Legislative Party Switching as a Strategy of Political Survival: Evidence from Slovakia

This paper examines legislative party switching in the Slovak National Council through the lens of political survival and career-oriented strategic adaptation. While existing research on party switching has convincingly identified its key drivers—most notably office-seeking, policy-seeking, and vote-seeking motivations—it has predominantly focused on the immediate causes and institutional correlates of switching behaviour. Much less attention has been paid to what party switching does for legislators over time, particularly in terms of their subsequent career trajectories and re-election prospects. This paper seeks to address this gap by reframing legislative club switching as a forward-looking, pragmatic strategy aimed at maximising political survival in electorally volatile contexts. Empirically, the study draws on an original longitudinal dataset of 1113 MPs across six legislative terms in Slovakia between 2002 and 2023, focusing on all parliamentary party switchers recorded during these terms. Slovakia represents a particularly suitable research setting due to its high levels of electoral volatility, a strongly personalised electoral system, and the recurrent presence of weakly institutionalised, entrepreneurial, and socially unrooted political parties. In such an environment, MPs face heightened uncertainty regarding the longevity of their party, electoral viability, and future access to political resources, which may intensify incentives for strategic legislative mobility. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, the paper identifies patterns of party switching across legislative terms and maps the individual backgrounds of switching MPs, situating these findings within the broader structure of the Slovak party system. Second, it examines the organisational characteristics of parties from which MPs defect and those they subsequently join, with particular attention to differences between weakly institutionalised and more consolidated political actors. We hypothesise that switching is more likely to occur from electorally fragile and organizationally unstable parties toward actors perceived as offering greater prospects of political survival. Third, the paper analyses MPs’ post-switch career outcomes, focusing on whether switching increases the likelihood of re-election, continued parliamentary presence, or entry into governing coalitions in subsequent electoral cycles. In this step, particular attention is paid to shifts between opposition and government-aligned parties, capturing switching as a strategic response to anticipated access to power and political resources. Methodologically, the study combines descriptive and correlational analyses to trace recurring patterns of legislative mobility and career outcomes. Rather than inferring MPs’ subjective motivations, the paper focuses on observable consequences of switching behaviour. Substantively, it contributes to the literature by conceptualizing party switching not merely as an expression of short-term incentives or ideological repositioning, but as a strategic individual effort to secure continued parliamentary representation in contemporary party systems. By situating the Slovak case within broader debates on party system institutionalization and elite behaviour in Central and Eastern Europe, the paper offers insights relevant to comparative research on legislative mobility, political careers, and democratic stability in volatile democracies.