Legislature Integration and Bipartisanship: A Natural Experiment in Iceland

Arbeitspapier

Nearly all legislatures segregate politicians by party. We use seating lotteries in the Icelandic Parliament to estimate the effects of seating integration on bipartisanship. When two politicians from different parties are randomly assigned to sit together, they are roughly 1 percentage point more likely to vote alike. Despite this effect, other-party neighbors do not affect general bipartisan voting, as measured by the likelihood that a politician deviates from their party leader’s vote. Furthermore, the pair-level similarity effect is temporary, disappearing the following year. The pattern of results support cue-taking and social pressure as mechanisms for the effects of proximity.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 9452

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft
• Subject: polarization ; integration ; intergroup contact ; voting

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Lowe, Matthew ; Jo, Donghee
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/248997
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET