Mobile Politicians: Opportunistic Career Moves

Using information on more than 1,500 elected Members of the Parliament (MPs) and the votes received by political parties in five consecutive elections in Turkey (1991–2011) and employing a controlling strategy, we show that elected MPs are more likely to switch parties after an election if they faced greater electoral uncertainty and experienced a narrowly-won victory. Politicians switch parties after an election to improve their ex-ante re-election probability in the following election, and party-switching MPs are more likely to get elected in the next election. MPs switch parties to move towards the median voter. These results point to forward-looking opportunistic behavior of politicians regarding their strategy to win future elections to have a longer tenure in the Parliament.