A HOUSE DIVIDED Party Strength and The Mandate Divide in Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine

COMPARATIVE
10.1177/0010414004272526
Thames / A HOUSE
POLITICAL
DIVIDEDSTUDIES / April 2005
A HOUSE DIVIDED
Party Strength and the Mandate Divide
in Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine
FRANK C. THAMES
Texas Tech University
Mixed-member electoral systems embrace two views of representation by electing some legisla-
tors in single-member district elections and others in a proportional representation election. This
can potentially create a “mandate divide” in legislatures, because single-member district legisla-
tors 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. The author argues that the level of party system institution-
alization 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, the author analyzes patterns of party discipline in each legisla-
ture. The empirical results show that a mandate divide only existed in the legislature with the
most weakly institutionalized party system, the Russian Duma.
Keywords: mixed-member; electoral systems; legislature; party discipline, postcommunist;

legislative behavior; party system institutionalization
I n recent years, scholars of electoral systems have had to contend with the
proliferation of mixed-member electoral systems across the globe.1 Gen-
erally, mixed-member systems elect one portion of the legislature through
single-member district elections and the other through some form of propor-
tional representation election.2 Since the postcommunist world began its
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This research was assisted by an award from the Eurasia Program of the
Social Science Research Council with funds provided by the State Department under the Pro-
gram for Research and Training on Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the Former
Soviet Union (Title VIII). I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments.
1. West Germany adopted the first mixed-member system in 1953. Italy, New Zealand, Mex-
ico, Israel, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Japan have all adopted mixed-member systems in the past
decade.
COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES, Vol. 38 No. 3, April 2005 282-303
DOI: 10.1177/0010414004272526
© 2005 Sage Publications
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Thames / A HOUSE DIVIDED 283
awkward move to democracy in the early 1990s, it is not surprising that sev-
eral postcommunist states have adopted the electoral system de jour.3 Why
would such systems be so popular? Although there are important differences
among them, at their most basic level mixed-member systems offer the ad-
vantage of embracing two distinct notions of representation: one regional and
one national. Whereas proportional representation elections promote the cre-
ation of strong parties attentive to national issues, single-member district
elections promote local representation through the election of legislators
responsible to narrow constituencies.
Given their increasing popularity, a number of scholars have undertaken
extensive studies of mixed-member systems, primarily concentrating on how
they affect the party system or voting behavior (e.g., Gschwend, Johnston, &
Pattie, 2003; Moser, 2001; Shugart & Wattenberg, 2001). Although these
studies have been invaluable, few scholars have addressed the legislative
effects of mixed-member systems. This is a significant omission, because
mixed-member electoral systems combine legislators who have incentives to
embrace divergent forms of representation. Consequently, mixed-member
electoral systems could create a bifurcated legislature, as proportional repre-
sentation and single-member district legislators follow their incentives and
represent conflicting interests. Carried to an extreme, this mandate divide
could complicate policy making by adding a potentially fractious cleavage to
legislatures.
Although the logic of this mandate divide hypothesis is rather simple, cur-
rent empirical research has not universally substantiated its existence. In fact,
studies of mixed-member legislatures disagree on the existence of mandate
divides in several contexts (e.g., Herron, 2002; Lancaster & Patterson, 1990;
Scholl, 1986; Smith & Remington, 2001; Thames, 2001). What could
account for this variation? The existence of a mandate divide, I argue, de-
pends heavily upon the level of party system institutionalization. In institu-
tionalized systems where parties control valuable electoral resources, single-
member district legislators are more beholden to party leaders to secure
reelection, undermining their incentive to cast personal votes or reward con-
stituent interests. In such systems, proportional representation and single-
member district deputies will share a common incentive to support their par-
ties, preventing the development of a mandate divide. Conversely, in weakly
2. There are, however, exceptions. Taiwan, for example, pairs a proportional representation
tier with a single nontransferable vote (SNTV) tier.
3. Hungary, Lithuania, Macedonia, Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Albania, Russia, Azerbai-
jan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan all adopted mixed-member systems. Bulgaria and
Croatia adopted mixed-member systems briefly before replacing them with proportional repre-
sentation systems.

284 COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / April 2005
institutionalized systems, one is more likely to see evidence of a mandate

divide, because the incentive for single-member district deputies to cast per-
sonal or constituency votes remains. To test this argument, I examine legisla-
tive politics in three postcommunist mixed-member systems: Hungary,
Ukraine, and Russia. A statistical analysis of party discipline in all three leg-
islatures shows that a mandate divide existed only in Russia, which featured
the most weakly institutionalized party system. A mandate divide did not
exist in either the Hungarian or Ukrainian legislatures, which both featured
comparatively more institutionalized party systems.
After a discussion of the legislative incentives created by mixed-member
electoral systems, the article then explains how different levels of party sys-
tem institutionalization affect the chances for a mandate divide to develop.
This is followed by a statistical analysis of party discipline in the Hungarian
National Assembly, the Russian State Duma, and the Ukrainian Verkhovna
Rada. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of its major
findings.
THE LOGIC OF THE

MANDATE DIVIDE HYPOTHESIS
At their core, all mixed-member systems attempt to balance two “inher-

ently incompatible” principles: national and local representation (King,
1990, p. 159). Why are these two types of representation incompatible? The
problem stems from the conflicting incentive structures created by single-
member district and proportional representation elections. In single-member
district systems, legislators achieve reelection by winning local contests.
This gives them a direct incentive to satisfy local constituents to secure re-
election (Bean, 1990; Fenno, 1978; Fiorina, 1997; Mayhew, 1974; North,
1994; Norton & Wood, 1990; Ward & John, 1999). Thus single-member dis-
trict legislators will have a strong incentive to champion parochial policy
issues to satisfy local constituents, even at the expense of broader party
interests, to secure reelection.
In proportional representation systems, legislators are not beholden to
local interests but are, instead, dependent on party leaders and party popular-
ity for reelection.4 Proportional representation legislators receive seats based
upon voter perceptions of their party in large, sometimes nationwide constit-
uencies. As a result, proportional representation legislators have an incentive
to concentrate on nationwide policy issues designed to satisfy a large swathe
4. This assumes a closed party list and no intraparty competition.

of voters. Moreover, because party leaders control the formation of the party
lists, proportional representation legislators have a strong incentive to follow
their commands to secure a prized list position for future elections.
The conflicting sets of electoral incentives held by single-member district
and proportional representation legislators form the basis for the mandate
divide hypothesis. Single-member district legislators will have an electoral
incentive to give attention to parochial issues, whereas proportional repre-
sentation legislators will have an electoral incentive to cater to the party and
concentrate on nationwide concerns. The logic behind the divide is reason-
ably sound; however, empirical support for the existence of the divide in
mixed-member legislatures is inconsistent. Using survey data, Lancaster and
Patterson (1990) argue that single-member district legislators in the German
Bundestag valued pork barrel spending more highly for their reelection than
did the proportional representation deputies. Another survey-based study by
Scholl (1986) found that British members of the European Parliament,
elected in single-member district elections, were more interested in constitu-
ency service than were French members, who were elected in proportional
representation elections. In addition, Thames (2001) showed a difference in
party discipline between single-member district and proportional representa-
tion legislators in the Russian State Duma. Smith and Remington (2001),
however, found inconsistent support for the mandate divide in their study of
the Russian Duma. Through an analysis of discipline in the Ukrainian Rada,
Herron (2002) detected no significant discipline difference between single-
member district and proportional representation legislators. In addition,
Ishiyama (2000) found no evidence of a mandate divide among members
of the communist successor parties in either Hungary or Russia. Morlang
(1998) found a similar result among the deputies of the communist successor
party in Hungary as well.
To understand why there is such weak empirical evidence for the mandate
divide hypothesis, one must concentrate on the relationship between single-
member district deputies and political parties, because one key distinction
between single-member district and proportional representation deputies is
their relation to political parties. Whereas proportional representation legis-
lators in closed-list systems depend on parties, the need to win local elections
gives single-member district legislators an incentive to spurn parties at times
to vote with their constituents. Taken from this angle, the presence or absence
of a mandate divide will depend on the extent to which single-member dis-
trict legislators feel that support from political parties is essential for re-
election. If political parties are in a position to deny them a future nomination
and/or valuable electoral resources, then single-member district legislators
cannot simply ignore the party and consistently cast personal votes without

fear of jeopardizing their reelection chances. When parties have such strong
control over single-member district reelection, then the incentive structure of
single-member district legislators more closely resembles that of the pro-
portional representation legislators, because single-member district legis-
lators need to ensure party support for reelection. Party voting may anger
constituents; however, to not vote with the party would jeopardize party sup-
port in future elections. In this environment, the appearance of a mandate
divide is less likely, because both single-member district and proportional
representation legislators have similar incentives to vote with their party’s
position.
If this argument is correct, then the variation in empirical support for the
mandate divide is explained, in part, by the variation in party control of the
fates of single-member district candidates. What gives political parties influ-
ence over single-member district legislators? One of the primary factors that
can increase party control over single-member district candidates is the level
of party system institutionalization. As Mainwaring (1997, 1999) points out,
the degree of institutionalization is a critical factor that distinguishes dif-
ferent party systems beyond simply the number and ideological polarization
of parties. Weakly institutionalized party systems suffer from four specific
problems. First, in weakly institutionalized systems, patterns of party sup-
port tend to be unstable (Mainwaring 1997, 1999). Thus, in such systems
parties often appear and disappear with regularity. Even among established
parties, their level of support often changes significantly from election to
elections. Second, parties in weakly institutionalized systems maintain only
shallow roots within society (Mainwaring, 1997, 1999). Linkages between
parties and constituents are often weak and fragile. Parties have a difficult
time structuring and articulating popular preferences. Often, voters have dif-
ficulty identifying themselves with specific political parties. Third, the legiti-
macy of parties as political actors is often lower in comparison with more
institutionalized systems (Mainwaring 1997, 1999). Parties lack the wide-
spread popular support accorded to parties in more developed systems.
Finally, in weakly institutionalized systems parties often lack autonomous
and developed party organizations (Mainwaring 1997, 1999). This often
means that party organizations are simply the extension of individual leaders
or key elites. Such organizations do not have an autonomous apparatus that
allows them to develop strong ties with voters.
These features of weakly institutionalized parties hamper their ability to
control single-member district deputies, who maintain incentives to cast per-
sonal or constituency votes. In effect, such political parties lack strong orga-
nizations, campaign resources, identifiable party labels, and ties to social
groups. Parties in more institutionalized systems can use such resources to

cajole discipline among legislators, because the denial of these resources

could undermine their future reelection. Yet without these resources, parties
have much less to offer candidates to ensure discipline. If a partisan affilia-
tion fails to improve a candidate’s odds of winning, then why would a single-
member district legislator consistently follow party voting demands, in par-
ticular, if such demands conflicted with constituent’s interests? In weakly
institutionalized systems, single-member district legislators may prefer to tie
themselves to nonpartisan local elites or economic organizations to ensure
reelection, avoiding party entanglements altogether. Conversely, single-
member district legislators will have an incentive to vote with the party in
more institutionalized party systems, because parties control valuable re-
sources, such as party organizations, campaign finances, and labels.5
For proportional representation deputies, however, the weakness of politi-
cal parties will not necessarily decrease their incentive to back their party’s
voting demands, because the deputies are still dependent upon the party lead-
ership and the popularity of the party for reelection in closed-list systems.
The instability of weakly institutionalized party system may give one a
greater incentive to switch to a more popular party; however, even in this situ-
ation a proportional representation legislator still has an incentive to support
the positions of the new party to ensure reelection.
The ability of parties to enhance the electoral chances of single-member
district candidates can also be increased if electoral rules advantage parties in
nominations. A system may be poorly institutionalized; however, if the rules
governing candidacy place parties in control of nominations, then political
parties will be in a stronger position vis-à-vis their legislators. If parties con-
trol whoever runs, then legislators will have a greater incentive to back their
demands, even if parties have fragile organizations or frail ties to social
groups.
Based on the above reasoning, the existence of a mandate divide will
hinge on the extent to which political parties can influence the electoral
opportunities of single-member district legislators. In those systems with
weakly institutionalized party systems, single-member district legislators
will more often shirk party demands and represent insular interests. Still
beholden to party leaders for list placement and national party popularity,
proportional representation legislators will still have a strong incentive to fol-
low the party and represent national interests. In this situation, one is more
likely to observe a mandate divide. The rest of this article will seek empirical
support for this argument by hunting for mandate divides in three post-
5. This logic is often used to explain party voting by U.S. legislators (Aldrich, 1995; Cox &
McCubbins, 1993; Kiewiet & McCubbins, 1991).

communist legislatures: the Russian State Duma, the Ukrainian Rada, and
the Hungarian National Assembly.
PARTY SYSTEMS IN
RUSSIA, UKRAINE, AND HUNGARY
Russia, Ukraine, and Hungary were chosen as cases for several reasons.
First, they share broadly similar mixed-member electoral systems. In both
Russia and Ukraine, the mixed-member systems select 225 legislators in
single-member district plurality elections and 225 legislators in nationwide,
closed-list proportional representation elections. Both systems require par-
ties to reach a minimum percentage threshold of the proportional representa-
tion vote to obtain seats from this tier.6 The Hungarian mixed-member sys-
tem is a more complex, three-tiered scheme. First, 176 seats are distributed
according to the results of single-member district majoritarian elections held
across the country. Second, 152 seats are distributed according to the results
of proportional representation elections held in 20 territorial districts. The
number of proportional representation seats in a district varies from 4 to 28
seats. Last, the remaining 58 seats are distributed using a compensatory
scheme that allocates extra seats according to surplus votes from both the
single-member district and proportional representation tiers.
Most important, these systems are all “mixed-member majoritarian sys-
tems” (Shugart & Wattenberg, 2001). In mixed-member majoritarian sys-
tems, each type of election allocates seats independently to political parties.
Thus, in Russia, for example, a party’s seat total is the sum of its seats earned
in both the single-member district and proportional representation elections.
This differs from “mixed-member proportional systems” that link the results
of both elections to determine overall seat totals for parties (Shugart &
Wattenberg, 2001). In Germany, for example, the overall percentage of seats
a party may control in the Bundestag is proportional to the proportional rep-
resentation election results. Bawn and Thies (2003) argue that the relation-
ship between parties and single-member district legislators is fundamentally
different in each system. In mixed-member proportional systems, parties
maximize seats by increasing their proportional representation totals, not by
maximizing single-member district seats (Bawn & Thies, 2003). Thus, par-
ties in such systems are less beholden to popular, but ill-disciplined, single-
member district legislators. In mixed-member majoritarian systems, how-
6. In the 1993 Russian Duma election, the threshold was 5%. In the 1998 Ukrainian Rada
election, the threshold was 4%.

ever, parties cannot readily punish or ignore wayward single-member district

legislators, because they increase their overall seat totals by supporting
strong single-member district candidates (Bawn & Thies, 2003). By examin-
ing only mixed-member majoritarian systems in this study, I can eliminate
the potential effect of different incentive structures created by different
electoral institutions.7
Second, these three cases are all new democracies, which share similar
communist legacies. Although Hungary began the move toward pluralism
earlier, its first democratic election was held in 1990. Russia and Ukraine
quickly followed suit, holding their initial, postcommunist, democratic elec-
tions in 1993 and 1994, respectively. We do not want to conflate the commu-
nist experiences of these three countries; however, the fact that they share
broadly similar communist legacies allows us to better control for social con-
text among the three cases.
Moreover, Russia, Ukraine, and Hungary exhibited symptoms associated
with weakly institutionalized party systems. Russia had among the weakest
party systems of the postcommunist democracies in the 1990s. The Soviet
totalitarian political system prevented the development of autonomous social
organizations; therefore, Russia entered the initial post-Soviet period with-
out a strong civil society to form the basis for political party develop-
ment (Bellin & Orttung, 1997; Fish, 1995; Sakwa, 1993; White, Wyman, &
Kryshtanovskaya, 1995). Moreover, the absence of stable social cleavages or
any mezzo structures behind them has prevented the formation of social iden-
tity from which political interests and allegiances could develop (Evans &
Whitefield, 1993). Thus, it should be no surprise that most Russian political
parties have had a difficult time establishing themselves. As a result, many
parties suffered from flaws associated with weakly institutionalized party
systems, such as limited financing, weak campaign organizations, and lim-
ited ties to voters (Moser, 1999). Due to these weaknesses, many Russian
political parties were often based solely on personalities or government
structures during the 1990s.
The Ukrainian party system suffered from many of the same pathologies
that afflicted the Russian party system in the 1990s. Ukraine’s Soviet totali-
tarian legacy also robbed it of the basic building blocks of party development
such as a strong civil society and social differentiation (D’Anieri, Kravchuk,
& Kuzio, 1999; Evans & Whitefield, 1993). In terms of party building, the
7. The Hungarian system links votes with its compensatory tier, but not seats (Shugart &
Wattenberg, 2003). This vote linkage does not create similar incentives to mixed-member pro-
portional systems, because the compensatory tier distributes seats based on surplus votes from
both elections. Thus parties have an incentive to run strong single-member district candidates not
only to win seats but to obtain votes that may translate into compensatory seats.

initial postcommunist legislative elections in 1994 did not alleviate the prob-
lem significantly. The single-member district majoritarian system used in
this election was replaced by the current mixed-member system due in part to
the inability of the old system to spur the development of political parties
(Birch, 2000; Bojcun, 1995; Craumer & Clem, 1999; Kubicek, 2000). As in
Russia, these limitations helped to prevent the development of political par-
ties with strong, well-funded party organizations or institutionalized ties to
social groups (Bilous & Wilson, 1993; Kubicek, 2000). Consequently, many
Ukrainian political parties relied not on strong social ties to stable social
cleavages but on personalities and links to government structures for their
influence.
Much of the literature on the Hungarian party system in the 1990s echoes
the Russian and Ukrainian literature. In both the 1990 and 1994 legislative
elections, Hungarian parties were thought to have weak organizational struc-
tures, loose ties to social groups, and only fluid electoral support (Ilonszki,
1998; Racz & Kukorelli, 1995). In fact, writing about the 1994 election, Racz
and Kurkorelli (1995) argue that “the organisational structures of parties,
with the exception of the socialists, were generally so deficient and transient
that they would defy systematic study” (p. 262). This would suggest that the
patterns of party politics in Hungary should have resembled those in Russia
and Ukraine during the 1990s.
Finally, although they each suffer from symptoms of weakly institutional-
ized party systems, there are significant differences between the relative
position of political parties in Hungary and in both Russia and Ukraine. Even
though the Hungarian system appeared to suffer from elements of weak party
institutionalization, political parties dominated the electoral process in both
the proportional representation and single-member district elections (Benoit,
2001; Ilonszki, 1998). Memberships and organizational structures remained
fluid; however, party labels became the essential electoral resources for suc-
cessful single-member district candidates (Hibbing & Patterson, 1992;
Ilonszki, 1998; Racz & Kukorelli, 1995). In fact, voters in both the first and
second rounds of the 1994 Hungarian parliamentary elections based their
voting decisions primarily upon the party identification of candidates (Racz
& Kukorelli, 1995). Thus, political parties have played a decisive role in the
Hungarian single-member district elections. This is a definite contrast from
the situation in Russia and Ukraine, where political parties had significantly
less impact on single-member district elections. In fact, in both Russia and
Ukraine, parties offered so little electoral resources to candidates that inde-
pendent candidates proliferated (Birch, 1998; Moser, 1999).
The relative strength of Hungarian parties vis-à-vis Russian and Ukrai-
nian parties can be further evidenced by the levels of partisanship among can-

Table 1
Percentage of Elected Independent Single-Member District
Country 1990 1993 1994 1995 1998 1999 2002 Mean
Hungary 3.4 0.0 0.6 0.0 1.0

Ukraine 51.6 42.2 46.9
Russia 61.6 34.2 48.6 48.2
didates in single-member district elections. Mainwaring (1997) argues that a

high level of nonpartisanship among single-member district legislators is a
key indicator of a weakly institutionalized party system. Table 1 shows the
percentage of elected independent single-member district candidate in each
of the mixed-member district elections in Hungary, Ukraine, and Russia
from 1990 to 2002. The data reveal a clear distinction between the Hungarian
party system and the others. Between 1990 and 2002, elected independent
single-member district legislators averaged only 1% of all elected Hungarian
single-member district legislators. In two elections, 1994 and 2002, no inde-
pendent won a single-member district election. The average percentage of
independent single-member district legislators was significantly higher in
both Russia and Ukraine. In Russia, an average of 48.2% of single-member
district seats went to independent candidates. In Ukraine, an average of
46.9% of seats went to independent candidates. Notice that whereas the per-
centage of independents decreased in Ukraine from the 1998 to 2002 elec-
tion, the percentage actually increased from the 1995 to 1999 Russian elec-
tion. These results illustrate clearly the weak institutionalization of the
Russian and Ukrainian party systems vis-à-vis the Hungarian system.
Differences in the level of party system institutionalization between these
three countries can be further elucidated by looking at data on “missing par-
ties” (see Table 2). Missing parties are those that received proportional repre-
sentation votes in one election but received no votes in the subsequent elec-
tion.8 One of the chronic ailments of weakly institutionalized party systems is
a constant turnover in political parties that prevent the development of strong
voter attachments (Mainwaring, 1999). A high percentage of missing party
votes not only testifies to electoral volatility but also to significant changes in
party options available to voters. As with the case of single-member district
candidate partisanship, Hungary clearly demonstrated evidence of a more
institutionalized party system in comparison with both Russia and Ukraine.
Between 1990 and 1998, on average, only 3.9% of the proportional represen-
8. Parties that formed coalitions with new parties are not considered missing.

Table 2
Percentage Proportional Representation Vote of Missing Parties
Country 1990 1993 1994 1995 1998 Mean
Hungary 3.3 4.7 3.7 3.9

Ukraine 14.1 12.8 13.4
Russia 11.2 26.6 18.9
Note: Percentage of proportional representation vote in election year for parties that received no
votes in the following election.
tation vote went to parties that were missing in the next election. The situa-
tion in Russia and Ukraine was worse, 18.9% and 13.4%, respectively. Yet as
with the data on independent deputies, Ukraine appears to be slightly better
off than Russia.
Why would parties play such a stronger role in Hungary? Ishiyama (1997)
points out that political parties led the Hungarian democratic transition.
Unlike both Russia and Ukraine, where the transition was dominated by indi-
viduals without strong party ties, the Hungarian political parties negotiated
the end of communism. Thus when the election law was created for the 1990
parliamentary elections, it is no surprise that the party leaders created a law to
ensure that the major political parties would dominate parliamentary politics
(Racz & Kukorelli, 1995). In fact, the addition of national and territorial lists
served as insurance policies that allowed party leaders to obtain seats, even if
they lost single-member district contests. Moreover, the electoral rules were
designed to limit the ability of independent candidates to win seats in the
single-member district elections (Benoit, 2001). The fact that the main insti-
gators of the transition were political parties, coupled with the fact that these
parties created electoral laws to benefit their interests, certainly allowed them
to play a more dominant role in postcommunist politics. The point is not that
the Hungarian system does not show aspects of weak institutionalization in
comparison with Western party systems; instead, the point is that the Hungar-
ian party system is more institutionalized in comparison with post-Soviet
Russia and Ukraine.
Although all three countries have evidence of weakly institutionalized
party systems, it is clear that important differences existed between them. In
comparison with both Russia and Ukraine, Hungary clearly had the stron-
gest, most institutionalized party system. From the very beginning, Hungar-
ian political parties dominated the single-member district nominations, giv-
ing them a clear advantage over potential rivals, an advantage that neither
Ukrainian nor Russian political parties shared. If Hungary had the strongest

system, Russia had the weakest during this period. The Russian system had
the highest percentages of elected nonpartisan single-member district can-
didates and of vote for missing parties. Ukraine fell in the middle between
the two, though the data in Tables 1 and 2 clearly indicate that the Ukrainian
party system is much closer to the Russian than the Hungarian.
What does this mean for the mandate divide debate? If strong party
institutionalization changes single-member district legislators’ incentives to
prevent a mandate divide, then there should be no evidence of one in the Hun-
garian Parliament. If weak party institutionalization promotes a mandate
divide, then there is more likely to be evidence of one in Ukraine or Russia.
DATA AND METHOD
To find evidence of a mandate divide, I analyzed patterns of party disci-

pline using all electronically recorded roll-call votes from the Hungarian
State Assembly between 1994 and 1998, the Russian State Duma between
1994 and 1995, and the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada between 1998 and 2002.9
The time periods cover the second postcommunist legislature and span an
entire election cycle in each country.
Using the roll-call data, I created a measure of party discipline, iUNITY,
as a dependent variable in a series of regression models. iUNITY measures
the rate at which individual legislators voted with the majority position of
their party.10 The individual roll-call votes used to calculate iUNITY were
weighted to take into account the importance of votes. Votes that were either
closely contested or featured high levels of attendance were weighted more
heavily. Table 3 provides the descriptive statistics for iUNITY in each legisla-
ture across all sessions.11
To measure the impact of mandate, I include the dummy independent vari-
able SMD in all models. All single-member district deputies are coded 1,
whereas all others are coded 0.12 If a mandate divide exists in the legislature,
9. The Russian roll-call data were taken from the database created by the Center for Applied
Political Research, Moscow. The Ukrainian roll-call data can be found at http://www.rada.kiev.
ua/. The Hungarian roll-call data can be found at http://www.mkogy.hu/.
10. The appendix explains in more detail how iUNITY was calculated.
11. In Table 3, as in the regression models, legislators from all sessions in each legislature are
pooled. There were nine sessions of the Hungarian National Assembly between 1994 and 1998
and nine session of the Ukrainian Rada between 1998 and 1992. The Duma, which sat between
1994 and 1995, had only four sessions.
12. Both the territorial proportional representation and the compensatory legislators are
coded 0 in the Hungarian model.

Table 3
Descriptive Statistics for iUNITY by Legislature
Legislature N M SD
National Assembly 3,387 0.614 0.219

Verkhovna Rada 3,624 0.612 0.214
State Duma 1,588 0.507 0.223
then SMD should be statistically significant. This would indicate a statisti-

cally significant difference in levels of party discipline between single-mem-
ber district and proportional representation deputies. Furthermore, the logic
of the mandate divide hypothesis argues that not only should there be a differ-
ence in the level of party support by mandate, but there should be a negative
correlation between SMD and iUNITY. If they behave differently due to their
inclination to cast personal votes at the expense of party discipline, then sin-
gle-member district deputies should be less disciplined in comparison with
proportional representation deputies.
The electoral rules of each system allow legislators to run simultaneously
as both single-member district and party list candidates. Potentially, this
gives parties another lever of control over single-member district deputies
because they can offer candidates the insurance of a space on a party list
(Benoit, 2001; Herron, 2002). To control for this possibility, the Rada and
Duma models will contain the DUAL independent dummy variable, which
codes all dual candidates as 1. It is more complicated to control for list candi-
dacy in the Hungarian National Assembly, because single-member district
candidates could be placed on territorial party lists as a well as the national
compensatory list. Thus the Hungarian model contains the TERRITORIAL
variable, indicating dual single-member district and territorial list candidacy,
and NATIONAL, indicating dual single-member district and national list can-
didacy. In addition, single-member district legislators could have been
placed on both lists; therefore, the Hungarian model includes the NATION/
TERR, which indicates those single-member district legislators who were
members simultaneously on both lists.
Party discipline could be an artifact of a legislator’s particular parliamen-
tary party; therefore, all models will contain dummy variables indicating
party membership.
All models pool legislators from each session of each legislature. Thus I
include dummy variables indicating membership in the individual sessions
of each legislature.

RESULTS
Table 4 presents the results of the Tobit regression models for each legisla-
ture.13 If one compares the results across all three models, one finds little evi-
dence of a mandate divide in all but the Duma. In the National Assembly
model, SMD is not statistically significant, indicating that a mandate divide
did not exist when controlling for other factors. SMD, perhaps surprisingly,
was also not statistically significant in the Rada model. In the Duma model,
however, SMD was statistically significant and negatively correlated with
iUNITY; therefore, not only did a mandate divide exist during this period, but
also single-member district deputies were less disciplined than their propor-
tional representation counterparts were.
What explains the absence of a divide in the Rada? This result mirrors pre-
vious studies of the Ukrainian Rada (Herron, 2002); however, it is surprising
given the weakness of both systems. The data presented earlier on the Ukrai-
nian system suggest that it is a more institutionalized party system in Ukraine
as compared to Russia. The Ukrainian party system was more institution-
alized in terms of the percentage of elected independent single-member dis-
trict deputies and vote for missing parties (see Tables 1 and 2), though only
slightly more, than the Russian was. Moreover, the Rada elected in 1998 was
the first mixed-member Rada; however, it was the second democratically
elected Rada. In Russia, however, the December 1993 elections for the Duma
were the first postcommunist ones. This greater experience with elections
may explain the slight advantage in institutionalization owned by Ukraine. In
addition, on average, Ukrainian parties between 1998 and 2002 were signifi-
cantly more disciplined than Russian parties were between 1994 and 1995
(see Table 3). This suggests a generally stronger level of discipline or coher-
ence amongst Rada members. One study that examined this divide found that
the cause of this difference appeared to be a strong, reinforcing ideological/
regional cleavage in Ukraine that structured Rada party politics and gave
electoral incentives for deputies from certain regions to back certain political
parties (Thames, 2003). Such a cleavage was absent from the Duma during
this period.
The impact of multiple candidacies varies among the different legisla-
tures. In the National Assembly model, neither TERRITORIAL nor NATION/
TERR is statistically significant. Thus, single-member district legislators
who were either on the territorial list or on both a national and territorial list
did not behave differently. Surprisingly, a single-member district deputy on
13. iUNITY can take any value between 1 and –1. Because it is censored at –1 and 1, I use a
Tobit regression model appropriate for a censored dependent variable.

Table 4
Tobit Models for National Assembly, Verkhovna Rada, and State Duma
(Dependent Variable = iUNITY)
Model 1: Model 2: Model 3:

National Assembly Rada State Duma
Independent Variable Coefficient SE Coefficient SE Coefficient SE
SMD 0.027 0.019 –0.007 0.011 –0.034* 0.015

DUAL 0.016 0.013 0.060* 0.018
NATIONAL –0.069** 0.024
TERRITORIAL 0.022 0.020
NATION/TERR 0.018 0.027
FIDESZ –0.089** 0.022
FKGP 0.114** 0.021
MDF 0.029 0.021
MSZP 0.125** 0.018
SZDSZ 0.139** 0.018
MDNP 0.026 0.030
CPU 0.158** 0.014
RUKH(U) 0.052** 0.018
PZU –0.074** 0.019
NDP –0.010 0.017
GROMADA –0.120** 0.021
PSP 0.102** 0.028
SDPU(o) –0.017 0.017
RU –0.139** 0.027
YABLUKO –0.034 0.029
SP –0.061 0.032
BATKYV –0.154** 0.020
TU 0.100** 0.019
VR –0.095** 0.022
RTs 0.010 0.023
UNITY –0.141** 0.033
DS –0.117** 0.029
SOL –0.122** 0.023
RUKH(K) –0.016 0.021
YABLOKO 0.113** 0.025
AGRARIAN 0.073** 0.020
RC 0.066** 0.020
DPR –0.020 0.031
CPRF 0.272** 0.021
LDPR 0.130** 0.021
WOR 0.089** 0.026
NRP –0.080** 0.021
UNION12 0.108 0.111
(continued)

Table 4 (continued)
Model 1: Model 2: Model 3:

National Assembly Rada State Duma
Independent Variable Coefficient SE Coefficient SE Coefficient SE
RUSSIA –0.150** 0.037

STABILITY –0.113** 0.025
Constant 0.506* 0.020 0.622* 0.020 0.454* 0.018
Cases (censored) 3,373 (50) 3,624 (6) 1,588 (2)

Note: FIDESZ = Fidez-Hungarian Civic Party; FKGP = Independent Smallholders’ Party;
MDF = Hungarian Democratic Forum; MSZP = Hungarian Socialist Party; SZDSZ = Alliance of
Free Democrats; MDNP = Hungarian Democratic People’s Party; CPU = Communist Party of
Ukraine; RUKH(U) = Rukh(Udovenko); PZU = Green Party of Ukraine; NDP = People’s Demo-
cratic Party; PSP = Progressive Socialist Party; SDPU(o) = Social Democratic Party of Ukraine
(United); RU = Regions of Ukraine; BATKYV = Bat’kivschyna; TU = Working Ukraine; VR =
Revival of the Regions; RTs = Reforms-Congress; DS = Democratic Union; SOL = Solidarity;
RUKH(K) = Rukh(Kostenko); AGRARIAN = Agrarian Party; RC = Russia’s Choice; DPR =
Democratic Party of Russia; CPRF = Communist Party of the Russian Federation; LDPR = Lib-
eral Democratic Party of Russia; WOR = Women of Russia; NRP = New Regional Policy;
UNION12 = Union of 12 December; NRP = New Regional Policy. The following party dummy
variables were dropped as reference groups: KDNP = Christian Democratic Party; SSPU =
Peasant/Socialist Party; PRES = Party of Russian Unity and Accord.
*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01.
the national list, NATIONAL, is statistically significant but negatively cor-

related with discipline (iUNITY). The interpretation of this result is not
straightforward; however, it may indicate that being only on the national
list may not provide Hungarian single-member district legislators with an
increased sense of security. After all, winning a compensatory seat depends
upon the party’s receiving a large number of votes in the territorial list elec-
tions and/or the single-member district contests but not winning a sufficient
number of votes to obtain seats. For a legislator seeking to ensure reelection,
casting a personal vote may provide more security than relying on the party to
obtain enough surplus votes to gain a compensatory seat.
Even in the comparatively weaker party systems of Ukraine and Russia,
dual candidacy mattered. In both the Duma and the Rada, DUAL is statis-
tically significant and positively correlated with iUNITY. Consequently,
single-member district deputies who had been placed on their party lists
tended to be more disciplined.
One commonality across all legislatures was the significant effect of party
membership on discipline. In the models, 4 of 6 National Assembly party
dummy variables, 12 of the 18 Rada party dummy variables, and 9 of the 11

Duma party dummy variables were statistically significant, indicating the

importance of party-specific factors in determining discipline. In each legis-
lature, party membership was not a consistently positive effect on discipline;
instead, it is clear that some parties were better able to instill discipline than
others were. Membership in the former communist ruling party (the MSZP in
Hungary, the CPU in Ukraine, and the CPRF in Russia) was the most strongly
correlated party dummy variable with iUNITY in each legislature. The legis-
lative coherence of the communist successor parties has been noted by others
(Herron, 2002; Ishiyama, 1999; Smith & Remington, 2001).
Why are communist successor parties more disciplined? Other scholars
have noted that these parties have traditionally maintained significant organi-
zational advantages over other parties (Agh, 1995; Birch, 2000; Ishiyama,
1999, 2000; Oltay, 1994). Moreover, this organizational advantage is often
coupled with a specific leftist platform that makes these parties more similar
to the programmatic political parties of more developed democracies. These
advantages may translate into a stronger party label, which could alter the
calculus of potentially rebellious deputies. Thus the power of communist
successor parties may be based on their electoral resources that could con-
strain single-member district deputies more.
This answer seems plausible given the literature on communist successor
parties. Yet Ishiyama (1999, 2000) notes that both the MSZP and the CPRF
have intensified their recruitment of elite single-member district candidates,
who may control their own electoral resources. This has led to increased frac-
tionalization within the legislature, because such deputies are not dependent
upon the party for their election (Ishiyama, 2000). The long-term implication
of this is that as these parties recruit more viable candidates, they in turn will
reduce their influence over them. Consequently, the advantages owned by
communist successor parties may disappear as the result of their attempts to
maximize seats.
More broadly, this argument raises interesting questions about the future
of the mandate divide in each of these countries as well as others. Increasing
party-system institutionalization should undermine the existence of the man-
date divide to the extent that parties play a greater role in the electoral cam-
paigns of single-member district deputies. Yet if the ability of candidates to
win local elections without the benefit of parties continues even if there is evi-
dence of party-system institutionalization in some areas, then a mandate
divide may continue to exist. If even the relatively more institutionalized par-
ties, the communist successor parties, turn toward recruiting more notable,
but independent, candidates, then a mandate divide could continue to perpet-
uate itself or even reemerge in different contexts.

CONCLUSION
The increasing use of mixed-member electoral systems has created a chal-

lenge for political science scholars to comprehend the complex effects they
will have on politics. Given our understanding of the electoral incentives cre-
ated by single-member district and proportional representation systems,
many have hypothesized the potential of a legislative behavior division
within mixed system legislators; however, the empirical evidence of the
divide’s existence remained inconsistent. This article attempted to explain
the inconsistency in the presence of the mandate divide by focusing on party
system institutionalization. Using a statistical analysis of party discipline in
three mixed-member legislatures, I found that a mandate divide existed only
in the Russian Duma and neither in the Ukrainian Rada nor in the Hungarian
National Assembly. The fact that evidence of the divide was only found in the
legislature with the most weakly institutionalized party system, the Duma,
supports the primary contention of this article.
The implications of these findings suggest that mandate divides are crea-
tures of extremely weak party systems. Thus mixed-member systems in
countries with more developed party systems are not likely to suffer from
mandate divides. The fact that the Ukrainian Rada lacked a divide even with
significant evidence of weak party institutionalization may indicate a low
threshold for their development.
Although the logic of the argument presented here is straightforward and
the empirical evidence supports it, more work needs to be undertaken to
solidify these conclusions. For one thing, the results presented here clearly
indicate a variation between the electoral resources of different parties. It is
probable that not all political parties provide electoral benefits to single-
member district candidates equally. Thus the absence of a mandate divide in
the legislature overall may not reflect the fact that some political parties may
suffer from them. For this type of research, one must be able to differentiate
political parties according to their ability to affect the electoral chances of
single-member district candidates. More important, researchers need to
expand the search for a mandate divide in more institutionalized mixed-
member party systems. The creation of mixed-member systems in advanced
democracies such as Japan, New Zealand, and Italy gives researchers the
opportunity to extend the search for the mandate divide beyond the post-
communist context.
The study of legislative behavior in postcommunist states is only in its
infancy. Nevertheless, the large number of mixed-member electoral systems
found in the postcommunist world provides the opportunity to not only un-

derstand pathologies specific to these legislatures but to begin untangling the

complex dynamics of mixed-member systems more generally. This type of
research can serve as the basis for understanding how mixing types of repre-
sentation affect not only the understanding of legislative behavior but also the
legislatures’ ability to perform its critical functions.
APPENDIX
To measure party discipline, I use a variation of Carey’s (2000, 2002) UNITY scores.
UNITY scores for political parties are calculated as follows:
UNITYij = |pctyes-pctno| for party i on vote j, where the percentages are calculated
as shares for all members of party/coalition (Carey, 2000, p. 4).
This produces unweighted measures of party discipline.

The problem with many party discipline measures based on roll-call votes is that
not all votes have equal importance. To deal with this problem, UNITY scores can be
weighted to increase the importance of votes that are closely contested and have a
high percentage of legislators voting (Carey, 2000, 2002). CLOSE measures the de-
gree to which the “for” and “against” sides are equal:
CLOSEj = 1 – (1/THRESHOLD*|THRESHOLD – pctyes|),

where THRESHOLD equals the percentage of deputies need to
pass the particular piece of legislation (Carey, 2000, p. 7).
As CLOSE nears 1, the distribution of “for” and “against” votes approaches 0. Thus
votes that are closer weigh more heavily than those that are not. Because a close vote
would denote a contentious issue, party support on this issue is of more critical impor-
tance. UNITY can also be weighted by ATTEND, which simply measures the percent-
age of legislators participating in the vote (Carey, 2002). Poor attendance, like partici-
pation, is another indication of a vote’s significance. Weighted UNITY scores for
political parties are calculated as follows:
UNITYi = ΣUNITYij*ATTENDj*CLOSEj /ΣCLOSEij*ATTENDij (Carey, 2002).
With these weighted UNITY scores, one can compare the party discipline of individ-
ual political parties without assuming that all votes are equally important.
I have adapted weighted party UNITY scores to create individual weighted scores
to measure an individual legislator’s party discipline, iUNITY. To do this, I coded each
legislator j’s vote k as either 1, if he or she voted with the party’s majority position, or
–1, if he or she voted against the party’s majority position. Then I calculated iUNITY
for each legislator as follows:

N
iUNITYj = ∑
j , k = 1…N
∗CLOSE k ∗ ATTENDk / Σ CLOSE jk ∗ ATTENDjk .
This creates the dependent variable iUNITY that measures individual legislator party
discipline, weighted for the closeness and participation of the vote.
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A HOUSE DIVIDED Party Strength and The Mandate Divide in Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine

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COMPARATIVE

Keywords: mixed-member; electoral systems; legislature; party discipline, postcommunist;

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institutionalized systems, one is more likely to see evidence of a mandate

THE LOGIC OF THE

At their core, all mixed-member systems attempt to balance two “inher-

4. This assumes a closed party list and no intraparty competition.

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cajole discipline among legislators, because the denial of these resources

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ever, parties cannot readily punish or ignore wayward single-member district

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Country 1990 1993 1994 1995 1998 1999 2002 Mean

Hungary 3.4 0.0 0.6 0.0 1.0

didates in single-member district elections. Mainwaring (1997) argues that a

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Country 1990 1993 1994 1995 1998 Mean

Hungary 3.3 4.7 3.7 3.9

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DATA AND METHOD

To find evidence of a mandate divide, I analyzed patterns of party disci-

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National Assembly 3,387 0.614 0.219

then SMD should be statistically significant. This would indicate a statisti-

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Model 1: Model 2: Model 3:

SMD 0.027 0.019 –0.007 0.011 –0.034* 0.015

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Model 1: Model 2: Model 3:

RUSSIA –0.150** 0.037

Cases (censored) 3,373 (50) 3,624 (6) 1,588 (2)

the national list, NATIONAL, is statistically significant but negatively cor-

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Duma party dummy variables were statistically significant, indicating the

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The increasing use of mixed-member electoral systems has created a chal-

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derstand pathologies specific to these legislatures but to begin untangling the

This produces unweighted measures of party discipline.

CLOSEj = 1 – (1/THRESHOLD*|THRESHOLD – pctyes|),

UNITYi = ΣUNITYij*ATTENDj*CLOSEj /ΣCLOSEij*ATTENDij (Carey, 2002).

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Frank C. Thames is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas

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Вам также может понравиться

UNITYi = ΣUNITYijATTENDjCLOSEj /ΣCLOSEij*ATTENDij (Carey, 2002).