How the Party Can Win in Personal Vote Systems: The “Selectoral Connection” and Legislative Voting in Lithuania

JESSICA ROBINSON PREECEBrigham Young University

How the Party Can Win inPersonal Vote Systems:The “Selectoral Connection”and Legislative Voting in Lithuania

Electoral rules can motivate politicians to cultivate a “personal vote” through theirlegislative voting records. However, I argue that candidate-selection procedures have theability to overpower these electoral incentives. This study—the first systematic study ofhow candidate selection and electoral rules interact—takes advantage of Lithuania’sunique mixed electoral rules and fortuitous candidate-selection procedures. Regardless ofelectoral rules, MPs whose future careers depend on getting renominated by central partyleaders vote against the party less than those whose careers do not. This evidence of a“selectoral connection” suggests candidate-selection procedures must be studied muchmore seriously.

Scholars of legislative politics have long debated the importance ofthe “electoral connection”—the principal-agent ties that bind legislatorsto their electorates and encourage them to take electorate-friendly posi-tions on legislation (Mayhew 1974). In the comparative literature onlegislative party voting, scholars have found some support for the ideathat legislators will vote against their party to cultivate a personal votewith their electorate, but findings are not consistent across countries(Clark, Martinaitis, and Dilba 2008; Ferrara 2004; Herron 2002;Ishiyama 2000; Jun and Hix 2010; Kunicova and Remington 2008;Sieberer 2010; Thames 2005, 2007).

I contend that scholars find limited support for the effect of theelectoral connection on legislative voting because they generally failto account for what I call the “selectoral connection”: the principal-agent ties that bind politicians to those who influence whether (andin what order) they appear as candidates for the party on the ballot.Candidate selectorates—be they primary-election voters or party elites insmoke-filled rooms—can have a profound influence on the trajectory ofpoliticians’ careers in a party, and wise politicians foster a selectoral

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LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, XXXIX, 2, May 2014 147DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12040© 2014 The Comparative Legislative Research Center of The University of Iowa

connection with them. But despite the potential influence of candidateselectorates, scholars have generally neglected the role they play in empiri-cal work. Consequently, in this article I examine the influence of candidateselection vis-à-vis electoral rules on legislative party voting in a settingin which electoral rules and candidate-selection procedures pulllegislators in opposing directions: Lithuania’s national parliament, theSeimas.

Using panel logistic regression, I analyze all 3,047 roll-call votesthat took place during the 2000–2004 legislative term. Despite the pre-cision that comes from over 300,000 data points per estimation, I find noevidence to support the hypothesis that electoral rules motivate single-member district (SMD) MPs in Lithuanian’s mixed electoral system todefect from the party line to cultivate a personal vote. MPs representingsingle-member districts voted against their party less than proportionalrepresentation (PR) MPs from party lists. I argue that is due to the factthat SMD candidates were selected by central party leaders, while PRcandidates had a broader selectorate. In a parallel way, dual-listed PRMPs whose preference votes came mostly from the SMD district inwhich they were nominated by their party behaved like “pseudo-SMD”candidates and defected from the party line less than PR MPs whosepreference votes were more geographically dispersed. Both of theseresults support the idea that selectoral incentives can dominate electoralincentives. After discussing these results, I conclude the article byemphasizing the importance of accounting for the selectoral connectionin studies of legislative behavior and political science more broadly.

Theoretical Framework

The Electoral Connection and the Personal Vote

In his analysis ofAmerican congressional elections, Mayhew foundthat politicians habitually engaged in reelection activities, and he dubbedthese activities efforts to cultivate an “electoral connection” with voters(Mayhew 1974, 49). Position taking is one of these important ways inwhich politicians appeal to constituents, and politicians take positionsthrough “speeches before home groups, television appearances, letters,newsletters, press releases, ghostwritten books, Playboy articles, eveninterviews with political scientists” (63).

Most importantly, politicians stake their positions through votes onlegislation: “it is on roll call votes that the crunch comes; there is no wayfor a member to avoid making a record on hundreds of issues, some ofwhich are controversial in his home district” (Mayhew 1974, 65–66).

148 Jessica Robinson Preece

Because it is the home district that ultimately decides the politician’selectoral fate, politicians think twice before taking a position thatwould be unpopular back home. In the comparative politics literature,Mayhew’s electoral connection style of democracy, in which politiciansindividually cultivate support with local constituents and are personallyaccountable to voters, is generally referred to as a “personal vote” style ofdemocracy (Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina 1987; Carey 2009; Carey andShugart 1995).

Personal-vote democracies dramatically contrast with “party vote”democracies, such as those with closed-list proportional representation(Carey 2009; Carey and Shugart 1995; Ranney 1951). In party-votedemocracies, it is the party—not the individual politician—that votersvote for or against. So, it is the party—not the individual politician—thattakes positions. An individual politician’s job in such a setting is tofaithfully promote and execute the party’s position. Hence, to the extentthat politicians in party-vote democracies give speeches, appear on tele-vision, write newsletters, issue press releases, and vote in the legislature,they do so as mouthpieces for the party.

The Electoral Connection Theory of Legislative Voting Falls Short

The difference between these two styles of democracy has causednumerous researchers to hypothesize that there would be observabledifferences in how politicians in these two settings use their legislativevotes. Politicians in electoral connection settings should use legislativevotes to take positions that would appeal to their electorate, while poli-ticians in a party-centric setting should use them to faithfully execute theparty’s desires. In other words, in an effort to foster an electoral connec-tion with their constituents, members of parliament in a personal-votedemocracy sometimes vote against their party; members of parliament ina party-vote democracy do not.

The empirical studies that test this electoral connection hypothesisare generally set in countries with mixed electoral systems.1 In countrieswith mixed electoral systems, parliaments consist of politicians that areelected under multiple electoral institutions—most frequently single-member districts (personal-vote incentives) and proportional representa-tion (party-vote incentives). Both categories of MPs sit in the samechamber, participate in the same debates, and vote on the same bills.Therefore, one can compare the voting records of these types of politi-cians to see if personal-vote politicians take different positions on issuesthan their party-dependent copartisans, presumably in an effort to fosteran electoral connection with constituents.

Legislative Voting in Lithuania 149

In accordance with the electoral connection hypothesis, memberselected from single-member districts vote against their party morefrequently than their closed-list PR copartisans in Russia, Ukraine,Hungary, and Germany (Herron 2002; Kunicova and Remington 2008;Thames 2005, 2007; Sieberer 2010). However, contrary to the electoralconnection hypothesis, SMD MPs actually vote against their party lessthan their PR copartisans in Italy, Lithuania, and South Korea (Clark,Martinaitis, and Dilba 2008; Ferrara 2004; Ishiyama 2000; Jun and Hix2010). This latter set of results are puzzling—why would an MP electedfrom a single-member district toe the party line so loyally while an MPelected from the party list fail to be a faithful mouthpiece for the party?That contradicts the electoral connection logic.

Other puzzling findings arise in the literature as well. For example,Sieberer tests the assumption that local constituency interests motivatepoliticians to defect in Germany, and he finds that electoral districtconcerns do not appear to be what is driving the voting defections ofSMD MPs. He examines whether politicians from the two governingcoalition parties who ran against each other in the same constituencytended to defect on the same bills. Since both would be trying to developan electoral connection with the same geographic constituency and bothare part of the governing coalition, one would expect to see them defect-ing on roughly similar measures. However, he finds almost no evidencethat district MPs and the list MPs who ran against them in the samedistrict vote in tandem with each other (2010, 493). Further, when heexamined how German MPs explained their defections via an “Expla-nation of Vote,” only a single MP justified a defection on the grounds oflocal concerns (2010, 494).

Researchers have proposed a variety of explanations for why theelectoral connection theory holds in some countries but not others.Thames (2007) examines the role of political party institutionalization inRussia and Ukraine and finds that better institutionalized parties havetighter party discipline. Herron (2002) and Jun and Hix (2010) empha-size the complicated issue of career path—what matters most is not SMDversus PR, but the overall level of career safety that a politician has andwhether defecting from the party line will increase or decrease that levelof career safety. Another set of authors point to the “contamination” thathappens between SMD and PR tiers through dual candidacy and sharedparty expectations (Crisp 2007; Herron 2002).

But there is another possible explanation: the manner in whichcandidates are selected. In their discussion of legislative voting in SouthKorea, Jun and Hix (2010, 155–56) note that the strong influence ofcentral party leaders in the candidate-selection process for SMD seats


favors loyal party insiders. And, after examining the puzzling results ofhis statistical analysis of legislative voting in Italy, Ferrara concludes that“the intra-coalitional dynamics that emerged after the 1993 reform haveeffectively prevented voters from exercising any influence over ballotaccess” (2004, 16). In other words, centralized candidate-selection pro-cedures undermined the electoral reforms that were designed to foster anelectoral connection in Italy’s SMD seats. Crisp (2007) also warnsthat too much focus on electoral rules distracts from “other incentivestructures confronting legislators” (2007, 1460), including candidateselection.

In short, several authors have noted that candidate-selection proce-dures likely cause deviations from the electoral connection theory oflegislative voting. But none thus far have developed a nuanced theory ofhow candidate-selection procedures influence legislative voting behaviorand then examined it in an empirically rigorous fashion.

The “Selectoral Connection” Theory of Legislative Voting

Before a candidate has an opportunity to foster an electoral con-nection with voters (in personal vote democracies) or serve as a mouth-piece for his or her party in an election (in party-vote democracies), he orshe must be selected to be a candidate in the election (Gallagher andMarsh 1988; Hazan and Rahat 2010). Though scholars sometimesinclude different parts of the process when they discuss candidate selec-tion, I define candidate selection as the party processes that happenbefore the general election ballot is printed that determine (1) who is onthe ballot and (2) what order they appear in. This selection process cantake a wide variety of forms—from open party primaries to elite nego-tiations in smoke-filled rooms. But in each scenario, the process createsa “candidate selectorate” that politicians must please to get and keeptheir nomination. In other words, whether or not they face incentives tofoster an electoral connection with a geographic electorate, all politiciansface incentives to foster a selectoral connection with their candidateselectorate.

As with fostering an electoral connection, one way in which poli-ticians can foster a selectoral connection is through position taking,especially through their roll-call votes. Hence, legislative voting recordsshould not just reflect the incentives created by electoral rules, theyshould also reflect the incentives created by the selectoral rules. Forexample, when an exclusive group of central party leaders make up acandidate’s selectorate, we should expect to see high legislative partyloyalty (Hazan and Rahat 2010). Why? First, the central party can choose


candidates whose personal beliefs align closely with their own priorities.This increases the ideological homogeneity of the party’s candidates—the underlying party cohesion. Second, the central party can remind thecandidates that failing to toe the party line means angering the party andcould result in “deselection” (or banishment to a losing district or thebottom of the party list) when the party is making nomination decisionsin the next election. This increases a party’s ability to enforce partydiscipline through nomination carrots and sticks. Together, these makefor a more unified legislative party.

In contrast, when other actors—local voters in a primary election orlocal party branches, for example—influence access to good spots on theballot, they can chose politicians with personal beliefs that differ from thecentral party, decreasing the underlying level of ideological cohesion ofthe party’s legislative caucus.2 Further, once in office, politicians mayfoster a connection with their selectorate by defecting from the party linewhen it conflicts with the wishes of their selectorate (Carey and Shugart1995, 418).And, because central party leaders don’t control nominations,they don’t control as many carrots and sticks to enforce party discipline.Together these can lead to a significantly less unified legislative party.

Determining a Legislator’s Candidate Selectorate

All of this assumes that a researcher can determine who a candi-date’s selectorate is. The complexity and opacity of most candidate-selection processes can make this surprisingly difficult. Collecting gooddata on each party’s internal formal and informal candidate-selectionprocesses is, at a minimum, time-consuming. It approaches impossible inparties with poorly institutionalized procedures. In such countries, thebest a researcher can do is to try to ascertain which actors participate inand are most influential in the backroom negotiation process. Thesedifficulties are likely a major reason why empirical research on candidateselection has languished while empirical research on formal electoralrules has flourished. Nevertheless, researchers who neglect candidate-selection procedures neglect a crucial aspect of the political process andfail to get a good picture of a politician’s full package of incentives.

Understanding who a politician will foster a selectoral connectionwith requires understanding the answer to two questions. First, whocontrols the use of the party label (Carey and Shugart 1995; see alsoHazan and Rahat 2010)? Many political parties have tight control overwho is eligible to run under their party label, and they use this to findloyal candidates. For example, in the 1970s the Belgian Socialist Partydictated that most candidates had (1) to have been a member of the


Socialist party, trade union, co-operative and insurance association for atleast five years prior to the primary; (2) to have made annual minimumpurchases from the Socialist co-op; (3) to have been a regular subscriberto the party’s newspaper; (4) to have sent his children to state rather thanCatholic schools; and (5) to have his wife and children enrolled in theappropriate women’s and youth organizations (Hazan and Rahat 2010,20). In contrast, in the United States, prospective candidates can gener-ally just declare themselves a Republican or Democrat and register to runin the party primary. Consequently, American parties have considerablyless influence over who can use the party label.

Control over the party label matters. One example of this was theProgressive Era reform in California called “cross-filing.” Between 1913and 1959, candidates could run simultaneously on both major partyprimary-election ballots (Masket 2007). Party-line legislative voting wasthe norm before the reforms, but once cross-filing was instituted and theCalifornia parties had practically no control over use of their party label,legislative voting in the California Assembly became much less partisan.Clearly, the degree to which parties control the use of the party labelinfluences whether they are an important part of a candidate’s selectorateand hence an actor to consider when taking positions on legislation.

Second, who is involved with the order in which party candidatesare presented to electors?3 In other words, who determines howcandidates appear on the ballot (or pre-election party list)? This issuehas received little systematic examination outside of case studies, butit is quite important.

In single-member districts, politicians must come in first place inthe intraparty candidate-ordering process to move on to the generalelection. As a consequence, whoever makes the decision about whocomes in first has enormous power. It is this fact that causedSchattschneider to remark that “the nominating process . . . has becomethe crucial process of the party. The nature of the nominating proceduredetermines the nature of the party; he who can make the nominations isthe owner of the party” (1942, 64). In closed-list PR, a candidate’spre-election ranking on the party list is similarly crucial. A low rankingon the party list means likely defeat.

Even in open-list PR, where the order in which candidates arepresented is technically irrelevant, ballot order matters. For example, inpre-reform Italy, the Christian Democrats generally used the order inwhich they placed candidates on the ballot as a signal to voters abouthow to allocate their preference votes, with the capolista position“being a honor about which deputies boast” (Katz and Bardi 1980,108–10). In contrast, the Communists generally ordered their candidates


alphabetically—but that was also a signal to voters that each candidatewas interchangeable with the next.

The strategy of signaling party approval through list order is quitecommon. And, the order of candidates’ names on the ballot does influ-ence voting, particularly when voters lack other reliable voting cues(Miller and Krosnick 1998). Given that open-list proportional represen-tation requires voters to distinguish between sometimes dozens of can-didates from the same party, it is a prime example of an election in whichvoters lack other reliable voting cues.

If ballot position matters to election outcomes, it follows that it isimportant to understand who influences ballot position. The defaultassumption seems to be that “parties” control the order in which candi-dates appear on the ballot. But to say that “parties” control ballot orderdoesn’t tell us much about what is generally a complex process. Partyleaders often use ballot ordering as a tool for negotiation between partyfactions, regional interests, organized interests, pre-election coalitionpartners, etc.

Hence, when considering who controls ballot ordering, the opera-tive questions are how exclusive the negotiation process is and howcentralized it is (Hazan and Rahat 2010, 33–72; Rahat and Hazan 2001,301–06; Siavelis and Morgenstern 2008, 14–15). At the extreme, themost highly exclusive ballot-ordering negotiation process exists when asingle selector can order the candidates him or herself. The dedazotradition in Mexico, in which the leader of the Partido RevolucionarioInstitucional (PRI) had almost exclusive ability to nominate PRI candi-dates to their seats, is one example of this (Weldon 1997). Less exclusiveprocesses expand the selectorate to include other members of the partyelite, party delegates, party members, or even voters in general. Forexample, Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) takes a public opinion poll aboutvarious party candidates as part of its candidate selection process (Wu2001).

The degree of centralization—“the extent to which the nationallevel influences candidate selection” as opposed to weight of otheractors—is also important for understanding a candidate’s selectorate(Hazan and Rahat 2010, 55). Decentralization of candidate selectionmeans that the central party organs have very little influence over whichcandidates represent the party, with local voters or party branch cadresdominating the process. But, decentralization does not necessarilyrequire an inclusive process. For example, until recent experiments with“community preselection” (U.S.-style primary elections) in some dis-tricts, Australian National Party candidates tended to be chosen by asmall group of local party activists, for a decentralized but still exclusive


process.4 When local voices are empowered to make decisions about whorepresents them, candidates are more likely to take local concerns seri-ously and have reason to take positions against the party.

These distinctions in the degree of exclusivity and centralizationof the ballot-ranking process create different incentives for politicians.Mexico’s dedazo tradition is credited with contributing to the extremeparty loyalty that PRI legislators exhibited (Weldon 1997). And, in theUnited States, Representatives from states with closed party primaries—in which only registered party members can participate—take moreparty-influenced policy positions than Representatives from states withmore open candidate-selection procedures (Gerber and Morton 1998).

The Selectoral Connection vs. the Electoral Connection

The incentives created by the need to foster a selectoral connectioncan create complications for politicians. Specifically, the positions thatbuild a selectoral connection might conflict with the positions that buildan electoral connection. Often the incentives created by electoral andselectoral rules reinforce each other. But what happens when electoralincentives encourage party unity, while selectoral incentives encourageparty disunity (or vice versa)?

For example, countries such as the United States and the UnitedKingdom both have single-member districts—electoral rules that createincentives to cultivate a personal vote. According to the electoral con-nection hypothesis, politicians in both countries should vote against theirparty when it conflicts with the interests of their geographic electorate.However, party-line voting in the United Kingdom is much higher thanparty-line voting in the United States. Why? In the United States, partieshave little control over who can use the party label, and politicians facea variety of inclusive and decentralized candidate-ranking procedures. Inthe United Kingdom, central party leaders have much tighter control overall aspects of the candidate-selection process. Mayhew himself creditsselectoral rules for why British politicians rarely vote against their party,while American politicians commonly do (1974, 25–27).

The remainder of this article focuses on the potential for conflictbetween the electoral connection and selectoral connection. Lithuania isone setting in which the two sets of incentives clearly compete, and it istherefore a good test case for the relative importance of each when itcomes to legislative voting. After this analysis, I make a broader argu-ment that any theory of legislative voting must account for selectoralconnection demands before it considers electoral connection demands.


Case Selection—Why Lithuania?

In many situations, the incentives created by the candidate-selection process and the incentives created by the electoral rules rein-force each other. Closed-party lists are often chosen by a small number ofcentral party leaders, as in the PR tier in Russia, generating little reasonfor a politician to need to vote against his or her party. Or, candidates insingle-member districts are chosen through decentralized and inclusiveprimary elections, as in the United States, generating double potential forpoliticians to need to vote against their party. When these two variablespush politicians in the same direction, it is impossible to untangle theirrelative importance. Indeed, it is even easy to forget that they are distinctforces that have the potential to pull politicians in competing directions.This is likely another reason why so little systematic attention has beenpaid to candidate selection and legislative voting. Hence, to evaluatewhat happens when electoral incentives and selectoral incentives clash, itis necessary to find a critical case in which they pull politicians inopposing directions.

Lithuania is an ideal case to study this question. Its post-communistparliamentary electoral system consists of 71 SMD seats and 70 non-compensatory PR seats (Clark, Martinaitis, and Dilba 2008, 319).Between 1996 and 2008, its PR seats were allocated through a “flexible”party list—in which parties ranked each politician before the election,but voters were also able to cast preference votes for individual candi-dates that could alter the parties’ original rankings somewhat (the partyranking was weighted much more heavily than preference votes in theformula). Hence, both politicians running in the SMD seats and politi-cians running for the PR seats faced some electoral incentives to cultivatea personal vote, though the SMD politicians’ incentives were signifi-cantly stronger. Hence, the electoral connection model predicts that leg-islators in the Seimas elected in the SMD seats should defect from theparty line more than the legislators elected from the party lists.

But, while Lithuanian SMD candidates are elected by geographicconstituencies, they were by and large selected by the national party. Withregard to the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party (LDLP), Rizovapoints out the importance of the highly charismatic leader AlgirdasBrazaukas and his coterie within the LDLP, asserting that he had almosttotal control over much of the candidate-selection process (2008, 237). Inthe Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP), final decisions aboutdistrict nominations were ultimately made by the national-level PartyCouncil, after a consideration of who was most likely to be successful inthe district. As LSDP vice chairman Aligirdas Sysas explained, the SMD


candidate-selection process involved “combining the party’s interestswith the local branches’ interests. We talk with the people who live inthose regions, so there would be support. You could say both halves havean agreement” (A. Sysas, unpublished interview, March 29, 2011). Sowhile local interests were not ignored when choosing candidates, thenational party exercised a strong veto over the process.

The exclusive Presidium of the Lithuanian Homeland Uniondrafted a list of which candidate should run in each district. It then sentthe list to the slightly more inclusive Party Council—which includes thePresidium members plus incumbent members of the Seimas, mayors,representatives of cooperating organizations, and chapter presidents—for formal approval.5 While this process was nominally somewhat inclu-sive, the Presidium dominated the process. And it was highly centralized.In short, Lithuanian SMD politicians face strong selectoral incentives totoe the party line.

In contrast, Lithuanian PR candidates’ pre-election position on theparty list was strongly influenced by actors other than central partyleaders. For example, in the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party, localparty organizations were asked to suggest names for the party list andthen “delegates of the party congress rated every nominee to determinethe order of candidates on the list” (Meleshevich 2007, 34). The agrarianlobby was highly influential in this process.

In the Homeland Union, local party branches across the countrywere highly influential in choosing and ranking candidates for the partylist, and they regularly reordered the rankings proposed by the PartyCouncil (E. Vareikis, unpublished interview, May 5, 2011). Because ofthis, one successful candidate explained, “When you have one yearbefore the election it’s useful to go to the locals to give a lecture so thesepeople have a good memory that you were nice and well-behaved so theycan rank you higher. My business is to travel to show myself to differentparts of the country . . . you have to go and to show yourself in a positivelight” (E. Vareikis, unpublished interview, May 5, 2011). The LithuanianSocial Democratic Party had perhaps the most interesting set of inclusiveprocedures. Their party list included “two trade union representatives forevery ten candidates, some of whom were not formally affiliated” withthe party (Meleshevich 2007, 35). In short, unlike their SMD copartisans,PR candidates faced selectoral incentives that created principals thatcould compete with central party leaders and motivate them to defectfrom the party line.

To summarize, the electoral connection theory of legislative votingpredicts that Lithuanian SMD politicians should vote against the partyline more frequently than their PR copartisans to cultivate a personal vote


with their electorate, while the selectoral connection theory of legislativevoting predicts that Lithuanian SMD politicians should vote against theparty line less frequently than their PR copartisans to cultivate aselectoral connection with party leaders.

Methods and Data

Data on the dependent variable—all 3,047 recorded legislativevotes during the 2000–2004 term in the Lithuanian Seimas—were gath-ered from the official website of the body. For each vote, each politicianis coded as voting with the majority of his or her party members oragainst the majority of his or her party members (a “defection”). I codedabstentions as missing data. Thus, these results are best thought of as“hard” defections and do not include the number of softer defections(like abstentions or absences).6 When the party was split evenly betweenyeas and nays, I coded the dependent variable as missing.

Data for the independent variables of interest were obtained fromthe University of Essex’s Political Transformation and the ElectoralProcess in Post-Communist Europe online database: (1) whether thepolitician ran and was elected in the SMD and/or PR tier, (2) pre-electionparty ranking, and (3) the percentage of a candidate’s preference votesthat came from his or her geographic district.7 Data for the controlvariables were collected from the Seimas website: (1) total attendance foreach vote, a proxy for the importance of the vote, (2) vote number, aproxy for time elapsed since the last election, and (3) each MP’s politicalparty affiliation at the time of each vote.8

Some previous exploration of legislative voting in Lithuania hasbeen done (Clark, Martinaitis, and Dilba 2008; Ishiyama 2000). Bothfound some evidence that Lithuanian SMD MPs were more loyal to theparty line than PR MPs—in other words, that the electoral connectionhypothesis fails in Lithuania. However, these studies were limited ineither their method or scope.

Furthermore, there have been significant methodological improve-ments in the comparative legislative voting literature in recent years(Sieberer 2010, 486–87). In particular, the practice of aggregating MPs’individual votes into a single defection score for each politician isunwise. Aggregation throws away data, and aggregation over time alsoprevents researchers from including variables that vary during a politi-cian’s legislative term. For example, in this dataset, the LithuanianDemocratic Labour Party merged with the Lithuanian Social DemocraticParty in 2001. Keeping the votes disaggregated allowed the LDLP poli-ticians’ party affiliations to vary over time.


Of course, all of these individual votes are not independent fromeach other. Thus, the best way to model the legislative voting phenom-enon is through panel logistic regression in which the dependent variableis whether the politician voted differently than the majority of his or herparty, and the panel variable is the individual MP. Random interceptsallow the model to account for individual MP differences (Sieberer 2010,487).

Results

Impact of Electoral Tier on Legislative Voting

Because previous empirical research was either limited in itsmethods (Clark, Martinaitis, and Dilba 2008) or scope (Ishiyama 2000),the first empirical task at hand is to confirm whether SMD politicians inLithuania do, indeed, defy the electoral connection prediction and exhibitmore party loyalty than their PR counterparts. Table 1 presents the resultof this analysis.9

Echoing what Clark, Martinaitis, and Dilba (2008) and Ishiyama(2000) found, I find that Lithuanian politicians representing geographicdistricts generally defected from the party line less than their PR col-leagues. In Model 1 of Table 1, this finding is significant at the p < .06level. However, in Model 2, which includes an indicator variable forlist-only MPs (those who did not also run in a single-member district),the level of statistical significance decreases considerably; hence, it isalso possible that there is no relationship between mode of election andlegislative voting patterns. Either way, it is certainly not the case thatbeing elected from a geographic district makes one more likely to defectfrom the party line in Lithuania. This casts a great deal of doubt that theelectoral connection theory of legislative voting is at work.

Several other factors play a role in predicting legislative defections.With the exception of the Homeland Union, most political parties hadhigher defection rates than the omitted party, the communist-successorLithuanian Democratic Labour Party.10 As attendance—a proxy for theimportance of the vote—went up, defections went down. And, as thelegislative term proceeded, party-line defections decreased.

Impact of Geographically Concentrated Preference Votes onLegislative Voting

The question of why Lithuania deviates from the electoral connec-tion theory remains. I argue that when politicians’ long-term careers


depend on being renominated by central party leaders, they will votefaithfully with the party. SMD MPs in Lithuania depend on central partyleaders this way, but so do another class of MPs in Lithuania’s compli-cated mixed electoral system: PR politicians who gained most of theirpreference votes because of the visibility gained by also being a party’snominee in a single-member district.

Because Lithuania’s PR tier is quite complicated, an explanation isuseful. In the PR tier (which consists of one national district, with districtmagnitude = 70), voters must cast a vote for a party. But, in addition totheir party vote, they have the option of casting up to five preferencevotes for individual candidates by writing in the party-assigned numberfor a candidate at the bottom of the PR ballot. On average, Lithuanianvoters cast about three of their five preference votes. Electoral returns

TABLE 1Impact of Electoral Tier on Legislative Voting Defections

(standard errors in parentheses)

Model 1 Model 2

Total Attendance –0.0187223*** –0.0187223***(–0.0004543) (–0.0004543)

Time since Election –0.0000937*** –0.0000937***(–0.00000391) (–0.00000391)

SMD –0.1758139* –0.1540485(–0.0933438) (–0.102624)

List-Only 0.0657177(–0.1293013)

Ministry 0.5408391*** 0.5386676***(–0.2045538) (–0.2043879)

Liberal Union 1.038191*** 1.04208***(–0.143807) (–0.1439764)

New Union/Social Liberals 1.435785*** 1.436461***(–0.1470997) (–0.1470834)

Lithuanian Social Democratic Party 1.349377*** 1.349394***(–0.1187166) (–0.1187171)

Party of New Democracy 1.180396*** 1.178127***(–0.178043) (–0.178041)

Homeland Union 0.1219466 0.1162461(–0.2136573) (–0.2137516)

Intercept –2.721592*** –2.743955***(–0.1420087) (–0.1486473)

Number of MPs 130 130Number of Observations 402188 402188

*p < .1; **p < .05; ***p < .01.


report the total number of preference votes each candidate received, butif a candidate ran in both the SMD and PR tiers, they also report howmany preference votes he or she received in the district he or she wasnominated in.

Hence, by dividing the number of preference votes a candidatereceived in his or her district by the total number of preference votes heor she received overall, we can estimate the degree to which party-listcandidates were dependent on local votes versus geographically diversevotes. For “local PR” candidates, almost all of the preference votes thatwon them a PR seat were geographically concentrated in the district inwhich they were nominated for an SMD seat but lost the SMD race. Theyare, essentially, pseudo-SMD MPs. In contrast, other PR candidates’preference votes were more geographically dispersed around thecountry—so even though they were also dual-listed as SMD candidates,they were “diversified PR” candidates who worked to cultivate supportaround the country.

The electoral connection theory would predict that “local PR” MPswould defect from the party line to cultivate a personal vote with districtconstituents and perhaps win the SMD seat in the next election. Hence,as the “localness” of a candidate’s support base goes up, we should alsosee an increase in vote-defection rates.

In contrast, the selectoral connection theory suggests the opposite.“Local PR” candidates may actually be dependent on the visibility andprestige that comes from being their party’s SMD candidate to gain theirpreference votes. Without their party’s SMD nomination, there is nothingto distinguish them from the dozens of other candidates on the party list.They do not have other sources of preference votes to draw on to com-pensate for the loss of an SMD nomination. Hence, the selectoral con-nection theory would predict that their “localness” may actually increasetheir loyalty to the party line because they depend on their party’s SMDnomination to provide the visibility necessary for them to get enoughpreference votes to win a PR seat.

Conversely, for a “diversified PR” MP, failing to secure an SMDrenomination would be relatively unimportant because he or she hasindependent bases of preference vote support around the country thatdon’t rely on the blessing of the party or the name recognition that comesfrom being the party’s SMD nominee.

In short, the electoral connection model would predict that politi-cians with geographic constituencies would be more likely to defect fromthe party line, whether they were ultimately elected as an SMD MP or a“local PR” MP. The selectoral connection model would predict thatpoliticians dependent on a renomination by the national party will be less


likely to defect from the party line, whether they were ultimately electedas an SMD MP or a “local PR” MP.

There is little support for the electoral connection model in Table 2:having a geographically concentrated preference-vote constituency doesnot appear to increase legislative voting defections. In fact, the oppositeis the case: having a high percentage of one’s preference votes comefrom one’s local district decreases legislative voting defections. Model 2shows us that this holds true even when one controls for whether one wasultimately elected by a district or through the party list.

Model 3 shows us that this continues to hold true when one controlsfor a politician’s pre-election party ranking. These party rankings favorwell-known politicians and those with greater party support. Hence, it isunlikely that the “% Geographic Support” variable is simply picking up

TABLE 2Impact of Percent of Local Support on Voting Defections

(standard errors in parentheses)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Total Attendance –0.0195209*** –0.0191132*** –0.0191066***(–0.0005081) (–0.0005136) (–0.0005136)

Time since Election –0.0001007*** –0.0000986*** –0.0000984***(–0.00000453) (–0.00000454) (–0.00000454)

% Geographic Support –0.3904857* –0.475279** –0.7525312**(–0.2212227) (–0.226595) (–0.3029085)

SMD –0.0577743 –0.0645382(–0.1127959) (–0.1118105)

Party Ranking 0.0037713(–0.0027681)

Liberal Union 0.9746198*** 0.9661817*** 0.9778661***(–0.1634659) (–0.1618016) (–0.1617502)

New Union/Social Liberals 1.405618*** 1.382459*** 1.383673***(–0.1688271) (–0.1669289) (–0.166659)

Lithuanian Social Democratic Party 1.316069*** 1.304464*** 1.30378***(–0.1372075) (–0.1372084) (–0.137206)

Party of New Democracy 1.156816*** 1.166259*** 1.203384***(–0.1962485) (–0.1947524) (–0.1967605)

Homeland Union 0.4984375** –0.0686279 –0.0613719(–0.1953322) (–0.2720512) (–0.270216)

_cons –2.546745*** –2.518888*** –2.562877***(–0.1702927) (–0.1738955) (–0.176302)

Number of MPs 129 105 105Number of Observations 330773 319929 319929

*p < .1; **p < .05; ***p < .01.


how nationally prominent a politician is. There appears to be a genuinecorrelation between the geographic diversification of a politician’ssupport and his or her propensity to defect from the party line.

This finding, of course, undermines the electoral connectionhypothesis. However, these results are consistent with the selectoral con-nection hypothesis. “Local PR” MPs are just as selectorally dependent oncentral party leaders as SMD MPs. Hence, they play it safe and avoidangering their candidate selectorate by faithfully toeing the party line.“Diversified PR” MPs do not face the same selectoral incentives; hence,they are free to cultivate a personal vote with their independent bases ofsupport around the country.

Discussion and Conclusion

The voting records of Members of Parliament in Lithuania deeplychallenge the claim that politicians elected in single-member districtswill defect from the party line more than PR MPs because they need to“vote their district,” form an “electoral connection,” or “cultivate a per-sonal vote.” Moreover, the data reveal that “local PR” MPs in Lithuaniawhose preference votes are geographically concentrated are more loyal tothe party line than “diversified PR” MPs with a broader constituency,further undermining the claim that local electoral constituencies are whatundermine party unity.

However, the logic of the “selectoral connection” created by thecandidate-selection process is consistent with the empirics presentedin this article. SMD MPs are selected by national party leaders, andtheir future career prospects are heavily influenced by whether ornot the national party leaders are satisfied with their performance.“Local PR” MPs (those who ran in a district, lost the SMD race, butwon a PR seat by securing preference votes from local voters) behavesimilarly to SMD MPs. Why? Because their long-term prospects arealso tied to being repeatedly nominated as an SMD candidate by thecentral party in their district, and they can’t afford to offend the partyleadership.

In contrast to SMD and “local PR” MPs, recall the HomelandUnion MP who discussed how he won a PR seat with geographicallydiverse support: his business was to travel around the country showinghimself in a positive light to local party organizations. This strategysucceeded—it caused these local party organizations to move him upabout five spots on the pre-election PR ballot order from wherethe central party originally ranked him. Where does his loyalty rest?


Similarly, consider the incentives faced by an MP from the LSDP whogained his high spot on the party list because of trade union support. Sucha politician would have a much stronger incentive to oppose the LSDP’scontroversial market reforms and austerity measures than an SMDcandidate from the same party who owes his nomination to partyvice chairman Algirdas Sysas.

There are a few take-home messages. The first is that the incen-tives created by candidate selection are distinct from the incentivescreated by electoral rules. A few authors have noted this, includingSamuels’ study of the ways in with the Brazilian Partido dosTrabalhadores tried to work around open-list PR by modifying its nomi-nation procedures (1999). But for the most part, empirical researcherstend to ignore candidate selection and focus on formal electoral rules.Since the two factors often co-vary with each other, much of the “work”done by candidate selection gets credited to electoral rules. In otherwords, the reason party discipline is lower in the United States is onlypartly because of its single-member districts. It is also because eachCongressman has a unique candidate selectorate that expects differentthings of its nominees. Electoral rules and selectoral rules are theoreti-cally distinct factors that need to be treated as such.

The second point is that the behavior necessary to develop aselectoral connection sometimes conflicts with the behavior necessaryto develop an electoral connection. Under these conditions, politiciansface difficult decisions about whom to please. The evidence fromLithuania suggests that the selectoral connection is probably the morepotent of the two sets of incentives. There are lots of reasons that thiscould be the case. First, failing to secure a nomination in the first roundof this political game generally eliminates the possibility of evenattempting to create an electoral connection with voters in the secondround, putting nominations at the forefront of candidates’ minds.Second, candidate selectors are generally more attentive principals thangeneral electors. It’s much harder for a politician to pull the wool overthe eyes of an interested and informed candidate selectorate than theaverage citizen.

All of this suggests that political scientists have an obligation tomore carefully and systematically consider the influence of candidateselection on political behavior. Legislative party voting is one example ofpolitical behavior that candidate selection impacts. But it likely mattersfor other outcomes, such as where parties are located in the issue space,whether pork and patronage are important and how it is distributed, therepresentation of women and minorities, and many other political phe-nomenon that electoral rules are theorized to influence. The difficulty of


collecting good data on candidate selection notwithstanding, this is acrucial direction for political science to head.

Jessica Robinson Preece <[email protected]> is AssistantProfessor of Political Science, Brigham Young University, 732 SWKT,Provo, UT 84602.

NOTES

1. One cross-national exception is Carey (2009).2. The operative word here is can. Other candidate selectors may be every bit as

committed to the party line as the central party leaders themselves, but they may also havepriorities that differ from the central party leaders’ priorities.

3. When Carey and Shugart (1995) originally discussed control over the orderin which candidates are ranked, they intended to distinguish closed-list proportionalrepresentation from open-list proportional representation. However, this focus bleeds intothe world of electoral rules because it concerns events that happen after the ballots havebeen printed and the election is in full swing. I focus on the ordering that happens beforethe ballots are printed because I believe it to be an important part of candidate selection.

4. See http://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/news/local/news/general/tamworth-preselection-model-to-go-statewide/2320590.aspx.

5. See http://www.tsajunga.lt/index.php/prezidiumas/9097.6. Abstentions are probably not randomly distributed, but controlling for the total

of attendance in the chamber at each vote should address some of this problem.7. See http://www2.essex.ac.uk/elect/database/candidate.asp.8. See http://www3.lrs.lt/pls/inter/w5_sale.kad_ses.9. Only parties with at least one SMD and one PR politician are included in the

analysis.10. The LDDP merged with the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party in 2001, early

in the 2000–2004 legislative term.

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How the Party Can Win in Personal Vote Systems: The “Selectoral Connection” and Legislative Voting in Lithuania