Journal Articles

Fluid party systems, electoral rules and accountability of legislators in emerging democracies: the case of Ukraine

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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.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Party Politics

Call Number

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Publisher

: Sage Publications., 2008

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

13540688

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Vol. 14, No. 1, January 2008. Page 91-112

Subject(s)

Electoral accountability
Electoral format
New party systems
Political control
FLUID PARTY SYSTEMS, ELECTORAL

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