Party and Personal Preference in Post‐Soviet Legislatures*

Objective. Initial studies of post‐Soviet legislative behavior have concluded that parties can affect legislative behavior; however, the methods used by these studies failed to distinguish between the effects of party and personal preferences. Evidence of party effects would be surprising given not only the perceived weaknesses of post‐Soviet political parties, but also the debate on the existence of party effects in the U.S. Congress literature. Methods. The data are electronically recorded roll‐call data from both the Ukrainian Rada and Russian Duma. I employ an OLS residualization technique to construct deputy preference measures. Then, I use multivariate analysis (tobit) to measure the impact of deputy preference and partisanship on support for government legislation. Results. In both the Rada and Duma, party and personal preferences impacted deputy voting behavior. Conclusion. Parties are an important determinant of legislative behavior, even in weak party systems of post‐Soviet Ukraine and Russia.