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Institutional Foundations of Legislative Turnover: A Comparative Analysis of the Swiss Cantons
Author(s) -
HEINSOHN TILL,
FREITAG MARKUS
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
swiss political science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.632
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1662-6370
pISSN - 1424-7755
DOI - 10.1111/j.1662-6370.2012.02078.x
Subject(s) - legislature , parliament , turnover , elite , proportional representation , political science , representation (politics) , volatility (finance) , demographic economics , economics , public economics , public administration , econometrics , politics , law , management , democracy
The rate of turnover within parliaments remains an understudied area of research. The present paper contributes to filling this gap by presenting the first comparable macro‐level data on legislative turnover in the 26 Swiss cantonal legislatures. In examining the strikingly different levels of turnover in sub‐national Swiss parliaments between 1993 and 2011, the focus is on politico‐institutional features. Multilevel models reveal that two hitherto neglected institutional variables are correlated with legislative turnover. In addition to the reduction of parliamentary size, we find the strength of a cantonal parliament to affect turnover rates on the Swiss sub‐national level. Moreover, we show that proportional representation significantly promotes parliamentary elite circulation. Among the non‐institutional covariates, we find that electoral volatility is also relevant in explaining legislative turnover rates.