New York Democrats prepare for governor contest

Significance The mayoral election starts a busy and uncertain year for Democrats in the city and state of New York. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor in August, was widely expected to run for a fourth term in November 2022 and his departure has opened the governor’s race while loosening party discipline. Impacts Hochul’s conservative positions, rooted in her upstate Buffalo base, mean she needs to win some support from the left. New York state’s moratorium on evictions due to the pandemic may be extended beyond its current expiry in January. After legalising the recreational use of marijuana in April, state Democrats must now decide how to regulate the market.

The Paradigm Shift in the Disciplining of Village Cadres in China: From Mao to Xi

Village cadres are important agents for the state yet disciplining them has been difficult. There are few disciplinary tools that can easily hold them to account. Prior to 2018, Party discipline did not apply to non-Party cadres. Legislation was ambiguous in relation to these grassroots agents and had to rely heavily on legal interpretation. The impact of the cadre evaluation system on village cadres, who are not considered to be public servants on the state payroll, was limited. This situation has changed since 2018. The party-state has consolidated and institutionalized ways in which grassroots cadres are checked and disciplined. Instead of relying on policy regulation, which had been the dominant disciplinary method since 1949, village cadres are now fully subject to Party rules and state laws. These changes have been accomplished through the application of three measures. First, village Party secretaries are to serve concurrently as village heads, and members of village and Party committees are to overlap, thereby making them subject to Party discipline. Second, village cadres are now considered to be “public agents” and are on an equal legal footing with other state agents. Finally, a campaign waged by the criminal justice apparatus cleaned up village administration and prepared it for upcoming village elections in a new era.

Turkey

This chapter focuses on legislative speechmaking patterns in Turkey over four election cycles between 1995 and 2011. Specifically, the chapter aims to test the theory of legislative speechmaking outlined earlier in this volume, where political parties in closed-list proportional electoral systems are hypothesized to have full control over the speakers’ list to ensure the party discipline and unity. Results based on 35,000 legislative speeches made by over 2100 MPs do not support some elements of the outlined theory. In particular, I show that as the number of terms served in the parliament increases, the propensity to take the legislative floor decreases. Additionally, government party MPs are significantly less likely to take the floor. However, in line with the theory, cabinet ministers take the floor much more frequently, relative to others. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of the theory of legislative speechmaking around the world.

Birds of a Feather? Loyalty and Partisanship in the Reformed Canadian Senate

Since 2015, the Canadian Senate has undergone a series of reforms designed to make it more independent, ideologically diverse, and active in the legislative process. We use loyalty scores and vote scaling algorithms to situate the voting behaviour of senators, focusing primarily on the 41st and 42nd Parliaments (2011–2019), the period just before and after the changes, respectively. We find that the reforms have led to a loosening of party discipline across all parties and caucuses but that independent senators appointed under the reformed process are the most likely supporters of the government's agenda. We also find that the Senate has become more willing to use its formal powers.

Businessperson Deputies and Party Cohesion: Evidence from the Russian State Duma

Previous explorations of Russia’s mixed electoral system uncovered conflicting results on party discipline in legislative voting. The effect in recent convocations is modest, with single-member district deputies expressing slightly less factional loyalty than those elected under proportional representation. However, factors other than electoral mandate may also affect party cohesion. In particular, a definitive connection exists between holding public office in Russia and the opportunity to maximize personal profit-seeking. Using individual-level reading voting data on budgetary bills from the 7th State Duma, I examine how the profit-seeking behavior of deputies who previously held business positions at the executive level influences party cohesion. I find significant evidence that deputies with previous executive business positions defect from their party more frequently than those without. The effect is marginally greater for deputies elected from single-member districts rather than the party-list. These findings have greater implications for party cohesion and the involvement of businesspeople in national legislatures.

Gender and Party Discipline: Evidence from Africa’s Emerging Party Systems

Are men and women legislators equally loyal to their parties? We theorize that parties select candidates based on gendered criteria, leading to the (s)election of more disciplined women. Moreover, we argue that gendered expectations about proper behavior limit women legislators’ ability to act independently from their parties. Using surveys from over 800 parliamentarians across 17 African legislatures, we find that women report significantly higher levels of party discipline than do their men copartisans. From this survey data and new legislative speech data, we also find support for our proposed causal mechanisms. Further, we find that among women parliamentarians, party discipline is negatively correlated with the prioritization of womens rights. A qualitative case study of the Namibian Parliament illustrates our findings. We discuss the implications of our results for women’s legislative effectiveness, for the substantive representation of women’s interests in policy making, and for the continued democratization of emerging party systems.

Allies among Enemies: Political authority and party (dis)loyalty in Bangladesh

The authority of political leaders in Bangladesh rests on diverse qualities, not least of which are the muscle and finance they can mobilize, and the relationships they can craft with senior party members. These are utilized to confront rivals both within and outside their own party. In some instances, the intensity of intra-party competition can be so severe that a further quality emerges: the capacity to find allies among enemies. Building local inter-party alliances can bolster the authority of politicians, yet be to the detriment of party coherence. This argument is developed through an analysis of mayoral and parliamentary elections held in the past decade in a small Bangladeshi city, where a ruling party member of parliament (MP) and opposition mayor appear to have developed such a relationship. This has thwarted the electoral ambitions of their fellow party members and has posed a serious challenge to party discipline. While political competition is often seen as being either inter- or intra-party, here it is focused around inter-party alliances. This portrayal suggests we need to give greater emphasis to the decentralized and local character that political authority can take in Bangladesh.

Party Unity and Discipline in Canadian Politics

Anyone with a passing understanding of Canadian politics is aware of the stubborn presence of party discipline in the parliamentary system. It is not a phenomenon that has been left to the stuffy corners of the ivory tower. Political actors and the media have complained about party discipline for decades. Reforms have been proposed; party leaders have promised new ways forward. As a central trait of Canadian Parliament, party discipline has driven away voters—it has even inspired the development of new political parties. What role can Canadian political science play in understanding party discipline 75 years after these familiar sentiments appeared in the predecessor to this journal: “How could this control [party discipline] be destroyed, and the individual member be made an independent critic of government and of legislation, and a responsible servant of the people” (Morton, 1946: 136)? It turns out Canadian political science has much to offer. With the publication of J. F. Godbout's Lost on Division: Party Unity in the Canadian Parliament and Alex Marland's Whipped: Party Discipline in Canada, 2020 has been a monumental year for the study of Canadian Parliament and political parties.