Legislative Party Switching in a Hybrid Regime: Evidence from 2012–2024 Serbia

Legislative party switching, the act of elected representatives changing party affiliation, has attracted increasing scholarly and public attention due to its controversial nature and potential implications for democratic processes. While existing research has focused on consolidated and consolidating democracies, there is limited understanding of party switching dynamics in hybrid regimes, in particular electoral autocracies. These polarized environments, characterized by institutionalized opposition marginalization and an uneven electoral playing field, often leave opposition parties unable to provide legislators with prospects for re-election, access to resources, or influence over policies. This raises the question of whether the motivations behind switching behavior in hybrid regimes can be adequately explained using existing theories. In this paper, I analyze a novel dataset of 101 publicly documented cases of party switching in the National Assembly of Serbia from 2012 to 2024, a period marked by increased autocratization. I find that party switching is moderately frequent, occurring in 5% of cases, stable over time, and predominantly involves legislators switching between opposition parties. By examining the political context of each switch, I analyze and classify the justifications of these changes, which reveal a more nuanced understanding of legislators' rationale, particularly party switching as a manifestation of opposition parties' internal conflicts. These findings contribute to a better understanding of legislative behavior under hybrid regimes, offering insights into how institutional constraints and political incentives shape individual legislators' decision-making.