Party Discipline and Parliamentary Politics

Transcription

1 Party Discipline and Parliamentary Politics One of the chief tasks facing political leaders is to build and maintain unity within their parties. Party Discipline and Parliamentary Politics examines the relationship between party leaders and Members of Parliament in Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, showing how the two sides interact and sometimes clash. demonstrates how incentives for MPs to dissent from their parties have been amplified by a process of partisan dealignment that has created electorates of non-partisan voters who reward shows of political independence. Party leaders therefore rely on a mixture of strategies to offset these electoral pressures, from offering MPs advancement to threatening discipline, and ultimately relying on a long-run process of socialization to temper their MPs dissension. Kam reveals the underlying structure of party unity in modern Westminster parliamentary politics, and drives home the point that social norms and socialization reinforce rather than displace appeals to MPs self-interest. christopher j. kam is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He has received major research grants from the US National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and his work on political parties and parliamentary government has appeared in the British Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Governance.

2 Party Discipline and Parliamentary Politics christopher j. kam University of British Columbia

3 cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Information on this title: This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2009 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

4 Contents List of figures List of tables Acknowledgements page vi viii xi 1 Introduction 1 2 A model of intra-party politics 21 3 Patterns of backbench dissent in four Westminster parliamentary systems, Policy preferences and backbench dissent in Great Britain and Canada 75 5 Dissent, constituency service, and the personal vote in Great Britain and New Zealand The cost of dissent to the party Demotion and dissent in the Canadian Liberal Party, Discipline and dissent in the Australian Coalition, Career trajectories, socialization, and backbench dissent in the British House of Commons Conclusion 205 Appendix 1 Comparative statics and proofs 211 Appendix 2 Content and construction of ideological scales 228 Appendix 3 Sampling and coding of media dissent and discipline 238 Appendix 4 Demotion and the parliamentary careers of Canadian MPs 243 References 248 Index 261 v

5 Figures 3.1 Dissent in the British Conservative Party, page Dissent in the British Labour Party, Dissent in the Canadian Liberal Party, Dissent in the Canadian Progressive Conservative ( ) and Reform Parties ( ) Dissent in the Australian Coalition (House), Dissent in the Australian Coalition (Senate), Dissent in the Australian Labor Party (Senate), Dissent in the New Zealand National Party, Dissent in the New Zealand Labour Party, The marginal effect of government status on the depth of dissent modified by the effective number of opposition parties The marginal effect of government status on the extent of dissent modified by party seat share Hypothetical distributions of ideal points in two parliamentary parties Policy preferences in the Canadian House of Commons The ideological location of Reform Party dissent in the Canadian House of Commons The ideological location of Bloc Quebecois dissent in the Canadian House of Commons The ideological location of Liberal Party dissent in the Canadian House of Commons Policy preferences in the British House of Commons The ideological location of Conservative dissent in the British House of Commons 85 vi

6 List of figures vii 4.8 The ideological location of Labour dissent in the British House of Commons Policy preferences in the British House of Commons The ideological location of Conservative dissent in the British House of Commons The ideological location of Labour dissent in the British House of Commons The marginal effect of dissent on New Zealand MPs approval conditional on the voter s party identification The marginal effect of Labour disunity on voters views on Iraq by levels of political information Explicit media dissent and floor dissent in the Australian Coalition, Career patterns in the British House of Commons The marginal effect of party loyalty on dissent over the course of an MP s parliamentary tenure The impact of party loyalty norms on dissent 203 A1.1 The optimal level of dissent given varying returns to dissent 213 A1.2 Policy, advancement, discipline, and dissent with varying returns to dissent 213 A1.3 Changing office costs and the leader s strategy 215 A1.4 The impact of higher office costs on dissent 215 A1.5 The impact of policy constraints 217 A1.6 Limits on L s strategies 225 A4.1 Four hypothetical parliamentary career trajectories 244

7 Tables 1.1 The percentage of dissenting divisions by party in Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, page The frequency of backbench dissent (percentage of divisions witnessing dissent), The depth of backbench dissent (mean percent voting power lost to dissent), The extent of backbench dissent (percentage of parliamentary party engaged in dissent), Regression model of dissenting votes cast by British Labour and Conservative MPs in the House of Commons Ordered logit estimates of voting on Motions 6, 7, and 8 to Bill C-41 (Hate Crimes) in the Canadian House of Commons The relative effects of party and preferences on MPs votes on Motion 7 at report stage of Bill C-41 (Hate Crimes) in the Canadian House of Commons Voting patterns of party defectors in the Canadian House of Commons and British House of Commons before and after leaving their parties OLS regression model of constituency service effort (in constituency service hours per week) by British Labour and Conservative MPs in the Parliament Logit model of name recognition of British Labour and Conservative MPs at the 1997 election OLS regression model of New Zealand MPs approval ratings 122 viii

8 List of tables ix 5.4 Logit model of vote choice at the 1993 New Zealand election The aggregate impact of dissent on vote choice at the 1993 New Zealand election Parties vote shares and the frequency of dissent, British voters perceptions of party unity and their impact on vote choice, Two-stage least squares estimates of British voters approval or disapproval of British involvement in Iraq Negative binomial regressions of Liberal MPs dissenting votes Multiple regression model of incumbent Liberal MPs changes in status Poisson regression model of the relationship between parliamentary (floor) dissent, media dissent, and discipline in the Australian Coalition, Poisson regression model of the relationship between parliamentary (floor) dissent, media dissent, and discipline in the Canadian Liberal Party, Early promotion and career achievement in the British House of Commons, Two-stage least squares estimates of parliamentary career prospects in the British House of Commons Two-stage least squares estimates of backbench dissent in the British House of Commons 200 A2.1 Survey items used to construct the British left right ideological scale 229 A2.2 Survey items used to construct the British devolution scale 230 A2.3 The British factor solution 231 A2.4 Survey items used to construct the Canadian left right ideological scale 232 A2.5 Survey items used to construct the Canadian social conservatism scale 233 A2.6 The Canadian factor solution 234

9 x List of tables A2.7 Survey items used to construct the Australian left right scale 235 A2.8 The Australian factor solution 236 A2.9 Survey items used to construct the party loyalty scale 236 A4.1 The effect of demotion on MPs chances of becoming ministers 245 A4.2 The probability of a ministerial career conditional on demotion 246

10 Acknowledgements The number of people who have assisted my research for this project is quite staggering. Pippa Norris, Jack Vowles, Ian McAllister, Lynda Erickson, Joseph Wearing, Philip Norton, Philip Cowley, and Brian Gaines generously donated data without which this project could not have been started, let alone finished. Renee Smith, John Carey, Randy Calvert, Richard Johnston, Paul Warwick, Tony Sayers, Lanny Martin, Aaron Wicks, Georg Vanberg, Gail McElroy, Campbell Sharman, Ben Nyeblade, and Patrick Francois provided advice and commentary on chapters and grant applications. Bing Powell and Indridi Indridason deserve special mention in this regard. The fieldwork for this project also depended heavily on many people: Wayne Hooper of the Australian Senate Research Office, Brian Hallett of the Australian Electoral Commission, Doug Eckhoff of the New Zealand Electoral Commission, Sandra Smugler at Robarts Library, and Don Curtin of the Canadian Parliamentary Library are just a few. Adam Barrett, Peter Regenstrief, Raymond Miller, and Ian McAllister helped me arrange interviews with Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand MPs. Raymond Miller and Ian McAllister also made sure that I had access to the libraries at the University of Auckland and ANU, respectively. Cathy Job of the ABC provided insight into the personalities and politics in Canberra. Confidentiality precludes me from listing the MPs who generously shared their time and thoughts with me, but they were, of course, critical to this project. Finally, I would like to thank Carla Hudson Kam for her patience and support. Chapter 4 was previously published as Do Ideological Preferences Explain Parliamentary Behaviour: Evidence from Great Britain and Canada, Journal of Legislative Studies, 7 (2001): Chapter 7 was previously published as Demotion and Dissent in the Canadian Liberal Party, British Journal of Political Science, 36 (2006): The US National Science Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Department of Political Science at the University of Rochester provided funding. I hope the final product is sufficient return on their investment. xi