Skewing Chaos: Partisan Benefits Without Legislative Stability

Abstract

Having created the theory of fractious parties, this chapter empirically analyzes whether political parties are able to concentrate power in their members despite the chaotic nature of Paraguay’s legislature. I analyze two dependent variables: roll-rates and win-rates. Roll-rates capture the negative power of legislators, and win-rates capture positive and negative powers of legislators. I then attempt to understand these outcomes using: (1) unidimensional, non-partisan models; (2) unidimensional, partisan models; (3) multidimensional, non-partisan models; and (4) multidimensional, partisan models. The empirical analyses of this chapter show that both unidimensional and multidimensional models suggest that political parties matter in Paraguay. However, unidimensional models miss the dynamics of intra-party competition. By analyzing the dynamics of inter- and intra-party competition using multidimensional models, this chapter finds that although short-term intra-party conflicts can in fact debilitate a majority party’s ability to concentrate benefits in its members in the short term, in the long term political parties have been capable of concentrating benefits in their members. In short, despite short-term instability, parties can still benefit their members by Skewing Chaos in their favor in the long term.