The results are consistent with hypothesis six. When the economy deteriorates, Polish voters
reward those legislative incumbents who were members of a governing party but switched to
a non-governing party, and they punish those incumbents who were members of a governing
party and did not switch. As a result, the act of switching parties when economic conditions
are bad constitutes an effective strategy for escaping electoral accountability.
The fact that switching is a good way of evading political responsibility for bad economic per-
formance prompts the question of whether or not switching is punished at all. Are switchers
reelected with the same probability as other incumbents who contest an election as members
of an opposition party? If they are, then switching is electorally costless because switchers
are treated on par with other members of the opposition. If they are not, then switching
is beneficial but costly. Switchers improve their changes of reelection vis ´
a vis those who
remain loyal to the governing party and do not switch, but their electoral prospects are not
as good those of incumbents who have been members the opposition from the beginning. To
answer this question, we estimated the following model for those legislative incumbents who
were members of an opposition party since the last election and those legislative incumbents
who were members of an opposition because they switched from a governing party:
P (w = 1) = F (β
0
+ β
1
s + β
2
s × ∆u + β
3
∆u)
(4)
Our expectations were as follows. If party switching is electorally costless, then an increase in
unemployment should increase the probability with which switchers are reelected to the same
extent that it increases the probability with which non-switching members of the opposition
are reelected (H7: β
2
= 0 and β
3
> 0). If party switching is beneficial but costly, then an
increase in unemployment should increase the probability with which switchers are reelected
to a smaller extent than it increases the probability with which non-switching members of
the opposition are reelected (H8: β
2
< 0 and β
2
+ β
3
> 0). Table Four presents the results.
Table Four
18
Convention