Floor Crossing and the Motivations of Members of Parliament in Zambia, 1991–2016

Floor crossing has been noted as a common feature of African politics due to weak political parties and the high value of being in office. Yet studies of floor crossing are relatively rare. While there has been some important research on the structural factors that encourage this practice – such as high levels of corruption, permissive legislative and electoral rules and the degree of authoritarianism – the attitudes and motivations of Members of Parliament (MPs) have rarely been considered. This paper uses the case study of Zambia to provide this essential perspective, drawing on floor crossing from four parliaments and in-depth interviews with ten MPs. I argue that MPs generally struggle to justify leaving one party for another, and when they try to do so, they tend to rely on two main arguments. The first is to suggest that it was necessary to bring development to the area, tapping into the long-standing demand of citizens for MPs to link them into networks of power, opportunities and resources. The second is to claim that they were motivated by a point of principle, which often goes together with the allegation that their previous party had deviated from the original mandate it was given by voters and so swapping sides was not only necessary but also the morally right thing to do. Such rationales are more likely to resonate with voters in constituencies that have long been overlooked in the distribution of resources by a range of parties, and when local communities themselves feel that they were marginalised by the previous party – legitimating the MPs’ claims. More broadly, I demonstrate that what largely enables floor crossing is the absence of anti-defection laws that could constrain the decision making of parliamentary elites when switching parties.