This paper seeks to resolve the puzzle of an unexpected difference in the rates of party switching between Canada and Israel. Although it is well known that party-centered electoral systems, such as the closed-list proportional representation that Israel has used since the creation of the State, incentivize elected legislators to remain loyal to their party groups more than candidate-centered electoral systems do, such as Canada’s first-past-the-post, party switching rates in the two national parliaments do not bear out this expectation. Whereas less than 10% of Canadian deputies have changed their partisan affiliation in an inter-election period (Tardi 2007), almost a quarter of Israeli deputies have changed their party label at least once between two elections. In other words, party switching rates are higher in Israel than in Canada in spite of what we would expect give the institutional incentives of the electoral systems of the two democracies. The paper hypothesizes that the format of the party system provides the missing link between electoral laws and party switching rates. As such, closed-list PR generates higher rates of party switching in Israel than first-past-the-post in Canada because in equilibrium it leads to a more fragmented legislative party system where even small perturbations in party weights, caused by even relatively small party switches, can cause significant changes in party’s bargaining power.

Csaba Nikolenyi received his PhD from the University of British Columbia in 2000 and was hired by Concordia University the same year. His research focuses on the comparative study of political parties, electoral systems and legislatures in post-communist democracies as well as on the political systems of Israel and India. He was former English Co-Editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science (2006-11). He served as Code Administrator in the Faculty of Arts and Science between 2009 and 2011 and as Chair of the Department of PoliticalScience between 2011 and 2014. Currently, he is the Director of the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies. Dr. Nikolenyi has published extensively in comparative politics journals and has authored two books: Minority Government in India (Routledge 2010) and Institutional Design and Party Government in Post-Communist Democracies (Oxford University Press, 2014). He was Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2007-8) and at the Centre for European Studies at the Australian National University (2012).