The Impact of Party-Switching on Legislative Behavior in Brazil

In this paper, I examine the impact of party-switching on legisla-tor’s roll-call votes in Brazil. About one-third of deputies change party during each four year term; some change as many as seven times. Such volatility challenges basic concepts of representation- if legislators change their policy positions to accommodate their new party, they violate the basic utility of party labels for electoral information cost reduction. This research has an additional utility. Legislative scholars agree that political parties are important parts of modern democracy, but roll-call based measures of party influence cannot separate out ∗I thank Argelina Figueiredo and Fernando Limongi for generously sharing their data. For excellent research assistance, I thank Moema Bonelli. 1 the influence of legislators own preferences and party directives. An-alyzing the behavior of switchers before and after they change party gives us leverage on this and the ongoing “do parties matter ” debates. I find significant and consistent party effects on legislative behavior, even when controlling for executive influence.