{"id":98,"date":"2025-07-01T11:03:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T11:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/?page_id=98"},"modified":"2025-07-07T07:28:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T07:28:32","slug":"published-research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/published-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Published Research"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Published Research<\/h2>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n
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Click here to visit my Google Scholar Page<\/a> 
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Fernandes Jorge, Yakter Alon, Shomer\nYael<\/b> and Put Gert-Jan. \u201cThe Electoral Implications of Legislative Candidate\nSelection Democratization\u201d, British Journal of Political Science<\/i>,\nForthcoming [IF 5.7; 16\/322, Q1 top 5%<\/b>]
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This study investigates whether political parties benefit\nelectorally from democratizing their candidate selection processes\u2014such as\nintroducing primaries or giving more influence to party members and voters.\nWhile inclusive selection procedures are often promoted as tools for enhancing\nlegitimacy, transparency, and responsiveness, the paper argues that they do not\nmeaningfully improve a party\u2019s electoral performance. Drawing on a large-scale\ncomparative analysis of 34 democracies from 1970 to 2019 and a preregistered\nconjoint experiment in France, Israel, and Sweden, the findings reveal a\nconsistent pattern: although voters say they prefer more democratic candidate\nselection methods, they deprioritize them at the ballot box in favor of factors\nlike ideological proximity and female representation.\nBy combining observational and experimental approaches, the paper\ncontributes to broader debates on party reform and democratic responsiveness.\nIt demonstrates that institutional changes meant to signal openness and\naccountability may not translate into voter support unless they align with\nhigher-salience electoral considerations. As such, party elites should not\nexpect electoral rewards solely from procedural reforms, and scholars should\ncontinue to explore the multidimensional trade-offs voters make in complex\npolitical environments.
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\n <\/a>Shomer\nYael<\/b>, Tzalgov Eitan and Zur Roi. 2025. \u201cThe Crises of the Israeli\nDemocracy: Introduction to a Research Topic\u201d, Frontiers in Political Science<\/i>,\nForthcoming [IF 2.5; 90\/322, Q2<\/b>].
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This paper introduces and contextualizes the democratic crisis in\nIsrael through a scholarly lens. It introduces the broader research topic\ncollection that critically examines Israel\u2019s democratic crisis from various\nperspectives: institutional, legislative, judicial, and social. The paper seeks\nto summarize the collection of articles that were devoted to the question: were\nthe judicial overhaul proposed in early 2023 by Israel\u2019s newly elected\nright-wing government under Benjamin Netanyahu a mere institutional reform\naiming at re-establishing the balance across the branches or was it  a far-reaching constitutional and regime coup?.   \nThe article outlines the convergence of multiple developments over\nthe past decade\u2014including recurring elections, rising populism, growing\npolarization, alleged corruption, and institutional weakening to argue that the\nstructural reform of the judiciary quickly emerged as a symbol of a more\nprofound crisis of democratic governance, raising alarm among scholars, legal\nexperts, and the broader public. Ultimately, the article emphasizes the need\nfor continued academic engagement in analyzing the rapid transformations in\nIsraeli democracy, both as a national case and as a lens for understanding\nglobal patterns of democratic backsliding.
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\n <\/a>Freund\nAmir and Yael Shomer<\/b>. 2025. \u201cNational Leaders\u2019 Gender effect on European\nCountries\u2019 Performance during the COVID-19 Crisis\u201d, European Journal of\nPolitical Research<\/i> 64(2): pp. 864-871 [IF 5.3; 9\/187, Q1 top 5%<\/b>].<\/span>\n
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This study examines whether\nand how the gender of a national leader influenced countries\u2019 performance in\nmanaging the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on data from 56 democracies over four\nwaves of the pandemic, the research demonstrates that countries led by women\nconsistently outperformed those led by men in terms of lower infection rates,\nmortality, and excess deaths\u2014particularly in the first three waves. By\ncombining a novel wave-alignment methodology with rigorous robustness checks,\nthe authors isolate the effect of leader gender from confounding factors such\nas state capacity, healthcare system strength, or cultural context. The\ngendered performance gap narrowed in the fourth wave, where vaccination rates\nplayed a more dominant role, but female-led countries still maintained a\nrelative advantage.\n \nThe article also probes the\nmechanisms driving this gap, offering empirical support for the roles of public\ntrust and government effectiveness. Citizens in female-led countries\nconsistently reported greater satisfaction with pandemic policies, and these governments\ndemonstrated more effective deployment of healthcare resources. The authors\nreject alternative explanations offered in prior studies, demonstrating that\nleader gender remains a significant predictor even after controlling for\nconfounding factors. The findings contribute to the literature on gender and\npolitical leadership, emphasizing that the impact of descriptive representation\nextends beyond symbolic value and has real implications for policy\noutcomes\u2014particularly in times of national crisis.
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\n ShomerYael, Bj\u00f8rn Erik Rasch and Osnat Akirav. 2024. \u201cTermination ofparliamentary governments: revised definitions and implications\u201d, In Reuven Y.Hazan, Bj\u00f8rn Erik Rasch (Eds.) Parliaments and Government Termination: A New Perspective on Parliamentary Democracies<\/span> NY: Routledge, pp. 95-120. \n <\/a>\n
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This book chapter challenges\nthe conventional way in which political scientists define the end of\nparliamentary governments. It critiques the dominant practice of classifying\nany intra-coalition party change as a government termination, arguing that this\napproach inflates the number of government changes and skews comparative\nanalyses across countries. To address this, the authors introduce a more\nprecise definition that considers a government terminated only under three\nconditions: the installation of a new prime minister, the occurrence of a\ngeneral election, or a partisan realignment that results in the loss of a\ngoverning majority. Using data from 28 OECD democracies, they show that this\nrefined approach reveals that existing metrics often exaggerate government\ninstability, leading to misinterpretations of institutional effectiveness.
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Fernandes\nJorge, Yael Shomer<\/b> and Matthew Shugart. 2024. \u201cElectoral Systems and the\nPersonal Vote\u201d, in Adrian Vatter and Rahel Freiburghaus (Eds.) The Handbook\nof Comparative Political Institutions<\/i>, Edward Elgar Publishing.
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This review article revisits\nand synthesizes nearly three decades of research sparked by Carey and Shugart\u2019s\n(1995) seminal work on the personal vote\u2014defined as the portion of a\ncandidate\u2019s electoral support rooted in personal traits, actions, and reputation\nrather than party affiliation. The authors examine how electoral systems\nincentivize personal vote-seeking and present a comprehensive overview of how\nthe concept has been theorized, measured, and empirically studied across\ndifferent contexts. They introduce a two-dimensional framework based on\ndelegation theory and legislators\u2019 goals to organize the literature, clarifying\ndistinctions between systems that prioritize party-centered versus\ncandidate-centered representation.\nThe article critically\nassesses the methodological tools used to measure personal vote incentives and\nidentifies several limitations in the existing literature, such as inconsistent\nmetrics and underdeveloped connections to broader theories of democratic\nrepresentation. It also highlights how personal vote-seeking behavior\nintersects with pressing normative questions, including responsiveness to\nconstituents and the inclusion of historically marginalized groups. The authors\nconclude by outlining a forward-looking research agenda, calling for more\nrigorous conceptualization, cross-national data, and exploration of how\npersonal vote incentives influence legislative behavior and democratic\nlegitimacy in evolving electoral environments.  
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Yael\nShomer<\/b> and Gert-Jan, Put. 2023 \u201cAre citizens more politically engaged\nwhen candidate selection is democratic? Analysis of seven parliamentary\nelection cycles in Israel (1996-2015)\u201d, Political Research Quarterly<\/i>,\n76(3), pp.1119-1133 [IF 3.254; 67\/187, Q2<\/b>].
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This study examines whether\ndemocratic candidate selection processes\u2014such as primaries and other inclusive\nnomination methods\u2014encourage higher levels of political engagement among\ncitizens. Drawing on public opinion data from seven Israeli election cycles\n(1996\u20132015) and original data on party candidate selection processes, the\nauthors assess how intra-party democratization shapes both electoral and\npartisan participation, as well as broader forms of political engagement like\nfollowing campaign news and discussing politics. Contrary to widespread\nassumptions, the findings reveal that while democratic selection processes are\nassociated with increased political engagement, they do not significantly\naffect actual voter turnout or participation in party activities.\nThe study suggests that\ndemocratizing internal party procedures may enhance citizens\u2019 attentiveness to\npolitics and foster greater political interest, but these reforms alone do not\nnecessarily translate into concrete political behavior. This structural disconnect\nbetween engagement and participation highlights the limits of procedural\nreforms in generating deeper civic involvement. The research contributes to the\nliterature on intra-party democracy by emphasizing the importance of\ndistinguishing between different forms of political involvement and by\ngrounding the analysis in longitudinal data from a dynamic multiparty\nparliamentary system. 
  
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Yael\nShomer<\/b>, Bj\u00f8rn Erik Rasch and Osnat Akirav. 2022. \u201cTermination of\nparliamentary governments: revised definitions and implications\u201d, West\nEuropean Politics<\/i>, 45(3), pp. 550-575. [IF 4.055; 30\/187 Q1, <\/b>13\ncitations].
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This article reconsiders how\npolitical scientists define the termination of parliamentary governments,\nchallenging the widespread approach that treats any intra-coalition partisan\nchange as a government termination. The authors argue that this standard definition\nartificially inflates the number of governments, distorting cross-national\ncomparisons and theoretical conclusions about government duration and\nstability. They propose a revised conceptualization that counts only three\ntypes of events as government terminations: the appointment of a new prime\nminister, a general election, or a partisan shift that causes the loss of\nmajority status. Applying this refined framework to data from 28 OECD\ndemocracies, they demonstrate that traditional metrics overestimate government\ninstability in certain countries, leading to biased assessments of\ninstitutional performance.\nThe article makes both\ntheoretical and empirical contributions. It shows that adopting the revised\ndefinition alters key conclusions about government duration. By advocating for\na more consistent and substantively meaningful classification of government\nchange, the authors provide scholars with a stronger foundation for comparative\nresearch on coalition politics, executive-legislative relations, and democratic\nstability. Their findings urge a reconsideration of standard datasets and\nencourage the adoption of measurement practices that better reflect the\npolitical realities of parliamentary systems.   
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Shomer, Yael<\/b>. 2020.\n\u201cWomen\u2019s Representation in Israel: Between Selection Processes and Protective\nMechanisms\u201d. In Gender Gaps in Israeli Politics<\/i>, ed. Michal Shamir,\nHanna Herzog and Naomi Chazan, Van Leer Institute Press.
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Scholars disagree about the way candidate\nselection processes affect women\u2019s representation. While some argue that\nprimaries benefit women candidates, other claim the opposite. I test the effect\nof selection procedures on female representation and find primaries to benefit\nit. I caution, however, against concluding that democratic selections are\nbeneficial. I argue that party leaders are aware of primaries\u2019 negative effects\nand they offset them by adopting partisan protective mechanisms. Therefore,\ncontrolling for partisan protective mechanisms will unveil the negative effect\nof primaries on female representation. Using party level data from eight\nlegislative terms of the Israeli Knesset I find support for my hypotheses.\n  
  
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Shomer\nYael <\/b>Gert-Jan Put, and Einat Gedalya-Lavy. 2018. Does intraparty\ndemocracy affect levels of trust in parties? The cases of Belgium and Israel, Acta\nPolitca<\/i> 53, pp. 167-183 [IF: 1.269; 55\/161, Q2, <\/b>18 citations].
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This article examines\nwhether and how intra-party democracy\u2014specifically, the mechanisms used for\ncandidate selection\u2014influences public trust in political parties. Focusing on\nBelgium and Israel, two multiparty parliamentary systems where intra-party democratization\nhas been prominently debated, the study combines comparative public opinion\ndata and party-level selection mechanisms. The authors find that inclusive\ncandidate selection processes<\/b>, which expand participation to broader\nselectorates, tend to increase trust<\/b> in parties. In contrast, decentralized\nselection processes<\/b>, which transfer authority to sub-national levels or\nlocal branches, are associated with lower levels of party trust<\/b>.\n \nBy disentangling different\ndimensions of candidate selection (inclusiveness and centralization), the paper\ncontributes to the literature on political trust and party organization. It\nunderscores the importance of how parties structure their internal\ndecision-making processes and suggests that reforms aimed at enhancing\nintra-party democracy can improve public perceptions, but only under specific\norganizational conditions. This research has implications for both party\nstrategy and broader democratic legitimacy in representative systems.   
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Shomer,\nYael<\/b>. 2017. \"Institutional reforms and their effect on\nlegislators\u2019 behavior: The Israeli experience, 1992\u20132011\", Party\nPolitics<\/i> 23(3), pp. 297-308 [IF 2.286; 19\/161, Q1, <\/b>5 citations].
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This study investigates how\nelectoral and institutional reforms shape the behavior of legislators in\nparliamentary systems, using Israel as a case study. Focusing on a series of\nkey institutional changes\u2014including the adoption and later repeal of the direct\nelection law for the prime minister\u2014the paper examines how these reforms\ninfluenced legislative activism, party loyalty, and coalition dynamics. Drawing\non an original dataset covering all Israeli legislators from 1992 to 2011, the\nstudy reveals that reforms intended to strengthen executive authority and\nvoter-party linkages had unintended consequences, including increased\nlegislative fragmentation and reduced party discipline.\nBy analyzing variation in\nparliamentary behavior over nearly two decades of reform, the article\ncontributes to the broader literature on institutional design and political behavior\nand accountability. It demonstrates that changes in electoral rules can\nrecalibrate the incentives facing individual legislators, shifting their\nstrategic behavior in ways that may undermine rather than enhance\ngovernability. The Israeli case highlights the complexity of institutional\nengineering in multiparty democracies and underscores the need for careful\nempirical evaluation of reform outcomes before drawing normative conclusions\nabout their effectiveness.\n  
  
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S<\/b>homer,\nYael<\/b>. 2016. \u201cThe Electoral Environment and Legislator Dissent\u201d, Comparative\nPolitics<\/i>, 48(4), pp.557-578. [IF 1.417; 49\/161, Q2, <\/b>16 citations]
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I assert that since\nelectoral systems and selection processes are substitutive means for ensuring a\nparties\u2019 unified voting record the magnitude of the effect of candidate\nselection processes on legislators\u2019 behavior will depend on the degree to which\nvoters are allowed to disturb the party\u2019s ballot at the general election stage.\nSince candidate selection procedures may vary within an electoral system,\nlegislators might face contradictory incentives. While the electoral rules may\nencourage legislators to personalize, selections may incentivize them to behave\nin a party-centered way. Alternatively, while electoral systems incentivize\nparty centeredness, selection procedures may encourage representatives to\nemphasize personal reputation. Given the possibility for contradictory\nincentives, I hypothesize and empirically examine how these contradictory\nincentives would affect legislators\u2019 tendencies to dissent. I originally argue\nthat the effect of elections and selections on legislators\u2019 tendency to dissent\nis conditional, and that legislators who face contradictory incentives will\ntend to maintain voting discipline. On the other hand, when the incentives of\nelections and selections align, they tend to amplify one another. This is\nespecially true when elections and selections both incentivize personalization.\nIn this paper, I measure legislators\u2019 behavior as the percentage of times a\nlegislator voted against his party majority and I test and find support for the\nconditional hypothesis using an original individual-level dataset with 6,776\nlegislators from 180 parties in 30 country-sessions.\nThis paper adds to our\ntheoretical and empirical understanding of legislators\u2019 behavior in multiple\nways: to begin with, it challenges the amalgamation between elections and\nselections, which is prevalent in the current literature, and hypothesizes\nabout their combined conditional effect. As such, the paper studies the way\npolitical institutions interact<\/u> in influencing elites\u2019\nbehavior, and more realistically depict the possibility that legislators are\nfacing conflicting incentives produced by differing and separate political\ninstitutions. Second, while most research to date used a party-level measure of\nbehavior, (e.g., Rice or weighted Rice scores ), and those few that used\nindividual level measurement confined the scope of research to one or only a\nfew countries, in this paper I present an individual level, cross-national\nanalysis of institutional effects on legislators\u2019 behavior. To this end, I\ncollected an original dataset containing individual level voting data for more\nthan 6,700 legislators from 30 country sessions.   
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Shomer\nYael,<\/b> Gert-Jan Put and Gedalya-Lavy Einat. 2016. \"Intra-Party\nPolitics and Public Opinion: How Candidate Selection Processes Affect Citizens\u2019\nSatisfaction with Democracy\", Political Behavior<\/i>, 38(3), pp.\n557-578. [IF 2.868; 9\/161, Q1,<\/b> 46 citations].
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This article investigates how the internal\ndemocratic practices of political parties\u2014specifically, the procedures used for\nselecting candidates\u2014affect citizens\u2019 satisfaction with democracy. While\npolitical parties are widely acknowledged as critical institutions in\nrepresentative democracies, their influence on public opinion is often\nunderstudied. Drawing on a unique cross-national dataset covering 130 parties\nacross 28 democracies, as well as in-depth analyses of Belgium and Israel, the\nauthors assess whether voters who support parties with more democratic\ncandidate selection processes report higher satisfaction with how democracy\nfunctions in their country.\n \nThe study finds a consistent relationship:\ndemocratic candidate selection processes are positively associated with\ncitizens\u2019 satisfaction with democracy. This association holds in both the\ncross-national analysis and in the case studies of Israel and Belgium, where\nselection mechanisms vary significantly. The findings suggest that intra-party\ndemocracy enhances democratic legitimacy from the ground up by shaping how\ncitizens perceive the broader political system. This research contributes to\nthe literature on political representation and democratic attitudes by\nhighlighting the role of meso-level institutions\u2014political parties\u2014in mediating\npublic trust and democratic satisfaction. 
  
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Rosas,\nGuillermo, Shomer, Yael <\/b>and Haptonstahl, Steve. 2015. \u201cNo News is News:\nNon-Ignorable Non-Response in Roll-Call Data Analysis\u201d, American Journal of\nPolitical Science<\/i> 59(2), pp. 511-528. [IF 4.506; 3\/161, Q1<\/b> 73\ncitations].
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Roll-call votes are widely employed to infer\nthe ideological proclivities of legislators. However, many roll-call matrices\nare characterized by high levels of nonresponse. Under many theoretical\ncircumstances and political contexts, nonresponse cannot be assumed to be\nignorable. Put it differently legislators \u201cregister\u201d non-response (either by\nactively abstaining or by actively absenting themselves from the vote)\nstrategically. In this innovative paper we examine the consequences of\nviolating the ignorability assumption that underlies current prevalent methods\nof roll-call analysis. We first motivate our analysis by documenting the\nprevalence of item nonresponse in legislatures around the world. Second, we\noriginally try to understand and document the severity of assuming strategic\nroll-call non-responses are ignorable. We then present a basic estimation\nframework to model nonresponse and vote choice concurrently and we build a\nmodel that captures the logic of competing principals that underlies accounts of\nnonresponse in many legislatures. We show that IRT models that assume random\nignorable missingness generate biased inferences about ideal points compared to\na model that incorporates assumptions from the competing principals logic. The\nMCMC simulations further show that this bias increases substantially with the\nrate of nonresponse. Lastly, we revisit two debates in international relations\nand American politics concerning abstentions in the United Nations General\nAssembly during the height of the Cold War, and the question of the \u201cmost\nliberal senator\u201d that has come up in recent U.S. presidential elections. Indeed\nwe show that modeling the process that ostensibly drives abstentions allows us\nto recover more consensual estimates of the distances that existed between the\nSoviet Union and some of its satellites and dispels the image of presidential\nhopefuls in the United States as ideological extremists.\nThe simulations as well as real world data show\nthat modeling presumed patterns of nonignorable nonresponse can yield important\ninferential payoffs over current models that assume random missingness. We,\ntherefore, encourage scholars to think actively and carefully about potential\nprocesses that might generate strategic absences and abstentions in the\nlegislatures they study. Before reaching conclusions about the ideological\nprofiles of legislators, it is important to gauge the sensitivity of different legislator\u2019s\nideal points to nonignorable abstention-generating mechanisms deemed relevant\nin the legislature at hand. 
  
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Shomer,\nYael<\/b>. 2015. \"Electoral Incentives and Individual Parliament\nMembers\u2019 Rights\", West European Politics<\/i>, 38(5), pp. 1106-1127. [IF\n1.692; 38\/161, Q1, <\/b>5 citations].
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Cameral procedures define the modus operandi of\na parliament. While the vast majority of the literature study the effect\ncameral procedures have on executive-legislative relationships, I originally\nfocus scholarly attention on an additional dimension which is directly affected\nby legislative procedures: the individual MP vis-\u00e0-vis the leadership\ndimension. I, thus, broaden the scope of institutional structures that affect\nlegislative behavior, by focusing attention on an often neglected institution\nin the comparative literature: intra-cameral procedures. In addition to arguing\nthat legislative procedures affect politicians\u2019 rights and the balance of power\nbetween the individual MP vis-\u00e0-vis the leadership, I also claim that cameral\nprocedures are not a static institution. Therefore, I innovatively, present a\ntheory of cameral procedure amendments that result from the external\nelectoral-selectoral environment. I argue that governments\u2019 incentives to\nrestrict Parliament Members\u2019 (MPs\u2018) rights are affected by MPs\u2018 (s)electoral\nmotivation to emphasize individualistic behavior at the expense of their\nparty\u2019s reputation, hence overusing (arguably abusing) their individual rights.\nGovernments and the Heads of the Executive in particular will react to these\nelectoral incentives by restricting and limiting MPs\u2019 rights in the cameral\nprocedures.\nIn the article I specifically hypothesize that\nwhen the electoral environment motivates legislators to act individualistically\ngovernments are incentivised to restrict cameral procedures to curtail\nlegislators\u2019 behaviour. I further contend that materialising such incentives\ndepends on the government\u2019s ability to pass restrictive procedural changes. To\ntest the theory, four decades (1967\u20132007) of amendments to the Israeli\nKnesset\u2019s rules of procedure were examined and support provided for\nco-variation of changes to the (s)electoral environment (emphasizing\nindividualistic behavior) and restrictiveness of the Knesset\u2019s procedures. The\nanalysis then details the factors that enabled Israeli governments to pass such\nrestrictive measures. The analysis reveals that governments in Israel seem to\nuse the rules of procedure strategically in their attempt to improve their\ncontrol and curtail legislators\u2019 behaviour. As such, legislative rules are\ntools used by political leaders and the executive to attenuate hypothesized\npersonalized incentives produced by external institutions such as electoral\nsystems and candidate selection processes.\n  
  
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Shomer,\nYael<\/b>. 2014. \"What Affect Candidate Selection Processes? A\nCross-National Examination\", Party Politics<\/i>, 20(4), pp. 533-546.\n[IF 2.286; 19\/161, Q1<\/b>, 127 citations].
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This article seeks to examine empirically what\nfactors account for variation in candidate selection processes. After\nidentifying the key assertions developed in the literature, I use an original\ncross-national dataset with data on the selection procedures of 512 parties in\n46 countries (the largest comparative dataset to the best of my knowledge) to\nexamine whether a party\u2019s ideology, size, regime type, territorial organization\nand region affect the way parties select their legislative candidates.\nIn the article I pay special and close\nattention to the hypothesized relationships between electoral systems and\nselection processes. This is because most of the literature on the effects of\ninstitutions on legislators\u2019 behavior often amalgamated elections and\nselections. I argued that underlying this amalgamation is an assumption that\nelectoral systems determine candidate selection processes. Only to the degree\nto which electoral systems determine parties\u2019 selection processes can scholars\namalgamate elections and selections into a single (and the same) institution,\nand study its effect on behavior. The results from the analysis empirically\nchallenge the literature\u2019s amalgamation.\nThe article\u2019s contribution to the study of\ncandidate selection processes and legislators behavior is twofold. On the one\nhand, this is the largest cross-national analysis (to the best of my knowledge)\nof candidate selection processes\u2019 determinants, in which the appropriate unity\nof analysis is used: a party prior to a given election. On the other hand, the\nresults from the paper laid the ground for the my argument that literature\nshould differentiate elections from selections and allow for the theoretical and\nempirical possibility that elections and selection might produce combined\nconflicting incentives for parties\u2019 and legislators\u2019 behavior. 
  
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Shomer,\nYael<\/b> and O\u2019Brien, Diana. 2013. \u201cA Cross-National Analysis of Party\nSwitching\u201d, Legislative Studies Quarterly<\/i>, 38(1), pp. 111-141.[IF 1.239;\n50\/143, Q2, <\/b>154 citations]
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Though interparty movement has been documented\nin legislatures across a number of countries, and although party switching can\nsignificantly influence democratic representation and governance, there has\nbeen comparatively little systematic cross-national research on party\nswitching. Thus, the prevalence of switching is unknown and the extent to which\nparty- and system-level variation influences this behavior remains unclear. To\naddress this lacuna, we have conducted the most comprehensive study of intra\nsession party switching that has ever been undertaken. Using our original\ndataset, we begin by examining the prevalence of party switching across 239\nparty-level observations in 20 democratic regimes. To theoretically explain\nvariation in the presence and prevalence of party switching both across and\nwithin legislatures, we draw on the theoretical literature on intraparty\nswitching and legislators\u2019 behavior. We specifically look at the relationship\nbetween legislators\u2019 motivations, institutional determinants and party\nswitching.\nThis article makes two major contributions to\nthe study of interparty movement. First, using the largest and most\ncomprehensive cross-national dataset on party-level switching ever constructed,\nwe illustrate that contrary to popularly held assumptions, party switching\noccurs much more frequently than previously asserted. Of the 239 parties\nincluded in the dataset, almost one-third (78) exhibited some switching. This\nis an important finding in and of itself, as it demonstrates that defection is\nnot a rare phenomenon, but instead a serious issue facing parties in democratic\nstates. This in turn calls for scholars of legislative politics to dedicate\ngreater attention to the study of interparty movement. In addition to showing\nthe prevalence of party switching, we offer new insights into the determinants\nof this behavior. The results from our varying-intercept random effects models\ndemonstrate that motivational factors influence interparty movement, while\nthe direct <\/u>effect of institutional arrangements is minimal. We\nsuggest that future research will have to amend our treatment of the\nmotivational and institutional treatments as two distinct theoretical\napproaches and treat motivations and institutions as endogenous to one another. 
  
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Shomer,\nYael.<\/b> 2009. \u201cCandidate Selection Procedures, Seniority, and Vote-Seeking\nBehavior: Lessons from the Israeli Experience.\u201d Comparative Political\nStudies<\/i>, 42(7), pp. 945-970. [IF 1.908; 16\/91, Q1, <\/b>129 citations]
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It has been argued that inclusive and\ndecentralized selection procedures create greater incentives for\nparliamentarians to enhance their personal reputations. However, while the\nobservable implications of this theory are at the level of individual members,\nthe empirical data often brought to bear on this question to date have been\ncollected at an aggregate level-\u2013 the partisan bloc or legislative term.\nDespite some previously positive aggregate results I find no discernible\nsupport for the connection between candidate-selection procedures and\nvote-seeking behavior in Israel at the individual parliamentarian level. I\nsuggest an alternative theory\u2014based on the stage of the legislative career\u2014that\nexplains both individual-level behavior and the aggregate-level trend.\n \nRosas, Guillermo and Yael Shomer<\/b>. 2009.\n\u201cNon-ingnorable Abstentions in Mexico\u2019s Instituto Federal Electoral\". In The\nPolitical Economy of Democracy<\/i>, ed. Enriqueta Aragon\u00e8s, Carmen Bevi\u00e1,\nHumberto Llavador and Norman Schofield, pp. 245-261.\n \nThe purpose of this paper is to explore\nempirically some of the effects of assuming different abstention-generating\nmechanisms on the estimation of ideal points. For this purpose, we inspect a\nsmall committee, the Council-General of the Mexican Federal Electoral Institute\n(IFE, by its Spanish acronym). Though we start from common wisdom propositions\nabout the putative ideological profiles of IFE Councilors, we do not purport to\nprovide a theoretically-nuanced approximation to the ideological organization\nof this Council. Instead, we use the Council\u2019s roll-call record to gauge how\ninferences about ideology would be affected by different assumptions about\nCouncilors\u2019 motivations to abstain. In this regard, our approach to the\npolitics of IFE is unabashedly empirical, and indeed the choice of this\ncommittee as an object of study is driven by various characteristics that we\ndeem desirable in this kind of exploratory analysis: IFE\u2019s Council-General is a\ncommittee made up of a handful of with known political sponsors, it decides on\nextremely important electoral matters, and it produces a relatively high\nincidence of abstentions.
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Rosas,\nGuillermo and Yael Shomer<\/b>. 2008. \u201cModels of Nonresponse in Legislative\nPolitics.\u201d Legislative Studies Quarterly<\/i> 33(4), pp. 573-601. [1.061;\n35\/89, Q2, <\/b>68 citations].
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Tools dedicated to inferring the ideological\nleanings of legislators from observed votes\u2013techniques such as Nominate (Poole\nand Rosenthal 1997) or the item-response theory model of Clinton, Jackman and\nRivers (2004)\u2013are based on the assumption that the political process that\ngenerates abstentions is ignorable, an assumption that is not always easy to\njustify. We extend the item-response theory model to analyze abstention and\nvoting processes simultaneously in situations where abstentions are suspected to\nbe non-random. We apply this expanded model to two assemblies where the\nexisting literature gives us reasons to expect non-random abstentions, and\nsuggest how our extensions yield nuanced analyses of legislative politics. We\nalso acknowledge limits to our ability to decide on the adequacy of alternative\nassumptions about abstentions, since these are not readily verifiable. 
  
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Crisp,\nBrian F., Kathryn M. Jensen, and Yael Shomer<\/b>. 2007. \u201cMagnitude and Vote\nSeeking.\u201d Electoral Studies<\/i> 26(4), pp. 727-734. [IF 1.067; 23\/84, Q2, <\/b>130 citations].
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In one of the most frequently cited articles\npublished in Electoral Studies, Carey and Shugart [Cary, J.M.Shugart, M.S.\n1995. Incentives to cultivate a personal vote: a rank ordering of electoral\nformulas. Electoral Studies 14(4), 417-439] hypothesized that the number of\ncopartisans faced relative to seats available had a differential effect on the\nincentive to cultivate a personal vote depending on whether electoral rules\nallowed for intra-party competition. Across a wide array of electoral systems,\nwe show that the number of candidates fielded per party varies within districts\nand that the variation is not systematically related to the total number of\nseats available. Thus, the widespread use of magnitude as a proxy for\n\u2018\u2018copartisan crowdedness\u2019\u2019 is systematically inaccurate.We argue that the\nobserved number of copartisans faced makes clear that a ratio to capture vote\nseeking incentives needs a party-in-adistrict denominator to accompany the\nparty-in-a-district numerator. That denominator is the expected number of seats\nto be won by each party in question. 
  
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Published Research Click here to visit my Google Scholar Page  Fernandes Jorge, Yakter Alon, Shomer Yael and Put Gert-Jan. \u201cThe Electoral Implications of Legislative Candidate Selection Democratization\u201d, British Journal of Political Science, Forthcoming [IF 5.7; 16\/322, Q1 top 5%] This study investigates whether political parties benefit electorally from democratizing their candidate selection processes\u2014such as introducing primaries … Continue reading “Published Research”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-98","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292,"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98\/revisions\/292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/yshomer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}