1. Does Party Switching Affect the Quality of Democracy?
Evidence from Brazil

2. Background Why does party switching matter?
Scholarly work assumes that party switching has a negative effect on democracy
Party switching as an independent variable

3. Why Brazil? Rampant party switching Fragmented party system
Recent law provides advantages for testing hypotheses about party switching

4. Party Fidelity Law
Recent law made policy switching punishable by loss of mandate
Applies to all elected officials
Will significantly reduce party switching
Justifications for law mirror scholarly assumptions about party switching

5. Hypotheses
H1: Party switching has a negative effect on parties’ legislative strength
H2: Party switching has a negative effect on parties’ electoral strength
H3: Party switching weakens parties’ roots in society

6. Research Design Independent variable Different treatment levels
Rate of party switching
Different treatment levels
Dependent variables
Party cohesion
Incidence of party voting
Party affiliation levels / Voters’ opinions of parties
Multiple pretests and posttests

7. Questions and Problems
Any ideas about these or other dependent variables?
What about control groups?
Anticipation effects
Lack of literature examining party switching as an independent variable