Can we measure political unity in hybrid regimes? New data from Zambia.
PS7-2
Presented by: Haakon Gjerløw
How can we measure unity in nondemocratic parliaments? Permanently organised and disciplined political parties are among the most important institutions that promote collective rationality over individual incentives in the political sphere. Explaining the development of strong party structures in the European and North American parliaments, usually in the 19th century, has been an important part of modern theories on democratisation. The opaqueness of legislatures in hybrid regimes makes it difficult test similar theories on modern, nondemocratic regimes. We rectify this with a new dataset on the political system of Zambia since 1996, with information on all members of parliament, all parliamentary minutes, portfolio allocations, court rulings, and electoral candidates. To our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive dataset of a nondemocratic political system, and most comprehensive dataset of any African polity. We propose a multidimensional concept of unity based on I) behavioural unity, measured as unity in voting based on roll-call votes in parliament; II) ideological unity, measured as unity in stated opinions in parliamentary speeches; and III) organisational unity, measured as party switches.