Party Defections and the Proximity Between MPs and Parties

What are the effects of party defections on the feelings of politicians who remained loyal to the party? The present paper tries to answer this question using original data on parliamentary party switching to estimate how this affects the perceived distance between a politician and its party. With the theory of cognitive dissonance in mind, and under the idea that splits represent a traumatic experience, we argue that politicians should perceived themselves closer to their party when they belong to parties that have recently suffered defections. Furthermore, we expect that the effect of splits should be greater among incumbent MPs as they directly experienced the trauma, but also among MPs who are dissatisfied with the leadership as their dissonance should be stronger. Using data from two candidate surveys, Comparative Candidate Survey and PartiRep MP Survey, we test our hypotheses on a sample of 9,328 politicians that ran in 21 elections held between 2005 and 2013 in 14 countries. The results of statistical analysis are in line with the expectations and advance our knowledge about the consequences of intra-party division on politicians and their parties. The results can also represent a good news in terms of accountability and responsiveness.